This is a continuation of my OPs re: first 2 failed launches, pursuit to become a marketing guru and pausing my 3rd startup to build an audience through communities and channels, but also failed.
Part 4 Tldr: Today I just launched my 3rd startup (if you don't count part 3 post as a half startup). The point isn't this one, the point is to create 6 more products by the end of the year that people will sign up for.
To start, I'm starting to like where I'm at. Launching smoothly, no more jitters or the nervousness of launching. I'm thinking clearheaded more than ever knowing exactly what to expect.
Where I last left off was saying I ran into issues with marketing and launching into the void, and because of that, for my next startup I would just push out a landing page and do all of the product launching/marketing first to test PMF (a colleague of mine did this, as well as a lot of people who look to VC-cohorts like YC and the likes).
Well, I.. did not. I.. built a full blown working app.
And let me tell you why. When I got engaged last year, I reached out to a lot of very talented photographers for shoots. I'm sure with these things, it's best to shop around so you'd mass message typical questions to all of them for a reply. It was repetitive. Fast forward a few months and now that I'm wondering where I should go with my next startup, I thought of the photographers that I reached out to. I bet they're doing the same thing I did, copy and pasting answers to questions that have been asked over and over.
Now, and this is important - I'm not going to promote the launch of my product. What I'd rather do is tell you what I did differently this time around that I've never done before.
That is: I reached out to those photographers and had a chat with them. 2 of them agreed to have a zoom call. 1 was saying how he's already looking into what seems to be along the lines of what I was thinking about, and the other wasn't all that sure about how AI can help with the human touches of what they do on a day to day.
After the calls, I wasn't all that confident about my conversations with them or how to proceed with the product, and because it was my first time doing something like this, I wasn't sure how to mold it into a viable product or what takeaways I should follow up with. I also realize that these calls feel very sale-sy when I wasn't even my intention).
I left the calls kind of confused, but because that 1 person said he was thinking of stuff like this and how to optimize his very own day to day, I went ahead with it. I didn't have a full end to end product yet at the time but I just went heads down and cranked it out.
That is the one thing I did differently this time around.
I've now reached out to the 2 of them directly and asked them to try the thing that was built specifically around their day to day and some of their pain points. I'm not even sure if they'll even think about signing up now that some time has gone by since we first chatted. Who knows.
So, the point is, what I did seems to be aligned with the collective common strategy which is to talk to your customers first. I did it. So now, lets see what happens next...
🙏✌️