SoCal CTO

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Customer Validation - 33 Great Articles

SoCal CTO

I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers." I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." Customer Validation 101. " OR… "You’re wrong.

Customer 227
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Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More - Ten Recent Great Startup Posts

SoCal CTO

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff.

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Hiring Developers Before Product/Market Fit?

SoCal CTO

Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. These companies are very early-stage and definitely have not shown product/market fit. The problem is you don't yet have product/market fit, and until you do, you don't really know what to build.

CTO Hire 205
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Document Your MVP for a Developer

SoCal CTO

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. This should be an iterative process with advisors and customers providing feedback on the product. Customer Development Notes I'm assuming founders are having customer development conversations. Don't stress over format.

Developer 354
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Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouhi

SoCal CTO

She is a go to person for me when I have questions around technology or early stage marketing and branding. We do a lot of B2B and also have an "Early Stage Branding" practice for technology startups. I've known Farida for quite a while. Maybe ten years. It has been fun to get to know her again. Foreign Service.

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NDA Stealth Mode and Sharing Your Startup Concept

SoCal CTO

He left out capital sources, but it's still a pretty succinct list of the types of people / communication you should be having early stage. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. You need all of these people to bake the cake. What is Stealth? " Ummm.

NDA 211
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Startup CTO Speaking

SoCal CTO

What parts Agile addresses and the big problems with Agile for early-stage startups? What is our lifetime customer value and how can we drive that up? What does it cost to acquire a new customer? What does it cost to acquire a new customer? What is our viral spread coefficient?