In this instructional talk, a startup mentor shares a practical, step‑by‑step framework for founders who have a solution but lack customers. The mentor advises starting by describing the solution, breaking it into core components, then brainstorming the big problems those components solve. Next, founders identify who experiences those problems and map where those potential customers can be found (online groups, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, offline events). The mentor suggests adding a "why should they care" layer to sharpen messaging. Finally, the mentor emphasizes reaching out to a sizable sample of prospects (10‑50+) for user interviews, focusing on learning the problem language, its magnitude, prior attempts at solutions, competitor usage, and decision criteria. The overall goal is to uncover patterns that validate the problem‑solution fit and guide early customer acquisition.
Chapters
Hi, as a startup mentor in multiple programs in the last 2 years, I met quite a lot of founders who had an idea, had a solution, had a startup, but didn't have the customers. And usually they try to figure out what to do next. And what I tell them is to start and brainstorm backwards. So that means that you start with the solution in this case, right? So you have the solution and you want to explain briefly what it is, what it does. Then let's make this a bit bigger. Then you want to see what are the building blocks of the specific solution. So you might see core 1 and core 2, core 2 and core 3, let's say core 3. So if you have a product, there are usually some important aspects of that Product. Okay, these are the solution components. Let's make them green. Okay, the next step is to try to figure out what problems your solution solves. So you will have, let's say, big problem number one, big problem number two, and let's say big problem number three. So you have 3 problems that you brainstorm and you think that your solution might actually solve this quite well. Okay, the next step is to figure out who has these problems. So let's make these red. So let's make them— oh, let's make them pink. Okay, so the next thing is to figure out who has these problems. Okay, so you have potential customer number 1, potential customer number 2, and potential customer number 3. Okay, and let's change this to another color, let's say this one. So right now you have the solution, you are— you have kind of the components of the solution, you have the problems that your, your solution or your startup might solve. After that, you have the potential customers, and then you want to figure out where you can find these people. So let's say you have this customer and where you can find him. Okay, so say maybe you can find them in some kind of Facebook groups, or maybe some kind of online groups like, I don't know, like Reddit or LinkedIn or other kinds of groups, or maybe they have some kind of offline gatherings like events that you can join. So it's something— looks something like this. It's obviously it's not perfect, but it's something to start with. And if you want to recap, it's like you have the solution that you thought about to build. You have the core components of the solution. Then you make a step and try to figure out the problems that your solution will solve. Then who has those problems, and then where do you find those people? It looks kind of like this. If you want to go one step further, then you might want to add like even why why should they care? You know, it's like why should they they care? So you can use that eventually when you talk about your solution. The next step is to reach out to them and have some interviews. So you will want to reach out to. A couple of people as much as possible, like 10, 20, 50. It really depends on when you start to see patterns. But as I mentioned, you want to interview them, and here you usually want to learn as much as possible about the problem. So what is the problem? How they talk about it? How big is it? Big is it? Did they do anything to find a solution? Looked for solution? If yes, what kind of solution they were looking for? This might give you a good idea about the competitors, what they used to solve this problem, how good that was, and things like this. So you will want to learn as much as possible about the problem, about the solution, what they used, how they picked that specific solution, how good it was, how well it worked for their situation. So I hope this helps. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
