So many things feel very urgent for a startup to do but all of them are not necessarily the most important things that must be done.
The most important thing a startup should do is getting users and doing for them what they want. (Shockingly, as it may sound to many, fundraising, though still important, is not as important as getting users and doing for them what they want.)
How The Strategic Founder Can Get Customers and Do What They Want.
1. Solve a personal problem – something you currently experience or have experienced. This would give you a better understanding of what to build and how to build it. Your customers in this scenario are basically people who are a lot like you.
2. Scratch your own itch – use your own product to solve your own problem. Until you can use your own product, you can’t really know what it is like or how it is used.
3. Listen to users and do what they want you to do. Your users – which includes you, because you use your own product! – should decide what you build. Don’t build what you alone like; build what your other users like too.
4. Offer a surprisingly great customer experience. You must exceed customers’ expectations. You must also exceed the standard that society has set on customers’ service. Since poor customer experience is the default nature of the society, you may be deluded to think you are terrific at customer experience, even when you are only comparing yourself to other poor customer service experiences you have been used to. Avoid this trap.
5. Keep iterating until you get to product-market fit. The essence of building a business is to get to product-market fit (because that is when you have a sustainable business). The product-market fit, as it sounds, is that point where your product is in sync with the market. It is that point when your product is in tune with your customers. Go get to that point.
(More on doing what customers want in Startup Growth Section and Sales and Marketing Section.)