Happy to help.

Yeah, the “jobs to be done” framework will help with some of that. Just find potential customers and ask them that. Later, you’ll create an ideal customer profile (ICP) and have to re-ask, but at first you can just find anyone who might use it and ask them these questions.

Oh, haha, vaporware isn’t an app or anything. It’s the concept of creating a website (landing page) to sell a product that doesn’t yet exist. Folks who come to your website to sign up for your waitlist. Big and small companies both do this; sometimes the product gets created later, in which case you already have a list of potential adopters; in other cases the product is never made.

I didn’t see anyone putting the whole series of steps together, so here it is:

1. Demonstrate your potential. You can find potential customers using vaporware. You may also be able to use no-code solutions for a limited version of your app. But it should be some proof of market validation.
2. Find a technical cofounder. This will be much, much easier if you’ve finished step #1. You’ll probably split the equity.
3. Build an MVP with the cofounder and see if customer use it. Iterate until you do get users.
4. Apply for VC funding after you have a few customers to get better terms.

At least, that’s what I’ve always heard as the standard! Each startup is different, and mine followed a slightly different approach. Folks, lemme know if I hit the mark.

Ah, the prototype stage. A wonderful stage of brainstorming with friends over beers.

I’m assuming that’s where you’re at given your question.

Just contact a lot of people. Don’t worry about someone else stealing your idea; chances are that you’ll change ideas ten times before you find something that customers want. Talk to your friends, colleagues, family, anyone you can get on the phone. Tell them your product idea and ask what they think. Be prepared to be surprised at the feedback.

Your biggest concern is finding customer pain points. If you don’t know how to do that, I recommend looking up the “jobs to be done” interview format. This perspective also walks you through how to find competitors. Competitors are not just folks in the same market. It’s whatever alternate solution customers are using, often poorly, to solve some need in their life.

Apart from that, it sounds like you could use a business plan. There are templates online that will walk you through how to do it. Actually, you may not need a whole business plan at this point, but it would help you think through some of your questions.

It’s really hard to give you a definite answer to what you asked without more detail on your intended product. E.g., some folks enter the market through a viral approach, some “build in public”, some just take the marketing and AB testing approach. Maybe Redditors here can help you if you want to say a few more details.

As for competitors, just search online about them once you know who they are (see “jobs to be done” above). TechCrunch, online reviews, media articles, somewhere in there you’ll figure out how your competitors work and where folks are unhappy with them.

Hm, ‘identifying patterns in user behavior’ is a bit vague, what context are you referring to?

Hm, there are lots of posts on this subreddit asking how to market. Maybe contact some of the OPs and ask what they think?

I feel like 90% of the folks in this subreddit live and breathe market validation already, so they may not be your target customers.

But, echoing the other point below that a lot of startups don’t have money. And the ones who do have money, probably have business cofounders who know how to do this already. So you may have to hunt a bit to find folks with money who don’t know market validation.

Is there a way you could first help one side of the equation? Like, contact a bunch of businesses with needs and offer to help them find the services they need if they join. Once you have enough “businesses with needs” joining, you could then attract the businesses with services.

read „Traction“ by Gabriel Weinberg

Ha, that looks good, just placed an order for it.

Yeah, there’s lots of options. I found them by googling “Low cost marketing for startups”, too many ideas to repeat here. One that I’d recommend is ProductHunt.

Would also recommend you talk to folks you know about the idea, especially if they’re in your target demographic. That’s a great way to get early feedback and adjust your strategy/messaging to match.

Echoing this one. The biggest gain I got from organic outreach was their feedback. You can start paid ads anytime but it’s much harder to ask them for feedback imo.

Big congrats on the response to your outreach! Those are great numbers.

I’d document everything and talk to a lawyer. And I’d do it soon.

Would an investor even move forward with an LLC startup? Asking seriously.

It’s interesting the founder drew such a firm line there. Presumably the founder should know what they agreed to, and that the tag along request is legitimate.

It’s important to have respect on both sides of a business relationship. Sure, the angel investor could back down to keep the founder happy, but is that a good long-term dynamic? At best, the investor might remind the founder about their agreement and ask why the founder is hoping to avoid any investor sales. Maybe some middle ground can be reached, eg stealth tag along if that’s a thing.

Hm, this isn’t on the operational side, just a business I wish someone would start.

There’s a tremendous amount of resources stored in waste. Many of them are very valuable resources! But it’s energy expensive to extract. And no one wants like a nuclear power plant near them.

So, find somewhere far from everyone else, stable government, etc. Build out some sustainable source of power. Ship the waste over, and start extracting.

No idea whether our extraction efficiency or energy costs even out, though, so this might be a waste idea right now ;)

I also picked this one up due to a blog post. It’s about Design-driven product; the idea that everyone can contribute to product ideas in a company, not just a small number of product folks.

Change by Design by Tim Brown.

Admitting I haven’t read it yet!

Honestly? Crossing the Chasm. It sounds like it’s for a later stage startup, but actually it changed my whole perspective on the role of marketing, sales, and product-market fit.

Have you tried talking to potential customers? You can ask them about their pain points. It might be that your service solves a much bigger pain point than the 50-person companies.

Either way, it’s good practice to get out there and get feedback. You might also discover a new pain point (+startup idea) in the process!