From an idea to a startup to a business

From Idea to Startup and Beyond

Why I’m Talking About This?

• 7 years of startup experience• 3 startups (1 acquisition)• Currently the co-founder and CTO of Pring• Everything I talk about I’ve learned* the hard

way• Take your ideas to the next stage

*Still Learning!

What’s a Startup?

• Not a Small, Medium Business• It’s a temporary organization looking for

scalable, repeatable business model

Idea Startup Business

Business Model? Startups are looking to solve a problem while making money in the process

Tech Risk vs Market Risk

• Is yours a tech risk or a market risk?• Usually it’s almost always the Market• Very few startups fail because of a technology

failure• Most fail because of market failure ie: not

enough users or not enough paying customers

How do you Reduce Engineering Risk?

• Scrum, XP, Agile Development• Test/ Behavior Driven Development• Spiral, Prototype Based Development• Hybrid/Waterfall Development

Market Risk?

• Customer Development Process – Dr. Steve BlankKey Resource: Startup Owner’s Manual

• Lean Startup –Eric RiesKey Resource: The Lean Startup

Create Your Hypothesis

• What are your assumptions about…• …The user (behavior, pain point etc)• …the market (competition, pricing etc)• …the customer (significant problem for them?

Price point? Good enough solution?

Then Go Out and Validate

• Meet Earlyvanglists (early adaptors)

Book: Business Model Generation: Alexander Osterwalder

Two-Sided Business Models

• Side One: Users• Side Two: Advertisers• You need to iterative over both• Users: Registrations, Contents Created,

Minutes Spent etc• Advertisers: Order Size, CTR, eCPM etc

Only ideas exist within the building. The Facts are outside.

Customer Development Process