As @christinacaci put it (on her path to building @TrustVanta
): "At the whiteboard stage, it makes so much sense. And in reality, zero sense. We recognized that if you can do it on a whiteboard, someone has probably done it. There’s no $20 bills on the sidewalk."
@lennysan
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Whiteboard Ideas vs Real-World AI Startup Viability
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Brainstorming Right Way Drives Best B2B Startup Ideas
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One of my biggest surprises from researching the original stories of the best B2B startups is how many of their startup ideas emerged from doing something that's generally discouraged: sitting around and whiteboarding. But, there’s a wrong way and a right way…
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Support Team Reporting Structure Product Leadership
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Why you may want to have your support team report into product
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) 8 août 2023
From @geoffintech, VP Product @tryramp pic.twitter.com/Fxb5xzWLTNWhy you may want to have your support team report into product From @geoffintech
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You Need Passion to Solve Long-Term Problems
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3. You’re excited about solving this problem Finally, the problem needs to be something you are willing to spend many years of your life solving. This advice from @zoink
, co-founder of Figma, captures the sentiment perfectly: -
Optimize for Interestingness in Your Work
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@paulg in a recent essay: “It’s essential to work on something you’re deeply interested in. Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could. When in doubt, optimize for interestingness.” Source: http://
paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
#f1n
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Beating Existing Solutions: Rating Your Product Against Competitors
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What would a customer rate the existing solution on a scale of 1 to 10? What would they rate your solution? Your solution needs to be 4 or better for anyone to care. This also means that if the existing solution gets a 6 or higher, it’ll be very hard to replace (e.g. Excel).
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Problem Size Over Market Size for Venture Scale Ideas
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@hunterwalk has a great framework called LUV to help you here ➔ https://
hunterwalk.com/2017/04/12/why
-i-care-about-problem-size-more-than-market-size/
… Here’s my take on what makes a venture-scale idea ➔ https://
lennysnewsletter.com/p/your-startup
-idea-probably-isnt-venture
… Also, a guide to help you think through your market size from @mvernal ➔ https://
medium.com/sequoia-capita
l/the-market-curve-44097b626f6d
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Delta-4 Framework: Evaluating Underserved Market Solutions
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Ingredient 2. The market is underserved Existing solutions need to be doing a subpar job of solving the problem. The founder of CRED, @kunalb11
, has a great framework for evaluating potential new solutions, called Delta-4: -
Venture Scale: $100M to $1B Revenue Path Rule
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If you want to build a venture-scale business, a rule of thumb is that there needs to be a clear path to $100m in revenue per year, and eventually a path to $1B a year.
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Market Size Determines Startup Success More Than Idea Quality
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Ingredient 1. The problem is important to people There need to be a lot of people willing to spend a lot of money to solve the problem. Most startups fail not because the idea isn’t good but because the market (people+money) for the solution is just too small.