People often jump right into all sorts of tactics when they start an online business. These are common things a new entrepreneur often does:
- Brainstorming branding ideas
- Starting a website
- Increasing followers on social media
- Creating a logo
There are so many tools for entrepreneurs nowadays that choosing the right platform already requires work.
These things are important, but they’re not what you want to focus on first.
Instead, focus on finding your first three paying customers. And preferably, these customers shouldn’t be close friends or family who only bought to support you.
Why three? Three is a good number because it’s not too many that you need to overthink things – which causes its own problems when you’re starting out. But it’s also not too little that you didn’t get enough real-world validation.
The keyword there is “paying customer.”
You can ask people, “will you buy X?” all the time. And they can tell you, “Yeah, sure, I’d buy that.” But you won’t know for sure until they actually do.
The best indicator of real-world demand is when people are willing to spend their hard-earned money on your product or service. When people are happy to pay you money for something; that’s how you know you’re doing something they truly want.
