Posts about strategy

Validation is a vanity metric for your ego.

It is the active search for data that confirms your existing beliefs ("white swans"). If you look for people who like your idea, you will find them.

While this might feel nice in the moment, it won't help you in the long run.

True science does not prove hypotheses correct; it fails to prove them wrong.

Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, argued that no amount of observation of white swans can prove that all swans are white. However, the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to disprove it.

Falsification is the rigorous attempt to prove yourself wrong. It is the hunt for the "black swan" that destroys your hypothesis.

As founders with limited runway, we cannot afford false positives.

We must aggressively attack our own roadmaps. If an idea survives your genuine attempt to kill it, only then does it earn the right to be built.

There's a lot of people these days saying to "build in public."

This is just another way of saying self-promotion.

While this seems like good advice on the surface, it can be a trap.

If your goal is to build an audience, then building in public is a solid strategy.

However, not all business models rely on having an audience.

To be clear, an audience is not a customer list. A customer is someone who pays you money directly. There are some people who will never become your customers, but will follow your journey as part of your audience. Perhaps to learn from you, or purely for entertainment.

This can be misleading and lead to a false sense of validation.

Unless you plan on monetizing through ads or sponsorships, then you don't need an audience.

If your model is charging users directly, then an audience isn't the goal.

Paying customers are.

Building in public doesn't directly generate customers.

Sure, it can be a byproduct of having an audience (because you have a leveraged way to market to them), but it is not the cause. Plenty of people have massive audiences, but no monetization strategy whatsoever.

If you don't want to be the center of attention, then you don't have to be. There are plenty of other marketing strategies you can use to find your customers.

So before you start building in public, make sure that your strategy aligns with your business model (and your personality).