๐ how much demand there is for what youโre selling
๐ how much of that demand you can capture and satisfy
๐ธ how much it costs you to capture that demand and create customer satisfaction
๐ how repeatable the whole process is
๐ To figure out how much demand is there for what youโre selling, ask:
- How have you seen demand for X demonstrated?
- How many people are paying for something similar?
- If theyโre not currently paying, is there a strong enough pull for them to pay?
๐ To determine how much demand you can capture, ask:
- what unfair advantage do you have in this category?
- what unfair advantage do you have when it comes to distribution?
- what will cause people to switch to your product?
- what product gaps do you see?
๐ฅฐ Keep in mind, you canโt just capture demand; you also have to satisfy it.
Youโll need strong product instincts and skills for:
- building features people want to use
- developing an overall experience that keeps people coming back
- helping customers make consistent progress
Nothing gives indie founders a better quality of life than recurring revenue. ๐ฅฐ
The only thing that compares is a one-time sale product (course, book, downloadable software) that does massive revenue when it launches, and then consistent sales in the years that follow.
(Without needing a lot of re-launching, complex sales funnels, or CPC ads)
The risk with one-time sales is you can have a reasonable launch ($10k - $30k) but then have it peter out.
Then, it's like squeezing juice from a squeezed lemon. ๐
But, if you get a really good launch ($100k - $500k) you have the margin to figure out how to make it sustainable
On Sep 12, 2012, @kylefox sent me a DM that changed my life forever.
It resulted in me changing my career, earning more money, meeting most of my current friends, growing an audience online, and (ultimately) building @TransistorFM.
Kyle asked if I wanted to start a podcast.
I should mention: Kyle and I had only hung out a few times in-person.
I'd recently moved away from Edmonton, and hadn't talked to him in a few months.
If he hadn't taken the initiative to reach out, my life might have turned out a lot different! ๐
Initially, we thought it'd be a podcast about Product Management (we were both PMs at the time).
But, it quickly became clear that we were both interested in building and launching our own products.