Entrepreneurship

The four-step playbook

• →Find a common, time-consuming or costly problem a specific kind of business has.
• →Design a way to solve it with software, training or a service.
• →Build the solution and show clearly how it saves time, saves money or makes more profit.
• →Get paid a small amount every single month from those businesses.

Recurring revenue changes what you can do

A one-off sale funds this month. A subscription funds a decision. You can hire, plan and build once you know roughly what next quarter looks like.

The catch nobody mentions: recurring revenue means recurring proof. Every month the customer quietly re-decides.

Sales-led, not idea-led

Most founders build first and worry about selling later. Mike did exactly that and it nearly sank the software. Now the sequence is reversed: work out how it will be sold, then build the thing that's sellable.

Mistakes worth avoiding

• →Starting five things instead of one.
• →Building for everybody, which means building for nobody.
• →Confusing effort with progress.
• →Assuming a good product will explain itself.