3 times more companies than Ycombinator. Teaching Entrepreneurs what Entrepreneurs need to know, early on.
4.5 years at Union Bank then FI.
Kati – shared the frustrations with many women who were not able to get pregnant when they wanted to, or getting pregnant when they didn’t want to, so created a solution where women could understand what is going on with their bodies.
Some of these will be the next Unicorns!
Jamiefrom SG. - Leading peer-to-peer car rental service across Singapore and China. $70M+ funding. Singapore FI Graduate
Eren Bali built software for a live virtual classroom while living in Turkey. He saw potential in making the product free for everyone, and moved to Silicon Valley to found a company two years later. Were rejected by 30 investors initially.
The world's largest online destination for online courses. 2M+ students, $113M+ funding. Silicon Valley FI Graduate.
Inside corporates, what often happens is that new ideas get pushed too quickly into the incubation stage to start building the solution. We become very concerned with building the solution. We’re betting quite big early on that the idea is worth it, with out having done much due diligence. And often we end up building the wrong thing. Build the right it before you build it right.
From 90% failure to 90% success
Turning the funnel upside down. Wideing the pee hole.
Learnings from FI and AfCE mentors
This is how we apply the process to the AfCE. Begin with a 2 day kick off which is very much focussed on how to run lean experiments.
“My solution is for everyone” – how often does someone with an idea thinks this? “No it’s not, because you can’t sell to everyone, not yet. You need your early adopters first. “Does anyone care about the problem you are solving? Who?”
Observation / Context Enquiry
Competitive Analysis
Customer Development Interviews / Problem Interviews
Focus Groups
Data Mining
Secondary Market Research
Then entrepreneurs talk about ALL of the features they need to have, otherwise the customer won’t even consider them. But if you are solving a real problem that an early adopter cares about you just need to understand what’s the minimum required and how to prioritise to get the early adopter hopeful, then satisfied and then passionate about your solution?
Hawkins Palm Pilot Dummy:
Competitor Usability Test
Picnic in the Graveyard
Concierge / Consulting
Pinocchio / Paper / Wood
Impersonator / Re-Label / Imposter Judo
Analog / Physical
Solution Interview
Demo Pitch
Of course, everyone likes our solution because they said they would buy it, so we assume that they will buy it. But we need to test if people do what they say. This is where landing pages or crowdfunding can come into play or other pre-sales tests. Interesting test from property investors… What do we have to do in order to get the customer intrigued, then trusting us so that they buy? How do these activities affect the economics of our business model?
Comprehension / 5 Second Test
Conjoint Analysis
Pretend to Own
Closed Survey
Crowdfunding
Smoke Tests & Fake Doors:
Landing Page
High Bar
Advertisement
Flyer / Video / Event
Pocket Test
Sales Pitch
Dry Wallet
Pre-Sales
Finally, how would we scale up making people aware and how does achieving these necessary customer states affect the economics of our business model? Do you have enough evidence to determine if it’s worth pursuing and can you pitch it well enough to secure funding?
Paper Prototype
Clickable Prototype
Wizard of Oz / Mechanical Turk
One Night Stand
Usability Test / Hallway Usability Test
Takeaway
Analytics / Dashboard
NPS
Product Market Fit Survey
Provincial
A/B Testing
As there’s a lot of interaction with customers, we use a design thinking oriented collaboration platform to capture and share insights. Experiment are recorded and teams can collaborate on assignments.
Ideas validated based on customer interaction and not hippo