🚀🎯 I often get asked: 'Where do I start with product development at a startup?' Here are the first steps I recommend: 1️⃣ **Problem discovery** Helps you identify your solution, customer, value proposition, team, segments, competition, pricing, sales strategy, business moat etc. This framework will help you define what your business look like. Keep iterating the canvas with learnings. 2️⃣ **Know the Market:** Check out keywords, search volume, trends by using Google Analytics and SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SEMRush. This will also give you an idea if your business potentially faces seasonality or trends. It’s also good idea to check Gartner’s Magic Quadrant to compare if your category is in the early stages and expected to mature/phase out soon. Knowing the terrain ahead will help you navigate to your desired destination, rather than getting lost or veering off course. 3️⃣ **Conceptualize the idea:** Start writing PRFAQs to define your customers, value proposition, business goals, and key metrics for success. 4️⃣ **Talk to users:** Talk to customers directly. Identify where you find them and create a journey map to find out common characteristics, pain points, preferences, and adjacent products in every step of the product lifecycle. 5️⃣ **Run experiments:** Create a mockup and run it with customers. Build a landing page to deliver your idea and the value proposition. Now, it's a good time to spend a few hundreds of dollars in online ads to test messages, and validate demographics. Metric: Target Audience Fit. Track how well your product resonates with the identified target audience through user engagement and feedback. Alternative: Consider crowdfunding campaigns to expand your reach and build a community. Offer unique benefits to early supporters. **6️⃣ Rinse & repeat:** Iterate steps with learnings until you're ready to start developing the MVP. Remember, product development is an iterative process and this is just the first phase. Each cycle of refinement brings you closer to a product that truly meets needs and resonates with your customers.