Building Your Startup A startup is a temporary

Building Your Startup

“ A startup is a temporary structure till you find a scalable and repeatable business model. - Steve Blank

A version of your product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and garner feedback MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT ● ● ● Where your prototype helps validate and prove your concept, your MVP lets you test the features and functionality of your product or service This will allow you to get a simple and basic version of your idea to market quickly, finding out if there is a demand for your product without eating up too many resources Maximum amount of validated learning with the least amount of effort

VALUE PROPOSITION This is a statement that summarizes what your product or service can do for your customers. It’s the reason your audience should want to use your business and what is communicated through your MVP to gain traction. Put your personas to use- why should your idea matter to them? What pain points are your relieving? What outcomes and benefits can they expect?

Building your MVP Directly solve your problem with your unique value proposition Follow the feedback cycle: Build, Test, Learn Use your market and customer research Build on your prototype (sketches, mockups) Be efficient. Your MVP is not a complete product

What’s your MVP? What features will it have? What will you measure? How will you build it? When will you launch? Who will you test with and how many people?

LEAN CANVAS MODEL ● ● ● One of the top tools created by Ash Maurya, co-founder of Wired. Reach Created as a replacement for a longer business plan It’s specifically designed for the early stage startup to test and validate your startup assumptions and widely used by top-tier accelerators around the world

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PROBLEMS & CUSTOMER SEGMENTS - Customer centric approach: - List the top 3 problems for your customers - List existing alternatives - Figure out who your first “users” might be

UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION - A single, clear and compelling message that states why you are different and worth buying - As you create this message keep your first user in mind. What do they want? What will they get out of using your product or service? - This should explain what your company does

SOLUTION - Don’t sweat the details! Get clear on the best current version of your solution. - Your solution will change as you learn more about what your customers want. - Consider the top 3 features that will solve your customers’ top 3 pain points.

CHANNELS - How are you going to get your product or service into the hands of your customer?

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE - How can you stay in business and beat your competitors - Are you first to market? - Do you have an advantage in technology? - Network effect - Do you have expertise in your field?

COST STRUCTURE - How much is it going to cost to deliver your product/services - Cost of getting customers - Distribution - Website & Development - People - Cost of Goods and Services - How much will it cost to market to your customers? - What is your burn rate - your total monthly running cost?

REVENUE STREAMS - How are you going to make money? - How much are you going to charge? - What’s your revenue model? - Will you focus on a single stream or have multiple? - Examples include: ○ Subscription/product services ○ Consumer services ○ Events ○ Freemium model ○ Rent - Understand your cost to build and what your competitors are charging to determine a price

KEY METRICS - What are you going to measure? - How will you know if your business is working? - Some metrics can include: ○ Number of users ○ Number of purchases ○ Number of interactions ○ Number of viewers ○ Customer acquisition cost ○ Customer retention ○ Net Promoter Score

Work on your lean canvas. Revisit your MVP.

On Repeat BUILD REFINE

REFLECTION TIME What did you learn? How would you apply the learnings in your startup? What surprised you about the process and tools required to building a startup ?