Idea to Startup

Today, we'll talk about strategy - what good (and bad) strategy looks like for startups, and how most early-stage companies lack any strategy at all. Using a framework from Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, we'll explore the three core elements: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. We'll examine strategies from a stand-up comedian and GoPro as examples, before applying the framework to craft a strategy for launching a successful children's book.

• Tacklebox
• Idea to Startup Newsletter
• The Skeptical Startup Episode
• Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
• Get On Your Knees (comedy special)
• Go the F*** to Sleep

00:29 The Skeptical Startup
1:58 Strategies vs Goals
3:58 The Comedian Story
8:50 Smooth Jazz
9:30 Bad Strategy
11:38 Fluff
12:12 Failure to Face the Challenge
13:19 Mistaking Goals for Strategy
14:50 GoPro
17:16 The Kernel of a Successful Children’s Book
19:56 Guiding Policy
20:50 Coherent Action
21:24 The End + You

Today, we'll help you pick your startup's first customer segment. This decision dooms a huge percentage of first time entrepreneurs - if you don't understand what the job of your first customer segment is, you'll likely pick a customer incapable of doing it. Your first customer has a unique responsibility that no other customer will have - you need to choose them carefully.
Conversely, if you choose the right first customer, you'll set yourself up for serious growth.
We go through the five characteristics your first customer needs, give a preview of what your successful startup will look like, and help a listener find the first customer for their Myers Briggs startup.

• Byldd
• Tacklebox
• Getting Real (museum curator reference)
• Everyman Espresso (☕️ 🐐)

Timestamps
00:27 First Time Entrepreneurs vs. Second Time Entrepreneurs
03:20 The Idea: Personality-Based Management
06:29 Why You, Why At All, Why Now
08:55 Byldd
09:55 The Story of Your Successful Startup
15:35 The Five Necessary First Customer Characteristics
16:41 Characteristic One: Pain
21:51 Characteristic Two: The Knowledge Spectrum
25:43 Characteristic Three: Measurement
28:24 Characteristic Four: Influence
29:48 Characteristic Five: Frequency
31:45 The End

Today we'll outline two frameworks that'll help you find a meaningful differentiator. We'll use a bunch of examples to show how Inversion + Before and After can change your business. A baseball academy, Krispy Kreme, and Nutrisystem help show us the way to a product your customers will happily overpay for.

• Tacklebox

Fewer companies were started in 2019 than in 1970. That’s preposterous. This is the single best time in human history to start a company - so why aren’t more people doing it? Season Two of Idea to Startup digs into why. Brian speaks with successful founders about how they navigated the tricky early stages, and delivers solo episodes on tactics founders can implement to start something in 2020. This is the year to start your company, and this is the podcast to help you do it. See you January 8th.

You need two things to build a great startup: specific knowledge and a lever to amplify that knowledge. On today’s pod, we’ll start a CBD startup with specific knowledge and leverage mind, and hear how Tejas, founder of Via, (a Tacklebox founder) was able to build a great business on the back of a mental model.