Requirements Gathering Is Not Customer Development

blog.meatinthesky.com

10 points·sachinag··5 comments

This is a very interesting article - but has the author had any financial success to give credence to the doctrine he espouses?

Kinda sorta - there's a lot of this that I learned the hard way from Dawdle, and there's a fair amount that I've had a chance to implement in my consulting work with others. The notion of "iteration solves all problems", in particular, comes from the leanstartup zealots who don't sit back and think before they launch into the iteration process. Turns out, as do many things, that it ends up taking longer to get to product/market fit than if you are more disciplined early on.

Wait, so you have achieved product/market fit with Dawdle, then? Congratulations! Is the promised land just as wonderful as it is promised to be..? :)

Yes and no. We never were able to technically integrate with the partners that I did the bizdev on, so we never got their inventory on board. Without inventory in a marketplace, you have a nice little side business, not a main one.

If there's a PHP/Python guy out there who wants to save Dawdle, I'm all ears.

How can you give lessons on "the right way" of achieving product-market fit if you haven't yourself achieved it? If you have indeed achieved it with Dawdle, but a lack of technical ability is holding you back, isn't it a no-brainer to go into debt and hire a programmer?

Calling you out is a pyrhhic victory. With respect to strategy and tactics, I think that we need to listen only to people who have actually succeeded. I want you to succeed, so you can write about it, so I can succeed.

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