Build for One Customer Before Building for One Million

One thing I've noticed with founders is that we often think about scale too early.

You have an idea and immediately you're thinking: "How do I get 100,000 users? How do I make this work globally? What if millions of people start using it?"

Those are good questions. They might not be the questions you need to answer first.

Start With One Customer Who Genuinely Loves It

When you're starting, I'd rather see you focus on getting one customer to genuinely love the product. Then two. Then ten.

There's no point trying to scale a product that you haven't figured out yet.

1,000 Users Can Make the Problem Bigger

Let's say you're building a SaaS product for businesses. You launch and suddenly you have 1,000 users. Sounds great, right?

But if those 1,000 users are:

• Confused about how to use the product
• Constantly reporting problems
• Not understanding the value
• Not staying

Then you've just created a bigger problem for yourself. You now have 1,000 people experiencing the same problems you haven't solved.

Don't Give Them the Software and Disappear

Find your first customer. Then:

• Watch how they use it
• Ask questions
• Where do they get stuck?
• What do they keep asking for?
• What do they ignore?
• What part saves them the most time?
• What part actually makes them money?
• What would make them stop using it?

Those conversations are incredibly valuable. Sometimes your customer will use your product in a way you never expected. Sometimes they'll completely ignore the feature you spent three weeks building.

That's feedback you can't get from sitting in your office imagining what customers want. You have to get the product into someone's hands.

Scale Isn't Just More Users

This is where founders sometimes misunderstand the meaning of scale.

Scale isn't just getting more users. Scale means being able to deliver the same value to more customers without the business breaking.

But first, you need to know what that value actually is. If you haven't figured that out with ten customers, trying to figure it out with 100,000 customers becomes much harder.

So start with a small group. Solve a specific problem. Serve them extremely well. Learn from them. Improve the product. Then repeat.

You might discover that your original idea needs to change. That's okay. In fact, that's the whole point.

Your first customers aren't just customers. They're part of your product development process. They're helping you discover what the product needs to become.

I Don't Get Impressed by 50,000 Signups

That's why I don't get too impressed when a startup tells me: "We have 50,000 signups."

My next question is: "How many are actually using the product?"

And after that: "How many are paying?"

Don't Build for Everyone. Build a Repeatable Solution.

If you're building a startup right now, don't worry too much about becoming the next big thing. Don't start by trying to build for everyone.

1. Find one specific customer with one specific problem.
2. Solve it properly. Get them results.
3. Find another customer with the same problem.
4. Do it again. And again.

Eventually you'll have something much more valuable than a big user count. You'll have a repeatable solution. That's when you can start thinking seriously about scale.

You shouldn't scale confusion. You shouldn't scale an unvalidated product. You shouldn't scale a broken process.

This pairs with the difference between a product and a business — usage isn't the same as a model that works. And if you're adding features instead of watching those first ten customers, read why founders build too much.