Karthi Seemala’s Post

Most products fail because founders fall in love with solutions. Not problems. Here's what typically happens: You have an "amazing" idea You spend months building it You launch with excitement And... crickets 🦗 Why? Because you never validated if people actually needed it. The harsh truth: People don't care about your product. They care about their problems. 3 ways to avoid this trap: 1. Talk to potential customers → Understand their core problems → Learn their existing solutions   → Find out what's missing 2. Focus on real pain points → "Nice to have" rarely sells → Look for problems that cause: Financial loss, time waste & emotional stress 3. Test your assumptions → Create a simple landing page → Run it by your target audience → Get feedback before investing time The best products don't come from brilliant ideas... They come from deeply understanding customer problems. Remember... Your product isn't the hero. The problem you solve is. P.S. What problem are you solving?

There are two crucial parts to successfully achieving product-market fit: 1. Generating disruptive or 10x product ideas: This involves identifying the ideas you are meant to build for the next 10–15 years. This step can be non-intuitive, confusing and, slow. 2. Executing these ideas with excellence: The goal here is to execute the best with what you have, survive and thrive until you hit product-market fit. At Before Day Zero, Ankur Saxena (Former Head of Growth & Technology, Blinkit) is hosting an online workshop where he will dive into the first part - mastering consumer insight systems, particularly Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) that can fuel your intuition to discover 10x consumer product ideas. Many founders in the critical -1 to 0 phase struggle with this. They often miss the crucial step of translating consumer insights into viable ideas - a key piece of the puzzle for achieving product-market fit. If you're in the -1 to 0 phase of building, don't miss this one. Limited spots available. See you! The link to RSVP is in the comments.

Achieving true product-market fit isn't just about validating ideas - it's about understanding how customers will actually behave when faced with a crowded market, competing priorities, and the lure of the status quo. Determining fit means anticipating real-world conditions like limited budgets and solutions that already "work well enough." It's translating discoveries into realistic insights about what will resonate and drive adoption amidst complexities.

Your product isn’t for EVERYONE, and it SHOULDN’T be. Launching a new product or idea? It’s a lot like navigating politics. Everyone has opinions—and they won’t always align with yours. Some people may rally behind your idea with enthusiasm, while others might think it’s a waste of time or resources. Just like in politics, not everyone will see eye to eye, and that’s okay. Success comes from staying laser-focused on who you’re helping, what problem you’re solving, and how your solution stands out. By cutting through the noise and honing in on your core audience, you’ll find your supporters—the people who truly need and value what you’re creating. In a world of constant opinions, having a clear, objective plan and the right team behind you is what brings your idea to life. So, here’s to finding your true supporters and moving forward with purpose. #EntrepreneurLife #ProductLaunch #InnovationStrategy #FocusOnYourAudience

This is great - a seamless way to integrate many of the things many of us are already doing in a more cohesive way. So, at the moment, a product team has a set of OKRs. They might do some impact mapping and have a list of 'ideal' user behaviours. The team has a research question like: "We think our users enjoy surfing, so we need you to find out if that's true before we build our surfboard." We work out a research project one-pager with a risk section and sometimes I ask what happens if only two interview participants, when asked open questions about beach activities, spontaneously mention surfing? Is there a particular threshold that would cause you to change your plans? The Multiverse Mapping exercise Tom links to from the attached article takes these ideas and combines them into an integrated process so everyone's aligned from the start - more robust than my one-pager but still flexible enough. It's like planning a beach trip - you need to supply enough information upfront to minimise stress while acknowledging factors outside your control and the in-the-moment preferences of each traveller: "We will catch the train at 8.15 and check the weather during the journey. IF the forecast gives more than a 50% chance of rain in the next 2 hours, we will go to the aquarium, then decide based on the weather if we want to go to the arcade afterwards or visit the pier. IF the forecast is fine, we will go straight to the beach, then decide afterwards whether to walk along the shoreline or go to the park." And, of course, you need to ask if they can swim. #strategy #okrs #uxresearch #productdevelopment

Okay, here’s the deal: my current obsession is working with founders who think beyond the ordinary when positioning their businesses. When I collaborated with people in niche sectors like: - Real estate management - Industrial manufacturing - Educational platforms At first, I wasn’t sure how much creativity would be needed—these niches are often quite serious. But it's the founders who think differently and dare to stand out from the sea of generic websites that really excite me. Why? Because they want to: - Stand apart - Grab attention - Craft a unique brand image, instead of being just another clone of a big-name site - Captivate their audience and turn them into loyal customers Was this approach successful for them? Hell yeah! Founders here’s what you need to understand: you don’t have to follow the crowd. Recognize the unique appeal of your business and be the first to embrace it. Adopt this mindset, and you’ll not only stand out but also lead your industry with innovation and confidence. Open for project in December.

Stress test your ideas! Founders- just because you have a problem, doesn’t mean it’s a problem that needs solving or that there is a market for it. The solution…. Test it! Survey your audience. Right size your offering. Get feedback. Then stress test again with a critical mass… and test/feedback again! This helps so much with product validation and product market fit. Otherwise… you may end up on a call with a VC (yes like me in a call today) where the investor is just looking back at you like you just had a great big helping of idiot.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗅 I see clients make this mistake over and over again. A team builds a product confident they understand what people want, and then -- after it's finished -- they offer it to customers. But oops! The customers don't want the product or feature in the first place. Your assumption was wrong. And just look at all that effort, time, and money wasted on developing it! Oh... but at least it was on time and budget 🤦♀️ I think we would all rather build products that bring true value to our customers and our companies. It is critical to have the ability to learn what our customers want. And more importantly, quickly validate what our customers actually need. How do you make sure your are listening and learning from your customer? _____________________ Hi 👋 I'm Cameo I help growth stage companies build innovative and marketing hanging products. Follow or ring the 🛎 for posts about product and innovation

This is how I help clients find their unique business idea in 90 minutes: 1. Audit their professional and life experience for transferable skills 2. Identify the problems they love solving and the people they love serving 3. Brainstorm ways to intersect their talents, passions and market demand 4. Create 2-3 unique business models and offer ideas 5. Validate ideas with real-world conversations and low-risk experiments I repeat this process until we land on an idea that lights them up, leverages their zone of genius and has clear revenue potential. Then we reverse engineer an exit strategy to bring the vision to life. When you're stuck in indecision, taking messy action is the antidote. Clarity comes from testing ideas in the real world, not overanalyzing in isolation. What's a business idea you're considering but haven't acted on yet? I'd love to ideate on it!

Hot take: If the client/stakeholder proposes so many tweaks to your idea, that it changes the very concept - pull it back. Withdraw the reco. Don’t let them have it. Unsell it, if need be. Great ideas are too rare to f one up from the beginning. Go back to the lab and bring a better one that meets their needs. Otherwise your next few weeks/months will be miserable.