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If you're an early-stage, pre-launched startup founder with an idea – don't spend time chatting with developers or agencies about what to build. Spend the time prototyping an MVP and chatting with potential customers. Seeing this a lot with the female founder mentoring I'm doing.
A common pathway I'm seeing = founder spends 12-24 months on research/ideology, then another 12 months (and $$$) on building a product (often led by a feature-hungry dev shop), then goes live without a tested business model or potential audience/pre-built customer list. #attovc
If I'm evaluating potential at this stage: a founder who is unattached to a pathway or product that is free to build and test a fresh MVP (with or without code) has more potential than a founder three years in with a legacy product, no product-market fit or traction. #attovc
Figuring out what to build, what people want, and what they will pay for it is the 'hard' part, and needs to be fulfilled by the role of the founder in the early stages. These answers can't be outsourced and magically solved by a development agency; code can be once you know.
