August 26, 2024

Audience first or product first?

A great question from my LinkedIn DMs (slightly paraphrased for clarity):

Do you think it makes the most sense for me to focus on building an audience and worry about paid products later?

Yes, definitely!

IMAGINING what people MIGHT want is a lot less effective than having an audience TELL YOU what they DO want.

In other words...

It’s much cheaper to try to build an audience than it is to try to build a product.

(For context, the person asking had 10+ years of employment in a very technical discipline, had basically no sales or marketing experience, and had just gone solo for the first time.)

Yours,

—J

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