How to Find Your Customers Before You Launch (Building in Public Ep. 1)

So you have this idea that you know will solve a problem that has been bugging you for the longest time. If you're a business owner, you even have the product for it or have an idea and know how to create a prototype for it because there's so many tools out there that allows you to do that. But how do you even really start to do all of this? It's overwhelming. There's so many ways to start. Like, where do you even begin in the first place? So you don't know where to start. We don't know where to begin. And according to Founders Forum 2025, 42% of startups fail because the problem that they think they're trying to solve isn't actually a problem or it's actually not solving that problem. And 14% is that they don't have proper marketing. Another 14% is that they just didn't listen to their customer feedback while building this product. All of the 70% of the reasons why startups fail seem to be quite reasonable or at least solvable if you think about it. And the way to do that is just you have to have access to people. make sure that you're actually solving a problem that you're trying to create the product for right first off let's just assume a couple of things here i'm going to assume that you know your target market or your target customers target demographic people that you think will actually pay for this product you would be surprised how people actually don't know that but let's assume that for this time you do also for this time we can say that you might even have a prototype you don't need to build a sophisticated solution right at the moment that scales for thousands and millions of users you just need to build one to make sure that it actually works let's just assume those two things you've already done so we have a way to kind of say okay if those are done then where do we go but before we talk more about it my name is paula i'm a fractional product manager and a digital transformation consultant i basically specialize in helping startup founders business owners turn their ideas or products into something that either scales get more customers and get more revenue turn their ideas into prototypes and products make sure that we find the right people right customers test them analyze what we learn and figure out the right path for you to build building certain features for that product certain go-to-market strategies to make sure that you can actually scale or build your mvp and get out of that phase one build it so that you can start making revenue off of it or getting users, whatever your business goal is. So back to the topic here. How can business actually find the right target market before they actually run into these three problems? There is this new movement called build in public. This is not popular for a lot of people. and i totally understand why especially with how social media has become a lot more pervasive in 2010s that you have to think about how brands and businesses think about launching products nowadays what they do is they actually build the audience first before they launch something what that means for you is you would show them the behind the scenes of what you're building what your struggles are and how you're overcoming them And you're already interacting with the potential customers that would eventually pay for your products. You're talking to them with the problems, the top five solutions that's currently in the market that's not your product as well. You're essentially building this relationship with them before you're even ready to sell or hit the market. Now let's get into an example of this, right? This is Elle. She was really frustrated with the lack of good matcha places in Dublin. to go to TikTok and basically rant to people. Just people. And TikTok, I will talk in later videos, is one of the best platforms when it comes to talking to people. And basically, she just... said there's no good matcha places in dublin i would love for to have some more matcha places and she starts getting comments saying yeah i wish there was more too so there you can see that there's already a validation in the market that yeah there is a problem the magic that happened there is she found her audience without even really thinking about building a business or a product herself And because she was able to start with a problem and not even think about selling a product, it actually became a lot more organic. And she was able to find solutions and share that with her audience. She was able to go to Japan, figure out all these different farms that she might potentially source matcha from. She was able to learn things about matcha and share that with her audience. For example, she found out why Uji matcha is better than others. This sort of BTS or behind-the-scenes narrative. kind of touch a couple of psychological insights. First, the IKEA effect. Users give more value to things that they've kind of put effort in, things that they've participated or felt like they participated. Even just watching and providing attention to a video through a TikTok short, that's already providing attention, creating this sense of participation from the audience. That gave some sort of closeness. The second thing that's very related to that is vicarious ownership. Because the audience was able to see the behind the scenes from Elle's matcha journey and how she struggled with supplier delays, trying to figure out the right matcha for her place, and perfecting certain recipes and what to even put in the coffee shop. The people who watch her have psychologically adapted or adopted her journey as their own. almost making them feel as if they were insiders, as if they have ownership to her journey as well. Okay, but Paula, I'm not even building a coffee shop. What are you talking about? You know what? That is true. You are probably not. But the whole point of this is we take the fundamental approach and apply it to whatever you're building. If you're building a software or a digital app, for example, you're probably building that because of the reason. There's a story behind it. There's a problem that you're trying to solve because you have. Now you built the solution for it. So with that, you talk about the problem that you're trying to solve. She talked about not having good matcha in Dublin. Talk about it's been really tough to track my sleep. How do I track my sleep? Because I hate having wearables. Also, if you have a prototype, you can even show a glimpse of it because people are visual. And if you are willing to show them that, having that feedback is so crucial for you to be able to know what's working and what's not and iterating on that same prototype that you have. And at this point, you're actually having your own beta test before officially creating your own beta test. Also, now you've essentially created a waiting list for yourself. Don't worry, I hear a lot of you. There's a lot of blockers around this. For example, I don't want someone stealing my IP. I don't want someone stealing my idea. I'm already building the product. There's already so much things to do. Having to talk to people is already... adding a lot more work to something i'm already doing too much of or one of my favorites and something that i totally understand you if you have this problem is i don't want to show my face the camera makes me feel awkward it's so fake and i get you but these are all blockers that can be solved or provided a different perspective for so let's kind of break them down so for example i don't want people stealing my ideas i will say this much is unless What you're doing is super secretive, meaning if something leaks out, there would be a huge number of people who would be at risk. Usually these things are reserved for, you know, defense technology, biohazard solutions, or nuclear fission. Unless we're in that realm, your idea isn't that secretive. Or like government data, maybe don't talk about a lot of that. because those actually do require stealth mode and that's a whole entirely different topic if you're in that well i'll talk about that in another video but right now i'm assuming most of you are not building something from that perspective to be perfectly frank with you it's so easy to steal an idea now and it's so easy to create a prototype now that the moat or what you would consider your unique advantage isn't technology anymore you can argue it never really was because you can build such a great technology but people might not adapt it and a lot of people fall into that trap a lot of people do a lot of very very smart capable people fall into that trap and what i'm trying to tell you is that building in public it is basically your mode it is your unique advantage to start early and have a following because that's the people who are eventually going to support you by buying your product. It's not perfect yet. I don't want to show something that's not perfect. That's the whole point of beta testing. That's the whole point of building in an iterative sprint-like manner that's Scrum, Agile, whatever it is that you've heard in the tech sphere. That's the whole point is you show something that's not perfect. You fail fast. You learn from it and you iterate. This is the quickest and also dare i say almost free way for you to do that another one is i'm a solo founder i have a small team i don't have a dedicated time or effort to do this and this one i can definitely understand because you want to prioritize things in a way where you can build something that you really are proud of but you have to think about is it's already marketing you have to do this anyway so 10 of effort 20% effort isn't much. And you don't even have to show your face. In the next few videos, I'm actually going to show different ways of youth to build in public without really needing to show your face or being truly vulnerable. Although there are advantages to that, I understand that everybody is for that lifestyle. So we will look into different avenues for you to use. and also in terms of having no time or strategy to even start how to build this product that's why i've decided to create these videos for that in order for you to kind of understand different ways for you to do it or you can also hire someone like me to create those go-to-market strategies for you and make sure that we can actually tailor and customize ways for you to make sure that you're building correctly and finding the right people and creating this moat that we're talking about and, you know, get your business goal together. Either way, I really encourage you to think about building in public, especially if you have your own business. What you're really doing is exposing yourself and building that following so that you're not building a product that essentially will fail after so much effort. What you're doing when you're building in public is that you're learning about the problem. Are you actually solving the solution? You're learning how people actually talk about the problem. Getting that language, getting that jargon in your vocabulary to be able to talk to more people about it. Learn what resonates to people more than others. I'm not saying you're going to be a content creator. That's not the point at all. But it could be a nice side effect. You never know that might be something that would help you in the future. If you want to talk more about the specifics or anything, please feel free to comment below. I would love to. Reply to them and learn more about what you think. If you want to talk more in depth, please feel free to book time with me. We can talk more about what you need together. Okay, see you. Bye.

Do you have a great business idea but don't know where to start? Or are you worried about building a product that nobody wants?

In this first episode of the "Build in Public" Founder Series, we dive deep into why 70% of startups fail and how you can avoid becoming a statistic. The secret isn't better code or more funding—it's finding your audience before you launch.

I break down the "Building in Public" movement, the psychology behind why it works (The IKEA Effect), and how to apply it to your startup, whether you're opening a coffee shop or building a SaaS platform.

In this video, we cover: 
00:00 - The biggest problem founders face (Where to begin?) 
00:32 - Why 42% of startups fail (Real stats) 
02:08 Who am I? (Meet Paola, Fractional Product Manager)
03:10 - What is "Building in Public"? 
04:03 Case Study - How a matcha shop found customers with 0 budget
05:23 - The IKEA Effect & Vicarious Ownership 
06:35 - How to apply this to Software & Apps 
07:33 - Addressing the blockers: "What if someone steals my idea?" 
09:35 - The Perfectionism Trap: Why you need to launch imperfectly 
10:02 - Advice for Solo Founders with no time 
11:23 - Why Building in Public is your new competitive "Moat"

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