Props to Barry for that. I’m borrowing his selection method as well, as I can be quite impulsive - and I wouldn’t have patience to take each idea through dozens of questions.
Yep, it’s easy to get lost in prototyping… one afternoon becomes a whole night, and before you know it, half a week has gone into it. Then you park it and that’s it.
The 72-hour rule is the bit that really lands for me: dopamine is a terrible co-founder, and most people skip that pause entirely. CB Insights found that poor product-market fit drove 43% of VC-backed startup failures since 2023, which suggests the filtering problem long predates cheap AI execution. As I see it, the kill criteria step is the one most founders quietly skip because writing down exit conditions forces a honesty about the opportunity that feels too early when you're still excited. What tends to stop founders actually using a system like this consistently, in your experience: discipline, ego, or something else entirely?
thanks for the comment. honestly, it could be a combination of everything you mentioned. keeping journal/log/diary is hard. people just want to get into the exciting stuff and just build, bu these systems help you front-load a lot of the work. a few founders i know came up with their startups by doing exactly this.
I’ve had a recent guest post (linked below) on traction and validation, but I’m wondering from your perspective why won’t founders validate their ideas?
Is it because they fear they will be wrong and they are already overinvested?
It's 1 part psychological (I must prove that I'm right) and 1 part skill set (how to constantly be in deep level questions mode, what questions to ask, who to ask, how to ask etc). People default to promoting, selling and broadcasting
REALLY interesting perspective on the importance of judgement and taste
Props to Barry for that. I’m borrowing his selection method as well, as I can be quite impulsive - and I wouldn’t have patience to take each idea through dozens of questions.
Great take. Finding your "zone of genius" becoming even more important with these tools to avoid spinning.
Yep, it’s easy to get lost in prototyping… one afternoon becomes a whole night, and before you know it, half a week has gone into it. Then you park it and that’s it.
Cheap building makes bad decisions easier to make.
From the Operating Bible of Brewton. 😉
🤓🙏🏼🤓 Too kind!
The 72-hour rule is the bit that really lands for me: dopamine is a terrible co-founder, and most people skip that pause entirely. CB Insights found that poor product-market fit drove 43% of VC-backed startup failures since 2023, which suggests the filtering problem long predates cheap AI execution. As I see it, the kill criteria step is the one most founders quietly skip because writing down exit conditions forces a honesty about the opportunity that feels too early when you're still excited. What tends to stop founders actually using a system like this consistently, in your experience: discipline, ego, or something else entirely?
thanks for the comment. honestly, it could be a combination of everything you mentioned. keeping journal/log/diary is hard. people just want to get into the exciting stuff and just build, bu these systems help you front-load a lot of the work. a few founders i know came up with their startups by doing exactly this.
Insightful stat on pre-AI filtering, Melanie! I guess AI might enable more solopreneurs with the build costs reduced.
This drives me crazy. Founders burning huge time without hardcore validation of a pressing pain - preferably something that screams survival event 😬
I’ve had a recent guest post (linked below) on traction and validation, but I’m wondering from your perspective why won’t founders validate their ideas?
Is it because they fear they will be wrong and they are already overinvested?
https://millennialmasters.net/p/motion-vs-traction
It's 1 part psychological (I must prove that I'm right) and 1 part skill set (how to constantly be in deep level questions mode, what questions to ask, who to ask, how to ask etc). People default to promoting, selling and broadcasting
"I must prove that I'm right," sounds familiar. 😅