When you’re starting a business, there’s a big, fundamental question you have to ask before you do anything else: build the audience first, or the product?

There are advantages to both options. In fact, we’ve built businesses both ways, and seen all the ways each approach can go right and wrong. In the end, we learned that it all depends on the kind of business and the circumstances in which you’re building it.

Either way, it’s a choice you have to make carefully.

Today, we explain exactly how to figure out which way will work for you. We’ll discuss what exactly an “audience” is in terms of a business asset, and how to assess its value relative to the investment you make in it. Then, you can decide whether to build that audience first or second.

Both your product and your audience can be built around each other, like a binary star system. Tune in, and take the first step toward answering what might be the most important question for a new entrepreneur. Click play at the top of the page!