Momentum in a startup is everything.

It comes from measuring buying behavior — from day 1.

It’s a chain of increasingly compelling evidence:

- Are the customers out there?
- Can you find them?
- Do they have the problem?
- Do they want a solution?
- Do they want _your_ solution?
- Will they pay for it?
- Can you retain them?
- Will they refer friends?

What’s the smallest, cheapest, quickest thing you can do to get the strongest possible evidence as far along that chain as you can?

Beginner: plan the perfect product.

Intermediate: work with customers to plan a product.

Advanced: ship and iterate an imperfect product.

Master: pre-sell the product before building the product.

Your idea sucks.

I’m not saying YOU suck — I’m sure you’re awesome. 🙂

But, as Steve Blank famously paraphrased, no business model survives first contact with the customer.

It’s how we learn.

It’s why we pivot.

And there’s no such thing as “too soon” to do it.

In fact, you delay that learning at your peril.

A question for your Friday pondering:

Is the AI boom a world-changing opportunity with 100x returns, or a web3-like bust?

Futurists, fight! 👇

Experiments are simple.

You don’t need:

Analytics tools, a PhD in statistics, paying customers, or even a finished product.

You only need:

An assumption, a potential customer, and a rapid prototype.

It's Saturday! Time for another startup AMA.

Drop your Q down in the comments, or tag me in a post.

I'll send a video reply.

You can ask me anything:

• Customer Acquisition
• Rapid prototyping
• Pre-sales
• Traction
• Metrics
• etc

Let's do this. 🔥

You aren’t rewarded for grit.

You’re rewarded for creating value.

So don’t beat your head against the wall if you haven’t proved there’s something on the other side of it.

Instead, make small bets that compound, over and over again, until you have evidence there’s a “there” there.

Then double-down.