Dharmesh Shah says most founders focus on the wrong risk. They worry about building the product when they should worry about whether anyone wants it. Charge customers for an early version to test demand before you invest heavily in development.
Chapters
To kind of understand this particular mistake, it's important to understand kind of the types of risk in a startup. Number one risk is product risk, that you have this idea for a product, but there's a risk that you just won't be able to build it. Number 2 is market risk, that you've got the product, but there's not enough of a market to kind of sustain and build a business around. Here's the mistake. Most founders will always kind of start with that product risk. You should definitely build your product as early on as possible, but the motivation for building your product is a little different. In vast majority of cases, whatever product you envision, you're likely going to be able to build. And so the risk you should be addressing is market risk. There's no sense in going off and building a product if there's no market for that product. The best way to make sure that there's a market for the product is to actually have an early version of the product and to charge people for it and put it out there.
