A startup’s purpose is not to make money (at least not initially). Nor is its purpose to build a product (although it won’t go far without a product). No, the real reason why a startup exists is to learn about potential customers and to define a market.
Compare this to big companies: they are really good at serving a known solution to a known market. They can reliably and consistently deliver lots of the same thing to many people. A large base of customers tells the vendor what they want, and as long as the vendor can build the product to satisfy those needs, everybody is happy.
Startups are different, and they require a radically different approach. At first, I found it strange too. But when you think about it, it makes sense.
A startup is disruptive. It does things which are bold and new, which the big companies would not dare to touch. It rewrites the rules. It sees things from a novel point of view. A good startup defines a new category, by creating a market which doesn’t yet exist, or by serving a specific market segment vastly better than the existing products do.
When a startup has an intimate understanding of its market (exactly who its customers are, how they think and work, and what they care about) then the rest is comparatively straightforward. Or so I think, at least. The team behind Go Test It is very strong in technology, and I know for sure that we can solve any technical challenge amazingly well. And Red Gate, who acquired Go Test It, is very strong commercially – if a product is useful, they will turn it into a solid business. So you see, building a product and selling it are hard, but we know how to do that, so that’s not a problem.
The most important things we need in a startup like Go Test It are therefore:
Figuring this stuff out is actually a huge amount of work. It’s very easy to start with some sweeping assumptions (“we help everybody who makes web applications test across different browsers!”) until you realise that you need a much more detailed understanding of how people currently work, why things are done the way they are, what works and what doesn’t.
Having a product is important, because it gives us a good basis for conversations with customers: it allows them to see what is possible now, and sparks their imagination about what it might be in future and how it can solve their problems. But more important than the product are the conversations we have with our users, because what we learn from them determines what the product will be like in future.
This is our journey of discovery and learning, and it has been our main focus over the last two months. We have a product which works well, and although we have an immensely long list of things we want to do with Go Test It, we’ve deliberately been holding back, listening rather than talking.
Learning about your customers is not something you can do once and then you’re done; it has to be a continuous, ongoing conversation which helps both sides. We will therefore be keeping in touch with everyone we have spoken to and are always keen to hear back from you.
We’ll also use this blog to explain what we have learnt. Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing a series of posts on what we’re doing and what we’ve learnt, so please subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss any insights! And, as always, please email us or leave a comment below.