The question I most often get asked is, "How do you get your first customers?" It's a happy week over here—I just snagged my first two—so this is a perfect time to answer that question.
I tried to lead with my problem statement (simulating data to Kafka is hard) the entire way and filtered out only those who matched it. That helped me avoid building something that would become a one-off, like solving some internal company problem.
And while I had to do some things that were specific for my first few customers, I tried to use my judgment in what makes a good product so that those things could be useful for everyone else.
> I didn’t have good justification for the business model, the price, and other terms, so I didn’t make a particularly strong case.
>
> I have so little experience doing this that the mechanics of the conversation were just hard for me. I hadn’t thought of the answers to many good questions.
>
This sounds very interesting, what kind of 'good questions' arose?
Congratulations 🎉
Awesome journey and very inspiring!
Question: How did you make your product general enough? I ask this because you mentioned it was first built for a customer.
Thanks!
Thanks Antonis!!
I tried to lead with my problem statement (simulating data to Kafka is hard) the entire way and filtered out only those who matched it. That helped me avoid building something that would become a one-off, like solving some internal company problem.
And while I had to do some things that were specific for my first few customers, I tried to use my judgment in what makes a good product so that those things could be useful for everyone else.
> I didn’t have good justification for the business model, the price, and other terms, so I didn’t make a particularly strong case.
>
> I have so little experience doing this that the mechanics of the conversation were just hard for me. I hadn’t thought of the answers to many good questions.
>
This sounds very interesting, what kind of 'good questions' arose?
Things like: What's the basis for the pricing model? Why is that a logical choice? What happens if we increase/decrease usage?
That makes a lot of sense! Matching price to value is a perennially interesting challenge. Thanks for sharing.