Antti Pasila

The rule of thumb is, don’t build a product, solve a problem. And with problem, I mean a real problem, one that people would be willing to pay for. Blockchain is a great example - most new blockchain projects boast with transaction speed and how cheap it is to transact. But these aren’t really fundamental problems. The problem is that there are too few real use cases, not the cost or slowness. Gather as much customer/user feedback as early as possible. Join FB groups, cold email potential clients or go to a trade show relevant to your product and ask questions. The better you know your industry’s pain points and what users want the more likely you are to succeed.

Less is more! Solve on pain point and do it well and only after that grow the offering. If you have too many bells and whistles you won’t even know what’s working and what isn’t with your product. Instagram is a great example of this. Early days you could do a hundred things on it and it was confusing. The team saw this and cleaned it up and user numbers started soaring.

Many billion dollar companies have been built by mocking up the product in Excel or PowerPoint and getting feedback from potential customers without writing one line of code. To understand if your product has demand, create a landing page with a buy button (or other clear CTA) and run Facebook/Linkedin ads for it. Test a few creatives and see if people would actually press the buy button. Getting people to your site is one thing but them express purchase intent gives you great insights. Getting feedback from users as early as possible minimizes your risk of building something customers aren’t willing to pay for - and that’s the key to a great business.

In my early entrepreneurial days, I'd often lie awake, overwhelmed by numerous tasks and ideas. To combat this, I developed an effective system: Identify: Recognizing the specific cause of stress is crucial - do that first. Evaluate and Act: Once pinpointed, determine if there's an immediate solution. If there is, jump up from bed and tackle it or at least schedule a time to address it. Otherwise, set it aside - it's beyond your control so there's nothing you can do about it. This mental evaluation and decision making helps me every time and I haven't lost sleep many times, even during the toughest rollercoasters.

As a founder, I'm always impressed with people who approach me with ideas to solve problems we might be battling with - reaching out to the right audience, ways to scale the business or save on costs. It doesn't even matter if these aren't relevant to us but shows that they have dug a bit deeper than the rest. One of the most important factors of success for any employee is genuine interest in the industry the company operates in.

1. Understand your industry: You need to know who the movers and shakers in your industry are. Follow them on social media and check what events they attend - now you know which events are the important ones. 2. Invest in attending these: Even if you don't know a single person attending, go to the top events and get to know people. Be open about the fact that you are new to the industry and you'll see how much people love introducing you to their network. Work your way into private events and climb the ladder as fast as possible. 3. Follow up: Once you are back home, remember to follow up with the people you met, even if you have nothing else to say than "was great to meet you". Most people forget to do this - you shouldn't!