We recently held an office hours event where an entrepreneur asked a common question I hear. It involves having an amazing product that people want, but being stuck because you don’t have the money to build it and investors won’t invest until people buy the product … but you can’t build the product they want without money. What to do?

‍

Validate “everyone really wants it”

When I hear that everyone wants it, my first thought is The Mom Test from customer discovery. Is that actually true or what you are hearing? There are also several ways to further test and prove authentic demand. What are people already doing/paying for today to try and solve their problem? Can you set up a landing page and have people sign up for more information or an early beta? Can you collect pre-orders and have some customers put a small (trivial) amount of money down?

‍

Do you have to actually build the product?

It depends on the nature of your product, but can you do things manually behind the scenes to make it work? Think of compiling a bunch of data/analysis and delivering back a report with the key insights versus building a software product in the very beginning. This allows you to better learn the right information, workflow, and features the customer needs. Can you offer paid consulting services so that you can deliver the right value, while not having to deliver a formal product at first?

‍

Find the right investors

The best type of funding is customer funding; can you get some from the sign-ups or consulting mentioned above? There are also smaller checks from friends & family, crowdfunding, angels, industry folks, etc. that could help jump start your business. Venture could be another option, but make sure you are targeting the right stage/thesis firm for what you are building and where you are at in terms of progress.

‍

Know there are many different ways to break the stalemate here. It may not be the perfect path you want, but there is likely a path that you can keep moving forward.