Idea to Startup

Today, we’re talking burritos. Leo and Oliver Kremer founded Dos Toros in 2009 because they couldn’t find the Mission-style burritos they grew up with on the west coast anywhere in NYC. However, they weren’t cooks and had never been in the restaurant or food space.    We talk to them about the early days - about validating the need, creating the supply chain, getting into brick and mortar, creating a culture, and growth. It’s an awesome, helpful, and inspiring conversation. Enjoy!

You need two things to build a great startup: specific knowledge and a lever to amplify that knowledge. On today’s pod, we’ll start a CBD startup with specific knowledge and leverage mind, and hear how Tejas, founder of Via, (a Tacklebox founder) was able to build a great business on the back of a mental model.

Elizabeth Yin is a founder and general partner at Hustle Fund, where she invests in “hilariously early founders.” Prior to Hustle Fund, she ran the accelerator program at 500 Startups, started Launchbit (acq. 2014), and she writes my favorite VC blog @ http://elizabethyin.com.    We cover a lot of ground, including who should and shouldn’t raise funding, how to build a customer base pre-product, how to find angel investors, and how to prioritize during the early stages of your startup.

Entrepreneurs can do anything, but they can’t do everything. How do you prioritize early on? How do you differentiate? This episode presents a framework that’ll ensure you work on the things that give your startup its best chance at success. 

Ben and Luke, the founders of Luke's Lobster, knew how to make a killer lobster roll when they decided to start Luke’s Lobster, a lobster shack in the East Village in 2009. They didn’t know much else. Ben talks through how they were able to build an incredible company with locations all over the globe while keeping sustainability as a top priority. We focus on the early days, discussing tactics and learnings that will be extraordinarily helpful for our early stage founders.

There’s one decision that early stage founders make that can drastically tip the tables in their favor.  This is a tactical episode, helping you push through the critical question of what customer segment to target first. We delve into a framework to help you identify and evaluate customer segments as your startup evolves. 

We chatted with Katherine Krug, founder of BetterCo. This conversation is packed with insight - you'll need a notebook handy as you listen. Katherine takes us through the tactics and tools she used to ideate and develop BetterBack, a product that raised over $3mm on Kickstarter (first solo female founder to do so). We then touch on validation techniques, not raising funding, life design frameworks, and prioritization. She also gives an amazing answer to the "Taco Truck" question.

A walk down memory lane checking in on Brian's past startups and how you can make sure you're starting a company that has a shot at working out.

We chatted with Joey Cofone, founder of Baron Fig, about the early days of building the company. He touches on a bunch of helpful topics, from breaking through to your customer with his archetype of the Attention Pie, to how non-designers can prioritize design, to building a company without outside funding. 

Most startups fail. Entrepreneurs assume there are a bunch of reasons for this, but there's really only one. Your startup will fail because of customer indifference.

This episode explores in detail a few examples of startups that have avoided this fate, and lays out a pragmatic approach to avoiding it with your idea.