Hello Founders 🫡 

Today we’re going to cover:

• The Bali Retreat is Canceled — A successful lesson in idea validation

• Business Idea of the Week 💡 

• What I’m excited about 📱 

The Bali Retreat is Canceled 🚫 🌴 

Walk through the idea validation process with me!

Step 1: Identify a Problem / Market

I write a newsletter for 11k founders so there’s my market. “But founders have WAY too many problems, so which one should I go after?” One that I’m currently having myself:

Founders often fall into a rut of stressful stagnation.

We tend to not take many trips. We work on the same things for too long. We rarely relax.

Sounds like a pretty big problem!

Step 2: Find a Solution

I wanted to do something that would get my fellow founders and me out of their comfort zone, out of the rut, while allowing for some relaxation.

My proposed solution: a Founders Retreat in Bali!

This would check all the boxes, I just needed to know if people would consider it.

Step 3: Early Validation

I’m never going to build an MVP unless I have SOME indication that the idea might be a good one.

This part was easy because I have this platform. I asked in a newsletter post: “Would you attend a startup founders meetup in Bali?”

I got a pretty resounding YES. Over 200 people wanna go!

Step 4: Build an MVP

For an MVP, I decided to plan a trip for just 25 people.

I got a lot of comments about budget so I knew this would be an important factor to consider.

Here’s the package I put together:

• 3-day event

• Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner = Covered

• Accommodations at a baller resort = Covered

• Activities = All covered

• Cover at the world #1 beach club = Covered

• Travel Medical Insurance = COVERED

TOTAL COST = $750 (100% tax-deductible business expense)

I felt pretty dang good about this MVP and even put together this simple website to give people more info.

Step 4a: Tell People About It

I did NOT expect the 213 people who said “Yes” to the poll about going to Bali to actually sign up for the retreat. Keep in mind this MVP was only set up for 25 total people, which I felt was a manageable amount.

I got about 70 “Hell yeah”s when I posted about the trip in my newsletter and told some people in my founders’ community (Hampton).

I scheduled a call with 40 people I hadn’t met so I could get to know them a bit and give them more info about the retreat.

28 people showed up for their scheduled call. I missed 1 myself (whoops).

Step 4b: Ask People For Money

I knew I had to get to this point as soon as possible so I created a Stripe link for a $200 deposit for the trip and sent it to anyone that said they wanted to go.

The sales pitch was like this:

“Hey founder friend,

If you’re like me, you probably often fall into a rut of stressful stagnation. Well I have good news: I’ve put together an awesome Founders Retreat in Bali for only 25 founders and you’re invited! You’ll get [ALL THIS STUFF] for only $750; how does that sound?

Good? Great! Here’s a link to give me a $200 deposit so I have you booked”

I set a deadline for myself stating (Since the trip was the first week of June) that I would cancel the trip if I didn’t have the 25 deposits by April 1st.

Of the 28 people I had a call with, 2 paid the deposit. Of the other ~30 people I talked to about the trip (that I at least loosely knew), 10 paid their deposit.

Step 5: Analyze

• I put my best foot forward with my MVP at an amazingly low price.

• I told 11k founders about it via my newsletter

• I had about 58 conversations 1:1

• I gave myself a full month to get the 25 “customers”

• I only got 12 “customers”

Conclusion: No Product Market Fit.

Fun Fact:

Not a single one of the 213 people who answered “Yes” to the initial poll ended up paying a deposit. KEEP THIS IN MIND when doing idea validation.

💡 Business Idea Of The Week

Give SMBs the power of speech.

If you haven’t tried Vapi yet, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to interact with the bot on their homepage. It’s a voice AI that’s better than Open AI’s version.

Fairly easy business opportunity right now: Start an agency that just gives Small-to-Medium Businesses the power of speech using Vapi. They even give an example in their docs of how to set it up for a Pizza restaurant.

Easy money 🤑 

As a matter of fact, this one is good enough that I’m gonna do it. If you want me to add Vapi Voice AI to your website/app, hit me up :)

📱 What Excites Me This Week

Effortlessly give your significant other the rundown

Problem: Couples/families seem to need shared calendars but nobody actually uses them

Almost daily, my wife says "Hey, what does your day look like?" (Even though she has access to my calendar) She never seems to be able to open our shared calendar???

Now we’ve added a nanny to the mix so things can get really confusing.

Enter FamDigest 🙏 

Now, every morning my wife and I (and our nanny) each get a text detailing each other’s schedule for the day. I know it seems weird when you first hear that but an automatic daily text is actually the best way to receive this information.

I wasn’t able to secure a Founders Only discount but its only $6 / month after the 2-week Free Trial. GO TRY IT!

THE END

Thanks for reading :)

-John