Lessons learned from a startup that didn’t make it

On the importance of a focused ICP: "We allowed our ICP to fray, replaced by a focus on a competitor. In our fight to prove that we could win against Alteryx, we over-rotated on any customer that might be interested in switching or considering alternatives. While being responsive to customers sounds good, being responsive to any customer creates a ... See more

In college, the author started his first startup, and it failed. Before launch, he didn't talk to customers, he fought with his cofounders a lot. He didn't know how to build working software or deal with tech debt. He read Eric Ries's Lean Startup after this experience and vowed to use it. Since the insurance CRM was geared toward tracking existing... See more

“We focused too much on what we wanted to bring to the world. We needed to pay attention to what the world wanted from us.”, Ivan said. And people were just not interested in a no-code programming application.

That’s a really important takeaway — you  need  a wedge into your market. A  specific problem  and use case that is real

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Think about distribution from day one

If you’re going to build a product, you want people to use it. But far too often, founders get drawn to the building and tinkering side of the business, forgoing the go-to-market piece until they’re actually ready to get out and sell.

That’s a mistake, says Foster. “I think one of the biggest things that founder... See more