The Breakdown

Your Million Dollar Weekend

🔮 Start *Now*

What’s the perfect way to start?

There is none. You just have to jump.

This is a small step but the most important because if you don’t take it, your journey won’t begin.

Ask yourself, what is holding you back?

In most cases, it’s a mixture of fear, pride and perfectionism.

The truth is that most successful people will have many ventures before one takes off.

It’s really a mindset shift that has to occur here. Try shifting your mentality away from…

“If this doesn’t work, I’m a failure. I have to raise millions. Then I have to recruit a full team”

to ⤵

“This looks like an interesting problem, let’s test if it’s actually big enough for a business. I can probably get my friends to help out too.”

Basically…

❌ This has to work

✅ Let’s test this over a weekend

🌎 The Problem Comes First

Any $ exchanged is just a non-verbal contract that says “I value your solution more than I value this dollar right now”.

Think about the problem.

Building for a problem you face is always the easiest because you’ll remember the pain of that problem while building. You’ll also know the target customer, you!

Let’s try an exercise and create a startup idea ⤵️

1. A real-life problem

As a busy startup founder with a hectic lifestyle, I struggle to find the time and energy to prepare nutritious meals after long days at the office.

I sometimes resort to ordering takeout or just making a bad dinner which can be unhealthy and boring in the long run.

2. Write down the key problems

• Finding time in a busy schedule

• Cooking healthy meals

• Want to have more variety

The problem I have revolves around the challenge of balancing a busy lifestyle with the desire to maintain healthy eating habits.

If I don’t solve this, it’ll lead to a reliance on convenient but unhealthy or expensive meals (not good..)

3. “How Might We” Statements

Starting your sentences with a “how might we” statement helps put your brain in a solving mode, closing the gap between the problem and solution.

Examples 

1. How might we make it easier for people to cook healthy meals at home despite time constraints?

2. How might we provide convenient access to nutritious ingredients or education for home cooking?

3. How might we alleviate the burden of grocery shopping and meal planning for busy professionals?
   

🦾 Test a Simple Solution

We are in testing mode, so the solution doesn’t need to be perfect. It just has to be simple.

Simple to build and simple to understand. Operating at speed and simplicity will help us a lot in this stage.

In our example product, users could:

Browse and view meals for inspiration

• View a selection of meal recipes from cuisines across the world

• Add the ones they like to their wishlist

Add to Calendar

• Schedule recipes throughout the week

Recommendations

• Users input any dietary preferences or health goals

• The system suggests recipes based on their preferences

Get the idea? Keep it simple. Complexity can come later.

⏰ Validate within 48 hours

Next, you want to validate quickly and set yourself a time target.

You need to see x results within y hours.

The only way to test this is to get customers to commit to using the product on the spot and ultimately pay for it.

Send it to busy friends, or better still, create a waitlist and stand outside grocery stores and ask people to scan a QR code to sign up.

And if you want a real challenge, ask them to pay $1 to get early access.

Surely, they’ll pay then? I guess you’ll have to find out.