Podcast episode #5

The episode for entrepreneurs: From pitch to launch of your idea. With all the tools and books you need to know.

Entrepreneurship is one of my heart themes. Even if idea volcanoes are difficult to control, the fertile soil near volcanoes is a real blessing for flora, fauna and humans.

If you want to use the idea volcano for flourishing business ideas, you need experience and some courage. In this podcast episode, I share with you some important lessons from the New Work Heroes Founder Coaching and of course you also get a powerful tool to try out for yourself; the P.L.A.N. list.

The Customer Development Cycle

Ideas are cheap and plentiful, it’s the Execution that counts. This sentence comes from the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson and marks an important insight that you should keep in mind when you develop from amateur entrepreneur to professional: There is nothing good unless you do it. Ideas want to live and be tested, otherwise they die. Especially in today's fluid markets, interest and buying behavior changes every month as new technologies are introduced to the market. This is why ideas should be tested as lean as possible, using a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) with which results for technical feasibility and customers can be achieved quickly. Eric Ries describes many of these methods with his Lean Startup approach. Eric Ries' mentor and actual inventor of the Lean Startup method is Steve Blank. In the podcast I explain in detail the four steps from MVP to building a business. Here the diagram and the four steps:

1. Customer Validation

After the first hypotheses about how your product or service should look like, the idea is tested as an MVP with customers.

2. Customer Verification

The results of the first two steps lead to refinement and revision of the original idea. The customer feedback is the drive for the pivot of the idea.

3. Customer Building

The build-up of customers leads to the real growth of the business idea, a certain point is exceeded (chasm) and after the phases of testing comes the build-up.

4. Company Building

Where customers and sales grow, a company is also created, it is professionalized and expanded, employees are hired and departments are developed.

It should not be forgotten that real entrepreneurs do not shy away from completely contesting the customer development cycle several times. A pivot may be necessary at any point, so it is worthwhile to re-start the volcano of ideas in good time and develop the product further.

The three steps to successful establishment

In my experience as a career coach and entrepreneur, I have spent the last four years in Berlin working as a mentor for various accelerators and start-up programs. Here I have developed various tools and helped to accompany hundreds of business models from the idea to the launch.

  1. Found: from developing the right business idea that suits you. How do you combine market relevance and your own interest in a good business idea? When is it worth starting with a business idea? When is your idea "ripe" and ready for the market? 
  2. Pitch: from the idea to the concrete business plan with pitch deck. What are the different ways to implement your new service/product? What to measure and how to create the right solutions? How do you create a kick ass pitch for your business ? And what are the basics of a good pitch and what does the perfect pitch deck look like?
  3. Found: take the first steps from financing plan to customer approach. How do you balance income, financing needs, and expenses correctly? How do you acquire your customers correctly? What are the differences between classic sales and online marketing for customer acquisition?

If you would like to answer all these questions in condensed form, with the help of mentors at your side, you can book your personal Founder Coaching here.

 

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