Hello Greg. Yes, both of us are working in more or less the same area, so I'll continue to take what I can from you, haha. Joking mate. Cheers mate, Ace.
63 karma · joined January 8, 2019
Try closing it and opening it again, what happens?
If it still doesn't work, I will send over the unlocked version so you can also have a laugh at my poor naming convention, abysmal table names, and VBA programming with the type of loops not seen since Groundhog Day.
There will be continued improvement of VP and UVP, so the sharing of your data points is appreciated, thank you.
The places where the site has been shared, ie HN and one other place, they have early adopters, who are problem aware, they don't need me to be another one who starts selling in the shallow style with no comprehension of where are these benefits coming from. They know the pain, and and from the feedback from ones I targeted and reached out one-to-one it was appreciated that I am attempting to go deeper.
If you would like to assess more of the problem clarification and value delivery, then I recommend perusing the page https://startizer.com/the-problems-with-startup-material/.
Even then though, you took the time to check it out and respond, and for that I thank you.
Cheers, Ace.
Mate, I appreciate you checking it out, thank you very much.
Oh, it definitely needs some design love, haha, holding hands very high up to that one. It is still concept stage for me, MVP v2.
MVP v1 (took 4 years, which I made in Excel), my private version covered from initial idea to early traction:
Phase 1 1. Idea Breakdown 2. Problem Research 3. Market Audit 1 4. Audience Disposition 5. Audience Outreach
Phase 2 6. Audience Interviews 7. Interview Results 8. Eco-Player Input 9. Signals (ICP and Persona Generation)
Phase 3 10. Draft Solution v1 11. Value Propositions + Culture Fit 12. Initial Solution + Visionary Solution 13. Initial Solution v1 14. Vision
Phase 4 15. Market Audit 2 16. Competition Audit 2 17. Market Opportunity 2 18. Minimum Viable Solution Formulation 19. MVP Proposition + User Stories
Phase 5 20. Solution Roadmap and MVP & v1 to MVP Harmonization 21. Business Model Auto Generate + Update 1 22. Market Demand Validation 23. MVP Specs, Users Stories, UX/UI 24. Prototype + Validation
Phase 6 25. Investor Criteria Interest Out-Reach 26. Legal & Regulatory Preliminary Assessment 27. Risk Assessment 28. MVP Production 29. MVP Closed Testing & Update
Phase 7 30. Rough Brand Positioning + Initial Marketing 31. Competition Audit 3 32. Content Audit 1 33. Keyword Audit 1 34. MVP Incremental Launch
Phase 8 35. Funnel Proposition (Bottom Up) 36. Early Traction 37. Problem – Solution Fit
MVP v2, no I won't be monetizing it. This is purely to get some brand awareness, as I am a nobody. And to increase the small group of people I work with so I can continue to learn, and then work on MVP v3, which will be the web app version.
Yeah I had a look at Pioneer a while back. I like what they are doing, but honestly I don't have time, my focus is purely on learning, thinking, and working. As for brokering funding rounds for the promising, I thought about that a while back, but that is an off-shoot from the primary objective of Startizer, aiding founders, incubating minds, sharpening analytical skills, promoting a sense of self-belief but not self-delusion.
Certainly I would like to connect with you, continue our conversation if that is ok with you?
Cheers, Ace.
You get far too many founders looking for the most intense problem when that is just one facet of a problem. Christmas songs are a problem, painful, intense, etc. But it's only once a year, which would mean not very active users.
As well as the Mom Test, off-the-top of my head, check out
1. Talking To Humans https://www.talkingtohumans.com/
2. Testing With Humans https://testingwithhumans.com/, both by Giff Constable.
There are some medical pain evaluation papers that I found highly informative, but I would need to go through my notes as I can't recollect them.
And if anybody is interested, I have a free tool you can download, that will aid you to assess your idea by breaking it apart into its elemental composition and looking deeper into the problem, the audience, and the market.
It's at MVP v2, so long way to go yet, and it is only for MS Access, so PC only: https://startizer.com/
I sort of work in marketing, long story, not the place.
I read the other comments, so my response:
1. I see no point in messing around and not acknowledging it for what it is. It is fake. Although I prefer to describe it as deception. No point beating around the bush. If you are going to do it, at least call it for what it is. Unless of course you state the product isn’t ready.
2. Where I stand is a bit more complicated, and that is not me weaseling my way out of it. The following is also what I say to startups I work with.
3. This attempt at market demand validation has a number of factors that will greatly influence if validation will occur or not. The user Rococode touched on some of the points in his reply. The person he is referring to in his example built a large e-commerce business. He was exploring a new product. This guy either built or had personnel to build him a top notch webstore that gave a sizable impression of a fully functioning website. I assume, based on having a successful e-commerce business that this guy knew the recommended best practices when it comes to a webstore: reviews in the right place, high quality images, trust signals, security signals, etc, etc, the works.
This guy then brought a variety of ads. Again based on the successful e-commerce business I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume he knew which keywords to use, the various factors involved in targeting the right potential buyer (segmentation, buyer intent, etc), had compelling ad copy, decent landing page (and the things needed to make a good landing page), etc, etc.
So, going to the start of this point, market demand validation has a number of factors that will greatly influence if validation will occur or not. And so you have to ask yourself, do you have that skill-set to get those various micro-validations to occur in order for the big main validation to occur?
4. When it comes to idea validation, what does that mean to you, to me it’s too vague. What are the elements of your idea? What exactly are you validating? In order for what I assume is an attempt at market demand validation where there is a button on a website that suggests (in this case) a monetary transaction will take place. It is fair to say you need a decent understanding of the problem, the contributing factors, the root causes, the pain points, motivations, objections and reservations, the solution, the benefits from the solution, the goal and the end-goal.
Now take into account the aforementioned things in point 3, decent landing page, right channel, right segment, right targeting, right keywords (if using ads), etc. How many things, how many micro-validations need to occur in order for the required validation to occur?
5. That example in point 4, is B2C or B2 Small B where the buyer and user are the same. Now take into account if it is a B2 Mid B or B2Enterprise. If the sales approach is to be a bottom up sales approach, and a PQL funnel, which is where you target the end-user bypassing management, because the end-users have the discretion to use their own products, then let’s group that as a B2C or B2 Small B approach as well for arguments sake.
But if this a traditional B2 Mid B or B2Enterprise, then you could be targeting internal champions who may or may not have a small fund of their own. If not, then you have the most complicated, time consuming sales model, multiple stakeholders, etc, etc. So, what exactly is going to be validated here? Market demand? The ones holding the purse strings, very unlikely indeed that you will even be targeting, as for knowing what to say to them? I’ll be polite and say next to no chance.
6. Far too many startups, and far too many people who have experience in these things (and a st load that don’t) keep proposing these shortcuts to validate, when they have either not taken into account, or chosen not to state, the many other things involved in what they think is a controlled experiment. What type of experiment has so many unknowns in it like this?
7. I am in favour of shortcuts, but I like to know what I am cutting out.
8. If what you are proposing is no different from what is already on the market, ie there is nothing unique about your proposition (segment, product, price, positioning, etc, etc, then what’s the point in wasting time? The markets validated.
9. As for your other questions, Any resources one can share that worked better for you? Case by case really. If you want to chat further let me know.
Cheers, Ace.
In your situation, the first thing I would suggest to you is, figure out what you want to do, because you can't have two goals. You can have a primary and secondary goal, but, admittedly I could well be projecting and assuming like crazy, but your words were read by me like you don't know which is more important to you. The title of your post also played a part in my assumption.
If you are building for learning purposes, then that is your primary goal, and focus on learning. If you want to see if people want what you are building, then I'll ask, why take the long way round?
Build what they want, instead of building and seeing if they want it. However I do have some issues when it comes to building what people want, not least, want? People want all sorts of things, some based in reality, some who knows where. So, I'll say build something people need.
When it comes to assessing what they need, your options are:
1. Ask them, doesn't always work, especially if you are asking the wrong people, by wrong I mean, asking the general market within your niche. Even if you ask clearly defined early adopters, who are problem and solution aware, have the risk appetite, have the other dispositions often noted within this segment, there can still be issues.
Now not for a second am I saying don't ask them, what I am saying is certainly ask them, but pinch of salt as well, because problem and solution aware doesn't necessarily mean they have taken into account various contributing factors and root causes, and to cut this line short, they don't know what they don't know.
They are living with the problem as they live a life, which means they are not sat there thinking about the problem at the required contextual nor granular level that you, as the producer of a solution has to think about it. To them it's a roadblock, a hindrance and one way or another they need to get past it. Granted some early adopters, will concoct their own solution in this case.
There are a multitude of other issues when it comes to asking them, which if you want me to elaborate on, I will do, but for now, will cut it short.
2. Ask others in the space: What I have found very helpful indeed is to ask those who came before, ie failed founders in that space, other people who are attempting to address the problem in a different way, or attempting to foster a community from which a solution or a number of solutions will emerge. These people, absolute wealth of knowledge. But even then, the solution is on your head, not theirs, for there is a certain amount of conditioning that these people have based on obviously their own experiences, and again certain blind-spots.
3. Observe. Better than asking, you are seeing things for yourself, but you can only see so much, and may well fall into the same trap in that you to things at face value, can't see the tree for the forest, lack of perspective, or at the most one perspective, yours.
4. Work with them, as in don't ask them, but experience it for yourself. This way, you are not relying on them, because they will filter things out, they will have blind spots, they will colour things. But again, issues, face value, etc, etc. And you may well see something that was not seen before. I do think this is vitally important, because reality is a teacher that doesn't pull it's punches. If pleasure and dewdrops don't work, pain and fire can be equally effective teachers.
5. Research, read: there are some people who treat knowledge as it should be treated, to be shared freely, much respect. This way, you (hopefully) gain the knowledge and insight of many, but book smart doesn't mean street smart. And book smart doesn't mean things become intrinsic and inherent within your being. Just because someone can parrot the wise words of another doesn't mean there is innate understanding of what they are saying.
6. Think: I know this might sound a bit silly, but spend sometime thinking about specific things, from many angles, macro-micro, etc. Now I am not saying get your paralysis on, but getting proper thinking time is important. Question yourself, make it uncomfortable.
7. All of the above. Still no guarantees, but that's life. Faith flourishes in ignorance's shadow, so you walk with belief until you can replace belief with knowledge. Some founders have these grand visions of the future. Visions are important, for we are not robots, devoid of inspiration, ambition, nor desire. But you have to earn the right to create (or co-create) that future, in the reality of the present.
By this I mean, until it is actually used by someone and helps them to get past the roadblock and onto the goal (or end-goal), it's belief to whatever extent. So, you do some of the stuff mentioned, then seek to replace what you believe with what you need to know. How you test that, can be any number of ways.
I will refrain from sharing my views on MVP, but I will say this. Don't get fixated on product. It's just a conduit from where your audience is to where they want to be. Test the conduit, the before and after, and what happens within it.
Cheers, Ace.
The investor provided talent could be a good approach to provide more relevant and needed support. In reality on many occasions I have had to question what the hell is going on:
1. I have come across many of the talent, where what they lacked in talent was compensated by strength of personal connection.
2. People just sprouting some inspirational fluff, and whose attitude is I am here, listen to me, do as I say, don’t question, without even getting into the trenches.
3. Then they start talking about the sacrifice and hard-ship, when they have no real comprehension and haven’t walked that path.
4. As for getting paid in equity, that is between startup and whomever, although I personally don’t like it, and won’t do it.
5. You can’t come in and work with early stage startups and charge them what you charge more established startups, and certainly not what you charge VC or family offices.
Drop your rates man, and come correct. There are enough leeches on, and vultures hovering around, startups and founders.
Cheers, Ace.
1. Build bridges with investors before you may need to cross them, ie. Don’t go to them when you need the money. There are a multitude of angles to use, but each angle has to come from a core place of self-less and selfish interest. Know what they want and need, know what you want and need. Each angle will also dictate how early you can / should get on their radar.
2. If you are introducing your startup to them, then around 6 months. If your angle is to aid startups in their portfolio, introduce startups to them (filter them, don’t send them any and all), or introduce family offices looking to put funds into a pool; then you can contact them a lot earlier.
3. There is another way that you can connect with investors, “get an intro to us via someone in our network”. With some investors this will be the only way.
4. Note the investor landscape, find out their investment thesis. See if their portfolio has any that could be competitors, any synergies, etc.
5. Find out the required milestones (for your current stage and the next one). This can be a difficult one to find out, for it can pin some of them down a bit too much, especially when they take so many other things into consideration. If they don’t mention it on their site, and there is nothing in Crunchbase et al, you’ll have to ask them down the line.
6. Find out more about the appropriate partner at the VC firm whom is involved in your niche. If you can’t find the appropriate partner, aim for the top, and have them point you in the right direction.
7. Acquire information about the partner and use it to formulate an email that is about them. I will typically provide a few of my thoughts on something they said in an article. They will be genuine thoughts. No brown-nosing, no compliments for the sake of it, etc, etc.
8. Find out the firms current position in the fund life-cycle: are they open to new investments, only open to portfolio synergies, only follow-on funds left, etc.
9. If the investor’s portfolio has competitors and/or synergies find out where they stand on this. Some will be open to funding competitors, some won’t. If so, find out how things are kept ethical and above board.
10. Find out what their investment approval process is; stages, duration, etc.
11. Ask them for their due diligence (DD) checklist, and work on that organically. Until then, use this one: https://seraf-investor.com/compass/article/seraf-toolbox-due...
12. DD goes both ways, so find out what you can about them, what they are like after investment.
13. Prepare a presentation deck, not a pitch deck, and present it to your team. Let your team know beforehand, and to attempt to trap and flummox you as you walk them through it.
14. Update the deck and send it to a few of the investors, and use them as data points. The reason it’s not a pitch deck is because the deck should explicitly state that you’re not looking for funding at this moment in time.
15. Send it to ones you either have good relations with, and ones that do not fund in your geographical area. There are some gems out there who will go out of their way to aid you and to give you feedback. Granted they may not know the launch country market, but they will know the startup niche. Basically work your way inwards to the set of investors you are targeting, using the feedback to hone and refine startup / deck.
16. If you don’t want to slice by geography, or want to start closer to home, slice the investors into tiers. Can be based on many things, niche relevancy, track record, connections, dumb or smart money, etc. Work your inwards from the ones you least want.
17. Once you get to the set of investors you are interested in, same thing, not looking for funding yet. If it’s a decent startup / deck you could be asked to come in for a chat, or to keep them updated as to your progress.
18. If you are going to go down the path of external funding, then investor pre-validation is vital.
19. Keep them informed as to your progress, monthly update is fine. Keep it short and to the point. Be brutally honest, so good and bad, hits and misses.
20. Even if your angle of approach is for your own startup, keep an eye out for any startups that you think they would be interested in. Same thing with investors and family offices, some of them go solo (or dedicated fund manager), some want to put their funds into a pool.
21. When you are ready, send the pitch deck.
One last thing, no one ever got funded off a pitch deck. Napkin maybe. but not a deck. It’s a foot in the door at best. Besides, founder(s) of an early stage startup, they’re investing in you.
Copied from a place I do not want to promote at the moment.
Cheers, Ace.
https://github.com/async-labs/saas
Cheers, Ace.
There are some alternative forms of investment vehicles, revenue sharing ones, ever-green funds, equity investment for a piece of the pie, etc.
Not disputing that VC's (and others) should do more to highlight the difficulty, the slim chances, the demanding road both professionally and personally, that maximised exit valuation need not mean profit-making, nor revenue-generating, need not even mean sustainable if not propped up, nor some other things which would make my response off-topic.
MicroConf: "MicroConf is a collection of two-day events laser-focused on self-funded and indie-funded software startups"
Rob (Walling): started Tiny Seed Fund: https://tinyseed.com/
Tiny Seed Fund: Accelerator for BootStrappers, "... we do this all without the headache of traditional fundraising, loss of control, or the pressure to build a unicorn."
So, it provides some clarity as to why BaseCamp (formerly 37 Signals) aided in the production of the report, certainly when you take their own genesis and growth into account. As far as I know they only had one small outside investment, from Jeff Bezos:
"In 2006, Jeff Bezos bought a minority, no-control stake of Basecamp from Jason and me." https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-deal-jeff-bezos-got-on-baseca...
Cheers, Ace.
I'll be taking into account some of your responses to other members.
A. So, home page:
Anything, Anyone, Everyone. You feed everyone, you nourish no one. You have a rough idea of who your target customers are, but are holding off... until numbers are more statistically significant.
At your stage, that could be a while, and frankly shows a: 1. Lack of direction 2. Lack of properly segmenting whatever groups you have looked at 3. Lack of clearly defining early adopters 4. Lack of positioning 5. Lack of relevant copy addressing pain points, motivations, objections, reservations 6. Lack of initiative 7. A few other things, which is somewhat worrying.
I am of course willing to update my initial thoughts upon more information. I don't ignore the fact it takes time, a lot of time, it's an organic evolving path, and I make the same mistakes many times. But for now, that is what I think. Instead of taking the long way round, why don't you take the shorter way, which is to clearly define:
B. 1. Who this is for 2. Early adopter disposition which makes it more relevant to them than the rest of the market 3. Reach out to them and find out what they think. If you are looking for signals, this is the quickest way. 4. Pain points addressed, benefits, goal, end-goal, etc, etc.
I am not actually saying you haven't done these things, what I am saying is based on information shared, and the website, that I don't see it. To be fair to you, points B. 1 -4 should really be questions. If you want to answer in private to me, by all means. To also be fair to you, due to the versatility of your product and the many use cases, you do have many markets you could target. However when time, money, resources, focus, etc, are severely limited you can't go after them all.
Furthermore, there may well be competitors known and unknown who can service some of the markets better than your solution, who have honed and refined their features to either be more suitable for them, or have segmented features based on various factors to do so. Which again leads me back to, pick a target, see if you can hit it or not, because at the moment, it is a case of we are waiting to see which target to aim for.
C. Ok, back to the home page. When you say Work with Anything, Share with Anyone, I read This Might Be For You, Maybe. That's no way to greet a newcomer. You either very blatantly let them know, This Isn't For You At All, or This Is Seriously For You.
Secondly, early stage startup (pre-seed pre-revenue), describe your product. You have nothing in the memory bank, no previous touch-points, don't create confusion and promote a lack a clarity in visitors. Very simply for now, what are you, what do you, how do you do it, what's in it for me, why should I care. All within tight positioning. You can't create a fire within anyone, but you can surely fan the flame. And your early adopters, their fires are burning.
D. I know this is the current trend with startups especially, inappropriate usage of customer logo's, as in way too soon. Trust, social proof, are important, but not at this stage. Just like in the funnel when it is further down, so it should be the same on the homepage. Instead of talking to your potential customers, instead of building bridges, creating resonance and relatability, usage of customer logo's is basically saying, let my customers speak for me. The onus is on you to speak to your customers, and not to shift that responsibility. I haven't made up my own mind yet at all, so what do I care what others think?
There are other issues further down the page, but I don't like to come across as too harsh, plus I need to get back to work.
Good luck, Ace.
You should really add the ability to exchange email for a downloadable PDF of the guide. And that bottom bar that slides in "20+ new CFPs every week", it won't close no matter how many times I click on x. Browser: Chrome.
Cheers, Ace.
I made my MVP v2 in Access. Currently testing it and getting it checked out by a few founders, then I will release it, for free. Well, almost free, email collection.
It took me 10 months, which is fast considering the Excel version (MVP v1) took me 4 years, but then the Excel version has the whole concept from beginning to end, and there was a lot to learn, still a lot to learn really. The Access version covers only the first 9 steps. What I made was a startup system that guides founders from idea to early traction.
Access was not my first choice. I thought after the Excel version that I would use either a no or low code solution, a RAD tool, or some sort of visual development thing. As you have guessed I am not a programmer. I did dabble in BASIC, well a bit more than dabble, when my dad got me a Speccy. I enjoyed it, there is beauty in logic no matter how Phaedrus cuts it, but it was a means to an end really. From Draw and Beep through to Deluxe Paint 3 and OctaMed, it was about expression. I am not saying programming isn't a form of expression, but it is the long way round to me.
A few years later, I had to learn some Turbo Pascal, in order to make a database I think, talking 24 years ago, so I can't actually remember. But I do remember being bored out of my mind. So, I quit my computing degree. It was strange, I had an Amiga I could make things on. My college had just got some multi-media computers, yet in university, we had these stiff monochrome 486's. They didn't sing, didn't dance, looked awful but they did go a long way. Sheesh Kitkat.
Second time round at university many years later, I had to face programming again, this time it was Java, JavaScript and Object Orientated Delphi. OOD I liked, the other two I tolerated, for it was just a programming module rather than the whole thing.
After I had finished the Excel version, obtained feedback, tweaked and modified this and that, it was onto MVP v2. I looked at a shed-load of stuff, Bubble, Kexi, Lazarus, My Visual Database, Delphi 10.3, App Builder, Zoho Creator, Cross UI, Airtable, to name but a few. There were issues with all of them:
1. Not enough control and/or functions 2. Cumbersome and tedious to do anything 3. A sense of detachment as if I was having an OBE 4. Database; I don't care about connections, stacks and what-not, just sit in the background, and save stuff. 5. Process, and output what I tell you to do, and send outputs so they are inputs in other places 6. Questionable documentation 7. Customer support non existent, unresponsive or just prone to sending me back to the documentation I checked before hand 8. Tutorials and lessons showing how to make clones of well-known startups, or rudimentary apps 9. Holding me and anybody I share it with over a barrel 10. Unnecessarily complicated
So anyway, I decided fudge it, let me take a look at Access, it's been sat there for years. Many other people have it, although not Mac users. I am not a complete novice when it comes to Access, I know a little about 1,2 and 3 step normalisation, although I didn't strictly stick to it. Yeah I had to learn a bit of SQL and VBA, and any questions I had were already answered countless times on forums, although usage and disagreement of ! and . was annoying.
I was obviously unable to make what I really wanted, but I was able to make something close enough for what I deemed as necessary at this moment in time, in order to at least give a user a taste of what I propose. The minimum part of the MVP had to cut across the board, like a slice of cake, bit of everything.
I got asked a few times why am I using or used Access. I could have mentioned the above list, but the crux of it was, to me it was the tool for the job, with a support network around it, with very few chains and shackles, at a stretch I could do it on my own. I couldn't give a hoot about stacks, dependencies, libraries, etc. The latest languages, scalability, etc, whats that to do with an MVP?
I am proud of what I made. I won't be pulling out my who gives a toss but me violin in a public forum, but it's a tough lonely slog. It was my idea, and I had to use what I could to bring it to some sort of fruition. A small stepping stone in the right direction.
Cheers, Ace.
1. Build bridges with investors before you may need to cross them, ie. Don’t go to them when you need the money. There are a multitude of angles to use, but each angle has to come from a core place of self-less and selfish interest. Know what they want and need, know what you want and need. Each angle will also dictate how early you can / should get on their radar.
2. If you are introducing your startup to them, then around 6 months. If your angle is to aid startups in their portfolio, introduce startups to them (filter them, don’t send them any and all), or introduce family offices looking to put funds into a pool; then you can contact them a lot earlier.
3. There is another way that you can connect with investors, “get an intro to us via someone in our network”. With some investors this will be the only way.
4. Note the investor landscape, find out their investment thesis. See if their portfolio has any that could be competitors, any synergies, etc.
5. Find out the required milestones (for your current stage and the next one). This can be a difficult one to find out, for it can pin some of them down a bit too much, especially when they take so many other things into consideration. If they don’t mention it on their site, and there is nothing in Crunchbase et al, you’ll have to ask them down the line.
6. Find out more about the appropriate partner at the VC firm whom is involved in your niche. If you can’t find the appropriate partner, aim for the top, and have them point you in the right direction.
7. Acquire information about the partner and use it to formulate an email that is about them. I will typically provide a few of my thoughts on something they said in an article. They will be genuine thoughts. No brown-nosing, no compliments for the sake of it, etc, etc.
8. Find out the firms current position in the fund life-cycle: are they open to new investments, only open to portfolio synergies, only follow-on funds left, etc.
9. If the investor’s portfolio has competitors and/or synergies find out where they stand on this. Some will be open to funding competitors, some won’t. If so, find out how things are kept ethical and above board.
10. Find out what their investment approval process is; stages, duration, etc.
11. Ask them for their due diligence (DD) checklist, and work on that organically. Until then, use this one: https://seraf-investor.com/compass/article/seraf-toolbox-due...
12. DD goes both ways, so find out what you can about them, what they are like after investment.
13. Prepare a presentation deck, not a pitch deck, and present it to your team. Let your team know beforehand, and to attempt to trap and flummox you as you walk them through it.
14. Update the deck and send it to a few of the investors, and use them as data points. The reason it’s not a pitch deck is because the deck should explicitly state that you’re not looking for funding at this moment in time.
15. Send it to ones you either have good relations with, and ones that do not fund in your geographical area. There are some gems out there who will go out of their way to aid you and to give you feedback. Granted they may not know the launch country market, but they will know the startup niche. Basically work your way inwards to the set of investors you are targeting, using the feedback to hone and refine startup / deck.
16. If you don’t want to slice by geography, or want to start closer to home, slice the investors into tiers. Can be based on many things, niche relevancy, track record, connections, dumb or smart money, etc. Work your inwards from the ones you least want.
17. Once you get to the set of investors you are interested in, same thing, not looking for funding yet. If it’s a decent startup / deck you could be asked to come in for a chat, or to keep them updated as to your progress.
18. If you are going to go down the path of external funding, then investor pre-validation is vital.
19. Keep them informed as to your progress, monthly update is fine. Keep it short and to the point. Be brutally honest, so good and bad, hits and misses.
20. Even if your angle of approach is for your own startup, keep an eye out for any startups that you think they would be interested in. Same thing with investors and family offices, some of them go solo (or dedicated fund manager), some want to put their funds into a pool.
21. When you are ready, send the pitch deck.
One last thing, no one ever got funded off a pitch deck. Napkin maybe. but not a deck. It's a foot in the door at best. Besides, founder(s) of an early stage startup, they're investing in you.
As for VS, looks a bridge too far for me.
Some questions first:
1. What do you mean by strong idea? Why is it strong? I am not knocking you on this. I myself do not share the disdain for ideas when compared to execution. We know it's down to the execution, but give me a great idea any day of the week.
2. What is your domain experience in regards to the idea? Are they in the same domain?
If I can answer the second part of your question first: "...attracting co-founders and talent to work with you." Before I go into the main body of my reply, if by co-founders you mean a programmer, then my advice is don't go down the path of something like:
"I have done the hard part, you push your paying jobs aside, sort out the code and prepare yourself for the type of riches only those standing on checkered floors are accustomed to. 5% of the business sound about right?"
You may not even need a programmer off-the-bat anyway. The tech isn't the solution. The tech is a scalable efficient conduit for the solution. Customers couldn't care less if their woes were alleviated and goals were attained via tech or a rubber band.
Anyway, how to attract:
You know the cliche sales question "Sell me this pen?". How can you sell the pen to someone who doesn't give a stationary? You can't, and you don't, because you don't know what need they have for the pen, what it brings into their life, etc, etc, the value of the pen to them. Same thing with attracting co-founders. If you attempt to attract them straight away, with nothing tangible to show, then you have one main option:
1. You need to find out what they think, what they feel, where they are coming from, where they currently are, where they might be heading to; in regards to your strong idea. If there is resonance, if they are on a path that suggests the journey could be shared, for they for a period of time are heading in similar directions, then there is a chance. However this chance is small unless you can show various qualities they are looking for. Honestly I don't even know the qualities really, maybe a few at best: hunger, tenacity, vision, self-belief (a stop before it goes into self-delusion), point to prove (to themselves), etc. I just summarise it by saying, they want to see if this person is just a talker or a doer. Have you got it within you to stay the course? Are you going to jump ship at the first sight of an iceberg or are you going to stand your ground and pull out your violin as the iceberg approaches?
Some people look for passion. I don't. If that works for them, fair play, who am I to say otherwise? However for me, passion? Nah. I leave passion for the Don Juan's, the Cassanovas and the Lotharios, for I have seen the passion in the divorced couples, in the broken hearts, and the jilted lovers. You'll need to find what fuels you, and make sure you to show it to others, not just in words but with deeds as well. None of this rubbish fake it till you make it, then the following week you're sat there with Impostor Syndrome. You be by doing, and do by being.
Anyway, as you work on your idea, moving it away from just in your head into something others can evaluate, you will increase your chances of attracting co-founders et al. I personally wouldn't bother with attracting anyone. Just get your head down and work on your self, and thus your idea. As this process occurs and you obtain targeted feedback, and let relevant entities know of it, you will start to attract people. But it needs to be targeted feedback. Just as you don't ask your mum as described in The Mom Test, because you she loves everything you do; you don't ask your dad either cos it's just not good enough, it won't work, etc, etc. No point asking anybody too close to you, bar a select few who don't let feelings come in the way. No point asking anybody other than assumed target audience, and even then pinch of salt, and a mixture of early adopters, laggards, etc, etc.
As for the first part of your question go about "founding your startup". I think you need to be wary of Survivorship Bias, Confirmation Bias, etc. Stay away from the "I went to bed, woke up, boom, overnight success-ed it" brigade. I have my own biases. I am filtering reality to verify my perception and my place within it. I read some of the other comments, informative and insightful. Sell or build first depends on many factors: to who, what, where, when, how, etc. I looked into this for quite a while, too long to say Lean with a straight face really, and I kept coming back to my own bias, am I deluded, am I lying to myself and do I not even know it, how little do I know, etc, etc.
Based on that, and the riskiest assumption out of the lot being do I really know, I have to say that you start by looking at the problem. My primary domain experience is in marketing, and the first thing I always do is audit the whole shebang. You have to find out where you do really stand, what do you really know, who else is standing in this space, what are they saying, etc, etc, in order to then plot a course to where you want to be.
Forget solution, tech, marketing, forget customer discovery as well. The first thing you need to do is be equipped with knowledge to not only stand on slightly firmer ground, but also when customer discovery does take place, which it needs to very early on, is be able to sort the wheat from the chaff, otherwise you are not really in a position to ascertain the value and the validity of the information obtained. You see it quite a bit in customer discovery classes, people getting out of the building with no reason nor rhyme as to who they actually interview. They interview every Tom, Dick and Sally, with no regards to if their opinion is even relevant, let alone valuable. Now there is a danger here in that, you don't want to be biased in that you seek to verify your research, but then it comes down to if you want to 'prove' you are right, or if you want the truth.
In the customer discovery you seek to not only ascertain if the problem is validated, but which target audience seems the most viable to go with first. I prefer not to go in hard on one segment, unless I have a strong thought/feeling that this is the segment afflicted with the problem. It depends really, on how much knowledge and insight you have, there are no real set in stone rules, just don't tick boxes for the sake of it, nor ignore a box solely on the basis of your own 'knowledge'.
When it comes to actual problem evaluation, look at root causes, factors, pain points, scenarios, etc, as well as noting the language used for usage down the line in various things. Use qual and quant methods as well as probing from multiple angles, looking for consistency and coherence (or inconsistency and contradictory), when it comes to problem severity, frequency, emotional response, etc.
After customer discovery, I'd say take a quick look at the market landscape, not too heavy, for you can end up being influenced by what others are doing, and who knows, your approach, your idea, etc, may well go far beyond what others are doing. Stay in contact with those you interview, certainly the ones who display certain early adopter traits, but you also need some laggards, and some that resonate with the vision (the end goal), for problem is just a roadblock from A to B.
I'll skip some of the other things I would mention here, message is too long. So:
Ascertaining market demand: all for it, but not some lame landing page 3 lines and a sign-up box, that shows a lack of insight, lack of understanding, lack of resonance, et al.
Building MVP: minimum is not in a bubble, look at the market, the competition, the audience expectations, minimum is fluid and ever increasing in some areas. You are below minimum if you can't hold your own against the competition on one front at least.
As you can tell from the other replies to your question, there are no absolute truths, so whatever your journey is, I wish you luck.
Cheers, Ace.