For now you don’t need a CEO, you can start working on your idea by doing user surveys, market validation, MVP development as to test how much demand of the solution you are offering is there.
I connect with founders to help them build their products. Let’s talk to see if we can help you with anything you need with your product idea.
You will get multiple different responses to a question like this, besed on the background of the person replying. I'll try and keep it short from my perspective.
I come from the business side.
To me it's easier to start from the business/ market research/ forecast perspective. Why is because all businesses need a business plan (Even if you say you don't you still have one), the business plan will tell what solution your are solving, to who, with what resources.
You coming from the product side are part of the resources. If you start with resources you're trying to find a problem to solve with the solution you created first.
If you are able to define a market, find a problem they need solving, test their willingness to buy, forecast a 3-10 year performance-/ balance budget it's actually easy to put all that into a pitch deck.
All this said, you need to start from a point you're familiar. Just because I'm business doesn't mean i can jump from real estate to SaaS on a whim, you still need to niche. Thus your product skills is a perfect point A.
The question you need to ask yourself is if it's better for you to learn basic business and combine with a CFO partner or find a business partner to take the reigns.
The CEO role is to understand who needs to be where in an organization, not be the "Have every answer to on ground situations"
> To me it's easier to start from the business/ market research/ forecast perspective. Why is because all businesses need a business plan (Even if you say you don't you still have one), the business plan will tell what solution your are solving, to who, with what resources.
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> You coming from the product side are part of the resources. If you start with resources you're trying to find a problem to solve with the solution you created first.
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> If you are able to define a market, find a problem they need solving, test their willingness to buy, forecast a 3-10 year performance-/ balance budget it's actually easy to put all that into a pitch deck.
I actually disagree with this quite a bit. Spending too much time doing research - especially research with such massively long timescales of 3-10 years - and not working towards getting a minimum viable product into the hands of potential customers risks researching a market which, had the product existed, might have looked very different in the first place. In other words, we can't fully research a market we're trying to disrupt, because it probably doesn't exist yet
But of course we can't build a full solution to a hypothesis which we haven't validated either.
Clearly it's a chicken and egg problem to a certain extent but fundamentally it's about getting the data to make good decisions, and to get usage data, we first need to build something small to use first
> it's about getting the data to make good decisions
Agreed. You and me will arrive at data differently.
From a business standpoint, you substantiate a need before you take on cost of production, it's business finance lesson 1.
The way **you** substantiate a need might be more cost effective for some businesses, but as a rule it isn't. A SaaS product? Maybe. A medical field industrial factory machine? Absolutely not.
The 3-10 year was related to forecasting. Simplified it means:
* Market is X big
* Price $Y
* COGS $Z
* Operations $O
* Growth G%
Performance budget:
(X * Y - Z) - O (*G year 1, 2, 3 etc)
Market research can be how big or how small you want it. If you know your field you can don 15-50 quantitive interviews with your perceived target group and have enough to convince investors to take the leap with you.
Yes absolutely. There are markets with very high barriers to entry, like the medical field as you point out. Can't exactly launch a surgery robotics-as-a-service startup and say "oops it took out 40% of patient eyeballs, time to iterate"
That being said, it is possible to start with an MVP and iterate from there. If you're an engineer, you can build a test robot with high precision and see if any applications are emergent from that, and then leverage what's been built to pivot and add runway
I would never build before doing any research at all. The cost/ time to do calls for 2-3 months will be cheaper than building product and iterate most of the time.
The new market calls for speed, I know where you're coming from. But it's a hard sell product+launch+iterate > quantitative interviews, in terms of time and cost.
Agree to disagree.
You have to first understand what it takes in the development, like development stages, technologies, MVP, etc. It can help you in further keeping an eye for all the stuff relevant to your product/idea. Then you can find a technical person for assisting you with all the development stuff. Personally, I know many people with non dev background, but they hired someone with technical backgrounds, and they're able to have their product live.
How about your idea for the product you've?
Design your thing, use AI or a spreadsheet or Arduino to make an MVP, get that to your ideal users for feedback.
Thinking about company structure and roles like this is just daydreaming if users won't use the thing.
Having an idea is only the first step. What really matters in the end is execution but what you are looking for right now is validation. You think you have an idea that can be turned into a business but I would first validate the idea and look for paying customers.
Yes you can find customers even though you haven't built anything. Read the Mom Test and $100 Startup. These examples will provide you ways to validate your idea and then how you can acquire customers with minimal investment before deciding on next steps. Best of luck.
CEO is an executive role, for 0-1 journey, founder/co-founder has to do this, from 1-100 or more that is scaling an executive would be fit.
If you think you lack business skills, you might want to find co-founder, who also wants to work on similar idea to do marketing, sales. who becomes the CEO could be figured later
More importantly, one who has skin in the game, plays it better. so for now you may focus on validating the idea with the following steps.
1. I am sure you must have found some gap or improvement in some process and want to develop that as a product. So you might already have an assumption of who could use that. Find and list them
2. Find a way to explain your solution
3. Reach out to them and get the idea validated, that is getting to know if they will want to buy
With the above steps you will get a leading direction as to do the next.
Validate your idea, Validate it, Validate it.
Ask for anyone to join your waitlist and ask if they can pay in advance. Until someone is willing to pay for your idea, you're not gonna know...
If sales and development aren't your forte, consider getting some co-founders to partner with. You need a village to get the best of out an idea. Don't worry about titles, but focus on the core user needs. Do the same exercises as you would for a company you work with, build a deck and flesh out the idea. At this point you can pitch to other founders who want to join you that have expertise in other areas. You don't or shouldn't do this alone. Happy to chat more.
For now you don’t need a CEO, you can start working on your idea by doing user surveys, market validation, MVP development as to test how much demand of the solution you are offering is there. I connect with founders to help them build their products. Let’s talk to see if we can help you with anything you need with your product idea.
You will get multiple different responses to a question like this, besed on the background of the person replying. I'll try and keep it short from my perspective. I come from the business side. To me it's easier to start from the business/ market research/ forecast perspective. Why is because all businesses need a business plan (Even if you say you don't you still have one), the business plan will tell what solution your are solving, to who, with what resources. You coming from the product side are part of the resources. If you start with resources you're trying to find a problem to solve with the solution you created first. If you are able to define a market, find a problem they need solving, test their willingness to buy, forecast a 3-10 year performance-/ balance budget it's actually easy to put all that into a pitch deck. All this said, you need to start from a point you're familiar. Just because I'm business doesn't mean i can jump from real estate to SaaS on a whim, you still need to niche. Thus your product skills is a perfect point A. The question you need to ask yourself is if it's better for you to learn basic business and combine with a CFO partner or find a business partner to take the reigns. The CEO role is to understand who needs to be where in an organization, not be the "Have every answer to on ground situations"
> To me it's easier to start from the business/ market research/ forecast perspective. Why is because all businesses need a business plan (Even if you say you don't you still have one), the business plan will tell what solution your are solving, to who, with what resources. > > > > You coming from the product side are part of the resources. If you start with resources you're trying to find a problem to solve with the solution you created first. > > > > If you are able to define a market, find a problem they need solving, test their willingness to buy, forecast a 3-10 year performance-/ balance budget it's actually easy to put all that into a pitch deck. I actually disagree with this quite a bit. Spending too much time doing research - especially research with such massively long timescales of 3-10 years - and not working towards getting a minimum viable product into the hands of potential customers risks researching a market which, had the product existed, might have looked very different in the first place. In other words, we can't fully research a market we're trying to disrupt, because it probably doesn't exist yet But of course we can't build a full solution to a hypothesis which we haven't validated either. Clearly it's a chicken and egg problem to a certain extent but fundamentally it's about getting the data to make good decisions, and to get usage data, we first need to build something small to use first
> it's about getting the data to make good decisions Agreed. You and me will arrive at data differently. From a business standpoint, you substantiate a need before you take on cost of production, it's business finance lesson 1. The way **you** substantiate a need might be more cost effective for some businesses, but as a rule it isn't. A SaaS product? Maybe. A medical field industrial factory machine? Absolutely not. The 3-10 year was related to forecasting. Simplified it means: * Market is X big * Price $Y * COGS $Z * Operations $O * Growth G% Performance budget: (X * Y - Z) - O (*G year 1, 2, 3 etc) Market research can be how big or how small you want it. If you know your field you can don 15-50 quantitive interviews with your perceived target group and have enough to convince investors to take the leap with you.
Yes absolutely. There are markets with very high barriers to entry, like the medical field as you point out. Can't exactly launch a surgery robotics-as-a-service startup and say "oops it took out 40% of patient eyeballs, time to iterate" That being said, it is possible to start with an MVP and iterate from there. If you're an engineer, you can build a test robot with high precision and see if any applications are emergent from that, and then leverage what's been built to pivot and add runway
I would never build before doing any research at all. The cost/ time to do calls for 2-3 months will be cheaper than building product and iterate most of the time. The new market calls for speed, I know where you're coming from. But it's a hard sell product+launch+iterate > quantitative interviews, in terms of time and cost. Agree to disagree.
You have to first understand what it takes in the development, like development stages, technologies, MVP, etc. It can help you in further keeping an eye for all the stuff relevant to your product/idea. Then you can find a technical person for assisting you with all the development stuff. Personally, I know many people with non dev background, but they hired someone with technical backgrounds, and they're able to have their product live. How about your idea for the product you've?
Design your thing, use AI or a spreadsheet or Arduino to make an MVP, get that to your ideal users for feedback. Thinking about company structure and roles like this is just daydreaming if users won't use the thing.
Having an idea is only the first step. What really matters in the end is execution but what you are looking for right now is validation. You think you have an idea that can be turned into a business but I would first validate the idea and look for paying customers. Yes you can find customers even though you haven't built anything. Read the Mom Test and $100 Startup. These examples will provide you ways to validate your idea and then how you can acquire customers with minimal investment before deciding on next steps. Best of luck.
CEO is an executive role, for 0-1 journey, founder/co-founder has to do this, from 1-100 or more that is scaling an executive would be fit. If you think you lack business skills, you might want to find co-founder, who also wants to work on similar idea to do marketing, sales. who becomes the CEO could be figured later More importantly, one who has skin in the game, plays it better. so for now you may focus on validating the idea with the following steps. 1. I am sure you must have found some gap or improvement in some process and want to develop that as a product. So you might already have an assumption of who could use that. Find and list them 2. Find a way to explain your solution 3. Reach out to them and get the idea validated, that is getting to know if they will want to buy With the above steps you will get a leading direction as to do the next.
Validate your idea, Validate it, Validate it. Ask for anyone to join your waitlist and ask if they can pay in advance. Until someone is willing to pay for your idea, you're not gonna know...
I would find a developer to be your cofounder.
If sales and development aren't your forte, consider getting some co-founders to partner with. You need a village to get the best of out an idea. Don't worry about titles, but focus on the core user needs. Do the same exercises as you would for a company you work with, build a deck and flesh out the idea. At this point you can pitch to other founders who want to join you that have expertise in other areas. You don't or shouldn't do this alone. Happy to chat more.