4. Goal 1
Customer
Goal 2
Which of your initial
Customers goal and problem
assumptions are correct and
which were false?
Goal 3
Problem 1
Problem 2
Problem 3
5. Goal 1
Customer
Goal 2
Task (Time: 10 minutes)
1 Remove false assumptions
2 Add new problems and goals
patterns
Goal 3
Problem 1
Problem 2
Problem 3
New problem
12. The only thing that matters is product/market fit
- Marc Andreessen
13. Feature 1
Goal 1 Customer
Goal 2
Feature 2
Product-Market fit happens when
The product helps the customers
1. Achieve their goals
2. Solve their problems
Better than the current solutions
Feature 3
Goal 3
14. App to
call a taxi
Get to my
destination
Traveller
Taxi’s are
expensiveRating of taxi
driver
Standard
pricing
Drivers are rude
Arrive late &
unreliable
Can’t hear the
driver
Payment
is hassle
Clean
cars
Polite drivers
Feel
Used /
Ripped off
Geo-tracking
15. Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3
Feature 4
Feature 5
Feature 6
Tasks (Time: 10 minutes)
1. Add product, services and features
to your canvas
2. Ensure your product, services and
features solve your customer
problems
18. Onhub Slow speeds
Home
Wifi user
Shouldn’t
Wifi be
easier
Lost connections
Communications
With an app
Not blinking lights
Starts fast and
Stays fast
Hard to set up
Hard to trouble
shoot
23. The 4-hour
Body
Real ad look at feel
1 human
guinea pig
100+ Scientist
consulted
10 years of
experiments
Hold your
Breath fo 5
minutes
Run 100 miles
Use credibility indicators and customer goals
Lift 500 pounds
24. Messaging best practice
1 Link messaging to problems
2 Clear one line pitch
3 Use credibility indicators
4 Use customer goals
25. Product Message 1
Message 3
Message 2
Task (Time 10 mins)
1 Add messaging and stories for
your product.
2 Ensure that your messaging fits
with your customer goals and
problems.
Story 1
Story 2
27. Minimum variable product
MVP definition:
A version of the product or marketing that will help you learn
the most about customer behaviour with the least effort
28. How most startups launch
Business Plan Launch
Product
Development
Learning happens here!Months / Years
51. Task (Time: 10 minutes)
1 Create a list of MVPs that you would be relevant for your product
2 Decide which MVP you will build first.
(Start with the MVP that will give you the most learning in the shortest amount of
time).
57. Questions
1 Would you agree this is your biggest
problem?
2 Demo product
• What features do you like?
• What features would be most useful?
• What don’t you like about the solution?
• Which features would you use every day?
3 After demo
• Do you think this will solve your problem?
• What could be improved?
• What would you change?
4 Pre-sales
• Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
58. Questions
1 Would you agree these are your goals and
problems?
2 Demo product
• What features do you like?
• What features would be most useful?
• What don’t you like about the solution?
• Which features would you use every day?
3 After demo
• Do you think this will solve your problem?
• What could be improved?
• What would you change?
4 Pre-sales
• Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
59. Questions
1 Would you agree these are your goals and
problems?
2 Demo product
• What features do you like?
• What features would be most useful?
• What don’t you like about the solution?
• Which features would you use every day?
3 After demo
• Do you think this will solve your problem?
• What could be improved?
• What would you change?
4 Pre-sales
• Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
60. Questions
1 Would you agree these are your goals and
problems?
2 Demo product
• What features do you like?
• What features would be most useful?
• What don’t you like about the solution?
• Which features would you use every day?
3 After demo
• Do you think this will solve your problem?
• What could be improved?
• What would you change?
4 Pre-sales
• Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
Do you want to be put on the waiting list?
63. Interview customers
• Get out of the building
• Conduct customer interviews (Phone or face-to-face)
• Aim to do at least 10 interviews
• Aim to run and analyse 2 experiments
• Next presentation at 16:30
• Feel free to ask for help from the team after each experiment
• If you are already up and running ask someone on the team to help
you design a relevant experiment for your business
64. 1. Signed up to your landing page.
2. Purchased the product or service.
3. Pre-paid for the product or service.
4. Willing to pilot with solution with you.
5. Got excited by the solution you pitched to them.
How do you test if they will buy?
8 / 10
Signed up
8 / 10
Purchased
8 / 10
Pre-paid
8 / 10
Pilot
8 / 10
Got excited
65. 1. Get a single conversation (1/10). Understand why. Improve. Goal (10/10).
2. Create a high bar (8/10). Quickly invalidate ideas. Next idea.
3. Your current conversation ratio (?/10). Improve.
4. Statistical significance (95/99% level).
5. Financial model. What does conversation rate need to be for the business to
be viable?
How do you determine the conversation ratio?
? / 10
Signed up
72. Logo
Picture
Amazing one-line headline
that is easy to understand
and has key benefit in it.
Amazing sub-headline that is easy to
understand.
CTA for offer
Social media buttons
Key benefit / feature
Description of feature / benefit.
Key benefit / feature
Description of feature / benefit.
Key benefit / feature
Description of feature / benefit.
Key benefit / feature
Description of feature / benefit.
Price 1
• Feature
• Feature
• Feature
Price 2
• Feature
• Feature
• Feature
Price 3
• Feature
• Feature
• Feature
Quote from problem / solution interviews.
- Persons name
• Create a 3 page landing page of your solution
• Use a landing page format
• Time 30 mins
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3
Notas do Editor
My Startup Failed. Fuck.
I finally said it, my startup failed. Fuck. I felt like I was coming out of the closet when I first stated it aloud to my co-founder. We both knew for months it was not working out, but we never explicitly defined our situation as a failed one. Now that the elephant in the room has a name, we’ll call him “Dumbo” which stands for “Didn’t Understand Markets Brain Outline”. That right there was our main problem. Our market demographic was musicians, and although a few of us had worked around the industry, we concluded recently we were not music SALES domain experts.
The product was a flash sale platform for musicians to release their music using dynamic pricing (zillionears.com). To us, this software was a no brainer for musicians to use. The artists get to engage their fans while enticing their community to share with friends. So we talked to a few artists who said they thought it was a cool idea. BOOM! Our idea had been validated! After that moment we basically stopped talking to artists for a year and built (and rebuilt) the software until we thought it was acceptable.
Our first beta test was a disaster when Amazon (who was our payment processor) suspended our account for not complying with money transfer issues. Fans were able to participate in the sale, but we were unable to capture their billing. We ended up paying the artist out of our own pocket and giving everyone his music for free (and we never told him that happened until now).
From that beta test we found out that our software needed to be rewritten to comply with Amazons terms. More importantly though, people really didn’t really LIKE anything about our product. No one that used the service thought it was that cool. In fact, some people that participated in the sale didn’t even like our “dynamic pricing” system. They were trying to support the artist, so saving a few dollars didn’t excite them. They could easily have just gotten his music for free elsewhere.
We should have packed it up early right then, but we felt like we had already gone too far to quit. We rebuilt (and re-designed) the majority of the software, got approved by Amazon, and reached out to over 1,700 artists (each individually through different platforms). We got between 1 and 10 artists interested. Again, this just screams “PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY!” But we kept going. Finally the day came for our second beta (which was totally gonna kick ass for sure). The artist we had on board set up his sale page and was ready to go. Only problem is he totally misunderstood what our software was all about. Once he found out about the dynamic pricing he tells us “I think I am just going to release with another platform.” FUCK! Are you serious????
After that we spent another month slowly letting it linger in our day to day lives. We went for one last ditch effort to make a press release, but couldn’t get a single artist (out of the 1,700+ we talked to) to run a sale. My co-founder called me to tell me this news. I asked him “Would you like to use my gun?” I was referring to the scene in The Social Network where Zuckerberg’s lawyer asks Saverin “Would you like to use my pen?” to manipulatively sign his shares over. I, of course, was referring to shooting this fucking company in the head and moving on with our lives! He agreed. We took Zillionears out back, and shot it in the head. It felt good.
Although our company did not succeed the way we would have hoped for, we all learned more in the past year than we had in college. Our insights and experiences have been invaluable. For each of my future posts I will go into detail about the things I learned while on this journey, and how to apply the knowledge to future startups so you can avoid ending up in a room with “Dumbo”!
Hit me up on twitter! I just got on there. I love to talk to folks about startup experiences! @nemrow