Our very own Chief Instigator was recently asked to give one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. Here is what he had to say:
Don't focus on the thing (the product), focus on the people.
A number of you emailed me after we posted the interview with this piece of advice. Let's break the concept down so that everyone understands what we mean when we say this.
People Don't Buy Products, They Buy Solutions
Plain and simple: people buy solutions to their problems, not a product with neat features. People evaluate how your product improves their lifestyle and work as they consider buying your product. How does your product help them get ahead? Achieve a goal? Eliminate frustration? How does it benefit them?
Focus On The People, Not The Product
A product is just a feature list with a number of capabilities. A potential customer is someone who wants to be a rockstar at something in their life. We all want to be amazing at a particular craft. Products should help us achieve those goals.
Greg DeVore wrote a great little article on GarageBand app he recently bought. Even though the iPad version of Garageband has a fraction of the features the full software package has, the app made his son feel like a rockstar at creating music. As DeVore points out:
The creators of Garageband for iPad didn't care about what their software could do. They cared about what people could do with their software.
Features don't matter. Products don't matter. Outcomes matter. People matter. How does your product benefit the people? What's the outcome of using your product? Is your product turning people into rockstars in their craft? What's the overall impact of your product's existence?