Podcast episode #3 – The key lessons for any startup – learned the hard way with Alex Lang from wintermute.ai

After 4 years, Alex is is closing his startup wintermute.ai and shares his key lessons for any startup – learned the hard way. Thanks to Alex’s experience we present to you invaluable knowledge, which every starting entrepreneur should listen to. Alex learned over years. You can do so under 30 minutes. Listen to our podcast below, or read our short summary here.

The key lessons for a successful start

The team with complementary skills is everything! Do not underestimate the main roles you need in your founding team, or you’re setting yourself up towards a loss of time and resources. Also, investors prefer startups with a founding team of about 3-5 members, keep that in mind.

Furthermore, do it full time and try to bring the team together to work from one place at least 3 days a week. You’ll not only enable a quick exchange of ideas, but you’ll have easier time bootstrapping your business as well.

Critical validation

The best validation of your business model is not family or friends, but a customer willing to pay for your prototype, an MVP. Therefore, test your product with strangers and get their feedback before you even establish a company. If you are not able to sell your product, new features will not make up for it. You need to find the pain points of your customers and steer your business accordingly. Also, try to offshore whatever is not your core business. There is really no need to re-invent the wheel.

Your next steps

If we have your interest, listen to the 3rd episode of the Help’n’Trade podcast and don’t forget to share with us your ideas in the comment section below.

If you want to reach out to Alex, you can do so via:
E-mail: alex@wintermute.ai

…And if you are curious as what is Help’n’Trade, read our blog post, where we introduced Help’n’Trade.

If you want to stay in touch or appear on the podcast, contact us via our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/helpandtrade or drop us an e-mail on: contact@helpandtrade.com.
Also, don’t forget to check our platform: https://helpntrade.com

00:00 – Introduction
01:00 – Introducing wintermute.ai
03:55 – Current state of the company and the main causes of closure
04:25 – The Team is everything
06:15 – Bootstrapping
07:20 – Go full time and be in one place with the team
08:58 – Avoid “wantapreneurs”
10:21 – Critically validate the problem you want to solve and be ashamed of your MVP
10:52 – Start selling immediately
11:33 – Establish a company only after you have a first paying customer
12:57 – Recognize the early signs to pivot the business idea
15:10 – Fail fast
17:17 – Have a marketing role in the founding team
21:00 – Do not reinvent the wheel – offshore whatever you can
23:32 – Feedback from a paying customer is invaluable
25:02 – Reach out to us

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