As an early-stage company, it’s understandable that you want to wait to market your product until it is “just right”.

However, if you wait until you have your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), then you are too late for marketing. Only exception is if you’ve raised a couple of million dollars (and want to spend it on buying market share).

Build your market early

Once you know when your product will be ready, start building your network at a minimum of three, and preferably six months before.

Your network is the people in your target market that will buy your product. A great way to build your network is to start with people you know (make a list!) or your connections on tools such as LinkedIn.

It is vitally important that you build a network of people who will have conversations with you about the pain/problem/challenge that your product or service will solve.

Build this network and your launch will be a lot more effective.

How to fix if you didn’t start early

If you didn’t build your market early and you have hit a plateau, don’t be too proud to bring in a skilled person to help you accelerate.

The other option is to increase people’s ability to have conversations by providing them with opportunities to interact with your product. You can do this through trials, demos, or some type of promotion such as joint promotions.

And one more thing, ditch the ‘stealth mode’. Nobody cares that you’re in stealth mode building a product. Be forthright and tell people what you’re doing.

In summary, start early by building your network of people who will have conversations with you about the pain/problem/challenge you are trying to solve. This will help set your market for a beta product, making you functional very quickly.