Article · About 12 min read

How to Create Products People Want (Sales Safari)

Scott Hurff · O'Reilly (Scott Hurff) Free Intermediate

This is the concrete how-to for collecting problems on purpose. It walks through Amy Hoy's Sales Safari method, where you observe a group you understand where they already hang out online, in their own words, and harvest the pains they complain about repeatedly. It turns keep a running list of frustrations from a slogan into a repeatable practice.

  • Watch a group you know in the places they already gather
  • Record the pains and workarounds in their exact words
  • Patterns that repeat across many people point to real product ideas
Open on oreilly.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. I want to start a startup but I don't have an idea. Where do I even begin?
  2. How do I turn a trend I've noticed into an actual product idea I can build?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for... paulgraham.com Essay · ~20 min read How to Get Startup Ideas Paul Graham
  3. Video · ~25 min How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas Jared Friedman
  4. Video · ~50 min How to Evaluate Startup Ideas Kevin Hale, Y Combinator
  5. Entering an unfamiliar industry means you cannot see the walls and dead ends that veterans already know. Dixon explains that a... cdixon.org Essay · short read The Idea Maze Chris Dixon
  6. Lenny interviewed founders of Gong, Notion, Figma, Amplitude, Retool and more to trace where their idea actually came from. The... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About 15 min read How the Most Successful B2B Startups Came Up With Their Original Idea Lenny Rachitsky
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →