Before I say anything regarding this topic I must clarify that the post only relates to startups without employees.
When I started my previous startup, Spinly, we planned a whole lot of things. We planned and planned. We had everything planned out. Three months went by and we were ready to start developing. The only problem was, the motivation had been lost. We had the mockups planned, functionality, everything! After barely developing the product we didn’t have the product we planned on, we had some piece of crap. All because we planned on so many aspects(including a Business plan). One thing is that it drives motivation DOWN. I know this from personal experience, I’m sure you guys have had similar experiences. You plan on having 100 users, unfortunately you only get 10. Your motivation just starts sinking till it crosses the point where you don’t really wanna work a lot(on the product).
I’ve realized that you simply can’t plan on how much users you will have or how much money you’ll have from the product or how the product will look like(you just have to jump right in). When we were working on BizTeen we were told by a lot of people that you must do market research, that you must do mockups in Balsamiq(which I think is an abstraction of how mockups should be done).
We did balsamiq mockups but the thing was the product turned out totally different. Why? Because balsamiq gives you all these neat features that you think would go good and everything, yet when you start designing the actual product you come to the thought that YOU DONT NEED ALL THOSE FEATURES. Let your users tell you what you NEED!
When we did the market research we figure there were 400million users that could use our product – BizTeen. Market research is bullshit. You can’t expect everyone to visit your site. Just like Apple, they dont expect PC users, but…a lot of their users are former PC users(I can guarantee you that they didn’t plan that!).
After the past experiences I don’t plan anything. I don’t even do market research. Trust me, if you find it useful, I GUARANTEE SOMEONE ELSE WILL TOO! We just jump in and start developing, after doing some sorta brainstorming(what features we should add, etc). We ask a couple of “target users” what they think and then based on the majority of decisions we decide whether we’re gonna add that feature or not. Now I’m not pushing you into not doing any sort of planning, you should, but not much planning. You should do the planning that’ll affect your current product(like “We think we should add a update your status bar”), don’t do the planing that contains a 3rd factor(something that you don’t have a good “grip” on). Don’t plan on the conditions when you have X visitors, rather figure out how to solve the problems that are CURRENTLY facing you.
I hope you find this apealing, make use of the mistakes other people made cause TRUST ME that’ll save you a bunch of time!
The blog of Emil Hajric. 
Market research is not totally bullshit. It really depends on what you’re doing. The more innovative it is the less reliable any kind of market research will be though.
I definitely agree that it’s better to just get something out there, because the best kind of market research is actual analyzing your own users and doing testing with them in the same room.
Once you cross some threshold of having created a useful product then you need to get serious about marketing, because only the rarest of the rare product can sell itself and reach a virality coefficient that doesn’t require traditional marketing.
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I agree. I have had a similar experience with some of my past attempts. It not only excessive planning that demotivates but excessive market research that makes you realize how similar and competing applications already exist. Then we start to think what’s the point if I don’t offer something different – and that leads to new planning/ addition of feature etc. that gives your idea a 180 deg turn around and kills it.
What we fail to realize is the if we have 30-40% of the product ready, even if it imitates an existing product, there is still space for 2 or 3 or even 50 similar ideas – but more importantly with some code already existing, one can iteratively add or change with little inertia compared with starting afresh.
I’m really glad that you agree, Prateek.
This is an interesting take. There’s always some value in planning, though as you describe it (3 months? whew!), it can bring things to a grinding halt.
When we went out to raise money, instead of a business plan and extensive market research, I put the deck together that was meant to answer the basic questions I knew any angel investor would want. That turned out to be all the “planning” we needed.
I have open sourced that deck, more because I have never seen anyone post decks for companies that got funding. You can find it and my analysis of what we did right and wrong over at my community book project, The Failing Point.
http://www.thefailingpoint.com/2009/08/gettingstarted/write-a-long-business-plan/
I like you’re approach with the investors, although there are obviously some things that you have to have planned out, written – for certain people.You need some sorta business plan but that’s more for the investors etc.
IF you ask me, I would’ve done the same as you in your situation.
I think you make some good points, and your business idea is a great idea. Find your niche and market to the right people and I can see it working…wish we had resources like you are suggesting when I was a kid.
As far as market research…it has value, but over thinking and over analyzing seems to be a common mistake, and one that I have made. Putting too much into the product or in a business plan can bore an investor, and in today’s world economy there are tens of thousands of potential business people with the next, best idea. I look forward to seeing the finished product…good luck!