Browsing AuthorJeff Solomon

How to Pitch Your Startup to Investors

Pitching your startup to investors takes practice. But here are 11 tips that will help you understand the art and science of good presenting.

Startup Tips #5 – Why Startups Fail

A case study of OUYA and the entrepreneurs’ trap

The truth is that most startups fail. But this statistic would be much lower if founders simply embarked on the simple, but not easy, process of Customer Development. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs neglect to do this before launching their business — mostly because it’s hard and not nearly as fun as building your product or service. But also because most people really don’t even know how to do it.

Why Startups Fail

But how do you extract the real need from potential customers so you

We’ve all heard stories of startups who had rocket-powered growth and an equally fast crash and burn. Companies like Ouya, YikYak, and Jawbone raised tons of money, launched a product, invested millions in sales and marketing only to come crashing down soon after they ran out of money.

In simple terms, they never did the work required to achieve product-market fit.

This customer development tip looks at one of these companies, OUYA, and figure out why they failed.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

Startup Tips #4 – Problems are Found in the Why

How to extract real pain points from customers

Interviewing potential customers is the only way to know if your business idea is going to work. It’s an essential process to be done BEFORE you launch your product or service.

Problems are Found in the Why

But how do you extract the real need from potential customers so you can validate a problem and confirm you are solving is the right one. Use customer development to extract real pain points from customers.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

Intro to Entrepreneurship

Learning to be an entrepreneur isn’t rocket science. In fact, most people are inherently entrepreneurial. This course teaches the basic principles and practices of being an entrepreneur.

Startup Tips #3 – What is a Problem Hypothesis

The basic building block of starting a business.

The most essential aspect of business building is solving a significant problem or need for a specific segment of customers. The most effective way to identify a problem worth solving is to start with a problem hypothesis.

What is a Problem Hypothesis

This is a process that informs your entire customer development process by helping you frame who you think the customer is, what problem they have, and what benefit they get after solving it.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.