yongfook

Amongst the sensational, polarizing chaos that spewed forth from my previous post, one question was continually posed by innocent bystanders - what’s this “value” nonsense anyway? I think it’s worth spending a few paragraphs exploring.

You have created value when you are solving a real problem for your user. Aim high! It’s an almost bulletproof way of ensuring the long-term viability of your business. Don’t create a pretty, shitty startup.

So you want to or have already started a startup. How do you know if what you’re working on is a real problem? How do you know if you’re creating value?

I am a huge fan of this way of thinking:

Your “use case” should be, there’s a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?

If you can get a user laid, you have created value. Everyone wants to get laid, but not everyone can as much as they want to. If your startup can even act as some flimsy pretext to getting your user verifiably laid then you are on the way to success.

Taken literally, this seemingly applies only to dating sites and whatnot, but indirectly this applies to any problem-solving situation where you end up making your users look good, or get shit done faster (so they have more time to get laid) or make them more money (so they have more money to get laid. wait what).

Even something as seemingly frivolous as Instagram could be said to be getting its users laid - Instagram turns anyone into an instant “artist” and some of us no doubt know from painful experience that chicks dig artists. Repeat this across different “chicks dig men who are X” archetypes for a shot at startup success: DJs, rock stars, cooks etc.

However!

I think there’s an even better, clearer way to understand if you’re creating value. And crucially if you’re not, to get closer and closer to it.

I call it the Shut Up and Take My Money test.

I am of course referring to this. I like how the video is well-suited as a metaphor for MVPs as the product in the cartoon comes with a whole list of provisos (“doesn’t do this, that, this, that”) but for some reason the end user still just needs it.

If you describe the problem you’re solving to a potential end user and they react with “Shut Up and Take My Money”, you’re on the way to creating ridiculous levels of value for that user. You shouldn’t even need to show them a product or describe the features.

The optimum scenario is where the problem alone is so much of a pain in the ass for the user that they will pay you for a solution, any solution. If you can work on a problem like that, and find lots of end users like that, and then layer on top of it a well-oiled product in terms of design and engineering - you are guaranteed success.

The part I have left out is that this process is phenomenally difficult, frustrating and slow. That’s why it’s so important to invest time in it as early as possible. Don’t build anything yet! Don’t be a solution looking for a problem. Discovery or hypothesis of the problem is just the first step. The next step is finding the people who react with Shut Up and Take My Money.

If you’re lucky or smart, you’ll meet them fast. If not, you may have to tweak the original problem you’re solving or figure out how to explore pockets of users that you haven’t found yet to see if your idea results in Shut Up and Take My Money. You might even think about giving up altogether.

But don’t! Bounce the idea off as many people as possible. Tweak it as necessary. Find out what people are willing to pay for. Because the first time you hear Shut Up and Take My Money, an awesome wave of relief will wash over you and the clouds will part and the angels will sing. It’s an even better feeling than getting your users laid.

Update:

Readers have highlighted the disturbing lack of swearing or inflammatory language in this post. I’ll end with this - if you do all of the above and speak to 1000 end users and continually tweak your hypothesis and still don’t elicit the Shut Up and Take My Money response… then the problem space you’re working in is probably horseshit! (tm).