From Idea to Launch

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Often, founders embark on their entrepreneurial journey without a clear goal or exit plan. It’s vital to have a lucid vision of where you want to reach, including an understanding of the desired 'liquidity event' or exit strategy.

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Honesty here is essential -  If you choose to go down the route of Venture Capital (VC) funding, you need to understand what the associated VC expectation is in terms of returns; be able to commit to that, and be able to demonstrate how your business will deliver those desired returns in the right timeframe (typically an investment cycle of 5 years).

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Equally, there's also nothing wrong with eschewing VC-led investment entirely to instead focus on bootstrapping or revenue generation with a trade sale, or instead developing a lifestyle business.

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Either way, though, knowing where you want to end up is vital to achieve any meaningful success.

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The foundation of any successful tech venture lies in the strength of its underlying idea. Avoid building a solution in search of a problem - the Apple Vision Pro is a beautiful piece of kit, but one which doesn’t currently solve any real-world problems; until that changes it will only ever be a first-world luxury. Instead:

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• Identify genuine pain points
  What persistent challenges do your target users face, and what product or service would fix those challenges - or at least a meaningful number of them?
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• Conduct market research
  Understand the competitive landscape. Are there similar solutions? What sets your idea apart? Engaging with potential customers early on - and without a sales pitch - will provide invaluable qualitative market intel.
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• Seek early feedback
  Talk to potential customers: Would they use your product? How much would they pay?

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You’ve identified a problem, and you think your product offers a solution - but does it really? One of the hardest parts of being a founder is applying the rigorous degree of criticism to your own ideas, but it’s essential to building a business that can survive.

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• Be brutal in your assessments
  Why won’t people buy? How can you optimise your product to minimise that chance?
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• Do the maths
  How many problems/pain points does your business or product resolve for your target customer? How should that be priced for optimal market fit?
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• Know who the buyer is
  In a B2C business, you sell direct to the user; in a B2B business, it’s unlikely that the buyer and user are the same person. Each requires a different approach.
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• Don’t do it alone
  Do you have a ‘trusted friend’ you can ask for brutally-honest critiques? Other resources can be useful - ‘The Mom Test’ by Rob Fitzpatrick may be a decade old, but it’s still a fantastic guide to critical product evaluation.
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• Is the idea profitable?
  A tough question to ask and answer, but, even if the problem is worth solving, are you sure that users will pay enough for your solution to cover the costs you’ve incurred in creating said solution; and will you be able to pay other items e.g. salaries?

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For tech startups, it's easy to get caught up in the technology itself - but don’t let the tech distract you from the important stuff. The primary focus should be on the problem you’re solving and how well your technology addresses it: if the best tech to solve your customers’ problem is a sundial, don’t try and sell them a spaceship.

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Think of building a business like building a house. You wouldn’t worry about the colour of the walls until you’ve bought the land, drawn up plans and maybe dug some foundations - well in this case, your problem definition and market fit are the land rights and foundations, and the tech execution is probably more akin to the wallpaper.

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The temptation to build a feature-rich product is understandable, but it's a common pitfall. Start by clearly defining the core functionality your initial offering must deliver:

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• Focus on solving the core user problem
  What's the absolute minimum your v1 needs to do to be valuable?
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• Prioritise ruthlessly
  Limit your MVP to the most essential features for solving the immediate pain point.
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• Understand value
  Appreciate that your MVP also needs to be valuable. We often think of an MVP as the Minimum VALUABLE Product as much as the Viable one. So what “thing” (which is the least complex) provides the most “value” to your core user.

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The development process shouldn't happen in a vacuum. Embrace iterative development methodologies:

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• Release early, release often
  Don't strive for perfection in your v1. Aim for a working version you can put in front of users quickly.
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• Incorporate user feedback
  Actively solicit input from early adopters. Their insights are invaluable in shaping your product roadmap.
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• Plans can change, and that’s ok
  A roadmap isn’t set in stone, nor should it be. Rigorous market analysis, brutal product assessment and a clear, staged development and deployment plan will allow you to make course-corrections as you go.

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Rigidity is counterproductive in the fast-paced world of tech startups. Be prepared to adjust your course based on real-world market feedback.

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• Don’t fall in love with your original idea
  Be willing to refine or even change your concept if data suggests it.
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• Pivot doesn’t mean failure
  Adapting to what users truly need shows resilience and market understanding.

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Teams come in all shapes and sizes, and there’s certainly no single blueprint or recipe that guarantees success.

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That said, it is vital to make sure that you have a mix of tech and product people to call on - to be honest, it doesn’t even matter if the product guys come from a different sector or background. The most important part of building a business is shipping product, at the end of the day - because if you don’t ship, you don’t earn.

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