About 2–3 weeks ago, I started my founder journey from scratch. It’s early days—and I’m definitely not claiming to have all the answers—but I wanted to share a few thoughts that already feel true.
Take everything with a grain of salt. I’m still in the arena, figuring things out.
The Idea Myth
In cofounder dating chats, I’ve heard a recurring theme:
“I’m just looking for the right idea.”“I’d start something, I just don’t have an idea yet.”
I get it. But I also think this is the wrong framing.
While ideas do matter, what matters more is your ability to generate them—and more importantly, to generate them consistently and repeatedly. Your first idea probably won’t work. Startups are defined by uncertainty, pivots, and false starts.
If you only started a startup because you had an amazing idea, then when your idea fails, how will you find the next one?
The System Is the Moat
My thesis is simple:
For founders going from 0 → 1, the system is more important than the idea.
Your job isn’t just to have a flash of insight. It’s to go from zero to something that people want—over and over again. That ability becomes your founder “moat.” It’s not a one-time epiphany. It’s a repeatable, learnable system that improves every cycle .
Let me walk you through how I think about the 0 → 1 system, based on my early experience and conversations with other founders.
🔁 The 0 → 1 System
Step 1: Pick Your Market
Choose a market where you want to play. There’s no universal rulebook, but here are a few filters you might use:
- Total addressable market (TAM)
- CAGR / market growth
- Personal experience or insider knowledge
- Strength of your network in that space
- Level of regulatory or capital friction
- Passion or curiosity
- Ease of reaching users
- Exit potential or liquidity
You don’t need all of these. But you do need to be intentional about which ones matter to you.
Step 2: Source Ideas
Now that you’ve picked your terrain, you can start generating ideas. Some methods:
- Whiteboard and jam
- Read through regulation changes
- Look at recent technological shifts
- Analyze distribution moats in existing businesses
- Study recently funded startups and clone with a twist
- Scratch your own itch (personal pain points)
The key is to treat this as a muscle, not a muse. Don’t wait for inspiration—build a pipeline.
Step 3: Rank and Prioritize
Now it's time for some lightweight due diligence. Your goal here isn’t to write a 30-page memo. Just gather enough to say, “this feels promising” or “this is a dead end.”
Questions you might ask:
- Who are the competitors?
- Is the space crowded or ignored?
- Have similar companies raised recently? At what valuations?
- What’s your back-of-the-napkin TAM?
- Can you envision a real moat?
- Do you care about the problem?
Step 4a: Validate (B2B)
If it’s a B2B idea:
- Identify the right buyer persona or decision-maker
- Source leads (LinkedIn, Apollo, etc.)
- Reach out—cold or warm intros
- Get on sales calls and see if they actually care
- Ideally, lock in a design partner or LOI
You’re not selling vaporware. You’re testing if there's heat behind the problem.
Step 4b: Validate (B2C)
If you’re testing a B2C idea:
- Define your ICP (ideal customer persona)
- Create a simple landing page with a clear value prop
- Send traffic (paid ads, Reddit, TikTok, Discord, SEO, etc.)
- Measure traction: waitlist signups, time-on-page, DMs, etc.
- Reach out and talk to people who signed up. Get feedback.
This step is less about scale and more about signal.
Step 5: Build
Once you’ve got early validation, now comes the actual building. Whether that’s a prototype, MVP, or pre-sales deck—it’s time to ship something tangible.
Step 6: Fail and Iterate
This part is inevitable. Most of your ideas won’t work. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
The key is to treat failure as input for the system.
- Didn’t get traction in sales calls? Maybe you weren’t solving a painkiller-level problem.
- Got no conversions on your landing page? Was the value prop unclear? Or the audience wrong?
Revisit your criteria for market, how you source ideas, update your ranking criteria, and the filters you look for in validation. Over time, your 0 → 1 system gets sharper. Faster. More accurate.
And then, eventually… it works.
Final Takeaway
The early-stage founder’s job isn’t to protect a precious idea. It’s to build a machine that can consistently generate and validate ideas until one takes off.
Once you’ve built that machine, you’re dangerous. You can do it again. And again. And again.