Startup Systems

I tell founders to think about the problem they’re solving, specifically my LUV framework:

1. Large: Is the problem you’re aiming to solve large enough—customers, users, spend, etc.?


2. Urgent: Is the problem urgent to your users/customers—will they be interested in a new offering, change their way of solving this problem today?


3. Valuable: Are people

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Product-market fit always starts with the customer. And Dan Olsen’s PMF framework starts from the bottom up.

There are two types of founders.

Those who do lots of research, validate ideas, test many prototypes, and iteratively get to a product. This is a more technical and user-focused approach.

The other is where the product vision emerges fully-formed in the founder’s eye before it is brought to existence. Here, the founder zeroes in on their self... See more

Momentum is Everything

Most founders implicitly realize that in order to get a startup off the ground you need to will it into existence and keep momentum high.

This is good for the startup but it’s also essential for the founder — when momentum is high most founders feel more optimistic about what they’re building, which is obvious to anyone they’re... See more

I started this company in one of the recessions and had seen suppliers and customers go to the wall in droves. To me, getting more customers and more orders meant safety and security.

To the people who worked for me, growth meant change.

the way that you execute ends up really mattering. That was the second learning. The third is just focus.

if the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) gains traction, then the company will likely receive funding and a growth period will occur. Invariably, that means more people will join the team and the vision from the initial engineer needs to be shared.

Early on, when the team is small (2–15 people), typically processes are loose as the overhead in aligning... See more