Build a Business, not an App

This is a well put way to encourage engineers to think in terms of the business or social context of their inventions. I usually find that trying to work through a business model canvas or lean canvas helps point out which parts of the founder's thought process are missing or buggy. Takes 15 minutes to do it. Usually it's the customer or value proposition at the earliest stage, channel or pricing once the product is tech I ally validated.

Actually, I'd say: Build an audience, not a business.

Playing devil's advocate, my advice would be: build an app first, then a business. It's already hard enough to build an app that gets traction. Do the small stuff first, then worry about the bigger challenge later. You don't have a business without a good product (even a "minor" one that does 1 only single thing well)

Related introspection: Engineers, built businesses, not apps: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;emphaticsolutions.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;build-businesses-not-apps.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;emphaticsolutions.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;build-businesses-not...</a>

Also correlated, don&#x27;t build an app&#x2F;business that is really just is just a feature of something else.<p>I&#x27;ve got many LinkedIn job requests that are trying to build a company around a feature of a different company. Instagram + ???.

A video version: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;137539070" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;137539070</a>

I have no idea how half my apps in 2010 got approved. it was really nice to see an app that i built in 1 week, bring in $1-3~ a day for a solid year. Then I spammed the crap out of that formula.

I disliked the part where the author plugged their own app lol. Eveything these days is an ad.

Easier said than done, but a rather valid trope that needs to be repeated every once and a while.