• Don’t rush into just starting a company—wait for the right thing to hit you personally, emotionally, and logically.
• If it feels like you’re pulling teeth to find the pain point, you haven’t found a problem worth solving.
• Be sure to validate the pain points for each persona yo...

• Asking the wrong questions. Ask people about their past and current actions and problems, not to predict their future behaviour.
• Settling for a "nice to have" reaction from early customer discovery. Instead, search for a big problem and solution.

• Take time to appreciate the small and large wins.
• Document your metrics and share them with your investors and advisors.
• Keep updating your roadmap and goals, so your team knows where to focus their efforts.
• Carefully expand your team. Ensure to build to company cultu...

First build a MVP (minimum viable product) to test with potential customers and validate that people want the product.

For Christina at Vantra, she knew they were onto something when people proactively reached out to ask about what she was building.

If you have a market in mind, talk to people in that space to better understand their experiences and challenges. Look for a pain that is so bad that customers will try almost anything to solve it.

For example, Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, discovered that SOC2 - the way a company ...

1. Market first: Start with a market or space that you find interesting, then look for a specific problem.
2. Experience ripe for improvement: Look for areas where you believe there should be a better consumer experience and iterate from there.