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In the startup world there is ubiquitous faith that the launch of the product-especially with the latest technology-will catapult your organization for immediate success. But after years of working with startups and you will have your individual, I learned that the best strategy to start is not to leap straight into an effective product. Instead, focusing on the service provided to people.
Service corporations offer the founders a strategy to get closer to customers, Understand their pain points And confirm ideas before investing a significant time and resources in product development. And trust me when you jump too much for building, too early, you risk creating expensive, over -complicated products that are not adapted to the real needs of the market.
Each successful company I worked with has one common feature: the service is the basis for their activities.
Why service corporations are the best foundations
While your product does not act as entertainment or social platform, you are building a service company, no matter whether you are aware of it or not. Companies based on services have a fundamental advantage: they are normally fast and low cost to start out. Unlike product corporations, especially equipment that requires investment in advance in development, production and distribution, the service model means that you can use existing skills and resources to make sure immediate value for customers. This sort of flexibility and speed is crucial in the early stages of the startup.
When you begin with services, you furthermore mght gain priceless observations In what your clients actually need. These observations are often missed by startups, which begin with the construction of complex hardware or software. As a result, the founders of service corporations are higher prepared to rotate if needed and make sure that they solve the right problems.
Many successful software startups began as service corporations – before AWS launched publicly, it was an internal service that Amazon developed for himself. Airbnb, Netflix i much more I will start with a manual solution to customer problems. Yes, there was at all times a software component, but these founders initially focused on collecting data, improving processes and offering custom solutions before transforming these services into scalable software.
The software was a strategy to automate and scale service functions. They didn’t build because of this.
One of the clients I am currently working with Bread This is a home service in which customers can hire a chef to come back home and cook meals that can last throughout the week. They began with manual operations, progressively adding software to enhance their operations during scaling. Focusing on providing excellent service, they will first spend time understanding what their clients want and would use in their application, which provides them greater confidence in how they design it.
Lessons that I learned from building too much, too early
I was on the other side of this equation. At the starting of my profession, I fell into the trap of an overstating product before the market was ready for it. One of the startups I got involved in was to develop ambitious equipment. It was expensive, too complex and to be honest, a logistic nightmare. We built a product that had more functions than customers, and thus we underestimated operating costs and overestimated the charm of the product.
It ended up breaking the equipment just a month after starting, because it overheated and failed in the field. The product had lasers – yes, lasers – which added unnecessary complications and overstated costs. Looking back, we could start with something much simpler, for example with a camera and focus on user research. This feedback would inform how we built a physical product and how we scaled from there. Instead, we spent a lot of time and problems with setting money that could possibly be avoided if we built less from the very starting.
Danger of premature scaling
This experience taught me an invaluable lesson: do not rebuild. Startup culture tends to persuade that more is higher – more functions, more technology, greater complexity. But the reality is that the more you build, the greater the risk you present. You risk wasting capital on functions that no one has asked for, you risk excessive recomplicating activity and risk loss from the eyes of the basic mission.
Service corporations avoid many of those traps, enabling the founders to stay slim and itered based on real customer opinions – while infection for it. After providing services, you approach the customer. You understand their pain points and you’ll be able to adapt your offer without huge general costs related to the development of kit or product. After nailing the service, you’ll be able to start entering software or tools that make providing this service easier and more scalable.
The key is not to rush the transition from service to product. When you select to build, make sure that they are driven by the needs of consumers, not emotions related to creating something shiny and latest. Simplifying things, confirm your ideas using the services provided and build only functions that directly solve the problems that your clients are facing.
Start a easy, scale wiser
For aspiring founders, my advice is this: do not start by attempting to build one other great point. Start with the service, approach your clients and learn all the things you’ll be able to about their needs. Avoid temptation to order the product. An easy, well -made service business gives you the basis you would like, without burning resources or loss from customer eyes.
Ultimately, every large company begins with understanding and solving real problems. I think that the best strategy to start with services, not products.
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