[woojoo666]

A lot of this article sounds less about selling, and more about selling out. It doesn't teach you how to sell an existing idea/product that you already have, it tells you to "abandon the hope of finding the next billion dollar idea inside your head, and instead look for it out there, in the heads of other people".

I don't want to scour the markets trying to find an opening, and then put in years of effort only to realize that I don't care about any of it. I'd rather build a product that I care about from the beginning.

[slgeorge]

Totally get it. But, the issue is that to sell something it has to solve a problem for someone else. Generally the choices are:

a. Build something that solves your personal problem - later find out if that applies to others, and whether they are willing to exchange money in return for a solution. b. Find out what problem others have (ask them if they'd pay for a solution) - then build something that solves it responding to their feedback (if it does, ask for the money they said they'd give for a solution).

Maybe another way of looking at it is that (a) is about saying what "your vision is", and (b) is about finding out what "someone else's vision is".

Following (b) is a better commercial/sales strategy, but you're right that it might involve building something that you don't care about - because it's not for you, it's for the customers - which is probably why it's work and we do it for monetary compensation rather than just joy.

Perhaps the most difficult outcome is that many Founders now read product books or go to accelerators where they're told to follow strategy (b). They then basically do (a), while pretending they're doing (b) - but really all they do is listen to people who are positive about their vision and ignore any counter evidence.

[zoozla]

You're right, that's what the article is about, because that's easier. Finding paying customers and product market fit for an existing product is harder, and that's what I teach at growthlab.so.