Successful Startup 101: September 2014 Successful Startup 101: September 2014 | Page 10

out if anyone gives a damn about your idea and
your proposed solution. This isn’t easy work.
You have to actually get off your butt and
get out into the field and find and talk to
actual people--not your co-founders
or your folks--about what you’re
hoping to do.
You have to find actual
problems that are generating
real pain for a large number
of people. You have to
determine whether those
people recognize the
problem, appreciate the
pain, are willing to admit
that they have the problem,
and are willing to pay for a
solution. Then you might have
a fighting chance to define and
build a viable solution.
You have to also recognize
that: (a) there’s an infinite
demand for the unavailable
(anyone can say they’ll buy
something that you don’t have for
sale); and (b) the easiest way for a buyer to get
you to leave them alone is to say “Yes” and “Come see me
when your product is ready,” and then show you the door.

Problem 1: They Won’t Care
If you haven’t done your homework and identified the right
pain points and the right target customers, you might as well
take a hike because no one wants the cure for no known
disease; no one is going to invest in solutions in search of
problems; and you’ll end up building and wasting a lot of time
on the greatest software never sold. The way you start the
process determines where you end up, and these businesses
are hard enough even for the people who do all the proper
research, preparation, and planning.  A goal without a plan is
just a daydream on someone else’s dime.

Problem 2: They Won’t Suffer
The idea that you can dump some partially-baked
solution on your first prospects and they will then help
you figure things out is another pipe dream. Trying
to make your first users into your last beta testers is
a waste of everyone’s time because smart users want
simple solutions that work right out of the box, not
more problems. And it doesn’t really matter what
the problems are (implementation, training, support,

stability, or security) because they’re all just more noise
and aggravation that busy people don’t need. We are
quick to try and even to adopt things that work for us,
but we’re much quicker to dump stuff that doesn’t. And
while there is an obvious trade-off between the degree
of the customer’s pain and the customer’s otherwise
heightened expectations, in the end no solution that
simply swaps one set of problems for another is going to
get out of the gate.  

Problem 3: They Won’t Wait
As the Heads & Shoulders people say, you don’t get
a second chance today to make a first impression.
Customers won’t (and don’t) wait for you to figure things
out; if your first attempt falls flat you can bet that they
won’t let you come back. It’s ridiculously easy to burn
your bridges and impossibly hard to rebuild them when
there are fast followers and copycats galore standing by,
watching your mistakes. Customers don’t want stories or
excuses; they want workable solutions.

The Right Way
There is a right way to do this and it’s pretty simple. Do
your homework and find an important unmet market
need. Recruit the right early users who are invested (by
virtue of their own desires) in your success. Build your
MVP to their specifications and with their input and buyin.  And then prepare to enter the perpetual iteration
loop.
Launch, Measure, Modify, Re-Launch and Repeat the
Process ad nauseam.
Successful solutions today are all the same: moments
of mad creativity followed by months of maddening
maintenance. Continually raising the bar and improving
your offerings is the only way to stay in the game.
About the Author
Howard Tullman is the CEO of 1871 in Chicago where,
at the moment, 260 digital startups are building their
businesses every day. He is also the general managing
partner of G2T3V, LLC and Chicago High Tech Investors
– both early-stage venture funds; a member of Mayor
Emanuel’s ChicagoNEXT Innovation Council; and
Governor Quinn’s Illinois Innovation Council. He is an
adviser to many technology businesses, a published hor
and an adjunct professor at the Kellogg Graduate School
of Management. Connect @tullman.
* This article originally appeared on Inc.com