Useful startup validation technique incoming...!

Since the #1 reason startups fail is "no market need", lots of the work I do with them is around validation, and making sure they're solving a problem that is actually worth solving. 1/9 Much of this presents as them not being specific enough about the problem they're solving, and for who. With 2 usual results:

1 - trying to do too much, and therefore not really focusing on one problem.

2 - being too vague about what actual value they offer.

2/9

I've just discovered an album by Keith Jarrett called The Köln Concert.

Recorded in 1975, it's entirely improvised & spans jazz, classical, folk, latin, & many other genres.

It's astonishing. Not least because of the circumstances surrounding it.

👇🏻🧵 The concert was organised by Germany's youngest promoter, 17 year old jazz fan Vera Brandes, in the Köln Opera House.

I've recently learned about a guy called Ed Whitlock, a British-Canadian runner who died a few years ago. He only started running in earnest at age 41. At age 48 he ran his first marathon (ostensibly only to support his teenage son run it), & clocked a time of 2:31.

Short thread For any non-runners, this is FAST. By almost any standard. The average runner completes a marathon in 4-5hrs. The world record is basically 2hrs.

After retiring he started to take running even more seriously, resolving to be the 1st man over 70 to run a marathon in under 3hrs.

I'm worried about the future of tech in Cardiff. I think we have a couple of SERIOUS barriers to significant long term success. And unless they're fixed, we're going to continue to lag behind our "competitor" cities.

THREAD (sorry, not sorry) (I don't necessarily subscribe to the view that cities should be in competition).

Anyway, here's 3 things that I think are glaringly obviously missing.