If you can't explain your app in fewer than 5 words, do you think your users will ever bother telling anyone about the app? Before you have product-market fit, product development is not about "adding features"—but distilling a product to a simple marketable sentence. Adding… Show more

3. ProductWhat problem are you solving?Why do users care?How is this better than what is out there? How big of a difference is this really?What are your major product milestones that are coming?What are the 2-3 key things your product lacks?What have you learned from the early version of the product?Product traction. What are the key metrics of use... See more

Some signs your product might be too complicated: you’ve launched a bunch of features and haven’t killed any of them. You’re running out of literal surface area to put new features. Users aren’t clear about what to do with the product.

After all, one of the hardest lessons we learned from that period: It wasn’t enough to build the app, you needed to also grow a critical mass of users. Without the right users there at the beginning, a user-generated content product would inherently be too shallow on content. Low engagement would lead to more low engagement.

When you’re an early stage startup, your most important job is to get clarity on what you’re building. When your product is buggy and low quality and the first mile of the product is ignored (the welcome/tour, the onboarding, the explanatory copy, the empty states), you won’t know if the poor retention numbers are due to a bad product or a bad mark... See more

Changing the product domain made it easier to navigate. You can have two product development processes: Ask customers what problems they have and build for them. Or you don't ask customers anything and rely on internal product leaders' taste and judgment. Customer obsession and taste are parallel paths to product success. Some domains, like Lean St... See more

Founders: Find something that is both important to you and resonates with a group of people at this particular moment in time. In the early days you’ll need to frame your story—to recruits, to partners, to investors, and to the entire outside world—along those lines. Talk about why your company matters, not just what it does. Make sure your product... See more

Even absent external feedback, it's possible to train yourself to spot the limits to your product. One approach I've taken when talking to companies who are trying to achieve initial or new product-market fit is to ask them why every person in the world doesn't use their product or service.

It is really hard to keep things simple, especially if you have a product that people really like. When you do things well, people will always ask you to do more. Your features will multiply and expand as you try to make them happy. Soon, new competitors will emerge that will tempt you to stretch your product in new directions. The more you say yes

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