What Should You Build First: an Audience or a Product?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/96547648@N00/2731954464/

Have you ever wondered what your first move should be?

Do you build a product first? Or do you build an audience first?

If you read a few blogs around the web, you have heard so many different advice about this topic.
Some experts advise you to build an audience first, some others say that you should build a product first…

Everyone explains his point of view, but no one tells the entire story as it is, so you probably are just more confused than before.

Because of this I decided to show you the whole picture with this post.

…build a product first!

You can choose either of the two, it will work – by putting it into action in the right way.

So, your question may still be there: which of the two ways should you prefer?

The short answer is: it depends.
The long answer is…well you have to read the entire post

You should build an audience first when you don’t have a clue about what are the problems you’re going to solve with a product.

Let’s say for example that you are a business expert, and you want to help people with their businesses.
The problem is that you don’t know which are people’s specific problems about businesses.
You may have built several businesses and probably you have encountered many problems, but you may still not knowing what are others’ most common problems.

In this case you build an audience and then you ask then what are their problems.

Very simple.

Once you know on what specific problem(s) you have to focus, you can build your product.

You should build a product first when you already know the specific problem you want to solve.

For example, if you are a fitness expert and you want people to lose fat as fast as possible, then you’ll create a product to help them, and then you’ll build an audience interested in your stuff.

You have to have clear ideas, no doubts are allowed.

Both these strategies has pros and cons, so even though the above suggestions work well, you may need to think more about the strategy to use.

You can build your product before you start building a blog (which is time demanding), so you have more time.You already know the topic that your blog will cover once your product is ready.You need crystal clear ideas about the problem you want to solve.You’ll know if your audience will like your product or not before you even make it.You know what are your audience’s problems, so you can build one or more products about those problems.You don’t have to know what specific problem your audience has beforehand.You’ll have to work on your product and your blog at the same time.

Both strategies can work very well, so you just have to choose based on your personal situation (and preferences).

You may also want to try both of them and see which one fits best with your persona.

Mauro D’Andrea

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