BG Podcast #2 – Founders, Focus Right Position, Right Time in each Startup Stage

Welcome to BG Podcast Episode 2, I’m Hai, the host of the Podcast

The podcast will share my real experience in building and fundraising for startup founders

I built 3 startups, 1 bootstrapping, 2 fundraising from angels and Venture Capital, and in the Board Of Directors of 6 startups

Will have the differences focus on each stage of Startups

1.Pre-Seed Stage:

Technical Risk is the main concern

You will spend most of the time to build a tech team

The tech Team will help to build the product

You will see the delay in launching a product

The product will be refused by the users

Your tech team will re-build it

Or you will have to fire the tech lead

And re-build the product

For example:

When I built the job-matching platform Canavi

It took me 1.5 years and replace 2-CTOs to rebuild and launch the product

Choose your tech co-founder carefully in the stage

2.Seed Stage:

Market Risk is the main concern

You will spend most of the time testing until find Product Market Fit (PMF)

You will launch the product, have some paid users

But the number stops growing.

You will talk and take the feedback of the customers all the time

In a lot of cases, you will have to rebuild the product

For example: It took me 1.5 years and 2 times to relaunch our Virtual English Testing Room FLYER

In the first launch, we had paid users, but it grew slowly after 3 months. Due to the heavy operation model.

The second time, we took the feedback and grew fast during 3 year

Each week, we sat down with the customers to collect the feedback from them and improve the product

Good luck with the product you choose

Next, Is Growth Stage

3.Series A Stage:

Go To Market Risk is the main concern

Now you have the good products and have the customers

How can you build and upgrade the MKT & Sale Channel to go to market?

Is your acquisition system better than your competitors?

To win the niche market in the short period

4.Series B Stage

Expansion Risk is the main concern

When you win a niche market (Ex: A country).

And now you want to expand to other countries.

Is that the right decision?

How can you win the new markets?

Will the old strategy work in the new markets?

That’s the challenge of Growth Stage

For example:

As we are fundraising series B for CyberSecurity VinCSS

We spend most of the time checking the following steps to grow

Does that create new products, enter new markets, or growth by M&A?

And we choose to enter the new markets (beside Vietnam)

5.Series C and Above

Culture Risk is the main concern

Your startup will have many people at this stage

Your culture helps to bring everyone together

Work and achieve the vision of the startup

Each stage has different work to do, so turn your focus to the right position, right time, Startup Founder

If you like it, please like, share, and comment on the video, so that it will be recommended to more startup founders

See you in the next episode

(End)

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