For most early startups, it is not possible to release a complete product on day one of launch; a complete product being one that has all of the features the customer would need and expect. Everything on a customer’s checklist.
But who knows what a complete checklist like that even looks like? On day one, a startup makes several guesses and releases what they think is the minimum viable product. A startup cannot build out the entire list. Mostly because they don’t know what that full list contains, especially if they are entering a new market or attempting to disrupt an existing one. And they don’t have the money to risk building out the incorrect guesses. Even big companies embarking on new ventures tend to have these problems. Only one person really knows what the complete product looks like. The customer does.
It turns out that something amazing often happens when early adopters begin to take a startup from early and nameless to viable and known. Those early adopters take it upon themselves to build the complete solution on their own. That is, they string together and combine tools and services they already have to fill in any gaps. They might use dropbox to sync an app across their devices. They might download a third party application that augments or compliments some feature that the startup provides. Or maybe they are using post-it notes.
If you can get them to tell you all the things they did, you can begin to build the features or partnerships that will make your product a complete solution to their problem. ideaphore is here to help you to make that connection with your customers, get that insight from them, and use it in your product. Staring at your website analytics will give you very little insight into what other solutions customers have combined with your product. Our solution to that: Just ask them and reward them for sharing with you.
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