--- title: Make Something People Want description: Startup advice. Start by making something people want and the rest will follow. --- # Tech In Boston Blog ## [Make Something People Want](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/make-something-people-want) [fa icon="calendar"] Feb 21, 2015 12:21:11 PM / by [Dave Gerhardt](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/author/dave-gerhardt) ![](https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2318924860.jpg?width=35&name=file-2318924860.jpg) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Sam Altman from YC had a great post on startup advice this week.  You can read the [full article here](http://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice-briefly).  One little piece in particular stood out to me.  Sam said: *Make something people want.  You can screw up most other things if you get this right; if you don’t, nothing else will save you.* Two great local examples of this are [Litmus](http://litmus.com/) and [Codeship](https://codeship.com/).  Both companies started off doing something completely different, and built the early versions of their current products to help solve an actual problem in their world.  [Paul](https://twitter.com/unsalted) from Litmus needed a way to test emails across multiple email clients and web browsers.  [Mo](https://twitter.com/moritzplassnig) from Codeship needed a way to test and deploy apps in minutes, not hours.  There weren't good ways to do either of those things at the time, so they built them.  They validated their ideas internally, and then started rolling out to their networks of people dealing with the same problems.  Those guys didn't know a ton about building a business, but they found a real need for something and people who were willing to pay for their products. It seems obvious, but so many startups miss the mark here.  Once you have an idea for something, you just want to go.  It's easy to get caught up on that feature that you really want to build, how your website looks, and what your messaging is.  How many times have you heard some along these lines: - "Our product is killer.  Now we just need to ramp up sales and marketing and the customers will come -- we haven't even spent on marketing yet." Maybe the real reason no one is using your product isn't because you aren't spending on sales and marketing, but it's because you haven't made something people want. Topics: [Startups](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/startups) ![Dave Gerhardt](https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2318924860.jpg?width=100&height=100&name=file-2318924860.jpg) #### Written by [Dave Gerhardt](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/author/dave-gerhardt) [[fa icon="twitter-square"]](https://twitter.com/davegerhardt) ### Never miss a new blog post ### Posts by Topic - [Startups (7)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/startups) - [Hiring (3)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/hiring) - [Marketing (3)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/marketing) - [Ideas (2)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/ideas) - [Account Management (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/account-management) - [HubSpot (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/hubspot) - [Podcast (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/podcast) [see all](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/make-something-people-want#) ### Recent Posts #### More Links #### Contact Dave [fa icon="envelope"]  david.a.gerhardt at gmail Copyright 2014 | Designed with [fa icon="heart"] by [HubSpot](http://www.hubspot.com) [[fa icon="chevron-up"]](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/make-something-people-want#)