Precursa: The Startup Journey with Host Cynthia Del'Aria

In this bonus episode, we get a little raw. What happens when everything doesn't go as you plan? How do you cope? Who do you turn to? When you're the founder and CEO of a company, it can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and in reality the weight of your company IS... So what's an entrepreneur to do?

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In this episode, we talk about the shifts in our execution strategy that have necessitated a little break. (We promise it'll be short.) During this time, we are getting a new podcasting space, reworking the pro forma (because profit is... bad?), and applying for research grants so that we can spend our first six months post-launch giving the product away and proving the technology works.

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Together again, Precursa's co-founders talk about the reality of feeling overwhelmed when sorting out what's important and urgent to get done and what really can wait. We share our strategies for dealing with overwhelm, when to ask for help, who to go to, and how to build your community... Entrepreneurs need each other.

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Humans are, by nature, creators. We have new ideas ALL THE TIME. The challenge for us as entrepreneurs and startup founders is understanding when a new idea is an opportunity versus when it's just a distraction. Plus, how a trip to the grocery store is kinda like vetting and validating your new idea.

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Thanks to our business model pivot, we've been re-working the pitch and the deck, and we've been re-hashing previous conversations with investors to get them up to speed. In the process, we've learned some incredibly valuable lessons about what it means to be an entrepreneur and the true (sometimes hidden) value of asking for money.

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In this episode, we answer some questions from our listening audience that sparked excellent thought and debate among the team. Several listeners questioned whether an entrepreneur REALLY has to "give up their whole life" to their burgeoning startup, and one listener asked if we thought that Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos debacle hurt all women in terms of fundraising. Smart questions, thought-provoking, and a bit controversial among the crew here... But what do YOU think?

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Technical glitches can lead to beautiful things if you let them. This week was supposed to be a founders session, but thanks to some AirPods that wouldn't connect, we ended up with a total up-leveling in our business model. No more sleepless nights thinking about how to make that direct-to-consumer thing work... B2B sales strategy, here we come!

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"I thought building a startup was supposed to be... sexy... ?" Yeah, we hear it all the time, and maybe you do too, but in today's episode we're digging more into why the reality of a startup rarely lives up to the hype. We also talk about what traction really is and how to know if you have it.

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Somewhere along the way we are taught or come to believe that someone else has to lose in order for me to win, but that doesn't really align with the reality of economies. In this episode, we'll bust the myth that starting up is a zero sum game and talk about why generosity makes such a difference. We also explore the idea that "winning" might be poorly defined, especially when it comes to the outcome of your ideas.

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In this episode, we look at the delays that Precursa is experiencing and talk about how to reframe delays and setbacks to be opportunities in the growth of your startup. We also dig a little more into the pro forma, the sensitivity analysis, and total addressable market... And Precursa gets a TAM upgrade!

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