Resources
This portion of the website is built to put tools and techniques from Launchpad out into the world and allow founders access. Our hope is that these tools are not only useful to founders, also that they get better for having more founders use them and give feedback.
Before you Start
Too many founders make the leap to starting and scaling - instead seek to verify the need you are solving and to come extent the solution. Your time is limited verify your hypothesis early, see of upi have found a unique problem to solve, see if that potential customer is intersted in you solution.
Achieving Product Market Fit
Work to identify the target customer who represents the users that will most likely benefit from your product. Use market segments to define your ideal customer, and develop buyer personas for those customers, so your team will clearly understand whom it's building toward.
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Tool #1: Founder's Hypothesis
Add Title: the most important marketing message you send your customer.
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Assignment 02
Add Title: the most important marketing message you send your customer.
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Assignment 03
Add Title: the most important marketing message you send your customer.
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Assignment 04
Example Pricing assignment and worksheets: the most important marketing message you send your customer.
Tool #1: Founder’s Hypothesis
Finding product market fit
Founders start with an idea - thay idea is best expressed and understood to by an hypothesis, a guess, best tested quickly and cheaply as it is always wrong (well to beging with). Yes in 14 years of launchpad and my own start ups - no initial concept as survived contact with the customer. So write out your hypothesis and design a very short test to prove it or disprove it and begin you iterating to a solution.
Starting
Once you have some indication that your hypothesis might be true, founders can elliminate other risks in their start up through experimentation,
5 Recommended (Free- very low cost) Resources founders must leverage
In Launchpad we look for end leverage tools that scale founders and learn through iteration faster and cheaper. We have seen tools founders can use drop in cost and increase in quality. Use these tools and scale yourself.
No Code tools
Allow you to build product, leverage machine learning all with out having to code or gain expertise in the domain. These also allow your whole team to collaborate (agile) instead of needing expertise and handing off (waterfall). Figma is a great example…
Make it Real (early)
Building a website is a great way to clarify your offer. With website builders as terrific as they are now you can to this in seconds without any expertise in building websites. By building the offer you make it real and get real reactions from potential customers. Wix has a terrific AI builder…
AI as Augmentation
Use AI tools to augment your efforts. Help you generate ideas, rewrite copy for you to review, look for competitors. Avoid thinking of it as an answer engine for you start up instead an augmentation engine - a tool to help you move faster. Chat GPT is a great place to start…
Leverage you Network
Your network is needed to start your business. Use that network to get feedback, to ask favors, to recruit your first hires. Your friends and family are big part of what makes a start up work. Put the word out to them and communicate how they can be helpful. You will be amazed how willing they are. Linked In is a great place to start.
Create a Cohort
As a founder create or join a group of founders. Use this group to evaluate each others work. Founders are blind to or at minimum have a hard time evaluating their work, use a small group that meets regularity to review each others work and give critical feedback.
Join the Ecosystem
So many events in the start up community are open, find them and join. You will learn about the fund rasing market, you will learn from other founders. Y combinator is a great resource to look at for these events.
https://www.ycombinator.com/
We highly recommend the YCombinator Site as a general resource for founders. This organization has terrific resources and a similar philosophy to Launchpad