Ever thought of starting a business or building a brand, but you are scared of launching out? Technology has made it easy for anyone to startup and reach their target audience with little or no upfront capital. Below is an interview session carried out on HNG Internship - A remote internship sponsored by hotels.ng - NEO a software engineer answers major startup questions and challenges.


QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH NEO (Co-Founder HNG Internship)


About NEO
Neo Ighodaro is the former CTO of Hotels.ng and currently a senior software engineer in Germany. He is the Founder CreativityKills and cofounder HNG Internship. He is here to provide insight on completing a product, getting them live and commercializing them.

Question
I am from team Dragon Beast, I have two questions
1. How do you make sure everyone is aligned in your company, and all working towards the same goal?
2. My team has a remote job platform, Should we sell subscription for updates on available jobs, or make people pay for us to apply for them?

Answer
1. First, the company needs to have a simple and well laid out goal. Everything else should hinge on this goal. Aligning everyone can be impossible sometimes to rely on the one true source which is the company goal. Keeping everyone facing the one goal will make sure you retain creativity while being goal oriented.

Question
When you think of a product and the ideas are all in your head..what should you factor in before setting up the product?

Answer
A goal. This is one of the first few things I outline. One simple goal the product solves. Do this well and *fast* and get the product out. After this, you can use feedback to understand if it's a good idea of what you can improve or remove.

Question
In launching a product, you have certain assumptions about a market need and the value you are bringing. What is the best way to test those assumptions and achieve product-market fit without burning too much cash and time?

Answer
The best way to validate any idea go is by building an MVP. A true MVP. With this, you can measure interest and also get reasonable feedback. Before getting started you might also want to do light market research. In my experience, however, there is always a market for any idea you have. You just need to find it and check if it's big enough

Question
Hi @Neo what is the best way to sell a product-in-progress to your potential customers?

Answer
Lmao. Give them what they need from your product first. The dream you sold to them.

Question
how do you know when the timing for a product is right. I.e you know that the product you're building will be useful to users at that time so they'll actually want to pay for it?

Answer
Well, you can't really know this. But like I said in the previous question, having an MVP out there will answer most of your questions regarding the product and its viability for the market.

Question
So I have this great idea that I think will sell But I find it difficult to join its pieces together and come up with a working prototype. How should I go about building up this process at the beginning stage?

Answer
• Write.
• Take a pen and paper and write out the problem you're solving in one short sentence. Then write out the solution in another sentence.
• Write out the barest minimum you need to bring THAT solution to life.
• Work.