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Ben Yoskovitz
21.8K posts
Ben Yoskovitz
@byosko
Founding Partner @HighlineBeta. Author of FocusedChaos.co. Entrepreneur & investor. Co-author @LeanAnalytics. Call me: intro.co/BenjaminYoskov…
- How do you figure out what to build for your MVP? First, let's define MVP: It's the smallest version of a product needed to prove that you've solved a user's or customer's problem. So what do you do? 1. Start by validating the problem If you don't understand the problem
- Startup fundraising is hard b/c it's a complicated & opaque process. I've created a FREE comprehensive Fundraising Playbook w/ steps, checklists, templates & best practices to help. Get it easily: * Like this tweet * Comment "send" (Must be following so I can DM)
- There are 7 questions you need to ask before building a feature request that comes from the sales team. Salespeople will always demand that you build what they think will help them close a deal. If only it were that simple. Here's a framework to help you (and sales + your
- I wish "product management" was called something else. The "management" part implies more project tracking than it does actually validating & building product. It sets product management weirdly apart from the other functions including design + dev. Product managers do manage
- The worst slides on every startup pitch deck: * Market Size = total bs * Team = company logos + schools that have no bearing on the startup * Go-to-Market = completely undifferentiated plan * Business Model = hockey stick growth, every time * Competition = we're the best!
- What's the most important rule when it comes to using metrics? Only focus on metrics that change your behavior. Track whatever you want, but focus on the numbers that help you make actual decisions
- There are quite a few good PRD (Product Requirement Document) templates out there. Here's mine, free for anyone to copy & use:
- Is the CEO/Founder life glamorous? Maybe on Twitter and Instagram. But in real life? It's pretty f-ing hard. And lonely.
- Please in a pitch don’t call yourself the “Elon Musk of X…” Or for that matter refer to yourself as some other person. You’re not the “Steve Jobs of your industry." It’s so bloody creepy and ridiculous. This is peak bullshit.
- In 2017 I raised $1.8M for my startup. It was the 1st time I'd raised money. One of my big mistakes was being dismissive of smaller angel checks. Don't do that. For your angel investors those checks can be BIG. Not everyone is a gazillionaire. And angels can create BIG value.
- What’s the difference between Problem-Solution Fit and Product-Market Fit? Lots of debate, but here’s my take: Problem-Solution Fit: You validated a problem and built a solution that fixes it. You know the solution fixes the problem because you have a set of customers that use
- Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) are actually discovery documents, meant to uncover details, unknowns and risks. ✅ They start as discovery docs ✅ Emerge as requirements docs ✅And evolve into scope docs They don't start as scope docs, b/c that assumes you're locking
- Startups are systems. And you should map yours. It's one of the most useful exercises for founders and all team members to understand how the business works, and where to focus. This is an example of what a SaaS freemium biz might look like.
