20110413 founder institute

HOW TO GET A CLUE
or, Startup Research for Scientists, Engineers, and Other Geeks

@mengwong
mengwong@pobox.com
Founder Institute Singapore
13 April 2011
mengwong.com/sg/capital/

PITY THE POOR INVESTOR
who hears ten pitches a day

The Art
Project
Profit?
Eww, no.
I’m a social entrepreneur.

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Technology Cluelessness

Prior Art:! ! ! ?

Cutting Edge:! ! ?

Innovation:!! ! ?

How to Build it:! ?

Market Cluelessness

What Does
the Customer
Want:! ! ! ! ?

Who is the
Competition:! ! ?

Name of your
Industry:! ! ! ?

Research & Development
money into ideas

money into ideas ideas into money

Technology

Technology Technology

know the state of the art

know the state of the art be able to advance it

Market Market

Market Market
know the industry

Market Market
know the industry start selling to customers

Alpha geeks
scratching
their own
itch

Alpha geeks tech research

scratching
their own
itch


scratching tech development

their own
itch



their own market research

itch



their own market research

itch market development

Be the Customer
Do absolutely everything a Spend money to buy existing
frustrated customer would. solutions, only to find they’re
imperfect.
Spend hours looking for
solutions. Do the time!

Ask for help on forums. You may already be doing
this in some area of our life.
Go to industry conferences. What is it? Ask friends and
colleagues what you’re really
Ask your friends and
good at – surprise yourself!
colleagues for advice.

Ten Years of your Life
This could very well be the What’s more important than
biggest accomplishment of making $10,000 a month
your life and living the good life?

Or the biggest failure. Not everybody has an answer
to that question.
What do you care about
enough that you can say, “all Not everybody is destined to
that matters is that I tried”? be an entrepreneur.

“I wrote, so I would have Go tell your ego that that’s
something to read” –author okay.

MBA Market Research
Market Sizing

top-down / bottom-up

Customer Research

Price Sensitivity

Competitive Research

Features / Benefits /
SWOT / etc

Why do Profits Matter?
Money is a measure of value.

Ceteris paribus, the entrepreneur who delivers a greater profit
contributes more to society. (modulo “right livelihood”.)

Capitalism means you get to capture the NPV of future earnings
and use that to enable the next generation of entrepreneurs.

You can’t take it with you when you die; it’s just a game.

Startups are a humanity more than any other field of business.

Competitive Research
Don’t skate to where the puck is.
Skate to where the puck will be.
—Gretzky

Crunchbase.com. ListIO.com.
LMGTFY.com.

An invention must make sense in the
world in which it is completed, not
the world in which it was begun.
—Kurzweil

Art and
Science
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncinco/5482521736/

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“D” for dead

DIFFERENTIATION
make new mistakes! —Esther Dyson

Why My Startup Doesn’t Already Exist

Why My Startup Doesn’t Already Exist
1. Actually it does. I’m a clone. 6. Previous teams too early;
… but I’m adding a twist! external enabler was absent.
2. Nobody’s ever had the idea 7. Lacked secret sauce:
before. internal enabler was absent.
…actually they have, I just 8. Previous teams built too slow
don’t know it. or too big.
3. It’s nice, but nobody cares. 9. Previous teams weren’t agile
enough to keep up with
4. It’s nice, but too expensive. competition.
5. Previous teams couldn’t
execute.

secret sauce, please

Industry Experience ++

Domain Expertise ++

I have a PhD + –

I have an MBA – –

I dropped out of college ++

why you?
why now?
are you riding some sort of
disruptive wave?

WE HAVE NO COMPETITION
“They tried and failed?” “No. They tried and died.”

PAUL BARAN
April 29, 1926 — March 26, 2011

20110413 founder institute

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