Thread by @sajithpai

A startup learns about itself in 3 ways. Or rather founders learn about their startup, & how well it is doing, or not, in one of 3 primary ways.
- customers / product iterations
- interviewees / hiring
- investors / fundraising

In that order.

Let us unpack this.

Customers / product iteration.

The best customer feedback is not by hearing them talk, but seeing how they interact with the product - buying it, or using it.

Learn from the feedback + reactions you get, & further iterate the product. And again go back to them with the product. The faster the pace of product iteration, the faster the learning cycles.

This is really what matters for learning from customers

Hiring.

Even if your team is built, keep meeting candidates. It is not just building optionality but also finding out how easy / tough it is to get alpha talent to meet you.

You find out how strong your recruitment brand & learn about what this talent thinks about your startup.

Articulating the company’s purpose, addressing questions around product strategy with alpha talent, also gives founders interesting learnings and insights, one that they may not have thought of naturally.

Investors / fundraising.

Even if you have a long enough runway keep meeting investors.

Each meeting makes you articulate your startup pitch + proposition, repeat it & improve it.

You get an investor perspective, and a view of the landscape, and how they view the world.

Often you get a sense of how your metrics stack up, how well you are doing and what you need to improve on.

Sometimes even if the discussion isn't relevant, the very fact of talking & thinking over the topic again & again leads to interesting ideas - one which you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

To wrap, iterate your product to put it in front of customers (to learn from them), keep hiring process on even if all roles are filled (to learn from yourself / interviewees), & keep doing investor meetings even if you have a long enough runway (to learn from yourself / VCs).

Here is a brief post detailing out this tweet thread!
linkedin.com/pulse/how-best…