How to Productize Your Customer's First Step

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• Using the Lindy Effect to Pick Startup Problems

Why This Episode Exists + Nerdy Stuff Not In The Pod 💡

One of my favorite episodes of all-time.

The idea of a “wedge” for startups is important, but sometimes tough to apply. Some businesses don’t have a natural wedge, and sometimes it feels like you’re building one product in the hopes of getting people hooked so that you can build another.

Productizing the first step is a framing that often helps founders navigate this. The first step leads directly into the core business, and, often, is good enough to scale on its own.

Here are a few super nerdy things that didn’t make it to the core ep:

• 🧠 The Psychology of Dam-Breaking: There's interesting behavioral science behind why focusing on one "dam" works - it triggers what psychologists call the "progress-triggered happiness loop." When customers see quick progress on one specific problem, they experience a dopamine hit that makes them more likely to tackle bigger changes later. This is why the family standup worked better than a full OS approach.

• 🎯 Kahneman's "Peak-End Rule" has implications for first product design: people judge experiences primarily by their peak moment and ending, largely discounting duration. This suggests founders might be better off creating one memorable "wow" moment rather than trying to optimize every touchpoint. We couldn’t squeeze this in anywhere, but highlighting a moment for that productized first step will make the product stickier and more shareable.

• 🧠 Construal Level Theory (CLT) might explain why many founders struggle with initial positioning when they’re picturing a massive, fully-featured product (and try to build it). People think about far-future events abstractly but near-term ones concretely. This creates a natural mismatch between how founders envision their product (abstract/future) and how customers evaluate it (concrete/now).

And that’ll do it 🤓 

Have a great week!

Pod References

• Tacklebox Workshops

Timestamps
00:30 The Thanksgiving Startup Idea - The Family Operating System
05:24 Smooth Jazz, with an Offer
06:06 Productize the First Step
09:16 Theory + Process
11:30 Good Customers and Good Dams
13:30 A Writing Startup
17:02 The First Step for the Family Operating System

Transcript - Feel Free to Read it Like a Long-form Article:

Today, we’ll start with the only Thanksgiving-related startup idea I’ve ever been pitched.

And then, we’ll figure out what your first product needs to be. The thing that’ll actually convert customers and get them to pay and solve their problems and help you build momentum.

This might seem like it should be varied - if you’re building a meat thermometer vs a new email service for freelancers vs an ebike for suburban folks that has a storage compartment for groceries the way you think about your first product should be different, right?

After helping 450 or 500 startups or whatever number we’re up to now, I can pretty confidently say the answer is … nah.

The first product looks the same. Or, at least rhymes. Because all successful initial products do one very hard thing - they productize their customer’s first step.

We’ll get to that today.

But first, the Thanksgiving story.

The email hit my inbox at 3:26am last year, technically the day after Thanksgiving but I’d bet dollars to donuts the person writing it hadn’t slept yet.

The subject said “time sensitive startup idea” with three exclamation points, and the first sentence read “I have an idea and it simply cannot wait until morning. I think it’s right for Tacklebox and I think it’s going to change my life.” dot dot dot “and yours.”

Man I love a good 3am idea email.

By the way, I asked the person who wrote this email if I could share it and they were more than happy to let me. They aren’t working on the idea anymore and would love for someone else to build it.

After the intro, the email transitioned into a pitch.

Quote.

My idea is called the Family Operating System.

Today, - thanksgiving, in parenthesis - was a disaster.

We had my family and my in-laws over, and there were some cousins as well. In the end, 16 people were at the dinner table.

First, everyone got their wires crossed on what to bring. We ended up with three mashed potatoes and no gravy. Do you have any idea how bad turkey is without gravy? For dessert we had two apple pies and a million store-bought cookies, but no pumpkin pie or pecan pie, which are my kids absolute favorites. We didn’t make them because my cousin said he would but then they were in a rush and just picked up cookies on the way.

Then, during dinner, the conversation immediately went to politics. Everyone knows people in the family have different politics and that bringing it up was probably the only thing that would ruin the dinner. And it did. Shouting, name calling, and half of my in-laws ended up leaving before dessert.

A few line breaks, then in all caps, DISASTER with that orange mad face emoji.

So, the email went on, I had an idea - the Thanksgiving Survival Guide. A simple document that could be easily shared that made sure everyone knew what everyone else was bringing, when they’d arrive, and where they were staying. There could be topics to avoid and activities to do and a space for everyone to write what they were most excited for so nothing important got missed.

From a business perspective, we could have recipes and games and other suggested items that made us affiliate revenue.

The Thanksgiving Survival Guide would make things 100x better. I’m a product manager by day, and this sort of document is table stakes for a product release or even an important meeting. But outside of work we never use the stuff we rely on inside of work.

So, around midnight I started drafting out the Thanksgiving Survival Guide on Canva. And then it hit me.

<dramatic 4 or 5 line break>

This idea was way bigger than I’d first thought.

Families are businesses, right? A team of people trying to reach a common goal- to build a product - the family - that works. The KPIs are things like the kids homework and grades and sports and the parents jobs and relationship. Yet, no one manages this like a business with metrics that can be improved and goals you’re looking to reach. It’s all just haphazard. We run around like chickens with our heads cut off and then get mad when the family doesn’t operate the way we want it to.

We’d never expect a business to just work, so why do we expect a family to?

Families need an operating system.

And that’s what I’m going to build. An operating system for a family. A SaaS product that makes a families’ trains run on time. Kids will get into great colleges, parents will have a strong relationship, and I’ll have a recurring revenue software tool.

That’s why I couldn’t wait until the morning. I’m going to fix families.”

And the email ended. No name or signoff. What flourish! What pagentry. I was.. kinda sold.

What do you think?

A family operating system?

It’s - maybe - not a terrible idea? maybe? But… where do you start?

Today, we’ll talk about productizing the first step and how it’ll make your unmanageable startup manageable.

And we’ll do it… after… an offer. Which we’ll tell you, over..a little smoooooth jazz.

Hey!

We’ve got a few slots opening up for Tacklebox where we help people turn ideas into startups, as a few of our founders have now outgrown the core program as their businesses accelerate.

So, if you’ve got an idea you’ve been sitting on and you want to turn it into a startup, let’s do it. And to sweeten it a bit more and kick you in the butt, if you apply in the next 2 weeks and get accepted you’ll get 50% off the first month. It’s a great way to take the first real steps on your idea and see if it’s worthwhile. Just head to gettacklebox.com and apply with what you’re working on and put code “HOLIDAY” in the application when it asks for the referral code.

If you’re interested but want more info, head to gettacklebox.com and scroll down to the where it says apply, and right below is a contact us button. We’ll hop on a call and see if it’s a fit.

We’ve probably got room for 3-4 startups, so if you’re interested, get on it.

Back to it.

Productize the First Step

We’ll get back to the Family Operating System shortly.

But first, I want to talk about going from an idea that you’ve got that you think people want to an actual product. It’s a jump most entrepreneurs never actually get to. It’s hard, but most founders make it 100x harder on themselves by not doing it in a smart way.

And, if you’re looking for the VC or angel lifeline… that’s going to be a pretty tough needle to thread pre-product over the next 12 -18 months. Or longer.

VCs do have a ton of dry powder - theres a report that says venture funds are currently sitting on 290 billion dollars of capital they’re waiting to deploy - but it’s unlikely much of that is going to go to people who are pre-product, which is a bunch of people who listen to this podcast. VCs will always be incentivized to see who makes it through the early gauntlet of idea-stage mistakes before investing. They’re incentivized to wait.

The more realistic way most businesses get their first product is through savings from the entrepreneur - bootstrapping - or someone they know kicking in 5 10 15 25 or a hundred thousand dollars - friends and family funding. But, anecdotally, the friends and family type of startup capital is drying up, too, and, for lots of founders, this wasn’t ever an option in the first place.

Your highest likelihood path is building a business that can make money immediately, allowing you to transition from one thing that makes money - your job - to another thing that makes money - your startup - with little or no gap. The way to do that is to solve a problem so painful and urgent people will pay you for it immediately, no matter what state your business is in - the bleeding neck problems we’ve talked about. Problems that domain experts - people with specific knowledge of their customer - can find.

This will give you money which will give you time to figure out how your business can scale. And, give you some choices as to the type of business you’d actually like to run.

The problem here is that this is rarely the way entrepreneurs think when they’re starting a business.

They think about startups the way our thanksgiving friend thinks about them. As big, sweeping, massive changes in peoples lives. As big products that’ll cover lots of customers and lots of use cases.

But big changes - like making a family go from not having an operating system to having a thing they pay for monthly that is critical to their lives - take time and trust and iteration. Things that are hard for entrepreneurs that don’t have funding.

This is where the founder chicken an egg comes from - I need money to build my thing, I need my thing to raise money. But, if you do it right, that scenario never comes up.

If you identify and productize the first step, the first hurdle your customer hits, the big blocker - you can monetize it and move forward.

A tough earned founder skill is what I call the zoom dial. To be motivated by a huge vision but disciplined to zoom in on the small, focused tactics that’ll get you the momentum that’ll get you to the big thing later. Pitch the big thing - to investors and yourself - build the small thing.

Productizing the first step is path. It’s your secret weapon to actually, practically building a startup.

So let’s get to it.

Theory and Process

We touched briefly on the idea of productizing the first step a few weeks back when we talked about wedges, and a bunch of people reached out asking for more on the topic. It’s one of the more powerful ideas we’ve worked on at Tacklebox.

It’s pretty straightforward.

There are three steps.

1. Identify the customer you’d like to focus on to start

2. Map out their current process for solving the problem you’ll solve for them

3. Pick the first painful hurdle that’s got a clear success outcome and build a product or service that solves it

At Tacklebox, we tackle these three steps through the river and dams mental model.

Your customer is on the river, cruising towards some goal that’s at the end of the river. In their way are dams. Things they have to break through, things that hold them back from their ultimate goal or end state.

Most entrepreneurs try to break down all the dams at once, right at the beginning. They think that’s what a product does.

That would be building out a full operating system for families day one. They think that’s innovation, but it’s not. Innovation, at the start, is playing inside the boundaries of your customer’s existing life. Coaxing a change out of people that aren’t going to move to far out of their normal behavior. That’s what makes it so challenging.

Customers will stay irrational far longer than you’ll stay solvent and customers will not change their behavior for you. So, you need to meet them in their irrational river. This means you need to know enough about them to know their river and their dams like the back of your hand.

The customer owns their problem and their experience. You have no influence over it.

Then, we pick a dam at the top of the river that’s stopping the customer dead. And we focus all of our energy on that moment. We learn everything about it - how the customer approaches it, how they feel, why they think they can’t get past it - and we help them break through it and continue moving on down the river.

And again, that dam is something they identify, not us.

Eventually, we productize it. We make breaking that dam into value we can deliver and sell.

This brings up two great questions.

What’s the profile of a customer worth choosing and a dam worth breaking?

First, the customer.

We can only work with customers that are aware of the problem and are already trying to solve it. If they aren’t already in the river trying to break through the dams, they’re too much work. We won’t last long enough to convince them.

Second, we want customers that will talk to other customers once we solve this specific problem for them. There should be an obvious soundbite that travels.

And third, this customer should be influential. Meaning that once we break down a damn for them, other people will see them cruising down the river and wonder how they did it and their behavior will be changed by the answer.

These customers will do our marketing for us simply by being successful.

Now, what are the characteristics of a good first step?

There are two we focus on.

First, there needs to be a clear, measurable outcome to breaking down the barrier. There needs to be serious progress down the river customers can talk about.

And second, you’ve got to know something unique about it. You need specific knowledge, or you need to gain specific knowledge. To have a unique perspective on solving it.

Ok - to recap, because we’re about to put this puppy into action, we productize the first step so that we can get momentum and get paying customers immediately, which will allow us to actually operate sustainably for a bit and not rely on outside help.

This requires us to

a) Know who a great initial customer would be - one that knows they have a problem, is trying to solve it already, talks to other people who have the problem about the problem, and are influential to other cohorts of people.

and b) identify their first, most painful blocker and solve it for them.

If we nail both of these things, we will have a business on our hands. We’ll have options and knowledge and a real shot.

And, as we’ll talk about in a second, you put on blinders that’ll allow you to make an incredible product.

Here’s a super simple example.

A friend of mine is a brilliant writer. He’s written movie scripts, written for big time shows on HBO and Netflix, and published 10 novels. In his spare time teaches writing to people who aren’t yet professional writers but want to be.

He likes it, and wants to make it a business. He wants to build out a full online program to teach these people how to find their voice and write.

He pitched it to me - it’s a full on product with a bunch of modules he’d record teaching people how to write, from idea to dialog to pitching to agents.

The product also had community and accountability. There were weekly prompts that people would use for inspiration and post their writing to a discord where others could respond. Everyone would also have an accountability buddy who they met each week for 45 minutes.

I told him that the solution was huge, but he said to be successful writers they’d need all of it. The lessons, the community, the practice, the feedback.

He was breaking down so, so many dams.

In a vaccuum, the idea might seem interesting.

But, in light of what we just talked about, it’s just… massive. It doesn’t fit at all into the river and dams model, it’s not meeting people where they already are - there’s way too much cognitive overhead for customers - and it’d take enormous investment to get going. He pitched it a ton, tried to build parts of it, and got absolutely nowhere.

We did a thought exercise of how he might productize the first step, and, like most people we do this exercise with, he… didn’t know what the first step was for his customers.

Or, more accurately, they all had different first steps. People who’d never written before needed to start writing or an accountability buddy or prompts. People who wrote a lot but wanted a book deal needed an agent or to learn how to self publish. There were a lot of first steps.

So, he started doing conversations with customers, looking for a good dam he had specific knowledge on. And, he found one.

It turns out, there are lots of journalists who want to write novels. And, lots of them have ideas about those novels. They’ve often pitched these ideas to agents and publishers and gotten nowhere.

What’s their next step, he’d ask? And they’d mumble something about maybe self publishing. But what the hell did that entail? Did they just get like … a freelance editor? How did they know if people cared about their book? How did they book podcasts and things? What were they supposed to do?

My friend has self published 8 books. He learned how to do it quite well. He even went to publishers then went back to self publishing because he made more money that way.

So, that was the first dam. Putting some parameters around self publishing.

A boot camp. 2 weeks. On everything you needed to know about self-publishing, and a full on 6 month plan and checklist to self-publish your book.

And it took off. And grew fast, because the boot camp required a bunch of self promotion and these were journalists with 10s of thousands of social media followers.

Focusing on the first Dam forces you to really know your customer. To make something tight they’d pay for. To really solve a problem for them.

It lets you get in the details. Now, my friend watches people navigate this first dam and can choose what dam to tackle next. If any. He can choose how to further productize the first step - to build a funnel to find customers and convert them, to make libraries of content so it’s less reliant on him.

But there’s momentum.

Back to turkeys.

The Family Operating System

When we went through the productize the first step flow with our Family Operating System founder it became obvious quickly how unlikely a giant operating system for families was.

We needed to pick a river and pick a dam. A customer and a specific problem.

This person did some interviews with families and started realizing - not surprisingly - how different they all were. There were so many problems and discrepancies around logistics and relationships and goals.

Choosing the customer they’d focus on, the river and the dam they’d attack - took a bunch of interviews and conversations but eventually landed somewhere pretty interesting.

The customer was a family with three or more kids, all in middle school or high school. The core problem for the parents was the feeling that the kids were drifting - they didn’t have the insight into their lives they’d once enjoyed. They wanted to help, but didn’t really know how. The river they were on was getting them to a stronger, tighter family, and the first step was communication. Really, just knowing what the heck was going on in their lives.

As for the productized first step, the outcome was more communication and the unique thing the founder brought to the scenario came from their PM days. Specifically, they’d run daily standups with product and engineering teams, often remotely, for a decade. They’d managed teams that were communicating poorly. They’d managed teams that spoke different languages. Getting everyone on the same page fast was this founder’s super power.

So, their product was a daily, family standup.

Each morning, every kid and parent gave an update on their day. They answered three questions - what are you excited about, what are you dreading, and what are your blockers - what’s keeping you from doing something you’d like to do.

The standups were required - just like on previous teams, the PM had everyone sign a contract that said they’d do it. If someone was traveling, they did an async video in a text message.

Parents loved it. They told friends. They immediately felt more connected. Parents talk a ton about their kids - the customer was influential.

And, our 3am frantic email friend was able to lean into a moment. To focus on the stand up itself to be creative. To try things out. It wasn’t overwhelming - it was manageable and allowed for tests - things like recordings or to do lists or diaries.

And that is the secret, hidden beauty of productizing the first step. It unleashes your creativity because you have the bandwidth to do it. You own this tiny thing and can get into the details. And the details are what create great products. Learning everything there is to know about that moment - in this case, the moment of bringing a family together for 15 minutes of sharing every day - and learning how to amplify it.

The best part about productizing the first step is that you usually never make it out of there. there’s a great, sustainable, usually huge business in the first step of any big problem. Nearly all entrepreneurs miss this because they’re focused on the huge vision.

The real value, though, is the small thing, right in front of their nose.

So, how would you productize the first step of the idea you’re going after? What’s the first dam your customer hits that you can help with? What would a customer pay to have you take off their hands that sits at the top of their funnel?

Productize the first step. Build momentum. Expand if you need to.

And, have a fantastic thanksgiving.

This was the idea to startup podcast brought to you by tacklebox. If you’ve got an idea you’d like to turn into a startup,50% off until for the next few weeks. Apply at gettacklebox dot com and use the promo code HOLIDAY to get 50% off your first month. We’ll be figuring out how to productize your first step in 72 hours.

Have a great week!