How Founders Can Make the Grind Bearable
June 16, 2025
Startups are hard, but you don’t need to deliberately suffer to succeed.
Hello, Everyone. 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. Given the variety of these requests, it’s often hard to know if you should pursue them or continue on your current path. Here’s how I like to assess each inbound requests.
1. What do you want to build?
Revenue may be understandably attractive at present. But are you genuinely excited to build this product for a decade? if not it might not be a good idea to start
2. Is the customer willing to pay upfront?
Emails and meetings are a good expression of interest but nothing says I need this urgently like cash up front.
3. Can you build it?
Assuming the customer’s demands are actually possible, you need reasonable confidence that you and your team are capable of building a good solution.
If you ask these questions across each use case, it gets a lot easier to decide which customer to prioritize.
