A guide for founders, investors, and innovators on building the right thing at the right time.
Timing is one of the most important factors determining the success or failure of a product. But how do you figure out if your timing is right? How do you describe your timing advantage?
To help you do just that, I wrote a book called Why Now: How Good Timing Makes Great Products.
Founders are obsessed with honing their skills in design, development, customer discovery, analytics, sales, presenting, and more.
But there’s one question you need to answer to give yourself an extra edge when you’re getting ready to raise capital or when you’re choosing where to put product development resources.
That’s the timing, or “why now,” question.
That is, why is this the right time for your specific product to exist? What trends impact the potential success of your product? If a similar product failed earlier, why do we expect it to be different this time? How should you tell that story to potential investors, team members, and partners?
I’m fascinated with questions like these.
For a while I quietly researched the topic and ran workshops as I learned. Then, I pulled it all together in a book called Why Now: How Good Timing Makes Great Products. If you’re interested in benefitting from timing analysis and learning lots of case studies and actionable frameworks, you’ll love the book.
Understanding timing and then choosing where to focus your limited resources pays off. Focus on products that are more likely to be supported by a convergence of trends, or what I called “Timing Drivers.” Understand how timing impacts your business model. Then learn to express those findings to potential investors, team members, and new hires. That and much more.
Apart from the book, for those of you who want to work on timing, here’s how.
Some testimonials from those I’ve helped with timing work…
Some groups where I’ve presented on Why Now
- Innov8rs Learning Labs
- The Changelog
- Stanford ASES Summit
- MIT alumni groups
- Global Innovation Institute
- The Human Risk Podcast
- Innovation Storytellers
- The Corporate Accelerator Forum
- Accelerators/incubators/universities