When I use an unfinished product, I want my work to still get done, so I am not paying for being early with my own work.

Job context

Who

An early user of a new product

When

Daily, while using it

Trigger

A fault costing an afternoon

Situation

The product is being built while you use it

Constraints

There is no alternative for what is needed

5 Pains

• Faults are frequent

  High

  And you are the one finding them.

  Root cause: The product has not passed through enough users for faults to surface first

• A needed feature is still missing

  High

  And the date keeps moving.

  Root cause: A small company always has fewer people than tasks

• Having to build workarounds

  High

  Which break at the next update.

  Root cause: Workarounds rest on behaviour nobody committed to

• Colleagues do not understand the choice

  Medium

  Each fault is another question.

  Root cause: The cost of being early is visible and the benefit is not yet

• Doing unpaid testing

  Medium

  And paying for the privilege.

  Root cause: Early users are the only test layer a small company has

5 Desired Outcomes

• Meet fewer faults in real work

  Functional

• Know when a needed feature will arrive

  Functional

• Have their workarounds keep working

  Functional

• Explain the choice to colleagues

  Social

• Be compensated for going first

  Functional

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product, a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• Report faults to the company

  Behaviour

  At a small company this genuinely works, and it is your effort.

• Keep the old way running in parallel

  Workaround

  Reduces risk, erasing most of the benefit of changing.

• Negotiate directly for a needed feature

  Behaviour

  Possible only with a small company, and it bends the product toward one customer.

• Use it only for non-critical work

  Behaviour

  Bounds the damage and bounds what is learned.

• Negotiate a lower price for going first

  Behaviour

  The only real compensation, and few buyers think to ask.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• The company measures itself by faults fixed because that is countable, while what the early user pays is working time lost, and nobody counts the second.

  Why existing solutions fail: Early users are the cheapest test layer a small company has, and the value they create appears nowhere as an item, so it is never returned, not even in the small terms the company could easily grant.

  Potential opportunity: Returning that value in things that cost no cash: a price locked for life, roadmap priority, guaranteed data portability.

• Whoever describes the roadmap is the company itself, and for a small company that roadmap depends on things they do not control either.

  Why existing solutions fail: Founders are not lying about a roadmap; they simply do not know, because their priorities move with the next customer and the money left, so a sincere promise is still one that cannot be kept.

  Potential opportunity: Putting the needed feature into the contract with a date, instead of trusting a roadmap.