How can product meet the needs of the business in the early phases?

I just got two questions via email. Here are my very quick answers

Question: In the early days of a startup balance the needs of the business with what a small engineering team can complete?"

Answer: Break the needs of the business down into small, discrete product moves (i often call these minimum viable product iterations) and get them done one after the other as fast and well as possible.

Question: What's the best way to prioritize features and break them up with data that can sometimes be statistically insignificant?

Answer: Talk to customers directly (or ideally you are the customer) and extrapolate good generalizations from concrete pain points. How? With experience and instinct. That's why good advisors are very helpful.