Today's Guest: NYT Bestselling Author Diana Kander

Read time: 3 minutes

Hello!

🏆️ Today, we’re talking with Diana Kander. She’s a NY Times Bestselling Author as well as a business consultant and keynote speaker. Diana wrote one of the best entrepreneurship books of all time, All in Startup. The book is about validating startup ideas, and it’s written as an engaging novel that you’ll not want to put down. She is here to help us understand what to do immediately after we come up with an idea!

Before we dive in. This is NOT a sponsored post. We want to share Diana’s expertise with you. 🙃 Everything written below in bold is my own emphasis.

Aron: Diana, you’re an expert in helping entrepreneurs validate their ideas in the market. Before we dive into your proven methods, can you tell us how you landed on this specific niche of the entrepreneurial journey?

➡️ Diana: A really painful startup experience that didn't have to go so poorly. I had a startup that was very successful at the beginning and then failed because I didn't follow some of the basic principles we now know about building successful companies. And since then, I've made it a personal mission to share my story in hopes of helping as many people as possible avoid that pain.

Aron: I’d love to dive into your methodology of exactly how to talk to early customers. Before we do that, can you explain the INCORRECT way that most entrepreneurs go about pursuing an idea?

💡 Diana: When we come up with a new idea, we love it like a new baby. And so we go around looking for confirmation that it's a great idea and our friends and family tell us what we want to hear because they want to be nice. Even complete strangers will lie to us because they want to be nice and not hurt our feelings. And then we end up building something no one wants and only finding out when it's too late to change anything about our idea.

Aron: That sounds very familiar to me! Now that we’ve covered the way most of us have done it in the past, let’s talk about the way today’s successful entrepreneurs pursue their ideas. Can you break down the path for us in a few simple steps?

🏃‍♀️ Diana: Sure, you want to hear the surprising feedback about your idea before it's too late to change it. So you need to trick people into telling you the truth. I've actually put together a resource your community can use to get people to tell them the truth about their idea. It's a series of rules for interviewing customers in a way that gets them to open up and tell you what you need to hear.

Aron: Awesome. I’ll share that with the community in an upcoming newsletter. Thanks!

Aron: Many of our readers are not based in the United States. You actually came to the USA as a refugee at the age of 8. Amazing. From your experience, how have entrepreneurs outside of the United States found paths to pursue their startup dreams?

🌏️ Diana: The good news is that we are all humans and all follow similar behavior patterns. No matter who your customers are, they will be delightfully irrational, meaning that it's impossible to predict how they will react to your idea. The only way to be sure that this idea is worth your time and investment is to interact with them to find out.

Aron: I love to say that entrepreneurship is like playing detective. It’s less about doing exciting things that we constantly hear about in the news and more about learning. In All in Startup, you hit us in the face with this exact fact early on. Actually, here are your words, as highlighted in my personal copy:

Aron: How did you learn this (correct, I might add) way of starting and validating new ventures?

💰️ 🔥 Diana: Just a lot of pain from building products no one wanted. I've spent over $250,000 building software products that people didn't want. And I want to share that message with as many people as possible. There's a way to test your idea early on so that you don't have to waste all that time and money. This strategy is what I use today, and it helps me significantly de-risk pursuing new ideas.

Aron: All in Startup has had high praise, landing on the NY Times Bestseller list.

In fact, the late Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos, said this about the book: “I dare you to find a business book for entrepreneurs that’s as useful as All In Startup, and I double-dare you to find one that’s as much fun to read. Diana Kander captures what it’s like to launch something new. The result is a book that helps set readers on the path to finding startup success.”

Can you tell us how the success of this book led you to consult on interesting projects and how has the advice in the book held up under real life situations?

🏢 Diana: The book has gotten into the hands of a lot of executives that asked me to come and help their employees think more like entrepreneurs. This has allowed me to work on launching some really big projects, including one over $100 Million 😮. But the most incredible result has been watching really smart people understand that their intellect could get in the way of launching successful companies because they will never be able to predict their way to success, they can only test and learn their way to it.

Aron: Finally, what advice would you give to those of us that are new in this entrepreneurial journey? What have you seen work for those of us who are just learning the way forward?

🥼 Diana: Don't think that your big idea is the only idea you'll ever get. Your creativity and ability to create value is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it will work for you. I come up with a new book idea like every other day 😂. I have a product idea like once a week. It's too much! But only once you get those floodgates opened will you see that it's not the idea that's special, it's you.  And you should protect yourself from ideas that aren't good enough by testing and experimenting to figure out what's worth your time and investment.

Thank you, Diana, for your sharing your time and expertise with us.

If you want to read Diana’s book, All in Startup, you can find it here: 👇️ 

Click the book above or this link to find it: All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line: Kander, Diana

My copy is highlighted up after blasting through it twice!

📗 In fact, Diana has a brand-new book out titled, Go Big or Go Home. In this book she shares her methods on making any presentation stand out. It’s ideal for entrepreneurs that are pitching, workers at companies looking to get their ideas pushed through and anyone involved in sales (hint, that’s all of us) who wants their products and presentations to stand out.

Click the book above or click this link to find it: Amazon.com: Go Big or Go Home: 5 Ways to Create a Customer Experience That Will Close the Deal

📰 Up next: more thoughts from smart founders who can tell us what they did in the early days.

As always, reach out to me with questions and tell me what you’re working on.

Best of luck out there!

Aron Meystedt

PS: We’re going to start the conversation soon, so be sure to follow on the socials below 👇️ ⬇️ 👇️