Today, we’re talking about customer discovery. When you’re testing ideas with potential customers, you’re looking out for enthusiasm, for excitement. Not “hmm…. That sounds interesting” or “it might be helpful”

Today, we’re talking about fake intros. I understand the desire and difficulty of getting investor meetings burst hand, but this is not the way to get those meetings. In fact, it will actually hurt you.

Today, we’re talking about patents. Often when I ask a startup “What about their business is hard for someone else to copy” the response is “ Oh, don’t worry. We’re filing patents. So nobody can copy us.”

Startups often make use of advisors for help on strategy, product, lead generation, or credibility with potential investors. Unfortunately, many startups report that their advisors weren’t as helpful as expected, and they’ve given away too much equity to someone undeserving.

Today, we’re talking about what to do when a customer is wrong. This is a tough gray area that frequently occurs. You have a customer that makes a mistake, it hurts their business and your tool is involved. So they want to allocate blame regardless of reality. Your choice is then to accept it or risk the customer.

Today, we’re talking about automating your internal processes. This kind of work can have huge benefits for your startup offering a massive time-saving on menial tasks.

Today we’re talking about when to start distributing your product. I’m a firm believer in selling your product to a customer before you start to build it.

Today, we’re talking about assessing inbound demand quite often word gets out about a new startup and they receive inbound requests from potential customers.

Today, we’re talking about preparing your references. If you’ve done the hard work to make it through someone’s interview process.

Today, we’re talking about the difference between a CTO and a senior engineer. This question often comes up for early-stage startups that don’t have a lot of technical Talent on the founding team

Today, we’re talking about your first valuation. It’s a question I get a lot and unfortunately there is no right answer. However, I can give you some examples based on the companies I see each year.

A good rule of thumb for startup dilution is ~50% dilution for the first ~$3M raised.

If you’re building a marketplace with large transactions ($1k+), it usually makes sense to sell first vs build. You can be a ‘broker’ & quickly test ideas with only a phone & Google Docs. No need to build for weeks first.

Today, we’re talking about using custom work to close Enterprise sales. It’s hard for everyone to close sales right now. So offering these additional Professional Services can really help.

Convincing your first sales leads to buy your product is tough for most startups. You’re asking potential customers to risk a lot of time and effort, long before you have a polished product. Instead of starting sales conversations as transactional, I advise founders to ask their first leads to be ‘customer advisors’.

Always better for startups to do lots of small launches vs 1 large launch. Even though this approach will usually take a lot more time.

Be fully focused on fundraising or not at all. Don’t be tempted to “chat” with funds who cold email you. This is risky.

Hello, everyone. Today, we’re talking about sharing decks. Lots of conflicting advice out there about this one. My Approach is to keep it simple only send what you’re comfortable with and here are my quick rules for just that.