It’s not what you do that counts, it’s what customers think you do. If you’ve seen the Wizard of Oz, you’ll likely remember the bit where the Wizard’s curtain is pulled back to reveal the fact he’s doing everything manually. The impression created is, however, totally different.

Startups can learn a lot from this approach. It’s a lot simpler to fake performance than it is to do it properly. There’s no rule that says every button on your site has to work, every feature has to be present. If nobody clicks on your ‘gold package’ upgrade option, don’t bother making it. If someone does click on it, just say it’s ‘due for release next month’, take their details, and then work out if it’s worth developing. Likewise, if your search bar doesn’t return any results, you’ll be rewarded with a string of data about how people use it. If every query is gobbledegook, don’t bother building search. If every query is ‘cancel account’, work out why your navigation is broken – and also why people want to leave.

Why raise and spend tens of thousands of pounds building and testing products and features that nobody wants? Save your time and effort, and fake it like the Wizard of Oz did.