Start Small, Stay Small Quotes

“The genius of niches is they are too small for large competitors, allowing a nimble entrepreneur the breathing room to focus on an underserved audience. Once you’ve succeeded in that niche, you can leverage your success to establish credibility for your business to move into larger markets.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“I know that this sounds sacrilegious to a software developer, but unless you’re marketing to software developers, your order of importance is market, marketing, aesthetic, function.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“The up-front fear is a big indicator that you’re going to grow as a person if you proceed through it. And, frankly, the terror wears off pretty quickly.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“You have to get over your desire to write the software yourself.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“As a self-funded startup you want a market that is already looking for your product, even if it doesn’t exist.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Market comes first, marketing second, aesthetic third, and functionality a distant fourth”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“unless you’re marketing to software developers, your order of importance is market, marketing, aesthetic, function.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“When reading blogs or books or listening to podcasts or audio books, take action notes.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“If you value your time at $100/hour it makes certain decisions, such as outsourcing work to a $6/hour virtual assistant, a no-brainer.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“It’s a common belief that building a good product is enough to succeed. It’s not.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“This is by far the most common mistake I’ve seen – building something no one wants.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“building something no one wants is the most common source of failure for entrepreneurs.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Product Last. Marketing First.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Millions of people in this world can build software. A fractional subset of those can build software and convince people to buy it.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Convincing someone to give you their email address is much easier than convincing them to buy your product. Once you have an email address, you have the chance to begin building a relationship with the customer, as well as to gently remind them, through relevant emails, to return to your website.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Exercise A “warm” niche is a niche where you have some kind of association. Perhaps you worked for a credit card company for a few years, your wife is a lawyer, you collect comic books, or your brother is a plumber. Each of these would be considered a warm niche, and introducing a product into this niche will be much easier than choosing a completely unknown market. Remember, you stand a better chance when you know who you’re selling to. Make two columns on a piece of paper. In the header of the left column write “Person” and in the right one write “Hobby or Work Experience.” Now for each row write the name of someone you know, including yourself, friends, relatives or colleagues, and write their work experience or hobby in the right column.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“A study at Dominican University3 revealed that the following 3 factors substantially increased someone’s chance of following through on their goals: 1. Written Goals – “Those who wrote their goals accomplished significantly more than those who did not write their goals.” 2. Public Commitment – “…those who sent their commitments to a friend accomplished significantly more than those who wrote action commitments or did not write their goals.” 3. Accountability – “…those who sent weekly progress reports to their friend accomplished significantly more than those who had unwritten goals…”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“If you’re playing with your kids and working on your iPhone you’re not really working or playing – you’re doing both poorly.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Either way, you’d have a really good shot at making something that they can’t live without simply because of your intimate knowledge of their interests. And odds are, since your product would be so laser focused to their interests, it wouldn’t already exist.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“The lesson here is that the narrower you can make your product while still maintaining a large enough market, the more profit you will generate. It’s that simple – if you can find a small group of people and make them amazingly happy, you will make money.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

“Here’s an exercise: Pick one person you know well…your spouse, your brother, your sister, a parent, etc. How hard would it be to design a product that you’re sure this person would use…not very hard, right? That’s because you know so much about the intimate details of their life.”
― Rob Walling, Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup