Rob Snyder explains why founders build products nobody wants: they start with what they think the world should want instead of finding where customers actually need help. It's like showing up to a desert with floaties. Founders design elaborate mockups and pitch to uninterested people, then wonder why nobody buys.
One thing that you say is that a lot of founders, they're not in a river, they're not on a wave, they're not at a dam. They show up in a desert with floaties. Why? Like that, it sounds ridiculous because it is, but why do we do that? Why are, why do founders go to arid places?
Yeah, it's because we don't actually know we should be looking for the water. The way that we are taught to think about startups is to come up with a product idea for like the product that we think the world should should want, which is not even just on the supply side of things. It's like, go on an ayahuasca retreat and say, you know what, the future of CRM is XRM. And like, nobody knows what the hell you're talking about there. And you're just kind of like, you go out and you design all these fancy mockups. You go and show them to people who say, ooh, and ah, wow, I'd love to hear more when that's ready. XRM sounds like every— I hate CRMs, right? They're so hard to use. Right? And then you just kind of go down this path of building something that there is no demand underneath. And you'll look like an idiot when you're kind of in floaties in the desert because you didn't know to look for water.
