An F'ing Week

I had an ‘F’ themed week, with effort spent on the following:

Functional tools – As the prior week’s talk on key AI tools had been more of a whirlwind tour, I took a chunk of time to go through the deck at my own (read ‘measured’) pace, visiting the websites of several namechecked brands and rolling up my sleeves to have a ‘go’ at a couple.? I’ve previously mentioned how amazed I was with SyntheticUsers, the tool that generates qualitative research results on AI-generated consumers meeting your specifications.? Last time as we were in the workshop, I only had a few seconds to decide those specs, so I went back this week and had a slightly more serious attempt at the recruitment criteria.? This rendered more detailed feedback on the concept tested, including my good friend, spider charts!? I also made use of the summary report generator, which did as you’d expect. But again, all in seconds.? I strongly recommend this tool as a first step to hone your concept before exposing it to actual prospective customers, which has a high cost in time and if done externally, money.?

I then headed over to ValidatorAI, where I input an improved and pithier concept statement and got out a summary analysis.? This generates a brief summary, in my case about half a page of enumerated areas where I’d want to be mindful of challenges or opportunities.? In the case of the gut health concept, the tool cautioned me to consider ‘Market Awareness’, ‘Cost & Accessibility’, ‘Privacy & Data Security’, ‘Competitor Landscape’ and ‘Action Plan Effectiveness’…all fairly standard stuff but helpful to ensure you don’t overlook a major opportunity or trap.

Next, I headed over to PlusAI, which generated a Google slide presentation using the minimal information I’d put in from the concept test.? The results were impressive!? They weren’t exactly ‘boardroom-ready’ and would have needed a fair bit of zhuzhing up and the addition of missing data points, but the deck was the bones of a solid presentation with a sensible structure.? And again, that was generated in seconds.? Certainly, much better than facing blank page anxiety, staring at an empty PowerPoint template with the pointer mocking my indecision.

I had hoped to gain access to a site that promises to be ‘Your trusted partner for world-class public opinion research’, however my account was not approved.? A colleague tipped me off that I’ll need to speak to their team first, so hopefully I’ll be able to report back in next week’s post.

Friends – a shortened term for what Zinc calls our ‘Support Circle’ (campfire sold separately).? This is basically group therapy, made up of 5 co-founders with similar skill sets (‘Commercial’ in our case) plus a member of the Zinc team, Hannah Abdel-Hadi , to guide us and make sure we spend the time talking about what’s gone well and what hasn’t rather than speak about food or some other ‘banal’ (not) topic.? This week one member had had and early co-founder ‘break up’, so we all wanted to hear about it to collectively help us normalize the experience as we’ve been warned it’s surprisingly common.? It was good to know there is significantly less drama around early co-founder ‘un-matchings’ than a typical Year 7 (6th Grade) romance. Phew.? The subject of matching criteria was discussed (foreshadowing my next ‘F’…), and I shared my working version.? Basically, I’ve separated the Problem Area from the Co-Founder to assign a fit rating for me.? The co-founder section currently looks like the below.? I’m fully mindful this will evolve over time as I sprint more, but it’s a start. I'd be grateful to get your perspective on this (or anything start-up related) in the comments.

CRITERIA & WEIGHT

I FEEL ENERGISED

25

I FEEL EXCITED

15

THEIR DEDICATION TO THIS IS 85%+

15

DOMAIN CREDIBILITY +/-

20

DOMAIN EXPERTISE +/-

10

START UP EXPERIENCE

10

EQUALS - VALUES COMMERCIAL +/-

5

100

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Frameworks – You may have guessed it, given the above.? But I’ve spent time putting together several frameworks how I will approach the problem and solution areas.? And of course, how I will choose between the problem areas.? I was advised to consider the 4 P’s Prioritisation Tool (so technically 5 P’s):? 1. Person 2. Prevalence of actual issue 3. Pain (of the customer group rather than me finding the topic painful, but that counts too!) 4. Pragmatism (ie Is this really a problem a start up can help solve?). I will also start mapping out the stakeholders, paying special attention to who is interested and able in the near term to change to our solution.

Fellows – These are the learned mentors who have graciously agreed to volunteer their time and effort to helping us in their area of expertise. ?Every fortnight, a number of them hold ‘Office Hours’ and we can grab a 25- or 55-minute slot to chat with them about whatever our challenge or questions are at that juncture. For 4 of the prior 5 years I’ve served as a commercial mentor in Natwest’s start-up accelerator, where I was mostly called upon for Marketing, Branding and subscriptions advice.? After this week I now know how it feels to receive advice at a key juncture. ?I was fortunate to get time separately with 4 Fellows, which I used to get their individual perspective on 3 problem areas within healthcare that I’ve been sprinting on.? I found the sessions immensely helpful and energizing!? Shout outs to Jeremy Clark , Clare Scully, PhD , Will Meadows and Amanda Vine .? Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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This week’s:

Lowlight – Feeling rebuffed by a potential co-founder.? It’s all part of the process, and it’s better to know now than waste precious time. I just needed some time to mourn (and maybe moan a bit in the Support Circle...)

Highlight – The sessions with the Fellows!

If you'd like more perspectives on Week 7 of the Venture, head on over to posts from my cohort:

Marjo Palanee

Lisa Rickers

Guy Naor

Natalia Baltazar

Josh Piddock

Pavandeep Rai Ph.D

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