Essential reading for anyone thinking about starting a business. The idea is simple, but important: It's too easy for someone to tell you that they like your idea and would buy. So don't talk about your idea, at least not at first.

Start by finding out what their problems are and what they're doing to solve them. Are they paying for something? Have they tried to find a solution? If not, it's not that painful.

The book shows you how to have these conversations in a way where even your mom would tell you the truth.

In theory, this is perfect and while having an actual conversation with this idea in mind, I can do it. My only issue is trying to get introductions to potential customers. How do you ask someone to take time to talk to you without leading them at all? I think the answer is to only say that you want to talk about a problem and hope they agree it's a problem. Don't mention your solution. If they don't agree it's a problem, you've lost the opportunity to learn from them.

If you have a good answer to this, please let me know.

– originally written 2021-06-30