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30-Day Startup Playbook

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30-Day Startup Playbook

Build + Launch your startup in 30 days. Conditions apply!

Recommended: Start Here!

Lean idea validation board by Slidebean

Download the file here!

Lean Validation Board.pdf11646.0KB

Learn more on how to build on this canvas and get a great understanding on your startup

๐Ÿ‘‹๐Ÿป Let's get started!

Note: This playbook is designed to be useful for those either pre-idea or who is actively working at the early stages of your startup.

Gameplan

  1. Conduct customer discovery interviews.ย Youโ€™ll begin understanding the problem space, user persona, and how well your solution will fit. If you donโ€™t have a startup idea, hereโ€™s where youโ€™ll find one.
  2. Define the founding hypothesesย that will make or break the entire idea. The next four weeks will focus on stress testing these.
  3. Build and launch a landing pageย to capture initial customers and convey the value proposition.
  4. Hustle to find your first users.ย Weโ€™ll reach out to hundreds.
  5. Build and launch an MVP, ideally with no code. The goal is to get a feeling of a solution in the hands of interested users, asap.
  6. Conduct user interviews almost daily, meet new users, and get feedback from existing ones.
  7. Make adjustments to the MVPย as you gather feedback and work through the hypotheses.
  8. On day 30, send out a survey to gauge product-market fit. Youโ€™ll review the founding hypotheses, and determine next steps. Will you double down and commit? Or move on to the next idea?

Don't have an idea yet? Check out IdeasAI for a list of AI-generated ideas delivered to your inbox weekly.

Venture building Phases - We have divided 30 days into various phases of building a startup from scratch.

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Assuming that you will be allocating time to manage legal stuff along with every phase of venture building.
  1. Ideating
  2. Concepting
  3. Validating + Building
  4. Launching
  5. Growing

More at ๐Ÿ—๏ธProduct Development (MVP) made simple!

30 Day Startup

#Let's simplify entrepreneurship and starting up.

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We at Founders' Book are very proud of you. Youโ€™re actually doing something that most dream about - youโ€™re launching a business!
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Phase-1: Ideating

This is a phase where you build on the gaps you discovered in the current market, can be a problem or job to be done, innovation that the world has never seen or creating a new category.

Day 1: Market-Research

Day 2: See + Understand competition

Phase-2: Concepting

In other words, discovery and definition. Translate your idea into a customer-oriented problem and come up with solutions so you can test your hypothesis on the problem and potential solution (customer-oriented solution)

Day 3: Understanding SMART methodology

Day 4: Identifying a set of assumptions to validate your hypothesis

Day 5: Setting up a validation workflow

Day 6: Understanding + setting up experiments to validate the identified problem

Phase-3: Validating + Building

Validation - the most important phase of the entire company building process. No founder bias or appreciation from FFF doesn't work. Get obsessed with your customer. Develop an unbiased profile (persona) of your potential customer to see who are they? are their heads on fire? will they buy?. You will come to a conclusion on whether you should really go forward or back to the board.

Day 7: Understanding customer development process

Day 8: Understanding and building personas

Day 9: Creating surveys, on-page landing pages and community engagement

Day 10: Position your product/service

Understanding your value proposition. Understand why and how are you will be tackling the identified problem. Clearly define and communicate your problem and potential solution - customers and investors love this!

Day 11: Identify and define the value proposition

Day 12: Go back and search competitors again

Day 13: Define competitive differentiation and advantage

Day 14: Business modelling - How will you make money / generate strong returns to your investors.

Day 15: What is your TAM, SAM, SOM and how do you address them?

Building - This can be a landing page, a community of your potential customers, a database of early adopters. no-code solution (call it Lo-Fi MVP) to began validation and testing solution.

Day 16: Setting up an online presence

Day 17: Create content

Day 18: Build a landing page to attract customers and get feedback

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธLanding page checklist + Tool Guide

Day 19: Set up trackers and funnels to see where are your customers customing from and how are they navigating your website/solution.

Day 20: Set up automation to collect as much data as possible. Remember documentation is highly valuable later for pre-seed / VC investments.

Product building - Spend time on DIY solutions that look clean and deliver value

Day 21: Build

Day 22: Build

๐Ÿ—๏ธProduct Development (MVP) made simple!

๐ŸŽฎNo-Code cheat sheet

๐Ÿ›ตLet's talk No-Code (How-to's + Tools)

Phase-4: Launching

Customer acquisition. Craft targeted messages for your target market and identify your optimum growth channels. ROI is key as not every one of us is fortunate to have stacks of money.

Day 23: Define your growth strategy

Day 24: Develop insights into your best performing customer acquisition channels

Day 25: Marketing - organic and paid marketing to drive traffic to your website

Product Strategy - No matter how strong your validation is, if your product does not do what it is intended for, no more survival.

Day 26: Understand and interpret insights so far

Day 27: Define post-launch metrics

Day 28: Setting up continuous validation loop or building in public showing your customers your roadmap and validating

Phase-5: Growing

#Taking a leap to the next phase of your product growth

Day 29: Applications - Accelerator/incubator programmes that can help you grow and receive funding

Day 30: Pitching and networking in social events

๐Ÿ“ฑ[Slack Channels] Startup & Tech Communities

๐ŸšPlaces to Launch + Promote your Startup

๐Ÿ“ŒPlaces to list your startup

Note: I understand this may take full-time effort and lifetime persistence but that's what entrepreneurship is. It is like playing chess over and over no matter, you will or lose. We can do it!

The above is also from my personal experience participating in multiple accelerators including Y Combinator's startup school. Most of them follow a similar structure over the course of 4-12 weeks.

Please provide any feedback and ideas to improve at hello@founderskit.tools

Steps you can take to verify that the solutions you are working on to solve your target customerโ€™s key problem or pain points.

Step 1 - List out one key / primary problem you are trying to solve for a particular target customer group. These are their pain points. Your research, immersion, and interviews will give you the required information for determining what problem you are trying to solve. This will heavily depend on the specific target customer group you are focusing on, which you need to identify.
Step 2 - What benefits or outcomes will flow to this target group if you can successfully solve their problem. From our target customerโ€™s perspective, what benefits or outcomes they can expect from you โ€“ whatโ€™s in it for them?
Step 3 - How do you measure the benefits or outcomes you intend to provide to your target group? What are the KPIs or SMART measures of success are you seeking to achieve? (Up to 2 KPIs per outcome) Starting with the end in mind, what should your investors or stakeholders expect from you?
Step 4 โ€“ What strategies will you consider and adopt to deliver on the measures of success โ€“ as the saying goes, what gets measured, gets done. Your strategies must link to your KPIs, which is your measure of success.
Step 5 โ€“ List down all possible actions or action steps needed to deliver on each of your high-level strategies. You may also identify what assets you need to build like a website, mobile apps, etc.
Step 6 โ€“ Evaluate your options and prioritise your work plan. Some solutions may not be feasible at this moment.

General metrics that are trackable

Note: These are the metrics I came up with for my automation consulting business during an accelerator program.

  • Automation increases productivity by _% and reduces expenses by _%
  • _% employees report having time on primary activities such as analysis and productive work
  • _% of users see increased customer satisfaction and engagement as a benefit of automation
  • _% of companies see ROI in automation in _ months
  • Companies utilise automation source _% new clients/projects more in the pipeline than who do not
  • _% of SMEโ€™s see an annual growth of _% by using automation and leveraging on its capabilities
  • _% of businesses could save up costs of $_ per month/year using automation
  • Companies using automation reduce human errors by _%
  • Auto-generated reporting could save up to _hours per employee per _ (monthly/quarterly)
  • Automation can reduce ignored leads from _% to _% (decrease in ignored leads)
  • Companies with automation can increase revenue by _% in _ months
  • Companies using automation saves _% or $_ on other software expenses annually
  • Streamlining process would achieve efficiency by _%
  • Automation helps in achieving KPIs by _%
  • The business using automation as a service saved _ hours on administration per week/month
  • Increase in meeting compliance requirements by _%
  • Business directors spend on _% of work that can be automated
  • _% of occupations could save _% amount of work with process automation
  • _% of ineffective expenses could be saved using effective process mapping and automation
  • _% of business owners believe _% of structure can be added by using automation (reduction in a poor quality of results)
  • Eliminate paperwork by _%
  • Increase the effectiveness of training programs by _% by saving time
  • Reduce time spent on the onboarding process by _% (adding consistency)
  • Manage time and work better of customer service professionals by _% (directs to quick problem solving)
  • Increase accuracy in documentation by _% (standardising templates)
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Recommendation: Follow Joe Procopio on medium for excellent insights on everything about startups. He also educates entrepreneurs across the globe at Teaching Startup.

How to prepare for the launch day?

FYI

Product Launch Process

Product Launch Strategies

Product Launch Checklist

Also, see;

๐ŸŽ๏ธProduct Hunt Launch Checklist

๐ŸšPlaces to Launch + Promote your Startup

๐Ÿ“Canvases + Worksheets

๐Ÿ“’Articles + 'How-To' Guides

๐Ÿ—ƒ๏ธProduct Management Handbook + Tool Landscape

๐Ÿ—๏ธProduct Development (MVP) made simple!

Happy building and launching!

Other useful resources

Software Development Costs

Product Development Roadmap

Customer Discovery Questions

https://mfishbein.com/the-ultimate-list-of-customer-development-questions/

https://leanb2bbook.com/blog/b2b-customer-discovery-interview-questions-the-master-list/

https://neilpatel.com/blog/26-customer-development-resources/

https://www.jumpstartinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Customer-Discover-Guide-01-02-18.pdf

Human-Centred Design

Design Sprint Kits: https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/introduction/overview

https://dynamic4.com/

Customer Interview Script Generator: https://customerdevlabs.com/Script/

How to conduct User Interview: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-conduct-user-interviews

User interview example questions: https://usability.yale.edu/understanding-your-user/user-interviews/user-interview-example-questions

DE Toolbox: https://www.detoolbox.com/

Stanford Design School: https://dschool.stanford.edu/

PASTEL Analysis

Root Cause Analysis: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_80.htm

Cognitive Bias Codex

Cheatsheet: https://medium.com/better-humans/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18

Round-Robin Brainstorming: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/round-robin-brainstorming.htm

Peter J Thomson Digital Brand Strategy: https://www.peterjthomson.com/2013/11/value-proposition-canvas/#mc_signup

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/heuristic-evaluation-how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation

Product Development Cycle: https://www.shipsh.it/

Prototyping and User Testing

Design Spring / Google Venture Sprint: www.gv.com/sprint

https://www.prototypr.io/tools

CustomerDiscovery

http://softwareproductmanagement.co/

https://pmstarterpack.onfielder.com/

Business Modelling

Board on Innovation: https://www.boardofinnovation.com/

CoDesign Innovation Process: https://www.trilateralresearch.com/collaborative-innovation-the-advantages-of-co-design-in-creating-sustainable-technological-solutions/

Social Media Marketing

https://www.business.com/articles/startup-killer-marketing-plan/

https://www.ventureharbour.com/ultimate-startup-marketing-strategy/

https://www.articulatemarketing.com/blog/marketing-tools-for-startups

https://www.leadfeeder.com/blog/30-startup-marketing-tools/#gref

https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/63-of-the-best-marketing-tools-for-startups/

https://aeroleads.com/blog/101-free-marketing-tools-startup/

Accounting Software: https://www.waveapps.com/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-start-a-business-in-australia

Building the MVP

Artist and Innovator: https://blog.leanstack.com/the-artist-and-the-innovator-e6b4888c5869

Start with MVP: https://blog.leanstack.com/dont-start-with-an-mvp-aa883de5cd18

Step guide to building an MVP: https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/how-to-build-an-mvp-minimum-viable-product-a-step-by-step-guide/

Controlling MVP Scope: https://app.hubspot.com/documents/3907246/view/67790749?accessId=1e5a7b

Innovation Marketing Simulation: Crossing the Chasm: http://academic.hbsp.harvard.edu/crossingthechasm

Customer Focused Sales: https://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/customer_focus/toc.html

The Beginner's Guide to AARRR Framework: https://partners.livechatinc.com/blog/aarrr-metrics/

Lean Product Management

Pitching and Storytelling

Pitch decks example: https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/writing-a-storytelling-pitch-deck--cms-33047

https://pitchdeckexamples.com/

Pitch Techniques: https://medium.dave-bailey.com/12-storytelling-techniques-to-supercharge-your-pitch-ddc14f34b17a

Perfect Pitch deck: https://medium.com/@iskender/the-perfect-pitch-deck-designed-by-a-vc-902842ce7f38

How to Write the Perfect Pitch Deck: https://slidebean.com/blog/startups-how-to-write-the-perfect-pitch-deck

Gaddie Pitch: https://www.training.com.au/ed/5-steps-to-craft-the-perfect-gaddie-pitch/

Digital Marketing and Growth

Tools: https://www.leadfeeder.com/blog/30-startup-marketing-tools/#gref

Partnerships 101: How to Launch a Tech Partnership Program - https://blog.crossbeam.com/partnerships-101-how-to-launch-a-tech-partnership-program

Tools for Unmoderated Usability Testing: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/unmoderated-user-testing-tools/

Leveraging Task Views in Project Management Software โ€” Practical Guide - https://blog.niftypm.com/leveraging-task-views-in-project-management-software-practical-guide-cfae960e0e4b

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