The main reason Startups fail is because there isn’t product-market fit. That’s why validating your idea before you launch is a make or break. Here’s how to do it.
Hi, I’m Doug Rogers, a Product & GTM Strategist; 3x First Product Hire, and the 2024 program director for FoundersBoost NYC. In the past 15 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of founders, guiding them to product-market fit.
Every year it gets easier to build software products and digital services. From low code to no code, building something isn’t the problem. The problem is building something people want to buy.
Having an audience and a distribution network remains the real challenge for early entrepreneurs. And it’s a double edged sword: Building a product for your audience > building an audience for your product.
The uncomfortable truth about being a founder
Focusing on creating the perfect product is killing your chances of success. You’ll drain the bank before you launch.
You must get feedback first and that means starting with building an audience before you’re ready to launch.
The best way to do that? Start with social so that you can ask your audience.
What I know for sure:
- You need to know if you have a product-market fit.
- You get a launch strategy you can implement fast.
And you can test both through social media.
Build your Audience for a better product-market fit.
Only build the features your audience wants now
- Get a better sense of what your audience wants so that you know what to focus on.
- Shorten your launch: instead of building for 6 months, build for 1 month and enter the market with the first feature your audience wants most.
Plus get new great ideas you hadn’t thought about yet.
How are you going to get your first 100 customers?
Break out of the business-model canvas mindset that says you need to know your
- Customer Segments
- Value Proposition
- Revenue Streams
- Channels
- Customer Relationships
- Key Activities
- Key Resources
- Key Partners
- Cost Structure
Before you go to market, and instead:
Go straight into the market by building an audience so that you can ask them first.
Get started with confidence:
The Algorithms will point people toward your niche. But first, you need to be established online so that they find you, instead of someone else.
What’s different about your brand?
To validate your idea, examine competitor, comparable, and complimentary businesses.
When you’re part of the accelerator, we’ll run a content audit on their top performing posts on social media to see what’s working best and what’s most applicable to your brand. And we’ll see what makes your brand different to theirs.
We’ll also audit accounts that inspire you to pull out threads of creative genius to weave into your product features and launch strategy.
How are you building your brand on social media?
You’ll choose the platform that’s best for you and establish yourself online so that you can gather potential customer feedback fast.
How are you going to attract your audience?
Using a combination of select accounts and insights from top performing hashtags, we’ll use Creatrix to generate the following:
- Creative Strategies
- Content Plans
- Audience Analysis
- Top post ideas
So that you get data-backed strategic suggestions at scale to choose from.
Now it’s time to schedule your 30-day content calendar to grow your audience and lead-flow pipeline.
Once you have content posted you’re able to engage with interested people, respond to comments, and get your audience feedback, so that you get to market faster.
Apply for the Creatrix Accelerator
If you’re an aspiring or early stage B2C founder, apply for the Creatrix Idea Validation Accelerator and get 1:1 mentorship with myself, Doug Rogers, Lauren Wallett, Caoimhe Donnelly and Robin Bentele, PLUS access to custom Creatrix results: social listening turned into strategy and content plans for your brand.
The Creatrix Accelerator is the fastest way to get product-market fit AND your launch strategy with expert advice and mentorship for FREE in only 3 weeks.
And our founder’s success speaks for itself. Check out our founder’s success stories here.
