The Problems With Startup Material

UNUSABLE LEVEL OF DETAIL

Where's The "How-To" Bit?

Inspirational fluff, endless anecdotes, and SEO-c**p, alongside bull*t instructions like "Now do some marketing". Not ignoring the sound-bites of successful founders blinkered by survivorship bias. They may as well recommend you use Midas's middle finger.

YOU TOO CAN GET THE SAME RESULTS

But More Context Changes The Frame

Actionable processes that leave vital contextual information out. When you do get the context, you realize comparable results were never on the cards. But hey, you’re in their funnel. That’s a win-win in their book. Which you can purchase from their website.

STARTUPS FAIL FOR MANY REASONS

And Not Just No Market Need

No market need is only one reason, yet we have lop-sided product-based approaches. What about the other landmines? You’ll have to navigate past them as well.

FOUNDERS WEAR MANY HATS

Research Hat, Marketing Hat, Sales Hat, Jimmy Hat...

You know you have to make something people want. But you also have to make people want something. Each hat is a career in its own right, but you’ll have to wear them all.

FAIL FAST - LEARN SLOW

How Many Things Are You Attempting To Validate?

Attempting to validate the problem, the audience, the solution, the channel, the content on the channel, the targeting factors, taking into account buyer intent doesn’t exclusively mean early adopters. Then there is your landing page skills and copy-writing chops. Get those things right, then yes, you are attempting to validate market demand using a landing page and mock product.

SHIP EARLY AND MINIMUM

Oblivious To The Passage Of Time

Markets evolve, competitors multiply and audiences expect more. You can ship too early. Take into account the passage of time, and that minimum is a rising expectation we have to meet.

GETTING OUT OF THE BUILDING TOO SOON

Fishing Instead Of Experimenting

You know you have to make something people want. But you also have to make people want something. Each hat is a career in its own right, but you’ll have to wear them all.

BRILLIANT ACTIONABLE STUFF

But Narrow In Scope

Fantastic resources shared by brilliant minds that go deep, but are narrow in scope. So you’re putting a jigsaw puzzle together, not knowing if the parts contribute correctly to the targeted whole.

SCATTERGUN TACTICS

Not Contained Within An Overall Strategy

A lack of congruency between macro and micro-goals can result in doing tasks that don’t lead to the desired objective, or even lead you astray. Like hacks and tactics that have no relevance and won’t contribute to the defined strategy.

Although upon closer inspection they are gateway collateral into an ecosystem of videos, courses, workshops, worksheets, etc, that enables the holistic approach. Collectively, you can call it a system.

But Are They An Interconnected Automated System?

A system that helps you produce the content you need to gain traction? A system that aids you in building strong foundations? A system that takes into account the aforementioned problems?

Scattered Tools - Scattered Validated Data

Online and offline drives, documents, spreadsheets, to-do apps, project management apps, wiki’s, the list is long. You may even be using multiple SaaS solutions, incompatible pieces monstrously stitched together, your FrankenSaaStein if you will. But your data is scattered, spread out, separated.

Do You Know The Many Places Validated Data Can Be Used?

You’re meant to learn in this stage, but the application of what you learn is diminished, plagued by inefficiencies, and riddled with confusion. Your data is siloed. The maximum value from your data is not being obtained.