🙉 You're being lied to about STARTUPS. Here's your MVP idea!

Hello! 🙋‍♂️

Quick message today.
Something needs addressed…

😠 You’re being lied to.
I want to clear it up right now.

Over the past week, I’ve been booking 1 on 1 calls with many of you. I love hearing about your plans and your passion — and how I can help!

There is a recurring theme in many of these calls, and it needs addressed:

❗ New startup founders believe they will raise investor funding.

Below I will explain WHY and then I will explain what you SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON.

🙄 Sigh… Let’s talk about the venture capital world.

Key points to keep this brief:

☝ Not all VC investors are evil. Not all are out to deceive.

But…

• They all say, “no startup is too early for us”.
  

• They want to give the appearance that they are super supportive of the small, first-time founder.

  
  

  🖥 The venture capital world does an AMAZING job of promoting themselves on social media and in the tech press.

  
  

• They make us feel like they are the one missing piece on our road to success.
  

• They overly promote their involvement with the winners, and rarely mention the losers that they back. And most of their startups go to $0. Over 90% in fact.
  

• If only 1 out of 20 or 30 or 50 are winners, then the winners better be HUGE to make up for the losers.
  

• Therefore, since they only want HUGE startups, they only want people pursuing MASSIVE opportunities.
  

• Therefore, startup accelerators and advisors are preaching the same thing. Your idea isn’t big enough. The target market isn’t big enough. You should be looking to disrupt a major market. You should want to grow faster etc.
  

• We are all hearing this same thing out there.
  

• It seems like EVERYONE is getting funding, if we just follow this plan.

  
  

They aren’t and you should put that out of your mind.

• BECAUSE…
  

• Instead of growing your young startup the right way, we tend to do things that CHECK BOXES for investors.
  
  SUCH AS…

  
  

  ✔ I need to create a really compelling pitch deck.

  ✔ I need to hire someone to create a solid MVP… maybe a first version of the app.
  

  ✔ I need to make sure I am targeting a massive customer base, because the investors want to see it.
  

  ✔ I need to show that we can scale quickly, so let’s get things in place for that (people, tech, etc.)

  
  
  🚫 NO. It’s too early for all of this. I explain below…

  
  

  
  🤖 This is what you SHOULD BE DOING at this early stage.

  
  

• Forget about investor money. Put it out of your mind. Investors don’t back ideas… they invest in GROWTH. 
  

• Obsess over what the problem is you are solving.
  Obsess over the customer.
  Go out and talk to them as much as you can.
  Face to face or via Zoom is preferred.
  Dig deep to find out what frustrates them and how they are solving it now.
  Determine why current solutions aren’t satisfying them.
  Determine what you can create that would fix their pain.

  💡 Do things manually for now. Don’t worry about tech. Don’t worry about scaling. You have to figure out what the key problem is and how you can solve it.

  
  

• Answer this:
  
  What is the simplest way I can solve this problem, right now?
  WITHOUT tech.
  
  Because…
  

• The goal, right now, is to prove that you can solve this problem and that people are hungry for the solution. Prove they are willing to pay for a solution.
  
  How?
  
  

✅ Could you make a PDF that helps your customers with their problem and sell it for $10? $20? More?

This is a manual process, but we’ll worry about adding tech and scaling later.
We can dive into what this PDF might look like soon… but get creative and use your expertise to write a guide that solves the customer’s problem.

Perhaps the PDF is filled with recommendations, your experience or a simple how-to. It can be anything.

• If you can make and sell this PDF, you’re ahead of 99% of us.
  
  You’ll have proven you have ready-to-buy customers.
  You’ll have early income to fund your project.
  You’ll have proven you are the RIGHT person to solve this.
  
  

  💹 This is REAL TRACTION! And it has cost you no money.
  
  

☝ The point is:

1️⃣ DO NOT assume venture funding is coming.

2️⃣ SKIP the pitch deck.

3️⃣ SKIP anything technical for now.

4️⃣ Talk face to face with your target market. Start small! Your local area is good enough. Scale later. Find out what the problem is.

5️⃣ Come up with the simplest, non-technical product you can create to see if these customers are willing to pay you to help them.

🚶‍♀️ This is a how you do an MVP. Even if this product is something you will throw away, you will have proven that people will pay you for a solution!

That’s it for today. I hope this motivates you to get moving.

⏩ Don’t forget to forward this email to your friend who likes startups too.

⌨ Reply to this message and let me know what you're working on!

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