Riley Reist’s Post

Dear Early-stage founders - Start thinking of their ICP and Buyer Personas like your product or features. "MVP" When you're first starting out building a product to solve a problem and acquire your first few customers, its still just a guess. There's still so much you don't know. Constantly check-in, iterate and improve on the way you understand the characteristics that make your ideal customer your ideal customer. Become more familiar with your buyer personas problems than they are. It's likely, you're spending time "thinking" your ICP and buyer personas are dialed when they are not.

10 Steps to Product-Market Fit: A Practical Guide Achieving product-market fit is the key to a startup's success. Here’s how you can get there: 1) Problem/Solution Fit: Ensure you’re solving a real, pressing problem. 2) Document Your Plan A: Start with a clear business model, but be ready to pivot. 3) Find Early Adopters: Identify and engage those who need your solution the most. 4) Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Focus on delivering the smallest solution that provides real value. 5) Measure Progress: Use metrics like acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue to track growth. 6) Deliver Value Before Scaling: Make sure users find value before you focus on scaling. 7) Learn from Early Feedback: Leverage qualitative insights from a few good customers. 8) Identify Your Growth Engine: Choose between paid, sticky, or viral growth strategies. 9) Track Cohorts: Understand user behavior by measuring them as cohorts. 10) Keep Testing: Breakthroughs come from learning through failed experiments. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

I've been building Cycle for 5 years 🤯 It's a long time and I've made all the mistakes a founder can make. But all along, I kept learning and getting better. Here are some hard won learnings I would have loved to share with my younger founder self (in no particular order): -don’t move horizontally towards your vision: always have in mind the sequence of battles you'll have to win on your way there and focus on battle # 1 -don’t try to be someone you’re not, embrace who you are and shine through your authenticity – no one can beat you at being you -write more than you think you need to: writing is thinking ; and do it as much as you can on notebooks (there’s something special about writing on paper) -don’t follow anyone else’s playbook, create your own -if it feels wrong, it’s wrong – follow your intuition, listen to your negative emotions, understand what’s behind, and then act accordingly -product-market fit is as much about “market” as it is about “product” – start iterating on GTM from day 1, shipping a new feature is unlikely to save you -customers don’t care about your investor pitch ; investors don’t get excited by your customer pitch – you have two pitches ; manage that duality -focus on what you can control, not on what you can't: it will put you back into action, which removes anxiety ; also, action always produces new information -there are two kinds of products: products that take a stance and products that try to please everyone ; great ones take a stance -make things simple ; great ideas go through three maturity stages: 1/ simplistic, 2/ complex, 3/ simple ; each stage is critical ; don't settle for complex That's it... for now ✌️

Product Market Fit: How To Achieve It Getting to product-market fit is essential for any startup's success. Here’s how you can make it happen: 1) Find a Sizable Market: Identify a market with a real need for your solution. 2) Solve a Problem Worth Solving: Make sure your product addresses a critical issue for your target audience. 3) Build an MVP: Start with a Minimum Viable Product to test and refine your solution. 4) Test, Measure, Learn: Use feedback from early adopters to continuously improve. 5) Iterate: Keep experimenting until you find the right product-market fit ----- Follow All Chance to learn from more innovative insights.

I have seen founders, both technical AND non-technical, having a hard time communicating their value prop, or their journey. I get it. When you are INSIDE the company, working day in and day out on product, pilots, partnerships, etc, it can be hard to see the forest through the trees. Especially with technical startups. BUT - can you imagine the impression you're leaving when you meet someone for the first time, and they don't understand your business's value prop, or your challenges? If people walk away with a "????&^#&*$%#& 😶 " after speaking with you, you're leaving money on the table. It doesnt have to be that way. Working with an external brand strategist can be an excellent way of getting your messaging crystal clear. 👉🏼 That's what I do, by the way. I'm that extremely rare breed that can speak technical, marketing and business, and translate in all directions. 👈🏼 (If you're struggling, send me a note.) You've worked too hard - on something too impactful - to not tell your story well. Amplify your mission. Don't muddle it. ✌🏽

Many of the great conquerors from history had one trait that set them all apart: they were faster and more decisive than their competition. We live by this mindset every day at Alia. Brands we work with love how fast we answer their questions and implement the features they ask for. So how do we do it with just a 4 person team? - Bias toward action: any decision is better than no decision — the worst case is we fail quickly and try something else. - Release early: feedback from real users is far more valuable than spending more time guessing what customers want. - Unblock aggressively: if a customer or team member is blocked on a task, unblocking them should be your top priority. - Most importantly, just get started. There’s always 100 reasons to not do something hard. We had every single one when we launched Alia, but we did it anyway. PS - if you're an exceptional Northeastern student who likes to move fast, we want you on our team for a spring co-op. Apply now on NUworks

Some of the most successful founders I met never post online. Others share every milestone. Build quietly or build in public - just build. And if sharing metrics helps you grow faster, do it without apology. Use every advantage you have.

In the last 15+ years, I have seen founders make the same mistakes! These common mistakes are the reason for their downfall. → Ignoring the PROBLEM → Zero user interactions What to do? → Find a problem your consumers are willing to pay to fix → Refine your product based on real user feedback → Scale up by identifying more people with similar use cases It might be challenging and sometimes even embarrassing. But this reality check is essential for growth and improvement. Don't avoid user contact—it's your most valuable resource. Credits to Paul Graham for his valuable insights. Follow Peter Korbel for more.

Here's something most new founders are afraid of talking about publicly: the struggle when you launch your product and don't immediately hit Product-Market Fit 🤕 We like to write posts about how everything we do is going to be a big hit (insert rocketship emoji) and change the world. A new investor here, a new product feature there, all great stuff. But then, a few months after going live, suddenly the excited LinkedIn posters go silent. We're too busy stressing out about our high CACs, our first customers unexpectedly churning, our deeply-held beliefs being disproven by real customer behaviors you just did not anticipate. I think we should write more about that. Because a) reading about your challenges is far more interesting and helpful than reading about your accomplishments alone, and b) because almost every successful company went through this, and yet we still feel stigma around this topic. So here's my admission: after a few months of being live, despite having had some success in winning over our first customers and revenue, I still don't think we have PMF ❌ Why don't we see more honest admissions like these? I think it's because we are afraid of negative publicity, especially with investors or potential customers on LinkedIn. If people only see our successes, then they are more likely to work with us, right? The key to success is not to hit PMF on your first try, but to experiment quickly with new assumptions and iterate faster and faster based on your customer feedback. It reminds me a bit of solving a Rubik's Cube - there are so many possible variations on your model you need to test, but only one which wins you the game. The more combinations you can test (your velocity) in the time you have remaining (your runway), the more likely you are to find it. In November, we will be testing: 1. a potential new co-founder with their own insights 2. refreshed brand messaging 3. a different pricing model 4. paid search instead of paid social 5. directing traffic to landing pages instead of the category page ... and probably a lot more! Who else wants to make an admission of their own? 👀 😁

I’ve seen 3 great ideas fail in the last 6 months. Not because they weren’t brilliant. Not because the founders weren’t smart. But because they skipped ONE crucial step: market validation. Most people think they need: 👉 A polished product. 👉 Fancy features. 👉 A huge marketing budget. Here’s the truth: You don’t need ANY of that to validate your idea. What you need is this: ✅ Talk to real people. ✅ Ask tough questions. ✅ Learn if they’ll pay for your solution. Validation is the difference between building what you think people want... And building what they’ll actually buy. So, ask yourself: Have you validated your idea with the market? If not, let’s fix that. Drop a comment or DM me, and I’ll share the exact questions I use to help founders test their ideas fast.