Nobody is paying (build in public update)
Launched and got a few hundred users, but nobody is paying yet
After launching juttu.co we got hundreds of visitors and are at around ~200 surveys created.
Launching felt great. And while I knew that launching comes in waves and is a continuous effort, I underestimated the energy it takes to keep momentum up.
I think this is what a lot of founders chose to not talk about.
You get first signals from the market, excitement even, but no willingness to pay or really switch to your product.
This is where we are. We need a strategy.
Recharge
Riding the wave of users signing up to juttu.co I was so excited to iterate super fast. I identified a few use cases just by looking at what kind of surveys people were creating.
But then my nervous system started acting up.
My eyes got tired, my neck cramped up and I could not focus anymore.
Product Strategy is just taking bets
After this unwanted slow-down I feel recharged. While it was not planned to take it “easier” for almost 2 weeks, I know can see how much perspective I got from that step back.
This week we adjusted the product to fit a particular use case. Instead of a generic form tool, we want to get this to solve a specific problem.
It’s early days, but first conversations with the target customers seem promising.
I’ll report back on the results.
But what I can already say: Opinions are cheap. Many people have them. Also about our Product. Especially on LinkedIn. Product Strategy is not about having onions but about making hard decisions about what not to do.
There is so much opportunity, so much hype in AI, so much seemingly promising feedback.
But in the end the question we ask ourselves is:
What is the one thing we need to do to solve a problem that people want to pay for.
And everything else is deprioritized.
Behind the scenes #3 (BTS3) is out
In this edition of the video logs, I walk you through I’m thinking about Product Strategy right now, first principles and the AI-forms market in particular.
Go check it and let me know in the comments what you thought. I want to get better at these videos and could really use your feedback!
Love
Niko
Interested to see where juttu goes next, I’m niching down dist*ll right now as well. I think one of the somewhat counterintuitive bits of product strategy is that going after a big TAM means the product requires the user to think about how they want to use it and sometimes put more work into the initial setup. This of course kills adoption. I’m niching dist*ll down so that the user doesn’t have to think, they can just look at it and say “yes that’s for me” or move on.