This document discusses the steps a business founder should take after having an initial business idea. It recommends defining personal goals and validating the business idea with customers before proceeding. The key steps are to create a list of questions to ask target customers, conduct interviews asking open-ended questions and "why" repeatedly, take notes, look for patterns in the feedback, and refine the idea based on what is learned. It advises iterating this customer validation process until the idea proves viable or is discarded.

1. You have a business idea,
but what’s next?
Dan McGaw - Founder - Bootstrap Academy

2. Who am I ?
@danielmcgaw

3. Who am I ?

4. What’s your business idea?

5. Are you the next Facebook?

6. Are you the next Uber?

7. Maybe the next General Mills?

8. Anything is possible with

9. Hard Work

10. Persistence

11. The right tools

12. But what tools do you need?

14. Goals

15. Not business goals

16. Personal Goals

17. Personal Goals

18. Personal Goals

19. Personal Goals

20. Personal Goals

21. Personal Goals

22. Personal Goals

23. Only you can define

24. Back to your idea

25. Not all ideas are good

26. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot

27. How do we know if it is a good idea?

28. Customer Validation

29. Customer Validation

30. Customer Development

31. What customer development is not
It is not a focus group or survey

32. What customer development is not
Or a perfect formula that
completely de-risks a business idea

33. What customer development is not
Or a scalable customer acquisition technique

34. Customer Development Done Right
Start with your idea, aka

35. Customer Development Done Right
Find your target customers

36. Customer Development Done Right
Create a list of questions

37. Dont mess your questions up

38. Ask general questions
Not pointed questions

39. Dont talk about solutions

40. After every question ask why

41. Ask why again

42. Ask why another time

43. Then when you are done asking why
Ask them why again

44. Write everything down
Or record the session

45. Example

47. Launched an MVP

49. Hypothesis
Marketing influencers on twitter would
use Monetyze.me to generate extra cash
from their large followings

55. What did we learn?

56. Our Takeaways
Marketers hate the service

57. Our Takeaways
People want to donate more if they can

58. Our Takeaways
Especially when they can donate other people’s money

59. Our Takeaways
People manage twitter from mobile or buffer

60. What you should be learning

61. Create a list of questionsYou should end up with your

62. Create a list of questionsOr you could end up with your

63. Create a list of questionsEither way

64. Refine and Optimize

65. Create a list of questionsHopefully your idea wasn't trashed

66. Create a list of questionsBut if it was

67. Create a list of questionsAt least you didn't throw money away

68. Look for the patterns

69. Use these patterns to refine your idea

70. Use patterns to refine your messaging

71. If after 20 interviews no one cares
Kill your magical feature

72. If after 20 interviews no one cares
Or consider killing the whole idea

73. Repeat

74. Do it all over again

75. Keep iterating your idea

76. Eventually it will pay off

77. Thank You
@danielmcgaw
CEO and Founder
dan@amazingcorps.com