JustinTV made a lot of mistakes, but there were 3 things that allowed them to survive:
Founding team was extremely technical, not intimidated by any challenge, able to build fast
Didn’t spend a lot of money, very low burn
Egos were highly tied to the startup, wasn’t just a“resume item”, felt it reflected their overall life success
What problem are you solving?
Most founders just want to talk about their idea
But they don’t know why, they don’t know the problem they’re actually solving
Pretty early on you need to figure out:“what are we doing, what do we want the result to be?”
Most founders have a vague sense of the problem or the solution, but it’s important to nail this down
Can you state the problem clearly?
If you can’t state it in 1-2 sentences, you’re doing it wrong
Have you experienced it yourself?
Not required, but certainly helpful
This is a great hint that you’re onto something
Can you define your problem narrowly?
When you get started, you can’t solve this problem for everyone
Who can we help first? Often founders want to skip this step, and solve the“mega-problem”
How can validate that this is working?
Is the problem solvable?
Example: Poppy was trying to solve“Uber for babysitters”
Problem: it’s hard to find babysitters parents trust for infants
Problem: the people parents trust to take care of their infants are usually nannies who already work a lot and get paid well
Therefore, the supply of potential workers that could solve this problem is very low
Who is your customer?
Can’t understand the problem you’re solving until you know who you’re solving it for
The answer can’t be“everyone”
Even though there are products that“everyone” uses now(e.g. Google), there was a time when this wasn’t the case
Who is the ideal first customer? If you don’t have a good answer to this question, you have no idea who you should talk to in order to learn more about this problem
A lot of founders build something as if they’re writing a creative novel, with no interaction with anyone on the outside — don’t do this!
How often do they have the problem?
Example: car-buying websites — the customer is actually the car seller, not the buyer
How intense is the problem?
If you have an infrequent and low-intensity problem, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble finding people who want what you’re building
Preface
What problem are you solving?
Who is your customer?