Valuable Data Sheet - a destination, an exploration
Recap
Last letter we discussed your Valuable Data Sheet can be a "value proposal" - this was for resonating with potential users and offering a solution. Here are the links to three data sheets I drew as part of the exercise.
AI Cartoons is an informational product (link)
BoomTodo is a todo list that automatically deletes inactive todos (link)
Social Trading is a stock trading app that rewards good habits behavior (link)
Data sheet as a destination
Today we will explore what happens when your thesis and information is so valuable that it stands alone - where users will visit your data sheet for information. Remember, writing is thinking.
Do you have a lot of domain knowledge? Do you have important insights or updates in your industry? You can explore these thoughts in public and establish credibility in this problem space and get valuable insight into the demand for this space.
We call this idea: Valuable Data Sheet as a destination.
Examples (website + newsletters):
TLDR is a newsletter that sends daily updates about the tech industry. Although all of the news he curation and convenience of this newsletter.
Scott's Cheap Flights is started as a list of handpicked flight deals (revenue $4M a year).
Stratechery - Insights about the tech industry for a subscription fee.
You might think "I don't want to build a newsletter". No matter what you are trying to build, you need the practice of articulating your view of the world and your insights about it. When you have a business you will typically share this in press releases, email updates or a blog.
This is "deep exploration" to find the core idea
There is a lot of technology in search of a customer, you know, in other words a lot of companies do things because it's technically possible, but in the end, nobody cares, nobody wants to buy them... I think the hard thing is to figure out what can be done... but also what people really want to do. - Steve Jobs
Do not be attached to your idea if the market does not care.
Right now you have two goals:
Goal 1 - Reality Thrashing Your Big Idea:
Look at your list of proposed features and remove all the fat from your original idea - removing feature BLOAT. Your idea started very specific and that comes with a lot of superfluous miniature feature ideas.
Leave the cave. Show your landing page to people and get sign ups. Talk to these potential users on phone, text, email, everywhere.
Goal 2 - Sharpening Your Velocity
"Toolboxing" - create a asset toolbox that you can use for every situation
You are an entrepreneur and a craftsman, not a student discovering new languages and theories. So optimize for development speed and quality ecosystems when choosing languages and tools.
If you are building a web application, there will be core functionality that you will need to build no matter what idea you have.
Back End - resources (db tables), querying/mutating resources (CRUD), exposing routes, sending emails, coordinating 3rd party APIs and deploying.
Front End - querying/mutating data, showing views for "List Views", "Detail Views", "Edit Views". Have prebuilt html, css, js files for these basic tasks.
Buy the best courses. Run through code. Build throwaway dummy apps and pick out these reusable patterns and components. Document your learnings + the code for yourself - this is your toolbox.
Your success is the speed at which you execute.