Nick proposes that two VP-level operations managers will sign letters of support for his water evaporation efficiency technology by November 1st. Critics push back on whether two letters prove anything and question what the signatories are actually committing to, while the group debates whether VPs are even the right customer to target.
Questions this video answers
Two letters
November 1st
VP of Operations (operations managers)
Chapters
All right, so we're on to Nick now. I'm gonna use my timer because it actually goes off. So, quick recap. While Nick's writing, he's working on a technology to increase the efficiency of water evaporation. So a little bit different than the software side because it is a kind of materials play hard tech type thing. So there's some interesting things we'll hear from Nick. And you've got three minutes and 40 seconds.
40 seconds. All right, I'll try to talk SL take up that four minutes.
So let's read your hypothesis.
So my hypothesis is, I believe that two VP of operations, and that's a big question I have, VP of Operations managers will sign letters of support for development of a technology to increase evaporation by November 1st. So the thing I'm measuring is the number of letters that I get. I chose two because the lifetime customer value we're anticipating, one customer is going to be high enough that we'll be able to validate the existence of this business with just two. And then the idea, operations managers, VP of Operation managers. This has been really interesting. I've got one mostly talking to either owners. These are relatively small businesses. We're talking 5 to 10 million annual in revenue or large publicly owned oil companies. Who I'm talking to business development professionals and HR professionals and public relations professionals and all of that. So it's a little bit hard to nail down an exact segment that's human. So that's something that can use some refinement.
Something. All right. The people that have practiced theirs, I'm going to go a little bit harder on them. So here we go. When you say two, when you just. When you explain why it's only two in terms of your business model, I'm like, that makes perfect sense from his business model perspective. But then when I start balancing, like I look at these now as algebra equations, when I start balancing two with sign letters and November 1st, it just literally, it's amazing how it breaks out in my brain right now. It's like if they really care if you were getting them to sign up as customers, right. Or if you were getting them to, you know, then fine. But if it's only two and it's by November 1st, if they care about this as much as you think they do, and as vital as it is for them to care about it towards your business model, right. No way. You need either like. Like either 50 or 100 by November 1st. Or if it's only 2, this goes down to, like, by tomorrow.
Okay? Seriously.
But these are the kinds. And this is what I get excited about. Yeah. And then I might even challenge you at some point. And I think I did this online and it's hard for me because some of it, that to me is just binary. It doesn't matter who you are, what stage you're at.
That's just an equation being aggressive then.
But the sign letters can depend on your maturity and what you're really doing as a start and what you're really after. If you just care about this or if you're trying to rate, you know, as much as I don't want to spend today talking about unicorns and billion dollar valuations, there are some people who are after that stuff. If you're after that, that's not, it's not get you there. Right. Like if you're still just like, hey, we want to learn a little bit more about the problem and, you know, we don't want to rock the boat too much at first. I'd say, sure, it's your startup, I'm not going to push you too hard, but it needs to be in sync with what you're really trying. So signing letters isn't like, I know you have this evaporation stuff, you don't have to build the evaporation tool, but the learning has to be attached to the fact that that's the right solution for them or at least it's connected to the problem that you know, or that that's what it needs to be a little bit more connected. And he's advanced and I'm standing. I feel bad. No, no, no. I think that's good and that's the point.
So certainly we can.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
What does sign a letter commit them to? Right, so it's a non binding letter. All it is is a public declaration that they see a need there and it's a very cheap currency. I completely agree. This is simply getting someone to risk potentially and not very significantly their professional credibility.
So it's a public letter.
It's a letter that we have perm in potentially public settings, but probably not.
So I don't want to contradict myself. Sometimes having them do anything in the beginning is enough. Showing up to a meetup, signing a letter. So if you can't get that, it's definitely a fail. If you can get that, it's not even close to enough. So I'd say keep this.
And I know Nick is pretty early on in this, so I would kind of play devil's advocate, vouch that this is enough as part of customer discovery. So he's not just interviewing for the sake of interviewing, but he's also saying, let's take it one more step further, get a letter or two. That way, if we go to SBIR funding or anything like that, we at least have something more than, hey, I talked to five people and we're out of time.
