[WJW]

I mean, you just make up features and ask customers if they want them before writing a line of code. Check out https://buffer.com/resources/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-w... from buffer.com for an example.

It was literally the landing and pricing pages first, functionality came a few weeks later and only after people were clicking on the (non-functional) pricing plans because they wanted to buy the product.

[corobo]

I can't get over how much of a dick move that sounds haha. Hey you like this product? You want this do you? Sike it doesn't exist give me your email address lol

[halfmatthalfcat]

How do you translate product efficacy by an anonymous person clicking a buy link on a pricing page? All you are doing is gauging this ephemeral, uninformed click which has no direct correlation to what the product will actually _do_.

It seems more of a crap shoot to gauge interest off of random clicks on a buy page versus having an actual product with actual user feedback that is actionable.

[WJW]

Well, obviously. But there is more to it than just those two in isolation. First off, one anonymous person clicking a link is just noise. But if you have hundreds clicking a link per day that gives you a much better indication you might be onto something.

Further, how much time do you spend on making a basic landing and pricing page? Two hours? Four maybe? The original comment was talking about programmers working for 6+ months on a MVP product before showing it to people. You could launch hundreds of landing pages in that time, only limited by how many ideas you have. Even though the chance of a "hit" per landing page is probably lower, the sheer volume can more than make up for it. The landing plus pricing page model also immediately informs you how much people are actually willing to spend on it, which (if higher than zero) is a much higher indicator for product success than "I think this is a super cool feature".

Finally, I notice that you are talking about "product efficacy" while the original comment is interested in making money. The two are related but not the same, since there are tons of crappy products making a boatload of profit (comcast anyone?) and also tons of great products that struggle to make money (see the ongoing troubles of open source developers on this very forum). Either goal is fine, but optimizing for one while thinking you are then also optimizing for the other is a recipe for disappointment.

[AznHisoka]

Buffer was created in a different time/year in history. It was created when social media management was in the infancy and there were very few tools that did what they did (I know because I created a marketing product around the same time as them)

Now there are way less of those ideas available. And the ones that are available can’t be tested with a simple landing page.