How did you improve your startup development skills?

??Focus on identifying and clearly defining the problem you aim to solve. ??Develop a strong value proposition that addresses customer pain points. ??Use tools like Lean Canvas or Value Proposition Canvas to structure your ideas. ??Test your hypotheses through experiments, customer interviews, and feedback loops. ??Iterate based on feedback to refine your solution and improve market fit. ??Continuously learn from mentors, peers, and resources to enhance your startup knowledge. ??Network with other entrepreneurs to share experiences and gain insights. ??Stay adaptable and open to pivoting when necessary.

One story I love sharing is how Amazon always keeps an empty chair in the meetings, which helps the team to focus on the voice of the customer. Over the years in many programs we operated for global brands like Siemens & Ford, we have seen how important it is to get close to the customer, learn their decision making processes and peel their problems/needs until you reach to the core. Never forget humans usually make irrational decisions first and justify their decisions later, so always focus on past actions not just words. Diverge first with as many customer segments as possible then converge to ones that you can group, rinse & repeat until you find where you want to start first.

Seek Problem Solution Fit. Do you have a Solution for a problem or need, or a solution looking for a problem. 1 Identify a Problem: Start by understanding the pain points and challenges your customers are facing. Through customer research, interviews, surveys, and data analysis to pinpoint specific problems and needs. 2 Quantify the Problem: How does it affect your target customers? Are there any statistics, metrics, or data that can help you measure the severity of this problem? 3 Validate the Problem: Seek feedback from your target audience. Are they actively seeking solutions?

Absolutely, defining the problem and solution is crucial in startup development. Utilizing tools like Lean Canvas or Value Proposition Canvas facilitates effective mapping and validation through experiments and customer interviews, enhancing the chances of creating a product with strong market fit.

Pivoting and a lean mindset is crucial as these embody the essence of adaptability and resilience. Ability to pivot, or shift core strategies or product offerings, can mean the difference between success and failure. Pivoting allows startups to respond to customer feedback, market trends, and unforeseen challenges, ensuring that they remain relevant and competitive. It's a strategic maneuver that can lead to discovering untapped opportunities, fine-tuning product-market fit, and ultimately achieving sustainable growth. Embracing pivoting as a fundamental part of the entrepreneurial journey empowers startups to evolve, learn, and iterate, ultimately increasing the chances of long-term success in a dynamic business landscape.

MVP building has almost been commoditized by now, so it's very easy to actually test things; however never forget what the MVP wants to achieve. It's fairly easy to collect results to your hypothesis while pursuing B2C ideas but rather tricky with B2B ideas. Building MVP's in the B2B or B2Enterprise solutions spaces had been challenging in the startup or corporate entrepreneurship programs but it doesn't mean you can't get to the bottom of the problems and provide some solutions to their solutions. Knowing the theory of crossing the chasm would help you build better archetypes and not dismiss the validity of the idea because you started from the mass market representation. Focus on the early adopters in B2B/B2E markets and it'll work out.

Em minhas andan?as pelo sert?o da Bahia - Brazil, presenciei um exemplo claro e didático de MVP. Na parede de um bar em uma área remota do sert?o estava escrito "vende-se gasolina". Conversei com o dono e ele me disse que muitos carros tinham pane seca e precisavam de um socorro emergencial. Ele come?ou a armazenar gal?es de combustível para venda de forma rápida e criou aquilo que eu chamaria de MVP de um posto de gasolina (sim, que perigo - mas segue o fio). Dois anos depois, volto para a regi?o e vejo um posto de gasolina. Outro empresário entendeu o problema, viu o MVP validado e colocou em prática. Aprendizado: o MVP é uma etapa importante, mas a leitura da valida??o é essencial. O dono do bar continuou no MVP.

Once you’ve built a scrappy MVP that shows how you might solve customers challenges, go back to those customers, reflect back to them the challenges that they told you they had (through user research conversations) Ask them about it: 1. Would this type of solution help you overcome those challenges? 2. How would you use it? 3. Is there anything about it that wouldn’t help you be successful? Then categorize what they tell you into: 1. Urgent bugs to fix 2. Feature requests for other iterations (not v1) 3. Moments of delight (use in your marketing!)

Choose not to wait around too long perfecting the idea in one’s mind, get those hands dirty and build something imperfect. The first iteration is never the MVP, but the journey has now officially begun. Maybe start as small as making a sketch of your product or a low fidelity wireframe (on a tissue, sitting in a café) of your app. It all counts, these small steps. Before one knows it, the MVP comes along. One of the most important facet of quickly entering the ‘build’ phase is, it becomes much easier to communicate your idea to someone else because you have something basic to show.

Start with a product with essential elements to solve a problem. That’s the minimum viable. You can build and make it perfect on the go post launch. Also, before launching test the product at beta stage with select customer to co create it. This way the MVP will be relevant and resonates with the customer.

I feel finding team members let alone cofounders has been becoming both easier and also harder at the same time since the pandemic. It's possible to build a remote team, even a cofounding team globally however you need to focus on the culture & work/life/getting s^+t done balance from day one. You can try and find local/physically close talent and partners as well but you should always focus on building globally from day one since it's completely possible today.

I have known solo founders who are successful, but I personally feel that finding a co-founder is the single most important thing you need to focus on in the beginning. Finding a cofounder who has shared values and integrity is the most important thing. I personally feel that one should team up with a co-founder one has spent substantial time with. You can still get cheated and be wrong, but the odds are better.

Startup success is a teamwork award. There are multiple reasons why you need a team. At first, startup work consists of various areas: product development and support, business development and finance, marketing and sales and more. Identify your best role across these areas and which roles could be done by others. For instance, you have a solid background in finance. You can take a CEO/CFO role, but then you need someone to build a product - CTO/Product developer. In other words, identify your most robust skill set and find people who can fulfil your weak parts. You can be way faster and more productive in your startup as a team. Also, investors are unlikely to invest in startups with solo founders.

Many may make a science out of this, but there’s none. Often, finding the right co-founder will not make sense in the mind, but the gut will have no doubts. Complementary skillsets, time invested, etc are very basic needs here, but here are few other suggestions I found helpful on the way: - can both communicate the hard stuff? - can both step into each other’s shoes to find a holistic solution to complex problems? - can both stay in the same room without having to talk? There’s no lie here when they say it’s almost like a marriage. Take care of the subtle aspects.

A Team is very important which could complement each other’s weaknesses. It should always be ‘We’ rather ‘I’. I have learnt this from my experience when I built my own startup. Employees are the company which builds the product to your customers. This is critical. Hence ensure the awards, recognition and motivations are given to your team rather grabbing that in the first hand. The award for entrepreneur is the success of his product in the market leading the market share. Handling the team is very critical and sensitive. Hence it is critical to balance and keep up the employee morale. ‘Treat them with culture’. Respect, trust everything is included in the ‘Right healthy culture.’

Getting too much or too little advice bring the same results. Founders should have questions they looked answers for first and seek solutions from other active founders. Most common sense advice is usually not actionable value so ask for evidence & methods to test. Ask "experts" to introduce you to 3-5 people that could vouch for them before spending any time with their ideas. Experts can be in 3 categories: (1) They have done so good before that they are paying back, these people would need to be honored and respected before any engagement is possible. (2) They have done good but not that great so they need new challenges to prove success, these require some sort of time value that is worth it (3) Wanna-be-Experts with no proof but BS.

You often get conflicting advice from experts and peers, which is extremely hard to navigate when you’re a first time founder. Advice is often given based on lived experience and is subjective. You’re then left navigating that advice. It’s best to check what the process is that that person uses to get to Product-Market Fit, and how many founders have they worked with to get the feedback loops to guarantee that their approach works.

Sou um grande adepto da participa??o e intera??o com comunidades de startup, pois você vai poder participar de eventos, cursos, meetups, se conectar com pessoas que já percorreram caminhos similares e aprender com erros e acertos. Certamente, a sua jornada também poderá inspirar outras pessoas e essa troca, sem hierarquia, faz com que a jornada empreendedora, que é sempre muito solitária, fique mais leve e consistente.

Getting a supportive circle of experts, mentors, and like-minded entrepreneurs is crucial for the success of your business. Therefore, join some entrepreneurial networks and communities at the beginning of your startup journey to meet such knowledgeable people. It can be a community in your university or some startup co-working space. Also, it can be some incubator or accelerator programme. Research and find some startup networking events and support organisations in your city. If there are not many in your area, check online programmes - thousands of them accept new fellows from all across the globe. Equally, expand your network through Linkedin, follow inspiring and successful founders, connect with them, and ask for their advice!

Learning from others is great, but here's the reality: 1. Most advice is recycled garbage. 2. Your startup won’t be a cookie-cutter version. 3. Be ready to mess up, that's where the real learning happens. Podcasts can help, but don’t forget to live and trip a bit. Follow me for the real talk on startup chaos!

I would argue that this is not the final step. Instead, you need to build an environment that allows for continuous improvement and learning.

I improved my startup development skills by failing multiple times. All the theories in the world can not replace first-hand experience. Failures will teach you much more than victories. It is important to learn how to be on the safe side - so you can financially and emotionally survive failure. And keep enthusiasm for the next venture.

Not every idea guarantees success; founders must master the skills of adaptation and resilience.. Here a few key tips for experimenting and iterating: - Continuous learning - Embrace a growth mindset, value each experience as a learning opportunity. - Iterative refinement - Evolve through iterations, enhancing offerings based on past lessons. - Market responsiveness - Experimentation allows rapid response to market shifts, informed by trends and feedback - Risk Mitigation - Manage risk by diversifying strategies, avoiding any undue investment in flawed concepts - Innovation catalyst - Continuous innovation breeds innovation, differentiating startups.

Experimenting sounds great, but do we have to? ?? When did data become the holy grail? - Users don’t always know what they want. - Maybe listen to your gut once in a while? - Stop overthinking. Trust me, sometimes less is more. Follow me for actually good startup advice!

I suppose if you would look at larger scale, rather helping yourself and see what are the problems society is facing, following this one can come up with very successful startup. Once you found the problem and solution, paving the path wouldn't be very difficult untill you don't deviate or becoming fearful.

For any startup being a bootstrap or fund raising one These are following points one must always consider For startup’s survival and sustaining the market criteria becomes essential and important in the initial years Yes it’s about years and not months/days What looks on per will succeed not always get a boost in practicality it always two things 1) Trial and error : we must have all sorts of mechanism ready maybe via SWOT or fishbone to evaluate and be ready for all the upcoming shorting Because the fixed cost is going to be same and might increase day by day 2) Strategy and focus on core beliefs : it is start -ergy for start ups as either you find right personnel who can help you build the empire or either you do it yourself

Seek to fail with your idea as quickly as possible. Unless you are actually working on health tech, your non-existing idea doesn't mean anything to anyone "yet". Its your job to find the problem first and attack to your ideas to solve that problem in order to kill it. If your customer is real, the problem is validated your idea will begin a life of its own.

Once you understand what you're building, it's not about improvement. It's about identifying the most critical thing for your startup/mvp to exist. Everything could even be manual. As long as it covers the most critical thing for your startup. Thinking about improvements, it's a trap. Instead, think of the ideal case scenario. Then, iterate to get there.