Lessons from Talking to a Prospect: Was Their Idea Doomed to Fail, or Was I Wrong?
We’ll look at a real-life example to show why I believe one startup is bound to fail and how it could have been avoided.
When writing content or articles, I’m still in the experimental phase – trying out different types of content to see what resonates most with people and provides them with genuine value.
At the same time, I focus on topics I’m knowledgeable about and enjoy.
I believe I will find this intersection, even though it’s not easy. My priority remains writing about things that truly interest me.
Another part of my work involves closing deals, which then serve as the foundation for building products for American startups.
One of the key skills I need is not only to close deals effectively but also to accurately diagnose the stage the product is in, identify risks, and subsequently propose how to approach its development.
Sometimes, I compare this to the work of a “product doctor” in an emergency room, trying to quickly figure out what’s going on and decide on the best course of action for the “patient.”
During each workshop with a prospect (potential client), I learn something new – whether it’s about better deal-closing techniques, more effective identification of product-building risks, or a deeper understanding of the weaknesses of American entrepreneurs or their ideas.
So, I decided to try writing articles about some of the interesting workshops I’ve been a part of, sharing the valuable lessons I’ve learned from each. And this short article will be about that as well.
⚠️ Disclaimer: I won’t include any names – to maintain privacy, I’ll only write about meetings that happened a long time ago, and I’ll slightly modify some details about the startups to preserve anonymity while keeping the core idea intact.
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Background
A founder approached us with an idea for an app aimed at improving safety and health measures at live events and music festivals. In other words, imagine having an app on your phone at a festival that allows you to call for help in an emergency with just one button press.
The founder came up with this idea after the tragic incident at Travis Scott’s famous festival, where several people lost their lives.
The way the founder arrived at this idea, as well as the concept itself, isn’t entirely bad – I’d rate it as average. I’ve heard better ideas, but also much weaker ones.
The founder revealed that he had quit his job, moved back home, and decided to launch this project. However, his previous experience consisted only of working as an intern at a law firm and as a Sales Planner at an advertising agency. These credentials didn’t strike me as sufficient – not just in the context of this specific domain but also for building something as complex as a startup.
That said, I always appreciate it when someone can prove me wrong. Let’s take a closer look at the risks I identified during the very first workshop.
🚩Red Flag Radar
In this section, we will examine all the red flags or risks I identified during the very first workshop that would need to be addressed if we were to move forward with a collaboration.
However, even after this initial workshop, I was about 80% sure that collaboration was unlikely to happen.
Founder Risk
The first and probably the most critical risk was the founders themselves. Based on their experience and the way they came up with the idea (discussed in the previous section), I had serious doubts and saw little chance of them successfully bringing the project to completion.
In Silicon Valley, there’s a saying that the best technological startups are built when the founders are a product manager and an engineer.
If you’re neither of these, then you need to compensate for this gap in another way – for instance, by having substantial resources, an extensive network, deep domain expertise, excelling in sales, or a track record of building successful businesses.
In short, every founder should have a unique, strong, unfair advantage.
And here, I didn’t see anything close to that.
Another issue was that the founder had only $20,000 available for the entire project, which they also planned to borrow from family. If they were capable of building most of it themselves or had a simple idea that could be quickly validated, this amount might not have been a deal-breaker.
However, as you’ll see from the other risks below, while the idea might have seemed simple at first glance, the domain they were entering was significantly more challenging.
In general, hiring an agency – such as the product agency I work for – isn’t a bad idea. But for that to work, you need experience in managing such agencies effectively, understanding how to collaborate with them, and, most importantly, having additional capital.
Hiring an agency with such a low budget is a massive mistake from the outset. Furthermore, it highlights that the founders still lack a clear understanding of what they’re doing.
Additionally, I consider it extremely risky to borrow money from family – unless your family or friends are financially secure and willing to invest in such projects without significant pressure for returns.
Feasibility Risk
When creating an app, many people think it’s enough to develop one type of app and then adapt it for various purposes. However, in this case, I had to explain to them that this definitely does not apply to their specific type of app.
I wouldn’t simply call these “apps,” but rather “customer journeys,” which to some extent function as standalone applications.
For example, for this specific project, you need to design three customer journeys that are extremely important for the success of the app:
User-Facing App
Event Organizer App – with different levels of access and permissions, and by the way, different types of organizers.
Internal Company Interface – where you, as the company, control or monitor everything.
Just for inspiration – here we also showed them at least the minimal customer journeys that need to be created:
Another issue was the accuracy of measurement or identifying a person. At festivals, where thousands of people are gathered in a crowd, it’s not enough to know approximately where a person is – that won’t be of much help. It is necessary to quickly and precisely determine where rescue units need to go.
Based on this insight, they later developed a wristband designed specifically for precise localization. However, this introduces a usability risk, which we will discuss later.
The biggest risk of this entire endeavor, however, remains the industry they want to enter.
Healthcare, Health Risks, and Emergency Response
The app should operate in areas like healthcare and delve even deeper into analyzing health risks and emergency response.
These are extremely complex fields, especially when it comes to regulations and the sensitivity to errors. For projects like this, you cannot follow Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook motto: “Move fast, break things,” because in this case, the motto could turn into “Move fast, might kill people later.”
Even if the app were not regulated and did not have to comply with all safety standards or certifications, it would still be perceived as untrustworthy. If, however, they decided to meet these requirements, we are talking about significant costs.
With these types of applications, there is very little room for error or experimentation in a real-world environment because a single major mistake could permanently bury the entire idea.
I recently had a conversation with a woman planning to launch a startup in healthcare. She is a partner in a venture capital (VC) fund and admitted right from the start that creating an MVP (minimum viable product) would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – she understands the game.
Thus, feasibility risk alone should be warning enough, but the more I delved into this idea, the worse the situation became. So now, let’s move on to usability risk.
Usability Risk
In today’s world, the growing problem is the sheer number of apps we need on our phones. Nowadays, we seemingly need an app for everything. So, if I’m attending a festival, I have to install the festival’s official app, sometimes apps for various vendors there, and now I’m supposed to install yet another app that I (hopefully) will never have to use?
And even if something did happen to me and I started collapsing, the first thing I’d have to do is unlock my phone, remember and find the app I just installed, and then perform the required action? All while hoping the GPS is accurate enough for them to locate me quickly?
They tried to address the accuracy issue with a larger wristband. In today’s world, when we already have fitness bands, smartwatches, and rings that track various functions, am I really supposed to wear yet another item?
Where would I store it? Who do I return it to? Won’t it waste time? What if I forget about it?
Or, in the case of a company targeting users focused on photos, appearances, and Instagram – am I supposed to wear a random wristband that doesn’t even match my outfit?
This started raising far more questions than answers for me, making it clear that real product usability research needed to be conducted in the field. You can probably already guess the issue here. That’s right – time and money.
I won’t even try to find answers to these questions here, but let’s move on to the last area where I identified the biggest risks: viability risk.
Viability Risk
One of my questions was: who will be the target audience? Will it be everyone? Will people actually use it? Or will it be limited to so-called high-risk groups? But again, that’s a small number.
And who will pay for it or cover the costs? Sponsors, individuals, or the festival itself? With such a small, primarily high-risk group – which is not exactly known for having deep pockets – how much would they have to pay to make it worthwhile? And don’t high-risk groups already have people looking after them because they require other types of assistance?
In my opinion, this shouldn’t be a standalone app but rather something integrated into various other systems. However, if it proved successful, how difficult would it be to copy? What would stop others from simply stealing and replicating the idea?
This is something that happens regularly.
In my view, it wouldn’t be too difficult.
If the way I approach things resonates — or if your product, idea, or strategy feels even slightly “off” — I might be able to help.
Let’s have a quick 20-minute call to find clarity together:
Conclusion
This is an example of the kind of work I do, which some people ask me about when they want to know what I specifically do. It’s also a demonstration of the questions, mental models, and exercises I go through in every workshop with a potential client. Based on this information, we then develop a proposal and outline a way to collaborate.
If you like this and would enjoy reading more similar articles, let me know. It helps me better understand what resonates most with different types of people.
- Peter