February 21, 2019

How do I find buyers for my product?

Sent by Jonathan Stark on February 23rd, 2019

Stanley S asked me this question on Twitter:

Let’s say you have a vision for a product, how would you identify the ideal buyer?

Great question! Thanks Stanley :-)

TBH, I would strongly recommend doing it the other way around... FIRST find an ideal buyer, THEN design a product or service that they would value.

I’m not ever sure how to envision a product without knowing who it’s for. How would you know what pains to address? How would you know what features to include or leave out? How would you know what price points would be acceptable? Without a price or a rough idea of the addressable market size, how would you know how much time and money to invest in the creation of the product?

I’ve tried the “build it an they will come” approach at least a half dozen times in the past, always with the same result: crickets. No interest whatsoever. This is “solution-first” thinking and I’ve seen it fail reliably (for myself and others) many many times over the years.

Sure, there are some pretty high profile examples of people succeeding with a solution-first product, but... it’s hard and risky so why bother?

Wouldn’t you rather have people lining up for your product before you’re even done making it?

Yours,

—J