How can I get customers' feedback even before the official launch?

Most startup plans involve growing fast and big... which let's face it, never really happens until far too late for the whole project to survive.

Virtual customers are better than too few real customers...

However it's not necessary to wait for real customers before you can start gathering interesting feedback that makes sense. Why so? By making a prototype (or a Minimum Viable Product if your product doesn't exist yet) you'll be able to attract people who will act as virtual customers and provide feedback that can be very close to real customer's one.

Plan your prototype carefully enough to make people's feedback relevant but don't let it take too long because it'll prevent you from starting the feedback collection early. If all goes well, the virtual customers should turn into real ones once the product is out!

Comments

How can I balance my cashflow and my product development?

Unless you have a regular source of income that covers all of your product development spendings, you'll have to continuously make sure you don't overspend. This has hard consequences: postpone work that isn't top priority, be frugal when dealing with salaries, focus on revenue growth instead of quality. Bootstrapping a startup requires to make hard choices to preserve your cashflow! Cashflow is king for most startups: even if you hand team problems skilfully, maintain a upbeat pace compared to competitors, money problems are still able to kill your business relatively quickly. One way of handling this is to have several regular revenue streams that make it possible to invest in building a quality product over time even if you don't get any funding. Stable resources are the key to a sustainable product roadmap!

Why should youth be more careful and elderly take more risks?

Youth are known to be foolish and the elderly to be averse to risk... Why do we take fewer risks as we get older ? Come on, Victoria, let's get this plane up in the air, we're covered by bullet proof insurance! The older we grow, the more security we get: financially, through life insurance... So that should give us more reassurance to invest into risky business. Youth on the contrary are right to take risks, for all the good things it brings, yet should be wary of not loosing more that they win. Be careful in your decisions then go for it and make it happen. Remember the older you get the more you should take risks.

When in one's life is a good time to become an entrepreneur?

There's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur : you can start with hardly any money at all and there's loads of advice available. On Business Ideas at least. Isn't it better to catch small fish by yourself than work in a big factory? Now's the time for employees, even if they have a full job. A project can be simplified to be tested on a small scale , within a few hours a week, before being expanded. Now's the time for students, projects that are part of their studies can be extended to become a small business for a small cost. Now's the time for the unemployed, be your own boss and prove you can do much better than people would think.

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