Last week, we had an insightful conversation with Jason Zhang, Head of Product at Mesh and founder of HomeLight. Jason's unique perspective, spanning both early-stage startups and established companies like StubHub and Upwork, offers valuable insights into product development and company building. Here's what we learned:
Last week, we had an insightful conversation with Jason Zhang, Head of Product at Mesh and founder of HomeLight. Jason's unique perspective, spanning both early-stage startups and established companies like StubHub and Upwork, offers valuable insights into product development and company building. Here's what we learned:
Larger companies have a different cycle and process - They have a structure for releasing products that's designed to protect their reputation and millions of users. They can't just roll out something that might be buggy and hope for the best.
With small companies, your blast radius is much smaller. This gives you a significant advantage in terms of speed and iteration. It's okay if things are a bit messy or imperfect - that's the gem of startups. If you don't leverage this advantage and try to play by big company rules, you'll lose. They simply have more resources than you do.
Early on, the biggest challenge is the lack of data and contextual information. You might think, 'That's a great idea,' but you don't have a million users to test it on.
Much of your early prioritization is based on product sense - your own intuition. Everyone has product sense to some degree. You generally have an idea of what you want your product to do and what you think customers would like. As long as you're focused on solving a customer problem that people can understand and relate to, you're probably on the right track.
It's also crucial to listen to your most important customers - not necessarily your biggest ones, but those who are invested in your vision and have strong opinions. Your worst early customers are those who buy your product and never give feedback. We need to talk to people because we're making decisions based on very limited quantitative data, so customer feedback is the most valuable source of qualitative data.
With startups, people often rush to define roles and responsibilities, thinking, 'This is what I'm supposed to be doing.' But in the early stages, whether you're a Series A company with 30 people or a seed-stage startup with five, the most valuable thing anyone can do is talk to customers. The size of the customer doesn't matter.
At this point, nothing in your business is routine yet - not implementations, not sales pitches. The more information you gather, the better you understand what people want. It also gives you confidence that you're working on something valuable before investing significant time and resources.
We build a lot of prototypes. They look like they do what they're supposed to do, even if they don't actually function yet. This gives us valuable insights from people's reactions. AI software is trickier because people are now familiar with tools like ChatGPT, but you can still create lightweight proofs of concept and MVPs.
You might give a response that sounds plausible, and the customer says, 'Cool, I'd like that. Can you do this or that?' That gives you a lot of information. Sometimes, an even better response is when they say, 'Yeah, that's not great.' Or you might get an apathetic response like, 'Oh yeah, this is cool,' followed by, 'I'll need to get approval...' instead of, 'Let's do this - send me an NDA right now.'"
PMF is a concept that everyone defines differently. I could nod and say we've found PMF, but there are many ways to interpret it.
In the very early stages, your attempts are scattered, and they should be. Startups often go through a process of, 'I tried this and it worked well,' or 'That didn't resonate with people.' We try something else, it gets a little better, then we try another thing and get new ideas from customers. That's when you start realizing, 'Hey, some people would actually pay for this.' That's significant, even if it's not yet PMF. It's exciting to know people will pay for what you're offering.
Our conversation with Jason was a masterclass in early-stage product development and company building. Here are the key takeaways:
1. Leverage your startup advantage: Don't try to compete with big companies on polish. Instead, focus on speed and iteration.
2. Prioritize based on product sense and customer feedback: In the absence of large-scale data, use your intuition and listen closely to your most engaged customers.
3. Stay close to your customers: Founders should continue talking to customers even as the company grows. This direct feedback is invaluable.
4. Build lightweight prototypes: Use quick prototypes to gauge interest and gather feedback before investing significant resources.
5. Redefine success metrics: Early on, focus on learning and finding people willing to pay for your product rather than achieving perfect product-market fit.
By applying these principles, early-stage companies can create a more agile, customer-centric approach to product development. As Jason puts it, "What you're aiming for is learning. You're not aiming to find perfect products or even necessarily achieve PMF with everything you do. You're aiming to learn." It's about creating a culture of rapid iteration and learning, leveraging the unique advantages that startups have over larger, more established companies.