This document provides advice on various aspects of starting a new business or product, including: 1) Validating the idea by speaking to 20 potential customers and getting feedback before building anything. 2) Recognizing the importance of building a team with roles for sales, marketing, technology and legal. 3) Testing the value proposition and messaging with prototypes and getting customer feedback to refine it. 4) Gaining early customers by providing value for free or low cost in exchange for feedback.

1. Product, Service, Both
Selling time
Selling other peoples time
Selling an outcome
Selling access to a product

2. Personas
Who is your customer?
Bob needs to write something down in red.
My pen product puts red ink on paper.
He’s concerned that these pens will be expensive.
Google ‘marketing persona’ ‘ux persona’

3. Research
What else is like what you plan to offer?
How is the need met today?

4. Validation
Speak to 20 potential customers that are
representative of your personas before you build
anything. Show mockups, provide example outcomes.
Charm your way into their day.
Beware false positives, don’t ask leading questions,
insist on honesty…

5. Team
There’s no scaled business without a team.
What role are you playing?
If not sales, get a sales or marketing person to
work with, or learn that skill if you realistically can.
Same for tech, and legal.
What’s core, and what can you buy as a service?

6. Proposition testing
Create a prototype or sales pitch with some
words that best convey what you are doing
Are those the right words? If not, get your
potential customers to tell you how they think
you should sell it
Google ‘persuasive copywriting’

7. Early customer
Once you have something that can provide some value,
provide it for free (or less) in exchange for feedback.
Business incubators or accelerators are good for this

8. Route to market
How do you access the people that will pay?
Where are they looking? What content is valuable
to them?
Marketing vs sales
Google ‘sales funnel’, ’sales pipeline’ , ‘social
selling’

9. ‘Pound the pavement’
Have lots of conversations with potential
customers or people that can connect you to
customers at events, through friends, through
family… listen carefully

10. Move on fast
If someone doesn’t get it, don’t try too hard to
persuade them… find 10 additional people who
have the same objections, then consider if you
are wrong.
Google ‘overcoming objections’

11. Investment at the
right time
Without an experienced team, you raise money when you have traction, so
find a way to provide the service, then raise when you have some sort of
evidence you can scale your company
Venture capital has pros and cons
Google ‘business angel’

12. It’s hard unless you
are lucky
Have the confidence to weather doubt until you
have proved if you will get traction or not

13. Get advice
Find incubators, accelerators and/or mentors to learn
from. They will stop you from making avoidable mistakes.
Don’t take advice from your mate unless they have
successfully built a business in your area of interest.
Beware of advice from your family.