I have been studying online networks and communities as some of my startups seem to have “community” or “network” elements at the core of it.
I have a few questions for seasoned entrepreneurs as well as new comers :
1. I come across so many entrepreneurs and startups and network with those thinking of starting one. However, many of them are “ideas first – development – take it to market” way of thinking. Personally I am very risk averse and try validate the idea first before even development. I am in the Steve Blank, Nathan Furr camp of validating the market before development.
What is your experience with your startup?
2. Branding/Design and Product development : Is branding/design part of your product right at the beginning? This seems to be terribly ignored.
Sorry, I may seem like a Design Evangelist but poor design is just so wrong.
Why is Design so important for startups? Fascinating article here at about design for startups.
3. Is the Indian customer a late adopter? I have been struggling with this. Does anyone here have experience building communities or social networks for the Indian masses and what has been your experience? I am not thinking of another facebook type portal, but around certain niches.
Thanks and I hope to get a few interesting thoughts here.
Ronak
My thoughts:
1. Ideally you should try to validate the idea as early as possible. Try building the most basic case you can (something that is at the heart of the problem you are trying to solve). Make the solution so good that no body cares how well it is designed. Which answers your second question partly.
2. If you are thinking good design/branding will make a stronger case for your product, you might be mistaken. If that is not the case, then why bother right now. Design/branding aspects taken care at the hygiene level are more than enough.
3. Indian customers are late adopters. But when you are starting off you need to be smart about whom to talk to. Look out for early adopter communities. Rodinhoods is one. THere are several others. Go to startup saturdays, start following sites like yourstory.in, nextbigwhat.com, medianama.com etc. When you launch you need to be on these platforms rather than wasting money on ads on facebook/google. That will happen but only when your product has matured and the general public is willing to try you out. Before that you need evangelists that you will find on forums/platforms mentioned above.
PS: I made lot of mistakes while starting off. And now when I look back I guess we over invested in design/branding/having unnecessary fixed costs and so on. But I hope you’d learn from my mistakes.
All the best. Ronak.