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Month 1
Join the Slack Channel: #introductions, #2020seattle or #2020kitsap
Slides
Video
Video from the prior cohort. YouTube Video
Deliverables
See the slides for details on the following deliverables. Bring deliverables for peer review to the next session. After peer review, you’ll review the notes with the mentors.
- What is your Venture Ready Score _____
- Write up your “Why are you doing a startup” summary?
- Culture is set in the first five employees – what kind of culture will your company have? Don’t solve for this question, just write down some notes on what you will do to impact culture
- List your problem solutions. Rank based on what you know today
- Competitive Analysis – list your competitors in a GSheet, Name, URL, Crunchbase link, features, etc (
- Create a second tab on the GSheet for keywords learned from your competitor research
- Subscribe to Google Alerts for all competitors
- Market Sizing: TAM, SAM, SOM, both the top-down and the bottom-up research and data references. Working on more than one idea? Start with the largest markets first.
- Pitch: Outline and practice your pitch – use the madlibs format as a prompt
Resources
Books
- Creative Confidence – Tom Kelley & David Kelley
- Crossing the Chasm – Geoffrey Moore
- Four Steps of an Epiphany – Steve Blank
- A Curious Mind – Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman
- Industries of the Future – Alec Ross
Blogs
- Tom Tunguz, Redpoint http://tomtunguz.com/ SaaS and MRR
- Brad Feld, Foundry Group http://www.feld.com/
- Fred Wilson, Union Square http://avc.com/
Pitch Resources
- ¤Startup Weekend
- Best Startup Pitch decks
- Guy Kawasaki “10 Slides”
- 10 Slide Refresh – Dave Parker
- Uber’s original Slide Deck forecasted a $4.2B TAM
Group Meetup
Between now and the next session, connect with your peers based on the shared emails collected lasts night. Google hangout or connect in person.
Share progress on deliverables and what you’ve learned:
This is what I thought, this is what I learned and this is what I’m going to do about it.
Month 2
Slides
Video
Deliverables
Value Proposition
- Write out your DRAFT value proposition and Unique Selling Proposition
Customer Development
- Write your questions
- Sample Questions from MIKE FISHBEIN
- Build your forms
- Get first 20+ interviews completed
- Review your results
Awkward Co-Founder Discussions
- Schedule both co-founders meetings
- Print out the Foundrs.com results
- Get the discussion out there and competed before you incorporate
- If you’ve incorporated, get it right
- Setup Slicing Pie
Resources
Books
- Lean Startup
- Startup Owners Manual
- Business Model Generation
- The Founder’s Dilemmas
- Talking to Humans – $3.99 on Kindle… do it!
- Value Proposition Designs
Blogs
Month 3
Slides
Deliverables
- Continue to update your Value Proposition based on customer development interviews
- Build a Product Feature/Benefits list
- Rank features based on feedback
- Build workflows
- Write a detailed explanation of the features
- Cost to Build – on Fiverr first, then iterate
- Business Model Canvas – sections 1, 2 and 5
- Customer Development Interviews – 25 more!
- document results in Google form
Resources
Books
Business Model Generation – Alexander Osterwalder (Business Model Canvas)
Blogs
Month 4
Slides
Deliverables
- Marketing Hypothesis
- Test actual cash $100 on spend, landing page A/B test
- Sales Model choice
- Revenue Model Choice
- Lean Canvas – Update Customer Segment, Problem, Unique Value Prop.
- Add Revenue Stream, Channels
- Customer Development – never stop interviewing customers
Resources
Books
Not yet
Blogs
- DKParker – Marketing Funnel Breakdown
- DKParker – B2C Models
- DKParker – B2B Models
- Financial Model – VentureReadyModels.com
Month 5
Slides
Zoom Video Recording
Deliverables
- Tools
- Deck, 10 Slides or 13
- Exec Summary
- Forwardable email
- Fundraising?
- Lifestyle or Venture Scale business?
- Sources of Capital – Capital requirements
- Start to build out your investor list
- Lean Canvas
- Update Customer Segment, Problem, Unique Value Prop.
- Add Revenue Stream, Channels
Resources
- Books
- Burn the business plan – Carl Schramm
- Venture Deals – Brad Feld
- Secrets of Sandhill Road – Scott Kupor
- Blogs
- Financial Model ¤VentureReadyModels.com – look for promo code in slack/email tomorrow