Notes from watching Daniel Gross's How To Go From Idea To Series A

Step 1: Start

The Dark Age: The Idea

• Instead of ideas, think about problems.
  • Challenge: You tend to focus on what you experience
    • Optimize your anecdotal environment to find interesting ideas
  • Note what ideas keep on coming back
  • Find the frontier.
  • Small ideas are best.
  • Examine your market.
  • Environment is everything.

The Feudal Age: Advancing

• Product Market Fit (Growth)
  • Polish, polish, polish
  • Talk to your users: personality changes required
  • Metrics are your map to success
    • Revenue
    • Usage
    • Derivative
  • Consistency
  • A system that will propel you to your best self.

Castle Age: 800 Gold Required == Fundraising

• Stand-out
  • Brand
  • Metrics
  • (Cold) Intro
    • What you do, in a way a stranger would understand.
    • What's different or new about you.
    • Why your market is interesting.
    • Is maximally compressed.
• The Deck
  • Title slide
  • What you're building
  • What problem this is solving
  • What's new or different about you
  • Why your market is interesting
  • Who you are
• Push to meet in person
  • A/B test
• Focus on iteration speed