0:03 foreign [Music]
0:06 [Music]
0:10 thank you so much so good
0:12 um so we um we've tackled the
0:14 prototyping question we've tackled
0:16 trying to get a team and what does that
0:18 look like I think one question that
0:20 again you may be tapping before and
0:22 trying to make sure that I cover
0:24 everything that we are having the chat
0:26 you may be talking about this later but
0:28 one of the questions we have is once you
0:32 release an MVP what's next ah well let's
0:33 get to that we get to the product side
0:42 thank you keep the questions coming
0:43 um we'll we'll pause here in a little
0:45 bit and go through another set but
0:48 here's a resource that sums up a lot of
0:50 what I just talked about but if you have
0:52 not read the mom tests uh by Rob
0:54 Fitzpatrick I highly encourage you to go
0:57 read this it's a short quick book and
1:00 the first time I read it I was like man
1:02 I wish I had read this 20 years ago
1:03 because it shows me all the mistakes I
1:05 made in customer Discovery and I see
1:06 this over and over again in entrepreneurs
1:07 entrepreneurs
1:09 and so the reason it's called the mom
1:11 test is you go to your mom and say mom
1:14 I've got this great idea to do XYZ what
1:16 do you think and what do you think Mom
1:19 says mom says that's a great idea son
1:21 and then you go to your friends and your
1:22 friends say that's great and you go to
1:23 other people that's interesting yeah
1:25 that's a good idea
1:27 the trick is
1:29 people are inherently nice
1:31 everybody will tell you you have a good
1:34 idea you have an interesting idea yeah
1:36 I'd use that yeah I'd pay for that and
1:38 the reality is they're just being nice
1:39 they're not giving you the true feedback
1:42 and so the mom test encourages you to
1:44 really focus on the problem like I was
1:46 talking about before don't talk about
1:47 your idea at the beginning at the
1:50 beginning it's 100 problem zero percent idea
1:51 idea
1:53 until you really vet this is a real
1:55 problem that's not biased it's
1:57 unprompted you're not leading the
1:58 witness about what do you think about
2:00 this they're saying it on their own and
2:02 then over time as you move down through
2:03 that framework and get to some of the
2:05 customer side then you can start
2:07 bringing in some potential Solutions but
2:09 really start with the problem and this
2:10 is one of the things I see from
2:12 entrepreneurs all the time one of my
2:13 first questions I asked entrepreneurs
2:15 review of them is tell me what you learn
2:16 in customer discovery
2:18 and there's a lot of people that give
2:19 simple answers that say everybody loves it
2:20 it
2:22 I said well why well everybody said it's
2:24 a great idea
2:27 those are usually misleading answers
2:30 they can give you a false perception uh
2:32 that you're on to something so a better
2:34 answer would be well I started talking
2:37 to 50 potential customers in this space
2:38 and here's what they described as their problem
2:39 problem
2:42 and then as I get forward with them this
2:43 is what they told me was most important
2:44 to solve and so that's what I'm going to
2:47 focus on that's a much better answer uh
2:49 than than the previous so highly
2:50 encourage you to read this book because
2:52 it really focuses you and gives you some
2:54 practical advice on how to really ask
2:57 questions about the problem and not
2:58 about your solution because the minute
2:59 you start talking about your solution
3:02 you're already biasing uh the answers
3:07 all right so I spent a lot of time you
3:09 sort of you know free building anything
3:12 because I think it's so important to
3:13 building a product but now I'm going to
3:14 move into some of the elements of go to
3:16 market of which product is one I think
3:19 those all tie together to really proving
3:22 something uh that customers want
3:24 so what is go to market think of it as
3:26 everything we need to deliver our
3:28 product or service and this is important
3:31 because it's not just marketing their
3:33 strategy their sales there's Finance
3:35 there's product all of these things are
3:37 critical to building an effective go to
3:39 market strategy and they all have to
3:42 align you could have the best product in
3:43 the world
3:44 but if you don't have the right sales
3:46 strategy or marketing strategy it's
3:48 going to struggle right
3:50 um and so you have to align all these it
3:52 takes many iterations but I'm going to
3:55 talk through a few of those
3:58 but this is the coming out of customer
4:01 discovery you should have a hypothesis
4:03 on these questions and as you start
4:04 launching and building your product
4:06 these are ones that you want to
4:08 continually test who is my Target
4:11 customer very specifically what is my
4:14 value proposition why would they buy
4:15 this they're going to increase Revenue
4:16 they're going to lower cost they're
4:19 going to how do I price my product
4:21 what channels do I sell it through what
4:23 market trends am I taking advantage of
4:25 that'll help make it easier to sell and
4:27 then how do I tell my story around this
4:30 because the other reality is right
4:31 you put yourself in the shoes of whoever
4:33 you're talking to they're pitched by
4:35 entrepreneurs and products countlessly
4:36 all day
4:39 and so what's your story that's going to make
4:40 make
4:43 your solution and your understanding of
4:45 their problem different so these are
4:47 good questions to to Think Through
4:49 during the discovery side but then as
4:51 you start to move forward into go to
4:53 market so simple framework I'll use here
4:55 to talk through go to market product
4:58 price place and promotion and there's
4:59 much more detail we go into each from a
5:01 touch on each one of them
5:03 a little bit and some of the key things
5:05 for each so first on the products that's
5:07 part of this session right how do you
5:09 build the product
5:11 so we mentioned before you do all that
5:13 research and customer Discovery before building
5:14 building
5:16 now I've got some of those customers
5:18 with authentic demand leaning in well
5:19 now what does that look like the first
5:21 thing I I talk about here is building
5:23 with development Partners these are
5:25 those three to five that are willing to
5:27 pay something to build a first version
5:29 with you
5:32 and I don't like free in most cases
5:34 because they're not committed to doing it
5:35 it
5:38 but it's something trivial
5:40 a dollar something greater than zero
5:43 that makes them put some skin in the
5:45 game improve they're willing to take
5:47 their wallet out for something that's
5:48 you know even if it's a trivial dollar amount
5:49 amount
5:52 so how does that work so I'd get these
5:53 three to five customers they get them to
5:56 sign up pay to build it with me but now
5:59 it's a much more iterative build with
6:01 them it's not me going back in my
6:02 basement and building out these 20
6:04 product features and then coming back
6:06 and saying here it is
6:08 it's me building with them hey it could
6:09 look like this great let me go build
6:11 this show you this hey here's what this
6:13 would look like oh tweak this oh here
6:16 and they're involved in the process and
6:18 what I find is you get much better and
6:19 quicker feedback and they'll tell you
6:21 that still needs to have these two other
6:23 things before I can fully use in my
6:24 workflow or like this is good enough now
6:27 I want to go live with this now and then
6:30 can you also build X or Y or Z so it's a
6:32 very iterative one and I encourage you
6:34 to build with development Partners as
6:37 you start building your first version of
6:38 the product
6:40 because the other thing is
6:42 people also back to that Mom test people
6:46 love you tell you oh yeah at uh once you
6:48 build XYZ then come back and we'll buy
6:50 it and so what did I do I went back and
6:52 I spent time and money building XYZ and
6:54 I came back and I said here it is and
6:58 then they said well I also need ABC
7:01 I I don't like the idea of building with
7:02 the promise that they'll buy I want to
7:03 see that they're willing to put some
7:05 money down to then go build it with me
7:07 and that's a much truer sign of you're
7:10 on to building a good product the right problem
7:11 problem
7:14 second bullet I'll say is more features
7:16 is usually not the answer one of the
7:19 things I've learned with customers is
7:21 their default answer everything is
7:23 another feature I just want a button
7:25 that does this I want a report that does
7:26 this I want a screen that does this
7:28 that's their default that's just how
7:29 most customers think
7:32 and so what happens is you can then end
7:34 up with a product that's full of all
7:37 these features and guess what every
7:39 feature takes time and money you want to
7:41 be laser focused back to that you know
7:43 Discovery side what's my unique Target
7:47 segment one problem with one feature set
7:49 that I can deliver 10x better and be
7:53 great at one or two things and don't try
7:55 and compete with the Salesforce from our
7:58 example on 50 features as a startup your
8:02 superpower is Speed and Agility not the
8:05 ability to build endless feature sets
8:07 and so when you try and build lots of
8:10 features you end up being just okay at a
8:11 bunch you end up with a lot of technical
8:13 debt you got to go fix later you get a
8:16 bloated product versus go solve one
8:18 problem right now with one feature set
8:20 that's 10x better and they'll start
8:22 using and paying for that so really
8:25 focus versus just building more features
8:27 because I can't because again I hear
8:29 from a lot of entrepreneurs yep I'm go
8:30 raising a million dollars to go build
8:32 these six features and then the sales
8:33 are going to take off
8:36 usually it's not how it works
8:38 the last two things here yeah I
8:40 mentioned the Storyteller but one of the
8:43 things as a product owner and as the CEO
8:45 or founder you're the head of product as
8:46 well as the head of sales and head of
8:47 marketing and all the things at the
8:49 beginning right
8:52 what is that story and so back to the
8:54 problem I loved seeing the ones who can
8:55 describe the story so let me tell you
8:59 about Martha Martha is a marketer that
9:01 struggles to produce endless ads across
9:04 all these social media channels today
9:06 and so her problem is she doesn't have
9:07 the time or the knowledge to make them
9:10 all videos and do so one of the things
9:12 that we did was we helped somebody like
9:15 Martha take her static content and produce
9:16 produce
9:19 video content in less than five minutes
9:21 versus the five hours it takes today and
9:23 here's why but you're telling a story
9:26 around the type of user the problems
9:27 they have and what you're doing is
9:29 you're getting that potential buyer or
9:31 person you're talking to
9:33 I get it now I understand that person
9:36 that's me that's my Persona so you tell
9:38 that story about their personas versus
9:40 I've got a product that does XYZ and
9:42 you're pitching your product
9:45 put it in the frame of them and not
9:47 about you and then the last thing
9:48 Senator the universe means is we talked
9:50 about being conversant in sales
9:53 marketing engineering because as you're
9:55 building the product you got to be able
9:56 to make sure you're getting the sales
9:58 feedback and the marketing and
10:01 coordinating uh with those functions
10:03 all right Richard should I pause for a
10:04 minute I see some more chat stuff coming
10:07 in yes so we have a question
10:09 um from Prashant
10:10 um I just made sure
10:13 um there's some on the call so the
10:15 question is I have an idea that would
10:18 work and even nowhere to start I need a
10:21 technical partner a data scientist how
10:24 do I one meet one and then two protect
10:27 my interest so he or she were they
10:30 doesn't run away with this idea and do
10:32 their own thing
10:34 great so first part I'd answer back to
10:36 what I said at the beginning
10:38 I would ask why do you know you have a
10:41 good idea probably is but like what
10:42 customer Discovery have you done and
10:45 what people do you have leaning in to
10:47 tell you why it's a good idea and if
10:49 they're leaning in
10:52 how can they help build it with you and
10:53 maybe they have some of those folks on
10:56 their team that will help you build it
10:57 um there's I know like a data scientist
10:59 like I know at Georgia Tech and I'm sure
11:00 Georgia State there's plenty of folks
11:01 that are majoring or using stuff like
11:04 that there's probably places and groups
11:06 you can go to meet people like that uh
11:08 to help you iterate through that and the
11:10 second part about your idea this is the
11:11 trade-off in in life right that again
11:14 the more protective the less resources
11:16 you'll have available to help you
11:17 um and the less feedback you'll get on
11:19 whether it's truly a good idea or not
11:21 yes somebody could take your idea and
11:24 run with it but again my experience is
11:25 the execution is far more important than
11:28 the idea and So within reason finding
11:31 people that are trusted or referred and
11:32 having conversations and you can even
11:34 test them a little bit before you folds
11:38 the deep deep secrets of your idea right
11:40 um but I err on the side of just being
11:42 more transparent than Knox I think
11:43 you'll you'll get somewhere bigger and
11:46 faster than if you're more secretive
11:48 but I know there are different opinions so
11:49 so
11:52 thanks A.T now I I've kind of answered
11:55 this in the chat as well but for those
11:56 on the call
11:59 um if you have a non-technical idea
12:01 um what all the principles that you're
12:03 talking about still apply
12:05 um I want to make sure that you're able
12:07 to answer that I've answered that in the
12:09 chat as well but I want to make sure
12:12 that um so you have a non-technical idea
12:15 right so like a fashion or candle or you
12:17 know one of those visits that may not
12:20 have a some of them will tie in Tech
12:22 they're Tech enabled but not necessarily
12:25 Tech focused yeah so the building of a
12:28 product may be different but the same
12:30 framework around problem Market customer
12:33 still all holds true
12:35 I I meet lots of folks doing
12:37 non-technical businesses the same thing
12:38 I ask about tell me what you learned in
12:40 customer Discovery and so all my friends
12:41 want this
12:44 well what does that mean well who what
12:45 type of friends what do they look like
12:47 what do they need what's their problem
12:49 understanding those things around
12:51 problem and marketing customers are
12:53 still just as important no matter what
13:01 thank you so much I think at the moment
13:04 that's kind of the questions we have
13:07 lingering and so yes all right I'll keep
13:08 going I'll get to some examples if I
13:10 know we're getting closer to the time so
13:11 I'll move a little a little quicker here
13:14 one thing I'll say I'm pricing there's a
13:16 lot of things but we've got an Roi
13:17 calculator on our spreadsheet but one
13:20 thing to think about is what is the
13:21 value you're delivering and the reason I
13:23 say this is like look
13:25 you could have a product that's priced
13:28 at ten dollars and nobody would buy it
13:28 because they don't think they're getting
13:30 enough value from it it's not worth ten
13:32 dollars you could have a product priced
13:34 at a million dollars but that company is
13:36 getting several million dollars of value
13:39 and they're it's a no-brainer to sign up
13:41 so one thing I think about with pricing
13:44 is how do you define the value your
13:46 customers got to receive so there's hard
13:48 value which is this is going to help
13:50 them boost revenue for their business or
13:53 save costs that's the best kind it's
13:55 easy to quantify and show
13:58 but the vast majority of folks have what
14:00 I call soft value they say this is going
14:02 to be make us more efficient or save us time
14:03 time
14:06 all true but those tend to be more nice
14:08 to have ideas that are harder to
14:10 consistently sell and retain customers
14:12 and so one trick I've learned with this
14:15 is you could have that efficiency
14:16 so let's just say I'm going to make a
14:19 marketer 25 more efficient
14:22 well great that's good but then when the
14:24 marketer goes to get approval from the
14:26 CFO for the budget the CFO says well
14:28 what did you do with that efficiency and
14:30 if the marketer can't say well I spent
14:32 more time in campaigns and got this many
14:34 more leads or I didn't have to hire
14:36 these Consultants or I didn't have to
14:38 fill this role that's where it starts to
14:40 become a hard value so help your customers
14:41 customers
14:44 take the next step from yeah it made me
14:46 more efficient or save me time to what
14:48 did that efficiency or Time Savings mean
14:50 in terms of dollars so I'd encourage
14:57 all right on the
14:59 marketing side you know sort of the the
15:03 product price place and promotions on
15:04 the the play side there's a couple
15:06 different levers here that have I think
15:08 are important one is there's a lot of
15:10 things that you control sort of this
15:13 owned media you can build your own blog
15:15 on your website and have your message on
15:17 your own social channels uh one things I
15:19 love to test ideas is having a landing
15:20 page before you've built anything you
15:22 put a landing page I've got something
15:24 that's gonna do XYZ click here to sign
15:27 up uh coming fall 2023. how many people
15:29 click to sign up and each person that
15:32 clicks that's a free customer Discovery
15:33 call to follow up with them and learn
15:35 more so there's a lot of things that you
15:37 can control that don't really cost much
15:39 money and I encourage folks to really
15:41 start there because you're in full
15:44 control of that message uh and how you
15:45 interact there so know that there's a
15:47 lot of things you own
15:50 the next level is ones that you earn
15:52 you know referrals from friends or folks
15:54 in Industry you may be able to get in a
15:57 publication or some PR or you get
16:00 customers to leave some reviews there's
16:01 lots of things you can do here and
16:03 encourage but it takes a little bit
16:06 extra step uh to get those about your
16:08 business and then the last one obviously
16:10 you can pay for certain things whether
16:13 it's you know ads on a Google or social
16:17 platform or or other things but those
16:19 sort of tend to come last you can test a
16:22 few things there but as you're building
16:24 the idea I tend to start less there
16:26 dabble that maybe a little bit but focus
16:28 on what you can control on the own side
16:29 as you're getting going with the business
16:31 business
16:36 and then the the fourth P product price
16:38 place and promotion the other thing you
16:39 want to think about as you're building
16:42 your product is how is it helping people
16:45 get through my sales funnel and so
16:47 here's a very basic sales funnel but it
16:49 applies to building a product how is
16:51 this helping what else do you need to
16:54 help so the first thing is awareness how
16:55 do people even know to look for my
16:57 product and so we mentioned there's some
17:00 of the things you can do around you're
17:01 writing about it on your blog and you're
17:04 an expert in your field there you're
17:07 running some search ads that are pulling
17:08 people in you're attending a conference
17:10 there's a lot of different ways but one
17:12 part is building that awareness
17:14 the second part is then the
17:15 consideration right so now that they've
17:18 got my awareness I know that company X I
17:19 should look at
17:21 what do I have available on my website
17:25 demos white papers trials what sort of
17:28 things get them to consider and pricing
17:31 and and take a look at it deeper
17:33 down to the next one sort of the
17:37 conversion side how does my products
17:38 help get them across the Finish Line to
17:40 sign what do they see what do they not
17:42 see as as customers sign up I love
17:44 asking them why did you sign up what was
17:46 it about my product or if they don't
17:48 what was it about it you know that
17:50 prohibited you from and learn because
17:53 that all helps you refine your product I
17:54 mean it could be the product itself it
17:55 could be the messaging it could be the
17:58 value there's lots of those go to market
18:00 levers and then ultimately this is the
18:02 secret sauce here down the end so once
18:03 you've done that there's still more
18:06 product work around loyalty so once you
18:07 sign them are they going to stay are
18:09 they going to renew and then advocacy
18:11 are they going to tell their friends
18:13 so one of the businesses that we're
18:15 fortunate enough to work with uh hear
18:17 from beginning in Atlanta is coming out
18:20 calendly and one of the things that they
18:23 did that was so amazing is they nailed
18:25 that loyalty and advocacy piece that
18:27 they had a simple button
18:29 or a little logo at the bottom of every
18:30 meeting invite that said powered by
18:32 calendly and so Risha would send me when
18:34 it first got started a calendly invite
18:36 and I'd see powered by counting I was
18:37 like well that was that was simple and
18:39 then I'd see another one and another one
18:40 and before you know it I saw a couple
18:41 and I said wait a minute I should go try this
18:42 this
18:44 and then I would go try it oh it was a
18:46 free version great and then I wish it
18:47 had these other things so I could do
18:49 different meeting types oh it does
18:51 and then wait several of us in the
18:53 office all have it we should get our
18:55 boss to pay for the premium version and
18:57 so we go and get is a business sale but
19:00 the point was they built an amazing
19:02 model of loyalty and advocacy that
19:04 helped make their funnel even easier
19:05 because their customers were creating
19:07 their own awareness and consideration
19:09 and conversion for them so they had to
19:12 spend next to zero dollars in sales and
19:13 marketing to really get the virality
19:16 going so this is one example but the
19:18 point of this is know that how you build
19:20 your product and evolve your product is
19:22 a function of what you're finding here
19:23 as you may find I'm getting a ton of
19:25 awareness but little conversion why is
19:27 that how do I revolve it or like
19:28 everybody that's coming through is
19:30 converting I'm just not getting the
19:31 awareness why is that and how do I
19:33 refine the product uh in the message there
19:35 there
19:37 all right so let me pause there reach
19:39 any other questions where I go into two
19:40 examples with specifics of companies and
19:43 how they did this no I think everyone is
19:45 in tune with what you're saying and so
19:47 um I think on the edge of our seats
19:48 trying to figure out what's the next
19:49 step that you're going to tell us how to
19:51 do so all right let me give you two
19:53 examples of companies we started in our studio
19:55 studio
19:56 and how it went through the process so
19:59 green Z is a company that builds
20:02 software to make commercial lawnmowers autonomous
20:04 autonomous
20:06 so how did we move through the process
20:08 started with the problem
20:10 problem was
20:13 there are tasks that are
20:16 boring repetitive and dangerous and
20:18 humans don't like those tasks
20:21 humans love challenging tasks or you
20:23 know things that aren't dangerous
20:25 they're fun but boring repetitive
20:27 dangerous tasks people don't like and
20:30 lawn mowing happens to be one of those
20:33 my first business I ever started as an
20:34 entrepreneur in high school was a lawn
20:37 mowing business and I can tell you uh
20:39 being out in the August heat riding
20:41 mowers back and forth all day is not a
20:44 fun job it's boring it's repetitive and
20:49 so what we found was there were lots of
20:50 folks that are having a hard time
20:54 finding the labor to do lawn mowing and
20:56 so we start with an idea well what about
20:58 maybe like a residential little little
21:00 roombas for the yard and what we found
21:02 was there's some technical challenges
21:04 but people were already doing that so we
21:06 started talking to to other folks like
21:08 commercial landscapers that have a truck
21:09 that pulls up five guys jump out and
21:11 they ride mowers back and forth all day
21:13 in the hot sun on like a 10-acre park or field
21:14 field
21:17 boring repetitive but they can't find
21:19 enough labor so they have to not take
21:21 deals or have
21:23 the labor not show up and then they
21:24 can't do it
21:27 so interesting so we started riding
21:28 around with some of them what does their
21:29 day look like you know one of the things
21:31 we saw right is that for residential the
21:33 yard's got to be perfect and look really
21:35 good and there's Hills and there's
21:36 obstacles and there's kids running
21:39 around well for a Big Field
21:41 they're usually flat there's usually
21:42 fewer obstacles
21:44 okay that's interesting we started in
21:46 some of the market well with autonomous
21:49 vehicles and the cars all of that
21:51 technology that's getting better and
21:53 cheaper can be applied to lawn mowing
21:55 and hasn't historically been done that
21:57 way right and as we look forward that
21:59 there was no question that five to ten
22:01 years from now and this was you know
22:03 four or five years ago
22:04 there's gonna be autonomous lawnmowers
22:06 everywhere nobody wants this job right
22:08 they like to do the edging and the
22:10 trimming and stuff that looks good not
22:12 the boring stuff
22:14 and so we said all right
22:17 problem check Market check go to the
22:19 customer side start talking to folks and
22:21 people were like
22:22 getting those lean in questions right
22:24 and so one of the things we did we put
22:27 up a landing page had built nothing
22:29 again not touch building a product that
22:31 said we've got an autonomous lawnmower
22:34 that can do XYZ click here to sign up
22:35 and be on the pre-order for the coming year
22:36 year
22:39 the number of folks that clicked on that
22:41 that said we've been waiting for this
22:43 how many can I buy what dealers do I get
22:45 it from what does it cost does it do
22:47 this type or does it do that type all
22:49 signs of authentic demand and buying and
22:51 so what did we do back to my development
22:53 partner's comment we went and found two
22:54 of the largest landscapers in the
22:56 country that said I want to pay to go
22:58 build this with you
23:01 and so started iterating with them of
23:02 course the first versions don't do all
23:04 the features don't fully work but you're
23:05 building it with them getting the
23:07 feedback in the field versus in the lab
23:09 that's the other advantage of building
23:11 with customers is you we learned what
23:13 happened when you went into a ditch or
23:14 when it overheated when it was 110
23:16 degrees versus if we were building it in
23:17 a controlled lab we wouldn't have
23:19 learned those things
23:21 and so building those early things with
23:23 develop partners and then now ultimately
23:25 starting to scale that up across
23:27 multiple dealers multiple developers
23:28 different motor types we got several
23:30 different manufacturers we're building
23:32 these but the point was we went through
23:36 that process of problem Market customer
23:39 iterated through that a couple times got
23:40 some development partners and used that
23:43 to start building up uh and growing so
23:45 so that was an example uh with with
23:47 green Z
23:48 I'll give you one other example here
23:50 another company we started so back to
23:51 you know the question about
23:53 non-technical businesses this is more of
23:55 a non-technical business a company
23:58 called in Town Golf Club
24:01 say indoor golf and Social Club
24:03 uh right in the heart of Buckhead
24:06 and the concept here was well we started
24:09 with the problem problem was
24:11 there are people that love golf but it
24:13 takes too much time or it's too expensive
24:14 expensive
24:17 and if you look anymore the land in a
24:19 city is far more valuable
24:21 to put buildings and apartments and
24:22 other things than to put a golf course
24:25 on it and golf courses aren't very Green
24:27 from an environment perspective
24:29 but yet there's places like Topgolf that
24:31 show there's alternative models for golf
24:34 they're food and entertainment we looked
24:37 around in Korea there are these indoor
24:41 golf simulator places uh golfs on that
24:42 there's five times as many as there are
24:44 Starbucks in Korea so in other
24:47 geographies there was a need for this so
24:48 we started doing more research and
24:50 tuning in and really found that there's
24:53 advantages of country clubs or private clubs
24:54 clubs
24:56 but people don't like to pretentiousness
24:58 or it's not accessible or the cost is
25:00 available but there's people like Golf
25:02 and want to be able to play golf at
25:04 seven in the morning seven at night when
25:06 it's dark when it's hot when it's rainy
25:08 when it's cold when it's snowy and hey
25:10 instead of taking five hours it takes me
25:12 30 minutes to go play around a golf at a
25:13 place like this I know by the way
25:15 there's a community of folks that are
25:17 like-minded and I can and hang out with
25:20 and have have stuff so
25:22 how do we do this we went through some
25:23 of those problem areas went through the market
25:24 market
25:26 started talking to customers
25:28 and again before we built anything we
25:30 wanted to go sell pre-sell 100
25:33 memberships to this place with nothing
25:36 built no drawings just an idea and we
25:38 sold 100 memberships with nothing no product
25:40 product
25:41 so then we said all right great we think
25:43 there's something there we went and
25:44 raised some money then go start doing
25:46 some drawings and here's what the place
25:48 can look like and and work with some
25:50 construction firms to just build it and
25:51 finding a location
25:53 and so as we started going through that
25:55 process we wanted to sell the next 300
25:57 memberships before it even opened to
25:59 prove the authentic demand and so we
26:02 went and sold those next 300 and now
26:04 it's fully sold out has a waiting list
26:06 we're open locations and multiple cities
26:09 around the country but back to the point
26:12 of really vetting the idea before you
26:14 start building we were able to pre-sell
26:15 memberships just on the idea of building
26:18 no product and again had it not happened
26:21 great we were just pivoted and revised
26:24 the idea then but it's so much easier to
26:27 change and pivot your idea before you've
26:29 built anything versus once you've built
26:31 something it gets that much harder so
26:34 you this is an example again of saying
26:36 how do you test that customer's
26:37 governing authentic demand to know what
26:40 the product needs to be before you start
26:42 building it and then you're that much
26:44 more confident uh to go build it and grow
26:45 grow
26:47 all right two examples there before I
26:49 wrap up reset any other other questions
26:50 or wrap up here and then we'll Circle back
26:51 back
26:54 we don't have any questions but I had a
26:56 thought for those who are building
26:58 non-technical things which your examples
27:00 are fantastic about giving a technical
27:03 and non-technical aspect of it so if you
27:05 have a smaller product say you're
27:07 selling pies or something would you
27:10 recommend say going to say a farmer's
27:13 market or you know just places like that
27:14 that are simple that you can test out
27:17 your idea or building as you said a
27:19 landing page what would be your advice
27:22 for both the great both are great ideas
27:24 you know incredible landing page and say
27:26 we're going to build these pies again I
27:28 would ask a lot of the questions of well
27:31 who is my Target customer why are they
27:33 not happy with existing pies what's
27:34 going to make my pies different or
27:36 better right really understanding those
27:38 questions and talking to folks right and
27:40 so having an idea of that again before
27:42 you're even building or baking pies and
27:44 then once you've got an idea then that's
27:46 a great idea go to the local farmers
27:48 market you bake five or ten
27:50 sell them talk to people get feedback
27:52 right or show up at you know an event
27:55 sponsor some you know show up and give
27:56 them away free at a Georgia State event
27:58 right and get some feedback
28:01 um but I love that idea of just testing
28:03 in small batches uh and learning before
28:06 you go all in on building a location and
28:07 and stuff like that
28:10 thank you we have no questions at the
28:12 moment but again fantastic information
28:14 that we're getting I see Justin taking
28:17 notes and all of that so um all right so
28:18 well let me wrap let me wrap up here and
28:20 then we can go to any other questions or
28:21 any other topics you want me to cover but
28:22 but
28:25 you know this entrepreneurship is hard
28:27 um it it is you know the the numbers
28:29 show that most businesses don't succeed
28:32 but I think it's a fun journey and
28:34 whether it's successful or not most
28:36 folks I talk to say that experience was
28:39 worth it for all the learnings of how to
28:41 build and one of the things I like is
28:42 that you're in control as an
28:43 entrepreneur a lot of things in life you
28:45 can't control but as an entrepreneur you
28:48 can control a little more uh than most
28:50 and so here's a couple of takeaways I
28:52 have just you know for everything we
28:54 talked about is the first is you know
28:56 build a product that solves a must-have
28:58 Mission critical problem really spend
28:59 the time on the problems anything you
29:01 take away from this don't go build a
29:04 product go prove the problem and the
29:06 authentic demand first because it just
29:08 sets you up for Success if it's there
29:10 and if it's not that's okay like in our
29:14 studio we go after problems and we do
29:15 more customer Discovery we realize
29:17 that's not the right place to go and we
29:19 pivot it before we built stuff and so
29:21 that's okay that's normal and that's a
29:24 good thing but really spend the time to
29:25 make sure before you start building that
29:27 it's a must-have Mission critical
29:29 problem you're solving and all about the
29:32 problem not about your solution
29:33 second is just
29:36 find Target customers with a clear value
29:37 proposition so again back to the pi
29:39 example there's plenty of Pies out there
29:42 people like pies but what is your
29:44 specific Target customer what's
29:46 different about your pies how do you
29:48 Market to them differently how do you
29:50 sell your product differently what's the
29:52 value prop that makes people say this is
29:53 the best pie for this type of person
29:56 with this you know needs right
29:58 um and then the the third bullet point
30:00 is we mentioned some of those go to
30:01 market pieces that really tie into
30:03 making the product effective around
30:06 product price place and promotion but
30:08 that's an iterative process too and you
30:10 have to get that right to really start
30:12 scaling up your business as well so even
30:14 if you've proved there's a real problem
30:17 with authentic demand and you build a
30:18 early version of a product with
30:21 development Partners the next step to
30:23 start making it scalable is aligning and
30:24 adjusting that go to market strategy
30:26 where you're tweaking the product you're
30:27 tweaking the price you're tweaking the
30:29 promotion you're tweaking the place uh
30:31 and iterating through all that uh to
30:35 ultimately help you continue to scale up
30:37 and then here if you go to our website I
30:39 mentioned we've got lots of resources
30:41 there's more detail on all these things
30:42 like in each section I've got questions
30:46 to ask blog posts about it uh tools and
30:48 templates like what you have to feel to
30:50 move on to the next step uh then we've
30:52 got you know lots of other events and
30:53 things on there as well so encourage you
30:54 to check out our website Atlanta Ventures
30:55 Ventures
30:58 dot com and with that Risha all sort of
31:00 pause and answer any other questions
31:14 [Music] foreign
