(In)Validating my idea with VO Launch program
After about 12 years with Microsoft, I had no reason to complain. I had a technically challenging role, I was well paid and I was part of a great team. But I had a feeling that something was amiss. At some stage, that feeling made me leave my comfortable job at Microsoft and join OfferUp, a mobile marketplace startup. I immediately started falling in love with startups and the ability to make an impact in a very short amount of time.
Finally, I had an idea I wanted to pursue on my own. One day, during one of my countless introspecting hikes, my mind stumbled upon an idea to increase my productivity, as a manager at work. I could not stop thinking about it during the hike. After about 4 years working in different sized startups, I felt it was the right time to go beyond thinking about it.
By this time, I had been with 2 different startups. OfferUp and a B2B startup Ally Technologies and I felt like I had enough learnings to try something on my own. That is when I came across the Venture Out Launch program that helps startup founders validate their ideas, while maintaining their day job. I immediately jumped on the opportunity with the goal to validate this idea that was nagging me for months. Although I was very excited to be a part of the program, I was a first-time founder and didn’t know what to expect for my entrepreneurial journey or from a program that pairs you up with mentors.
My idea was to build a product for engineering managers to automate some of their day-to-day work. The product would integrate with tools that are already used by engineering teams and give them another level of insights and intelligence about their team operations. As a VP of engineering and multi-year manager myself, I felt that I was doing a lot of manual work – like getting status reports from my team, maintaining one on one notes and follow-ups, etc. – and I would pay for a tool to automate some of it so that I could focus on strategic priorities. My goal with the VO Launch program was to stay focussed on customer validation for the entire program so that I could define my idea crisply and validate it with potential customers.
In the first week, I got a chance to meet with founder mentors to find my lead mentors. It was a wonderful experience to get feedback from founders who have been there and done that, they helped me avoid countless mistakes and helped me reframe how I was thinking about the opportunity. All through this Launch 10-week program (now 12 weeks long), my mentors guided me to refine my target customers, helped with making crucial connections, and acted as a sounding board. Their inputs and feedback were invaluable.
Customer validation of my ideas was the hardest stage. Being an introvert, I had to step out of my comfort zone to reach out to as many people as I knew to get their feedback. It was also the time when I started to realize my own biases and how they were impacting my idea and startup. Given my engineering background, I wanted to build the product first before getting validation from customers. Looking back, now I realize why it was a bad idea. Customer validation not only helps validate a hypothesis with potential customers but also helps build a good distribution strategy based on the type of customers, where they meet, what their buying power is, how much will they pay, etc.
I talked to about 50 customers during this stage and gathered valuable feedback. Most of the engineering managers that I talked to felt that the solution I proposed was a nice to have solution rather than a must-have solution. Another learning for me is that they are not actively searching for a product to automate their work. Which meant, distribution of a product catered to this segment is a hard problem to solve. I pivoted a little to validate a couple of other problems mentioned during these interviews but in the end, I came to a conclusion none of the ideas I had was worth building a business.
Although I ended up pausing my entrepreneurial journey, the VentureOut program provided a framework for starting a business that I can use for the rest of my life. Apart from customer validation, I learned a lot during this program. I understood how to do market sizing, financial planning, go to market strategy and VC funding during the program.
After the program ended, I got an opportunity to be part of Glossier, a unicorn consumer startup looking to scale its engineering operations. Looking back at my career, I really loved the challenges in direct-to-consumer businesses, so I immediately jumped on it. At Glossier, I am responsible for building multiple teams (yes, we are hiring). Given my learning, with the Venture Out program, I am now very comfortable reaching out to potential candidates on multiple channels, personalizing my reach outs, and having great informational calls to understand whether Glossier would be the right fit for them or not. I also know the next time I have an idea and an itch to go start something new, I’ve got the network of support and tools to help me make the decision to venture out full time.