{"id":29569,"date":"2016-05-02T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=29569"},"modified":"2016-05-01T20:38:42","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T02:38:42","slug":"most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Difficult Thing For Any Startup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Recently, we hosted a group<\/strong> of Mexican entrepreneurs at <a href=\"http:\/\/singularityu.org\/\">Singularity University<\/a>. One of the founders asked me what I believe is the most difficult thing to do for any startup. Without thinking about this too much, I said, \u201cGetting users.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"left\"><p>Not getting enough users quickly enough is the number one reason why startups fail.<span id=\"tweetquote\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=http:\/\/bit.ly\/1pWk4nE&amp;via=unreasonable&amp;text=&quot;Not getting enough users quickly enough is the number one reason why startups fail&quot; @pfinette\"><i class=\"fa fa-twitter\"><\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Today, you can reach more people easier and cheaper than ever before. You have highly advanced yet incredibly affordable (and often even free) marketing and sales tools at your disposal.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, not getting enough users quickly enough is the number one reason why startups fail. Getting people to notice your product or service, having them try it out and then sticking with it is insanely hard\u2014particularly if you want to do this at scale.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of all the \u2018growth hacking\u2019 and \u2018getting traction\u2019 lessons you should learn, you need to be ultra-clear about the value proposition of your product. Start with asking, who is your customer? Not in a general sense\u2014be very specific. Then, why does your product or service matter to her? What is the real benefit? <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"right\"><p>You can build the most amazing gadget on the planet, but if nobody is using it, it\u2019s all for naught.<span id=\"tweetquote\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=http:\/\/bit.ly\/1pWk4nE&amp;via=unreasonable&amp;text=&quot;Even with the most amazing gadget on the planet, if nobody uses it it\u2019s all for naught&quot; @pfinette\"><i class=\"fa fa-twitter\"><\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why is it significantly better than the status quo? Where and when is the perfect moment for your customer to discover your product? How do you get your customer to not only love your product but also recommend it to her friends or colleagues? How can you make that insanely easy, fun and rewarding?<\/p>\n<p>There are so many questions you need to ask yourself and find the answers to. But remember this: You can build the most amazing gadget on the planet, but if nobody is using it, it\u2019s all for naught.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>A version of this post originally appeared on Pascal&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/theheretic.org\/breaking-through-the-noise.html\">blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post explores the most difficult thing to do for any startup\u2014and some of the right questions to help you overcome it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":29573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[476,1551,1553,1528],"tags":[32,2982,2981,690,1837,2983,2663,2688],"class_list":["post-29569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-marketing","category-metrics-and-evaluation","category-scaling","tag-failure","tag-gaining-users","tag-growth-hacking","tag-finette","tag-product","tag-singularity-university","tag-the-heretic","tag-users"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Most Difficult Thing For Any Startup<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post explores the most difficult thing to do for any startup\u2014and some of the right questions to help you overcome it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Difficult Thing For Any Startup\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post explores the most difficult thing to do for any startup\u2014and some of the right questions to help you overcome it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unreasonable\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-02T11:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2000\/04\/pascal.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Pascal Finette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/pfinette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Pascal Finette\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Pascal Finette\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/7366a9154d4679625f0369d071410492\"},\"headline\":\"The Most Difficult Thing For Any Startup\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-05-02T11:00:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/\"},\"wordCount\":321,\"commentCount\":4,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/most-difficult-thing-for-any-startup\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2000\/04\/pascal.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Failure\",\"gaining users\",\"growth hacking\",\"Pascal Finette\",\"product\",\"singularity university\",\"The Heretic\",\"users\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Article\",\"Marketing\",\"Metrics &amp; 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