Founders don’t want to build small products because they are not “a $100M business”.

Maybe they’re not “the next unicorn”, or “ever able to generate $40M in ARR”.

The only thing is, only through making 10 of these small products for a specific niche you can find out more about your users.

That, in turn, enables you to truly understand that specific niche and audience. And chances are, if you build something lightweight, it didn’t cost you that much.

Yes, maybe the ideas you have vary in “estimated impact”. Some look like they’re going to change the planet’s course. Some look like they’re useless.

I believe that is not the right way to look at it, depending on what you plan to do.

Here’s another filter:

How much more will I be able to learn about the people that are going to use this product? No matter if it’s going to have 100 users or 1,000,000.

The reason why this is a good question is the following: learning about the users makes you understand what to build further for them.

So the point of this smaller product wouldn’t be to get $18 million in investment, rather to make $10 work like $1000 when you get that investment capital (if you go for it).

Making $10 work like $1000? I’d say it’s something that’s desirable.

So what should we do?

Make that small product if you think you can learn about a specific audience, no need to judge it before it came into the world.

You’ll have an advantage when it comes to not only putting your product out but maybe event getting investment.

“I’ve made a product that was downloaded by 5,000 fashion enthusiasts. I’ve talked to 500 of them. I’ve got to know them”

That sounds like a pretty sound sentence in front of a VC, as opposed to “I can work day and night and sleep in the office! Trust me, I check the movie founder portrait!”

This is an extension of “The Future Of Freemium” article, so maybe it makes sense to read that as well.

About Ch Daniel

I’ve updated this signature in July 2020, so older mentions of the signature might not make sense.

I currently don’t write on this blog anymore. I wrote daily for 9 months on this very blog, but now I’m focused on building the CH Group.

If you want to follow my newer articles, check out the CH Group’s blog.

See everything I do here: Chdaniel.com

Illustration: Bee Johnson