Speaker 0: many entrepreneurs are navigating challenges of bootstrapping their start ups. what advice would you give founders trying to grow without outside funding?
Speaker 1: i think the biggest one is to think about what is your and i'm not gonna call it a minimal viable product because i hate that term. what is the product that you can go to market with and sell straight away? so what is the smallest portion of the product? so, for example, let's say you're trying to challenge the customer management or client management industry, and you wanna build an amazing sales management tool. what you wanna do first is figure out what is the smallest component i can build that people will wanna buy. so let's say you build a component where every time somebody visits your website, you know who they are on linkedin, let's say. so you build this component. this component is not that complicated to build. you can build it with very little money, especially nowadays, and you can launch it and you can start to sell it. let's say you're a business where you're offering a saas solution, and this is another common one these days. a lot of traditional services businesses are becoming saas businesses, especially now with ai. fantastic. that means you could still go to market and begin to generate revenue by having a human layer, and you gradually, over time, remove that human layer. that's what we did. in twenty fifteen, seventy percent of our, deliverable was a human layer, thirty percent technology, maybe even less. by twenty twenty two, it was less than five percent human, maybe even less than that. and so that transition allows you to build your saas platform and scale it and reimagine your service model along with it. so that's the biggest thing because i have so many founders come to me because they think, you know, they can they can fundraise. right? and, obviously, i have an investment company, and i do invest in companies, but i invest in companies that have the same ethos that i have. i invest in founders that can do exactly what you just said, which is go sell and have that mentality. because the moment you have that mentality, then i'm happy to invest to get you to the next stage. and so that's my biggest thing is until you've figured that out, don't start pitching people. because if you do get money, a, they're gonna take an arm and a leg. and i know so many founders, i'm sure as you do, that have had big exits, and they make very little. because over the process, they've given up so much of their company and so much of their sort of, soul through the experience of doing this that it's not the same level of joy as having ownership and guide the ship, yourself.
Speaker 0: vc money is the most expensive money for people. they just don't realize it.
Speaker 1: they don't realize it.
Speaker 0: yeah. and so it's not necessarily the way to go. and i like the term mvp because i think it but i think it's focused more on building a demo for investors and for an audience. and i think the step beyond that is the msp, the minimum sellable product, which is what you're talking about. let's give this one thing i can sell and get it down. and i think they have two different targets. so, but that's just, you know, my way i teach people with the way to think about it.
Speaker 1: i think the biggest one is to think about what is your and i'm not gonna call it a minimal viable product because i hate that term. what is the product that you can go to market with and sell straight away? so what is the smallest portion of the product? so, for example, let's say you're trying to challenge the customer management or client management industry, and you wanna build an amazing sales management tool. what you wanna do first is figure out what is the smallest component i can build that people will wanna buy. so let's say you build a component where every time somebody visits your website, you know who they are on linkedin, let's say. so you build this component. this component is not that complicated to build. you can build it with very little money, especially nowadays, and you can launch it and you can start to sell it. let's say you're a business where you're offering a saas solution, and this is another common one these days. a lot of traditional services businesses are becoming saas businesses, especially now with ai. fantastic. that means you could still go to market and begin to generate revenue by having a human layer, and you gradually, over time, remove that human layer. that's what we did. in twenty fifteen, seventy percent of our, deliverable was a human layer, thirty percent technology, maybe even less. by twenty twenty two, it was less than five percent human, maybe even less than that. and so that transition allows you to build your saas platform and scale it and reimagine your service model along with it. so that's the biggest thing because i have so many founders come to me because they think, you know, they can they can fundraise. right? and, obviously, i have an investment company, and i do invest in companies, but i invest in companies that have the same ethos that i have. i invest in founders that can do exactly what you just said, which is go sell and have that mentality. because the moment you have that mentality, then i'm happy to invest to get you to the next stage. and so that's my biggest thing is until you've figured that out, don't start pitching people. because if you do get money, a, they're gonna take an arm and a leg. and i know so many founders, i'm sure as you do, that have had big exits, and they make very little. because over the process, they've given up so much of their company and so much of their sort of, soul through the experience of doing this that it's not the same level of joy as having ownership and guide the ship, yourself.
Speaker 0: vc money is the most expensive money for people. they just don't realize it.
Speaker 1: they don't realize it.
Speaker 0: yeah. and so it's not necessarily the way to go. and i like the term mvp because i think it but i think it's focused more on building a demo for investors and for an audience. and i think the step beyond that is the msp, the minimum sellable product, which is what you're talking about. let's give this one thing i can sell and get it down. and i think they have two different targets. so, but that's just, you know, my way i teach people with the way to think about it.
