I’m building an MVP right now in silence because I don’t think I should showcase incomplete work

I never actually reach out to people to talk to them before or during building the MVP

People want to see a working product before they take you seriously

Does it sound familiar to you? Have you perhaps said (or thought) it yourself? Perhaps you've built apps in silence – and launched them – without knowing much about your prospective users?

I have done it too. Multiple times. With nothing to show for it.

By the time real customer feedback corrected my assumptions I'd already built too much in the wrong direction...

The market wasn't there and I should have validated harder before building

When we founded Accountec we talked to people before writing a single line of code. Actual live conversations.

We spent weeks talking to dozens of prospective customers. We practiced our pitch, we noted their feedback and we gained confidence that we could sell the product.

Our pitch deck? I had spent just a few hours building a dummy prototype. It showcased the app's three most important views – that's it!

When we knew we could sell the product, then we started building it.

While we built it we kept talking to these prospective customers. We kept taking their feedback. And after eight months we had a working MVP and paying customers.

We've never stopped listening to our customers, and we've grown every month for seven years.

If you truly want to create a software business, you must not be afraid to actually talk to people. The worst thing a prospective customer can tell you isn't "no" — it's nothing... because you never asked.