Intro: Building customer demand before you launch
Why am I so confident that building a marketplace first isn’t the right approach? Because I worked for a startup that built a product thinking customers would come. The customers never came.
Don’t repeat that mistake.
Build as you go. Test along the way. Never guess.
In this part of the MVMP Pre-Launch Course, we’re going to:
- Build a landing page to capture customer demand
- Learn how to use Airtable and Zapier
- Set up workflows and automations
- Identify potential customers and contact them
- Gain skills and knowledge that will help us build our marketplace
Along the way, we’re going to validate our idea:
- Are we solving an actual problem?
- Do customers like our approach to solving the problem?
- Are they willing to pay for the solution?
- Do they actually pay?
Your marketplace does not need to be finished to serve customers. When starting the Unicorn Factory, I personally connected service providers and customers. These conversations helped me build demand for my marketplace, inspired content for my website, and helped me identify customers. It also helped me focus on features and processes that mattered for my business and were not merely “nice to haves.”
Let’s get into it.