Nascent 🪺 Podcast

When founders analyze discovery interviews, they trick themselves. Entrepreneurs today are like medieval bakers judging an oven by feel and then despairing when the bread comes out burnt or raw. Baking got reliable when thermometers replaced the guesswork, and founders need that same upgrade for their interview analysis. Good news! Entrepreneurs can leverage tools from other fields. Specifically,...

Advice from legendary entrepreneurs doesn't work for the rest of us because the legends have an innate sense for good startup ideas that they can't explain. We can't mimic their intuition but we can copy it with a measurement system. In this episode: (00:00) What legendary founders see (03:19) What founders need, but not how to achieve it (06:09) The signal is People in Pain — and it&#...

When founders run discovery interviews, they don't know what they're searching for, so they don't know if they found it. Here's the most important quality to extract from an interview: Is there any evidence that the interviewee might care about your startup idea? To determine this, founders can apply Nascent's Yardstick of Pain™ as the first step to identifying people who might...

Founders WASTE a year on bad startup ideas because they struggle to answer the question "How can I make sense of what interviewees tell me?" . Today, founders typically evaluate responses using the criterion "I know a validated assumption when I see it" -- a recipe for fooling yourself. Instead, founders can use Nascent's structured approach to categorizing interviewees&#39...

A key reason that founders WASTE a year on bad startup ideas is that they accept low-quality data that they'd NEVER accept elsewhere. Specifically, founders "capture" data from discovery interviews using their memory and their notes -- self-reported data that's a recipe for getting fooled. Instead, they need recordings to actually capture what interviewees say. This is the first...

This is a follow-up episode in response to a listener question regarding Episode 022. The listener asked: Isn't searching for People in Pain just marketing? No. Marketing deploys the knowledge a business already has. Searching for People in Pain is the project of figuring out whether it's even worth it to try to get that knowledge in the first place. This episode unpacks the most-abused wo...

Reid Hoffman was WRONG when he said "starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down -- your willingness to jump is your most valuable asset as an entrepreneur ." "Willingness to jump" is not even his most valuable asset! His most valuable asset is his ability to know whether a startup idea has a chance of success . Only then is willingness...

The biggest challenge in entrepreneurship is that founders of startups with no customers need a way to know if they're about to " make something people want ". In this episode, Mike details three experiences that enable him to solve this challenge: (1) measurement systems -- Mike worked for years quantifying consumer products, (2) crossing boundaries -- Mike uses concepts outside conventional entr...

Episode 022: Yes, search for People in Pain. But, they're invisible. In this episode, Mike introduces the distinction between conventional businesses (where knowledge exists) and breakthrough startups (where founders must create new knowledge). He details the challenge for founders of customer-breakthrough startups: to create knowledge, they must identify People in Pain who are invisible. To disti...

Asking how to get customers for a startup is asking the wrong question. In this episode, Mike explains why pursuing paying customers is the wrong first step, introduces the concept of People in Pain™ as the first signal that your startup might ever get a customer and sets a ridiculously low bar for evaluating your startup idea. In this episode: (00:00) Hook: "Can I show you how to get custome...

Startups with customers face different challenges than startups with no customers . But conventional startup strategies don't make this distinction — there's no Playbook A for startups with customers and Playbook B for startups with no customers. In this episode, Mike makes the case that founders of startups with no customers are underserved, explains why even the most accomplished entrepr...

Most startups fail because they can't get customers — and founders often waste years before realizing their idea is a dead end. In this relaunch episode, Mike re-introduces Nascent methodology and a new metric called the ERNY value (Estimated Revenue Next Year, in dollars) that helps founders decide in days, not years, whether their idea is worth pursuing. In this episode: (00:00) Hook: founders w...

More workshops here: https://lu.ma/nascent This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

Startups WITH customers face wildly different problems from startups WITHOUT CUSTOMERS. However, most startup strategies don't address this distinction -- and those strategies are for startups with customers. If you're a founder of a startup with few or no customers, here's why conventional startup strategies (e.g., product market fit, minimum viable product, business model canvas, etc.) are a dis...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

I attended SubSummit in June 2024 in Dallas, Texas to record an episode of the Nascent Startups podcast. Amazingly, Robbie Kellman Baxter filled in at the last moment when my originally scheduled interviewee was unexpectedly absent. Thanks so much and kudos to Robbie for sharing her insights on no notice! Links we referenced in the show: * https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/ * https://www.linkedin.co...

Shout out to Pilot44 and Jon Corshen This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

In the summer of 2019, Adara Blake ( https://www.adaranicole.com/ ) founded a startup, Believe in Breast Milk. Adara is a speech therapist and lactation consultant who wanted to solve the problem that 60% of mothers do not breastfeed for as long as they intend to. Typically, Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation ( TENS ) is used for pain relief in muscles; Adara’s innovation was to use TENS...

When you have an idea for a tech startup, your first step is to deeply understand the people you want help in an Exploration exercise. Shout out to Lex Fridman and Jeff Bezos: https://lexfridman.com/jeff-bezos This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

A founder's journey: Carley had an idea for "BundleShop" but wasn't sure whether it was an opportunity worth pursuing so she used the Nascent Startups methodology to decide quickly and cheaply. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

This podcast includes references to slides which you can see at https://www.nascentstartups.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

One insights, two questions, and a three-part answer for founders with nascent-stage startups This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nascentstartups.com