Discover Your Edge (Part 3) Paras

Paras says to not go for product - makert fit but market product fit

meaning, don't do:

building a product that you desire --> going to market and see if people likes it --> pepole may / may not like / fulfilling their desire

instead do:

start with a blank slate and look for trends in the market --> create product that people demand --> fulfills customer desires

easier way to do this is observe the most innovative customer of yours, see what they are doing manually / heavylifting, then you automate it and add it as an efficiency factor to your product.

Paras also says to look at timing of the launch of your startup

if you are too early, customer may weird out and might seem like requirement was not already there in the market

if you are too late, there already might be established players fulfilling the customer desires.

so, have a perfect timing, not too late nor too early, there are always windows where startups can come and thrive but they are small and need to grab the opportunity.

Paras says of on betting either on culture or tech

culture is shift in people's mindset / lifestyle, and looking at it grabbing some opportunity and building around it

tech is radically faster, simpler or cheaper way of doing and building on previous desire but serving them in better way.

generally successful startups are mix of both - Uber saw rising trend of online transactions being done with trust by customers and also technically we had GPS and faster ways and intuitive to connect taxi and customers.

paras also says to define your market as narrow as possible

be the king of your niche instead of big a dead startup in a large market.

build on your nice, make a good profitable business there then go for adjancent markets/ bigger ones.

Peter theil says, competitiion is for losers, be so different that noone clubs you with them and sees you as competition.