He's totally new the industry we're in, and has a lot of blind spots in terms of the industry and market. I've been in this space for about five years and have talked extensively with colleagues about their problems implementing the strategy here. So we already have the problem identified, but he thinks that we need more validation before we do any more development.
We've also currently conducted 2 live interviews where a team from [REDACTED] said they would love to use our product at $15/user but we'd have to implement SSO and get some compliance set up. My co-founder pretty much thinks that because we can't accept them as a customer right now, that it doesn't count as validation. He also thinks we need to validate pricing more but this is pretty much standard for OKR tools.
The other thing we can't agree that's validated in the integrations, and this is another thing that comes heavily from a blind spot I feel like for him because the typical needs for a product like this aren't going to fluctuate. Any DevRel and community team will need to integrate with a few main platforms:
- Github - Slack - Discord - Twitter - Zapier - Discourse
We have Slack pretty much finished, but I feel like if we just focus on Github and then add Zapier we can cover all the non-real time messaging apps by using a Zap.
I'm totally open to validating the product more, but I don't want to stop development if this is only because he lacks the overall context.
You have a single prospect saying, "We might use it if you add Z/Y/Z", and that's a typical soft rejection. If "get some compliance" means they asked for SOC2, that was a hard rejection. They felt that the problem being solved was not that important or urgent. Of course you think it's important because you are laser-focused on this one thing, but nothing is as important as you think when you are thinking about it.
You have an idea and a perspective based on your experience, but you need evidence that enough people share this perspective. If your strategy/direction is correct, and the pain points you identified are valid, you should be excited to find ten other prospects/clients eager to use your solution today because their hair is on fire, and this vomit bucket could fix that.
Your five years of experience could be illuminating your path, or it could be blinding you. Perhaps you believe your inexperienced cofounder is undervaluing your expertise by doubting your strategy, but that's your job - you should aim to prove your thesis wrong as quickly as possible.