(2023-12-24) Maurya The Early Stage Secret

Ash Maurya: The Early Stage Secret. I still remember many vivid conversations with other authors, consultants, and thought leaders during the early days of the Lean Startup movement circa 2010. They were all trying to swim downstream, i.e., following the money, to land consulting gigs with growing startups and corporates. For some inexplicable reason, I found myself swimming the other way alone.

as VCs also moved downstream (to chase traction) and startups have no/limited capital, most of the early-stage business model risk is now carried by accelerators (and Angels) with long payback periods.

So, were my peers right in avoiding getting into the messy early-stage business?

I, too, used to believe that startups were unique and required bespoke treatment.

That all changed

I found that while we (founders) all looked different, spoke different languages, and worked on very different types of products, at a meta-level, we were all the same.

I found that: The early stage journey is much more systematic and predictable than the later stages (the secret).

the tactics to grow a high-ticket B2B company are widely different from those growing a smaller-ticket B2C company, but the tactics for getting from idea to repeatable traction (first 10-20 customers) can be the same.