Raffy Banks

Rarely recommended books that made me a better Product Manager: #productmanagement #prodmgmt #books #BookRecommendations

Want a killer startup idea? Look for where great products fall short. Blackmagic and Halide exist because default camera apps didn’t go far enough. Pay attention to what aggravates you, or how you’ve solved it. There’s probably a killer idea hiding in that frustration.

Originality kills more startups than competition. Find something that annoys you in an existing product. What are its shortcomings? Would fixing it make your life 10X better? If so, see if it does the same for others.

Why haven’t you started? Whatever the reason, you’re wrong. It’s just fear disguised as logic. Clarity and confidence come after you start. So just start. #Startups #Bootstrapped

Second time around, I knew better. I tuned out the noise and focused on our customers. That shift led to millions in revenue and a great life. Get good at spotting signal vs. noise. It takes time, but once you do, everything changes.

During Web 2.0, I launched a web-based CRM. Getting users was surprisingly easy. It was the land grab era of low supply, high demand. If you were early, you got traction. But the dip was real. Things started to tapper off. I got nervous. Fear set in. I pulled the plug.

Biggest mistake I made with my first business was believing I had to do everything myself. Had I realized sooner that customer acquisition and scaling the business should have taken up 80% of my time I would have saved years of agony.

Most failed startups didn’t run out of money. They ran out of clarity. Clarity does not come from obsessing over how you’ll deliver value. It comes from obsessing over what value is actually worth delivering.

The AI app you’re building likely has a direct competitor. Everything that can be made will be made. That doesn’t mean you should pivot. Focus on gathering insights to make better decisions. Most direct competitors will be gone in a couple of years.

Apple didn’t sell an MP3 player. They sold 1,000 songs in your pocket. What’s your version of that?

Your AI app is NOT a wrapper. It’s an unbundling of ChatGPT, Claude, etc. Generic AI needs to be everything to everyone, and ends up solving nothing for anyone. Own one thing for one group. That’s where generic AI dies and you win. #AI #Startups #Bootstrapped

I use to think that I needed better ideas. Better product ideas. Better feature ideas. Better business ideas. What I really needed was a better understanding of customers and their motivations and desires.

Something I learned early on is that you just have to get your ideas/product out into the world as soon as possible. You can't research your way out of a problem. The only people who know whether your idea/product is any good or not are potential customers.

You have a great startup idea but then discover a near identical competitor. Don’t pivot out of fear. There’s always competition when demand is high. Double down on understanding customers better than anyone. That’s the only game that consistently wins.

Stop obsessing over how you’ll build it. Start obsessing over what’s worth building. Code is cheap. Demand is everything. Find what people are desperate to buy. Then figure out how to deliver it.

Play the long game. Don’t burn bridges. Be genuinely helpful.

There’s no such thing as a lost deal. A client got sticker shock and decided to build the solution themselves. I didn’t try to stop or warn them. I even gave advice when they asked. A year later: “That was the dumbest decision we’ve made. We’re ready to sign up.”

Treat your startup like a customer-driven experiment machine, not a “build it and they will come” bet. The fundamentals don’t change. Human behavior doesn’t change.

2005: “It’s just a CRUD app.” 2025: “It’s just an AI wrapper.”

How much do your customers value their time? Many customers would drive an extra 15 minutes out of their way to save $50 off a TV. However, would they do the same for $50 off a $500,000 mortgage? $15 = $15 15 min = 15 min The value of a product changes everything.

Your AI app is NOT a wrapper. It’s an unbundling of ChatGPT, Claude, etc. Generic AI falls apart in real-world workflows. It skips the steps users actually take. Find what still gets done manually. That’s where generic AI dies and you win. #AI #Startups #Bootstrapped