Is building an audience now more important than building the product?
Ten years ago, founders used to lock themselves in a room, build something great, and then tell the world.
Now, it feels like the script has flipped:
People are building in public from day 1
Products go viral before they even exist
Investors care about your followers almost as much as your traction
And here’s the thing:
I’ve noticed that audience-first founders are raising faster, getting more beta testers, and recruiting easier, even when their product is half-baked.
But I think there’s a danger: sometimes I see the “community” grows faster than the product matures, and you end up with hype that’s impossible to live up to.
So my question is, if you had to choose:
Would you focus on building an audience first or the product first?
Or is the only real answer… both?
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