The Ford Edsel was one of the worst product failures in the history of the auto industry. The blunder of this one car cost Ford about $350 million in 1957, equal to about $3.76 billion today (based on inflation calculators). This loss was avoidable. Hear the lesson for your business.

Key idea: Don't focus on getting millions of dollars of investment to build a product. Instead, first build the right thing. You have to understand your market, their pains, and their perceptions. Brands are emotional and so are purchase decisions; logic comes later to justify why we chose. That's just how the human brain works.

Plus: the story of Buffer's product launch shows how you can validate your product idea for free before you spend money building it. I may have gotten a couple details wrong as this was from memory but here's the scoop: Idea to Paying Customers in 7 Weeks: How We Did It (Buffer)

Topics:

• Ford Edsel - the famous marketing blunder that cost $350 million in 1957 (about $3.76 billion in 2023 dollars)
• For context: For the fiscal year 2020, Ford spent $5.7 billion on research and development (R&D) expenses. It is worth noting that this figure includes R&D spending for all of Ford's products and services, not just its cars.
• Buffer validated their product with a landing page that was nearly free before spending money to write any code
• Calendly is a self-funded startup that reached unicorn status, valued at about $3 billion today. No initial funding. Just solving a problem that was validated by the market: that scheduling meetings via email was arduous = real pain point

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