I will likely add this a separate tab as I put more thought into this.
The hard part of building a company is that no one is telling you what to do. There isn't a step-by-step how-to guide on YouTube or the internet. I guess there are, but following some random influencer wont let you be successful especially because they will probably sell you drop shipping lol.
Before I think about the product or the problem I'm going to solve, I normally like to plan beforehand. I find this deeply beneficial and it helps me think long-term about what needs to be done.
But even the planning stage is something that is difficult and requires a certain level of thinking.
I've been studying the greatest entrepreneurs and visionaries, and it seems like a lot of them have specific frameworks and mental models in their mind before they start their company or while they're figuring out what to build on. While a lot of them have different frameworks, it turns out that these frameworks and mental models have certain patterns, and their existence is a commonality.
I have specific frameworks that I would like to share when it comes to starting a business and ways of thinking when I am going about life. Some of them are mantras, some of them are frameworks, and I am going to write them down for my future use and for any readers' future use.
Starting a company at its core is solving a problem for the end-user. Defining the problem clearly and explaining it to a user is key.
Ask: What is the problem you are solving? How many people have confirmed this is a problem they face?
Most people when you start a company will tell you why doesn't X name just do it? MySpace started before Facebook, AltaVista, Yahoo, Lycos started before Google. The list goes on. Most key startup leaders even say that competition is not high on the list of reasons a startup didn't fail. Competition means that others have found product market fit and have validated your idea.
Ask: What can you do differently from your competition?
There are endless things to do when starting your own company. Prioritization is key. How to prioritize? I struggle with this. If you work backwards and say that selling to the customer is the most important, then you need to sell them something you want, and that would be finding a problem that they need solved. So, talking to customers would be most important for me at this stage.
Ask: Write down everything your company needs to do. Find what is most pivotal to the companies success and prioritze accordingly.
Usually when starting a company there are two things the startup is doing. Making things and selling things. I like to narrow down on these and ask what my bottleneck is. Focused time spent coding? Or lack of connections in the industry?
Ask: What is stopping me from doing whats most important?
When you start a startup, you accept failure. There will always be failure and its constant. Most founders accept that. Time is the most precious thing a startup has which is usually based off of run-way. As a scrappy founder that is not the case for me. My timeline is based off of how long I want to be a strategically unemployed founder while their friends get promotions. The only thing I don't want to do is waste my time working on projects that no one wants.
Ask: What would be the reason I failed? Test those hypotheses.
When you talk to customers, most of hte conversation becomes deeply emotional and almost hearsay. They will explain their problems and make you think you are on the right or wrong path without specifics. Then if you ask "How many times has this affected you in the past month" or "What customers do you have that this affects". That will tell you much more of their burning pain points.
Ask: What specifics can i ask the customer?
Most of the time, a company is started that saves money, makes money, or saves the customer time. You must ask yourself these questions and then ask to measure it. That will show your strength in the market.
Hard to define, but something that all startup founders think about. PMF can be many things but should ultimately solve a problem for your customer in a sizable market.
A utility curve is a s-shaped graph with cost on the x axi and value on the y axis. What the curve shows is that normally at some point in the build stage of a product there is diminishing returns for the end-user. This is relevant in validating PMF since adding more features normally does not allow you to finish at PMF.
Ask: If I build another feature, is the cost of your time worth the value it brings?
After a couple years in the real world, especially in sales calls I started thinking everyone is exaggerating. I know that is the skeptic in me, but I still believe that most people aren't being truthful.
As we navigate the digital world, society tends to become quite polzarized, and scared. We see that with AI, and geopolitics in 2026. In 2020 I felt like a rock carved by the rivers that were the culture and ideas that were propagated through the internet. I noticed how it affected my actions and now I realize that the internet is not helpful. News is designed to scare its readers and algorithms incentivize reactions.
I think this one speaks for itself.