Tip 4: “Solve unarticulated needs

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Tip 2: “Practice failure”
Practice failing as often as you can. Try something, fail, see what went wrong, learn from it, find a solution, try again and fail again. No failures, no success. But above all: make sure you know where things went wrong. Apply extensive analyses, look at all the data you have available. With A/B testing you can discover where your mistakes are: compare the situation with and without a new adjustment. And practicing failing also gives you insights to build in ' fail safes ': a plan B to switch to if things do indeed go wrong when you are actually live.

Tip 3: “Listen”
Observe your users and talk to them. There can be a big difference between functional and usable: your users will be able to indicate this flawlessly. By listening to your users you will know where the problems are and where new opportunities lie. Harper Reed made extensive use of microtargeting and microlistening: very specifically and personally (but automated) addressing individual people.

For example, his system would directly send people an offer of a financial contribution via SMS, based on all the information they had about that person (online, statistics, social media), which they were most likely to be willing to pay. “Hi Martijn, Obama needs your help for re-election. Will you donate 56 dollars to make this happen? If yes, tunisia phone data reply: 56” Yes, with his startup Haper Reed had perfected 'swindling people out of money'. All for the good cause .

Benedict LehnertThree tips from a designer: Benedikt Lehnert
Benedikt ( @blehnert ) is CMO of 6Wunderkinder , the Berlin-based startup with a range of slick productivity apps. Design is a top priority at 6Wunderkinder, so Benedikt's tips focus on that:


Focus on problems or wishes of users in your startup and find an answer to that. This is obvious, but all too often startups have found an answer where they then still have to find the question.

Observe users, talk to them, deduce what questions and wishes they have, and start your product development there. But: don't make the mistake of only looking at verbalized wishes: often users can't explain what they need, or there is a bigger need behind a stated wish. So especially observe what is NOT said or written: which problem actually feeds the stated frustrations.