Standing out when every product looks the same
The Founders work group draws on Pinterest, Justin.tv, LinkedIn, Notion and Coda to find an edge among lookalikes.
Updated
Pick one experience people return to, start with the people whose choice brings the rest, and check whether early users come back for a second job.
- Name the thing users come back for. Ben Silbermann would ask whether you can name what first users return to do and where it helped their lives. Early Pinterest users planned weddings and redecorated homes with it. He would also watch which users get asked by a friend where an idea came from.
- Start with whoever brings the others. Emmett Shear saw that viewers followed streamers, so he called 40 or 50 of them and Justin.tv built an ad button that split revenue 50/50. The team recruited streamers one by one and sometimes offered larger ones $1,000 to switch.
- Plan for density. Reid Hoffman asks which group gets value first, what improves as each new customer joins, and how you reach enough of them before early users leave. He estimated LinkedIn needed about a million members before the first member had a fairly functional value proposition.
- Own a finished job. Ivan Zhao would start with a frequent job, make the first useful result easy to reach and give people a reason to stay. Notion found its way in through notes and documents. With business customers, it learned that selling flexible parts alone asked them to do too much setup.
- Watch the second use. Shishir Mehrotra would track whether a team that used the product for one task builds its next recurring process there. A team at Pinterest began with meeting notes in Coda, and later someone built a goal-tracking system in it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the signs of product-market fit?
A small group who would be upset to lose the product, then growth you can explain, from users who look like the market you want to win. Fit rarely arrives as one moment.
How is early traction different from product-market fit?
Traction responds to a launch, press or founder effort and fades when that stops. Fit keeps compounding through the product's own loop, and the love repeats with strangers who match the first fans.
What should you do when product-market fit isn't coming?
Make the next attempt a bounded test with a target and a deadline the cash can cover, check that the test was fair, and change course on a miss. With no promising group or runway left, return the capital.
How do you pressure-test a startup idea?
Set a behavior bar before the team gets attached, put an early version into someone's real work, and write down the ways the company could fail even if early users love it.
When should a founder drop an idea?
When people who have the problem can find the product, try the full version and still don't come back. Low signups and investor doubt alone are weak reasons to quit.
How do founders find a problem worth solving?
Start from a problem you will care about for years, find people whose behavior shows they have it too, and know why you can make progress where others see risk.
What should a first-time founder do first?
Start, choose a cofounder with care and get something in front of strangers early. The group splits on whether research or a rough product comes first.
How do you size a market before building?
Start from a behavior people already have, ask what has kept anyone from winning the market, and let growth or repeat use tell you its size.
Where can an AI startup win against the model companies?
Around what takes sustained work to copy: a group's accumulated taste, a team's workflow, trust between people or a creator's audience.
How do you validate an idea with customers?
Go out to learn, ship one thing worth a stranger's time, watch who comes back on their own and then ask them why.
How do you choose a consumer products category?
Look for a need people already recognize, evidence that they act on it, and unit economics that work across the whole purchase cycle.
