7 Product Tips for Startups - Video from Build 06
Charles Wiles is the Managing Director of the web startup Imagini and a HackFwd referrer from London.
In his talk Charles Wiles gives 7 product tips to geeky startups. We’ll summarize the first three to get you started: “Prove It!”, “You Don’t Have to Build it to Sell It”, and “It’s About the User, Stupid”.
First, Charles covers what the evidence is you need to prove your product with. What are your key metrics, how do they tell the story of a viable business and how can you improve them? If you focus only on the key goal that the metrics are selected around, you will also mitigate the risk of branching off.
Second, there are many cases where you don’t have to build it to sell it. The first engagement with a potential user can be a very short one as demonstrated by many well-designed pre-launch landing pages and using marketing tools and market research tools, such as testing your USP with a Google AdWords campaign. For this purpose, you can deliver your value promise through other media than a fully-developed product.
Third, understanding your core user benefit means first understanding your users, and then ensuring your users understand you. Whatever your distinctive advantage is, make sure you communicate and deliver that foremost.
All the points Charles brings up are great reminders for techie startups. You may have heard some of them, but here they are compressed into 15 minutes with great examples. And make sure to watch to the end to get Charles’s +7 product tips for double the value. A very liked talk from Build 06.
To watch more expert talks from HackFwd’s Build events, head over to Passion Meets Momentum. You can follow Charles on Twitter here.
