Deciding What to Build: the Initial Start

In this blog, let's understand how to arrive at what to launch initially and how to decide on the positioning of your product.

The Art of Saying No

It's tempting to build every feature that comes to mind, serve every market, and solve every problem. But that's a trap. It becomes really difficult to stick to one instinct. I've personally faced this problem and I still do. This is also a core part of your GTM strategy — half of your problems get solved if you just choose the right ICP.

Step into the shoes of your Ideal Customer Profile and try to understand what they actually want. Test your assumptions and then just try to sell to them. See their response — do they care deep enough or not? This is the simplest approach. There are some more frameworks which we'll go through below.

Current Resources and Time

Look at your current resources and the time that is eventually needed to build the product you're imagining. Sometimes, starting something with traction is more important than building the perfect product for 6 months.

So first, map down your current resources and the timeline of your goals. This is one of the key priorities for selecting the right product to launch.

Giving Points to Each of Your Ideas

Let's make a table of what you intend to build and give different points based on the following criteria. After that, let's just see which fits in the best.

1. Pain Point — Look at the urgency of the problem you're trying to solve. How much are they bleeding because of this problem? Define it clearly.

2. Sales Cycle — Estimate the sales cycle from gaining traction to sign-up to conversion.

3. Features or Product Needed — Estimate the features or product you need to build to launch and get some traction.

4. Resources Needed — Estimate the resources you need to build the product and get initial traction.

5. Time Needed — Estimate the time required to build and launch.

6. Competitors or Current Alternatives — Look at the current alternatives your customers are using to solve the problem and how much they're paying for it.

7. Willingness to Pay — Estimate the willingness to pay of your customers for the product you're building.

8. Market Size — Estimate the market size of the problem you're trying to solve.

9. Beachhead Market — If you dominate this market, can you expand to other markets easily?

10. Founder-Market Fit — Do you have the right experience and network to sell to this market?

11. Distribution Channels — How easy is it for you to reach your customers and sell to them?

12. Personal Interest — How interested are you in the problem you're trying to solve?

13. Long-Term Vision — Does this product align with your long-term vision for the company?

14. Estimated Revenue — Estimate the revenue you can generate from this product in a suitable timeline.

15. Estimated Profit — Estimate the profit you can generate from this product in a suitable timeline.

16. Moats — Estimate the moats you can build around this product to protect it from competitors in the future.

Putting It All Together

After giving points to each of your ideas and features, you can see which one to prioritize and launch first. Remember, you can always launch the other features and products later. As of now, your main focus should be on launch, getting traction, and revenue.

If you have enough resources, you can also try different versions and see their feedback over time.

Build a simple doc, add your different ideas, write down these criteria for each one, and give them scores. On a spreadsheet, note the points for each and just pick the one that is the best fit for you to launch first. Best wishes!