It’s too easy to never ship when you’re building the “next big thing”.
There is always that one extra feature missing. Once that’s done it will be perfect to show it to the world…
Sadly, the reality is that no one cares about your product.
No one cares about that one magical feature. And there aren’t a thousand customers waiting ready to be sold at once, when you launch.
The only way to know if you’re building the next big thing is to send it to the world.
Give it to people to try it and see what they think.
Reason 1: The ultimate product validator
When you’re building you trust your hunch that what you’re making is something others want.
But exactly how much they want it? And more importantly, how much are they willing to pay for it? You will never know that for sure.
That’s why you need to get your first customers. Only they can try it and tell you if what you’ve built is what they want.
They will be the ultimate product validators, and help you to decide if you’re building the right thing.
Make something people want. - YC motto
Reason 2: The ultimate founder validator
To make a great business you don’t need just a great product, you need a good way to get new customers for it.
A famous line from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams goes: “If you build it, they will come.” But that’s not what happens in the real world of business.
Even if you build something truly amazing you can still fail in building a great business.
There are plenty of examples of great products with bad distribution that haven’t made it (remember TiVo), but no examples of bad products, with amazing distribution (Monday.com and SAP still going strong).
Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true. No matter how strong your product-even if it easily fits into already established habits and anybody who tries it likes it immediately-you must still support it with a strong distribution plan. - Peter Thiel
Why is this important?
Because building a business is very much about selling, not just building a product.
That’s why getting customers validates you.
Only that can show whether you’re just a builder, or if you can also be a founder of a successful business.
Nerds might wish that distribution could be ignored and salesmen banished to another planet. All of us want to believe that we make up our own minds, that sales doesn’t work on us. But it’s not true. Everybody has a product to sell—no matter whether you’re an employee, a founder, or an investor. It’s true even if your company consists of just you and your computer. Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson. - Peter Thiel
So go out there and get your first customers. Here is how.
