One of the things I’ve learned in the past year is that it almost always pays off to do your research. This is also one of my favorite questions: have you looked at how other companies or products tackle this specific problem? Have you read what other thinkers think?

Last year I reviewed 30 different signup and onboarding processes, I learned a ton and wrote an article about it. I’m researching the things we’re building all the time: what are awesome newsletters? Which products are nailing push messages? How are other startups handling social and sharing in their apps? Yes, you’ll probably have the idea that your version will knock all the others out of the park, but you’re missing out on a lot of things when you don’t spend a day or so researching, trying and reading.

Research does not have to be hard, you’ll just have to put in the time.