Today felt like a catch up with the rest of the cohort l. After having spent a hot summer weekend together I feel very close with the teams.
Our first session was better understanding our teams and the dynamics by using DISC theory. Having sold solutions to HR & L&D teams for a previous role I had a strong understanding of what these meant and profiles. I was shocked and happy that members of my team scored me as having Green and Yellow aspects to my profile. The word ‘outgoing’ was used which is a stark contrast to the Red / Blue (DC on DISC) is used to receiving. Most important for me was the exercise whereby which we had to tackle an issue using different thinking hats. This was eye-opening as it forces you to think in a style that may not be natural to yourself but provides you with a perspective on other people’s mindset when thinking.
We met our mentor/ champion today. Immediately we hit it off, myself and the team felt we were catching up over coffees or in this case yogurt. We are currently in the stage of gaining traction and finding product-market fit, so learning about the next process of organizations that can help us accelerate our learning process of acquiring customers was great to hear. In addition to that Dama works for an amazing company that invests from pre-seed — seed-stage businesses doing good which is what we are so it was good to get a more personal insight to their thought process when they are doing their DD to understand what company’s they invest in and which they don’t. The criterion is being able to help 50 million people, our BHAG was affecting the lives of 10 million young people so we need to 5x our efforts
In addition to that, we met the lovely Jenny (who has an impressive knowledge of art & its history )who talked us through one of the most important things we as startup teams team to tackle: identifying our customers and understanding our pricing.
Through her talk, Jenny outlined the importance of actually talking to our customers preferably in person to get a better understanding of them. She recommended 2 frameworks for us to successfully to do this where:
MOM TEST & JOB TO BE DONE
As simple as identifying customers sounds it’s overlooked as many founders fall in love with their idea and its direct impact on them and the problem it solves for them. Never fall in love with your idea, it should have many different iterations because you find product-market fit. A funny example of this is Instagram which actually started off as a dating app…
In a podcast, I recently to (I listen to so many it’s hard to remember) a guest said that most companies spend more time thinking about their toiletry than they do with price. I don’t know how accurate that is as I am paraphrasing but nevertheless, the importance of also getting feedback from customers on the price they normally pay for x and she gave us a framework to base our market reconnaissance on which is called Van Westendorp’s Price Sensitivity
The first day was amazing. Filled with so much information I’m annoyed it can’t be another day, the idea of going back to work and having to wait another few days to learn more is annoying.
Until then I’ll consume the resources that will be shared with us, keep in touch with my mentor and also work on the goals we set to achieve this week.
Talk to you soon ✌🏿
-aj
Bedroom 2 Boardroom 🚀 