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A few of my favorite stories of how founders validated their startup ideas:
1. After 6 ideas that didn't work out, Rujul Zaparde (@rujulz) and Lu Cheng created a 16-point checklist for what a great startup idea needs to hit.
1. After 6 ideas that didn't work out, Rujul Zaparde (@rujulz) and Lu Cheng created a 16-point checklist for what a great startup idea needs to hit.
"We were very honest with ourselves. We worked on a bunch of terrible ideas before, and if there’s anything we had learned, it’s that today will be the easiest day to kill the idea and do something better. It’ll always be harder tomorrow. ...
"We did 75+ interviews with CFOs, heads of procurement, and heads of finance. It really helped refine the idea. We had 110 pages of notes from 3 weeks of chats. Turns out the response rate is pretty good on LinkedIn when you just want advice."
2. When validating the idea behind @GustoHQ, @TomerLondon and his co-founders talked to *everyone* about their payroll challenges.
"We had a list of 30 people we knew one way or another—some from Stanford, some from other networks—and I asked them...
"We had a list of 30 people we knew one way or another—some from Stanford, some from other networks—and I asked them...
for the names of friends who had small businesses. And for every call we did, we asked them, ‘Who are your friends who have small businesses?’ I literally was calling people out of Yelp.
The thing I was looking for in retrospect is an emotional reaction. When you talk with...
The thing I was looking for in retrospect is an emotional reaction. When you talk with...
a customer and they say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s cool.’ You say, ‘Would you buy it?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I may buy it.’ That’s not the feedback you’re after. That basically means that, no, they’re not going to buy it. They’re just being nice. ...
What you’re looking for is really really deep emotion. The moment we asked them ‘What do you feel about your current payroll provider?’ they started cursing, literally. More than half of people just started cursing and being really upset. That's when you know you have something."
3. When exploring the idea behind @TryRamp, @eglyman and his co-founder manually created savings report for founders, to see if they'd find them useful:
4. When building @Gong_io, @eilonreshef and his co-founder worked closely with 12 design partners and obsessed about their experience. 11 out of 12 asked to buy the product.
For many more stories of how founders validated their ideas, don't miss the full post
lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-valid…
lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-valid…
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