Idea to Startup

Latest Episodes:

The One Thing That Matters - How to Find a Differentiator That'll Support a Business Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll help you find a differentiator powerful enough that it can support your business. We'll talk through what a differentiator actually allows you to do, five prompts to help you uncover and test one for your business, and Brian's favorite current differentiator - Popup Bagels.

00:00 Beehiiv
00:33 Differentiator intro
04:00 What do you hire a differentiator to do?
05:44 The Attention Pie
09:03 Smooth Jazz
09:28 Popup Bagels
16:30 Five Prompts for Your Differentiator

How to Stop Being Your Startup's Bottleneck Aug 09, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll help you get out of your own way. We subscribe to the Charlie Munger school of "instead of trying to be smarter, try to be less dumb," and this episode digs into three ways to simplify your startup so that you can move faster. We talk through how to actually implement jobs to be done, how to build systems to amplify your willpower 100x, and how to be more courageous.
Also, I'll watch Interstellar. Everyone calm down.

00:34 Removing Yourself as the Bottleneck
2:33 Leverage Jobs to be Done to Focus (Fishing Story)
6:23 Elderly Relocation Idea
11:08 Smooth Jazz
11:37 Run Towards the Rain
13:45 Thrashing to find a Secret - The Plant Story
15:25 A System for the Uncomfortable Stuff (fiverr + IG DM’s)
17:13 The Process for Improving Willpower
18:31 What Would You Do if You Knew It Would Work?

A Framework for Building Wildly Useful Startups Aug 02, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll talk through a framework that'll help you evaluate whether you're building something useful enough to anchor a business. Most startups fail because the thing they built doesn't make a big enough dent in their customers lives. We'll make sure you don't make this mistake with help from Habit Kangaroo, a startup Brian ran back in 2014, and a GMAT training program his friend ran that helped people get into Harvard.

0:30 Building a Wildly Useful Startup
2:12 Why Measuring Usefulness is Hard
7:00 Byldd
7:53 Habit Kangaroo
12:50 The Usefulness Framework
13:24 What is your Secret?
13:51 Three Categories of Secrets: Customer
14:45 Three Categories of Secrets: Acquisition
15:16 Three Categories of Secrets: Product
17:08 Rivers and Dams
19:00 GMAT over 700 Product
23:02 Hire Yourself

Four Characteristics of Great Startup Ideas Jul 26, 2023

Show notes

Today, we talk through four characteristics of great startup ideas (with a bonus fifth Brian thought of post-recording). We discuss organic growth, market innovation vs. product innovation, growing markets, product swaps, and happiness. The goal of this episode is to help shape fuzzy ideas and give you new ideas.

1:27 The Personal Venn Diagram
5:18 Smooth Jazz
5:46 The Four Characteristics of Great Startup Ideas
6:48 Characteristic 1: Potential for Organic Growth
9:14 Characteristic 2: Market Innovation > Product Innovation
10:57 Characteristic 3: Prioritizing Around a Growing Market
12:40 Four Buckets of Market Growth
12:45 Hype Markets
13:36 Dig out of a Hole Market (nurses, agriculture, skilled trades)
16:23 Momentum Markets
16:56 Subsidized Growth
17:42 The Swap
21:19 On Happiness

The Organic Growth Equation - Why People Share and How to Pick Ideas that'll Grow Jul 19, 2023

Show notes

Today we talk about organic growth. Your startup won't be successful if your first customers aren't compelled to tell people about how you've helped them. Luckily, organic growth is straightforward. There are ways to predict it and ideas better suited for it. We talk through an equation for organic growth and dig in on why people share.

00:34 Intro to organic growth
4:24 Why social ads won’t work
5:54 Outline of the Organic Growth Equation
7:08 Smooth Jazz
7:36 Jury Duty
9:27 Jury Duty Shareable Moments
13:49 The Organic Growth Equation deep-dive + The Crime Triangle
15:02 Problem Variables
18:53 Customer Variables
21:41 Why we share horror movies
23:18 Product Variables
25:10 Multipliers

A System to Help You Become Wildly Creative Jul 12, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll help you build a system for creativity. We'll start by defining creativity as an equation to make it more accessible. Then, we'll develop a system that focuses on the inputs of the creativity equation. We talk through the Commonplace Book, Commencement Speeches, a sports writer and the movie Sahara. Then, we get into the weeds on how to set up and implement your own personal creativity system.

0:30 Intro - Creativity
2:00 What if you’re not creative?
2:53 Creativity is Mushing
3:39 Creativity Equation
5:15 Summer Internship
6:28 Bill Simmons
7:48 In on the joke
9:20 College Commencement Speeches
10:07 Kenyon Commencement Speech - Two Fish
11:20 Smooth Jazz
11:52 The System
14:00 The Logistics
15:22 Intake
17:29 Reflection
18:30 Output
19:30 Ogilvy on Advertising

Ep. 165 - Should You Niche? Jun 28, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll talk about the big question - should you start with a focused niche? There are pros and cons to the approach, but the perceived cons - "what if I get tired of the niche in a few years?" , "what if the niche doesn't lead to a bigger market?" , "isn't a niche just hiding from the bigger problem I want to solve?" have gotten louder lately. So, we'll address them. We'll go over what a good niche looks like, how to get one, and how to grow.

1:00 Kurt Vonnegut - The Shape of Stories
2:38 The Niche Question
4:15 The Jiro Problem
5:20 Act 1 - A Chef's Startup
7:48 Smooth Jazz
8:15 Act 2 - What's a Niche For?
8:44 A Niche is a Shortcut to Trust
11:49 A Niche to Seed Future Growth
13:40 What a Good Niche Looks Like
14:25 The Cook By Smelling Niche
16:38 Act 3 - How to Grow From a Niche
17:29 Grow Vertically or Horizontally?
19:20 Grow through Influential Customers
20:00 Spice Smelling Niche
21:14 Act 4 - The Real Villain, and the Real Hero
22:11 Trust in Future You

Why You Didn't Build a Product Last Weekend (feat. A Framework to Seek Out Discomfort) Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll talk through why you didn't get a product live last weekend despite an episode that walked you through a step-by-step process to do it. Last week, we ignored the emotional stuff. The inertia and discomfort that keep people from doing something new. Today, we tackle it. We give you a framework to lean into discomfort and answer the questions that nag at you and hold you back from putting stuff live.

0:35 Magical Products
1:51 Story of company that helps restaurants source ingredients
6:27 11 Emails, 0 Products
7:04 Inertia + Discomfort
8:00 BYLDD
9:04 Plan vs. Freestyle (How to Wiggle)
12:35 The Things That Matter and The Things That Don't
13:00 What if your product needs to be professionally designed?
15:00 The Mirror Problem (and the three things to help with it)
16:16 Discomfort = Growth and No One Cares About You
17:12 College Philanthropic Story
18:35 You're going to lose X if you don't > You're going to get Y if you do
20:00 A new lane for the restaurant startup
20:55 How the restaurant startup got their first product out

How to Build the First (Magical) Version of Your Product This Weekend Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

Today we'll help you get the first version of your product up and out. We use a three-part framework to help you focus in on the one core feature you've got to nail. We also find your customers inertia and ride that wave to make it easier to use your product than not. We get help from an airbnb for lawn equipment startup and move the ball forward on the chronic pain idea.

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Episode Details

0:55 The Two Questions Entrepreneurs Have About Products
2:35 A Great Product Does Two Things
4:26 Entrepreneur Baggage + Airbnb for Lawn Equipment
6:29 A Mindset for Today
8:13 Step One - Process
8:53 Organ Donors
9:55 Inertia
11:35 Chronic Pain
13:07 Frank’s Process
14:50 Harry Potter and Being Chosen
15:43 Step Two - Metrics
17:12 Chronic Pain Ex-College Athlete SOM
18:35 Outcome not Features - The Product is Irrelevant
19:16 The Five Marketing Archetypes - STTC, Pain, Cost, Apparate, Urgency
20:19 Step Three - Delivery (The Product)
20:32 Warby Parker
22:23 The Twelve Forms of Value
25:49 The Venmo Accountability Group

Choose The Right Quest Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

Today, we'll talk through how to identify and pursue the big, consequential ideas - what we'll call Quests. We go through how to identify them, how to wrap our arms around them, and what to do when you (inevitably) feel intimidated. We'll do it with a little help from the 90 Yard Mistake, a ghost kitchen idea, and some chronic pain interviews. Quest (drink).

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