We’ve spoken with hundreds of startup founders and for the earlier stage companies, there’s a recurring theme.
No time spent on #validation.
As founders, we’re always spending our time building and developing. But what are we building if we don’t know that its valid in the eyes of our customer?
It’s simple:
1. Write down your product concept in a really easy, 2-3 sentence statement starting with the problem (here’s ours to give you an example):
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“Equity financing is expensive and time consuming, and in the end founders lose up to 80% of their company through venture rounds. Revtap.io solves this by providing a marketplace where companies raise capital through flexible revenue sharing, giving investors the opportunity to share in the upside of their growth.”
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2. Decide who your customer is, and get your concept statement in front of as many as possible. Those who say “this is interesting, I’d like to learn more” can be used as a KPI in and of itself. But the real metric is who would become BUYERS TODAY. You’re not trying to sell them here (keep them in a waitlist). But you need to know “if this was ready today, would you sign up?”
Note that any constructive feedback from your potential user here is GOLD. Take that back to your team and use it to pivot, reiterate, and modify your offering.
That’s it.
SO MANY startups we meet with have not spoken to potential customers, and those that do are giving them long winded sales pitches.
Instead, come up with a CONCEPT STATEMENT and get it in front of as many potential customers as possible.
#startup #startups #founders #sales #opportunity #share #growth #fundraising #raisingcapital
