You’re Probably Building Your Startup Backwards

Yesterday, I sat down with seven founders back-to-back. Different ideas, different industries, different stages. Same exact mistake.

I’ve seen this pattern for over 20 years, whether it was mentoring founders, scaling Henson Group from a one-bedroom apartment after 9/11, or advising startups today. It doesn’t change. Everyone starts with what they want to build. Almost no one starts with who they’re building for.

Each founder walked me through their product. Features, roadmap, vision, AI capabilities, design. It was impressive. Then I asked one question: “Who is this for?”

That’s where things started to break down. I heard answers like “small businesses,” “students,” and “busy professionals.” Those aren’t customers. Those are categories.

So I pushed further. Where do they spend time? How do you reach them? Why would they trust you? Why would they pay you today?

That’s when the confidence dropped. Not because they weren’t capable, but because they hadn’t done the hard part yet.

Startup culture has it backwards. It tells you the idea is everything and the product is everything. That might have been true years ago, but not anymore. Today, you can build faster than ever. AI can generate your MVP. No-code tools can get you live in days. Building is no longer the bottleneck. Distribution is. Attention is. Trust is. Revenue is.

When I left Microsoft and started Henson Group, I didn’t have a polished product. What I had was proximity to customers. I was in lower Manhattan after 9/11, helping businesses get back on their feet. I knew exactly who I was serving, what they needed, and why they would say yes. That clarity mattered more than anything we built early on.

It’s the same playbook I use today, investing in and advising startups. The winners are not the ones with the best product. They are the ones who understand their customer better than anyone else.

Building feels productive because you control it. You see progress and feel momentum. But customer acquisition is different. People ignore you, people don’t care, and people say no. That’s uncomfortable, so most founders delay it.

They tell themselves they will figure out the go-to-market later. Later is where startups die.

Flip the order. Start with who. Who has a painful, urgent problem? Who is already trying to solve it? Who is actively spending money today? Who can you reach this week?

If you start with the product, you are guessing about the market. If you start with the market, the product becomes obvious.

After those meetings, I walked each founder through what it actually takes. Outreach, content, partnerships, sales, follow-ups, distribution. Every time I got the same reaction: “That sounds like a lot.”

It is. That is the point.

If it were easy, everyone would do it. The founders who lean into that work and figure out how to consistently find and convert customers are the ones who win. They don’t just build products. They build engines.

Build with context. Build with a real customer in mind. Build with distribution already in motion.

Otherwise, you are just getting really good at building things nobody asked for.

And that is one of the most expensive mistakes a founder can make.