So what are you building? A vitamin tablet or a pain killer? i.e. a ‘nice to have’ product or ‘need to have’ one?

While it’s just normal for every startup to believe that they are building a pain killer, most of them (unfortunately) fall under vitamin category.

The other way to look at this statement is – what and how much do you pay for when it comes to vitamin vis-a-vis pain killer?

Even the poorest strata of the society pays for pain killers and keeps the vitamin tablets aside (for the days when they have enough ca$h to throw).

Essentially, we primarily pay for pain killers as compared to vitamins and that’s the truth with any other business as well – i.e. people/companies are willing to pay for services that solves a pain vis-a-vis services that are latent in nature.

Especially in India, and that too in technology business.

Look at the Internet business in India – at the end of the day, classified businesses are surviving (if not thriving) and most of those ‘nice to have’ businesses have either shut down or have managed to stay because of their deep pockets.

vitamin pain killer

Vitamin or Pain Killer?

But we are talking about startups who may not get a ‘second life’ to change strategy – so how can a startup figure out whether they are building a vitamin tablet or a pain killer?

Here is what I’d suggest

  • Do not ask your friends/family for idea approval – they all want to encourage you for whatever you are doing and will never throw candid perspective (chances are that they have no idea about what you are doing!).
  • Go out and ask prospective customers about your service – if somebody says ‘I love the idea’, ask them to give a token money (if not cash, atleast something metaphorically). If they dodge, validate your hypothesis.
  • Identify the catalysts that turn a ‘nice to have’ feature into ‘need to have’. Twitter could be a great example here – if it’s down, its’ a world news! If it’s up, people are figuring out how to use it!
  • I am the end user syndrome – get out of this before you commit harakiri. Your baby will never look ugly to you and you will end up treating your pills as the magic potion, while it could be just another pill that solves no real purpose.
    It’s pretty much a ‘nonsense’ service that the world is addicted to!

Aside, the most important sales lesson here is to convert your vitamin into a pain killer (lessons from Steve Jobs perhaps?) addict user and then charge a higher fee , but first thing you need to understand is whether you are building a vitamin tablet or a pain killer. Is there enough demand for your service or its all hypothesis?

And of course, a lot of these are governed by your product positioning (Read: The Art of Product Positioning – Do you know the right position?). If you want to sell vitamin as a vitamin – so be it. But internally, validate the hypothesis behind calling your solution as a pain killer or a vitamin tablet.

In short, know what you are building.  Know thy business.

Recommended Read:

[img]