Good Morning!

1. Feature: Product First or Business? Product (4 min)

2. From the Archive: How to Involve Others in Your LLC Without Giving Up Ownership Read it here

3. Dear TCoL: A List of our Business Templates

Start the week strong by planning it out in advance.

-TCoL

Missed our last feature article? From Family LLC to Family Office: A Roadmap for Everyone Read it here

The debate about what matters first in a young company is not really a debate. The companies that became enduring winners obsessed over the product before anything else. They made something people could not ignore.

Only later did they refine their pricing, structure, and partnerships. History shows the order.

What History Tells Us

Google focused on quality before money. In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin published the paper behind their search engine. They were proving a faster and more relevant way to find information. AdWords came two years later, but the product foundation was already strong.

Facebook built the service first. The ad platform came in 2007. Long before that, Facebook spread because people wanted it. Mark Zuckerberg later told investors, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company.”

Apple shipped the machine. Jobs and Wozniak built the Apple I, then followed with the Apple II in 1977. The Apple II ignited the home-computer market and made the business possible.

Microsoft wrote code before contracts. Altair BASIC was its first product in 1975. The famous IBM deal came after. Product came first, and it created the leverage.

WhatsApp insisted on ruthless simplicity. For years the founders refused ads, games, or gimmicks. The messenger solved one job well. Adoption spread everywhere long before a revenue plan.

Slack grew from utility, not pitch decks. In 2013 the team circulated an internal memo: “We Don’t Sell Saddles Here.” It meant growth would come from product love, not from sales showmanship.

Stripe reduced payments to “seven lines.” Integration was so simple that developers pulled it into projects without hesitation. Business mechanics followed.

Airbnb fixed trust by fixing listings. The cereal-box story is famous, but the real unlock was professional photography and host handholding. Conversion rates doubled. Product improvements made the model work.

The pattern is real and recognizable. The great companies became great because their products earned loyalty and trust.

Why Product First Wins

Product market fit is the only real scoreboard. Until customers love what you built, nothing else counts.

A great product buys you time to clean up operations. Early companies are messy. Users who insist on the product forgive the chaos.

Distribution power flows from delight. Word of mouth, network effects, and developer pull are outcomes of good product, not clever marketing.

Premature business focus hardens mistakes. If you over-engineer pricing or partnerships before customers care, you lock in bad choices.

The Discipline Required

To make sure this process is successful, it begins with completely eliminating your team’s use of the word “concept” or “idea.” This “concept.” I really like your “idea.” Those two words are cancer for startup teams perfecting, launching, and selling a product. Call it what it is. A product. A solution. It is real.

Customers don’t buy concepts and ideas. Period. The congratulate you on your ingenuity and politely tell you to stay in touch.

What Product First Looks Like

Talk to users every week. Ten or twenty conversations reveal more than a hundred dashboards.

Cut scope to increase certainty. WhatsApp cut everything but messaging. Stripe kept payments to the simplest possible integration. Slack kept the noise out.

Make the must-have moment immediate. Google gave better results in seconds. Stripe showed a successful test charge right away. Slack made conversations easier on the first day.

Do the unscalable work that creates scale. Airbnb invested in photography. It was costly, but it doubled trust and bookings.

Watch for pull, not push. If customers keep coming back on their own and tell others, you are on the right track. Use referrals to gauge progress.

The Scaffolding

Secure intellectual property. Every founder, employee, and contractor should sign clean confidentiality and assignment invention assignment agreements.

Keep money hygiene simple. One account, clear cap table, clean books.

Use clear offer letters. Spell out equity, compensation, and terms.

These are light tasks compared to the burden of cleaning up later.

When the Sequence Bends

In industries like biotech, fintech, or defense, regulations force early business structure. Certifications or approvals may come first. Even here, the product is still the priority. The first working white paper, the first compliant prototype, or the first certified system is the product that earns the right to advance.

A 90-Day Rhythm

Days 1 to 30. Write the single job your product does. Build the smallest version that proves it. Talk to users daily.

Days 31 to 60. Shorten the path to value. Remove steps until the aha moment is readily apparent..

Days 61 to 90. Double down on what users love. Turn it into defaults and templates. Add one unscalable program that amplifies results. Then start thinking about pricing and growth.

What History Keeps Telling Us

Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, WhatsApp, Slack, Stripe, and Airbnb all prove the same point. When the choice is between polishing the business and building the product, the product wins.

The companies people cannot live without are the companies that first made something worth living with.

Dear TCoL: A List of our Business Templates

Question: Would you please list the templates in your Template Library? I would like to see what is in there before upgrading to a premium subscription.

Answer: Sure, happy to. We now add a new template every Tuesday. Here you go:

• Minutes of the Members Annual Meeting

• Bill of Sale

• Confidentiality Agreement and Invention Assignment

• Digital Asset Protection Language for LLCs

• Document Naming Policy

• Employment Offer Letter w/ Side Hustle Language

• Equity Matrix for New Founders

• Independent Contractor Agreement

• Initial LLC Resolution

• Member Managed LLC Operating Agreement

• Non-Disclosure Agreement

• Neutrality Policy Language

• Promissory Note

• Resolution and Assignment of Member Interest

• Resolution of the Sole Member in Lieu of Annual Meeting

To see a downloadable template, check out our prior article: Template Tuesday: The Initial Resolution You Need After LLC Formation

Have an interesting business question and need a free bit of advice? Send your question to [email protected]. No confidential info, please!