8 Things I Do Before Starting A Business

Hi Zenith Catcher,

This newsletter issue dives into a business-focused process that made the initial phase of starting a business—finding a customer problem worth solving—more practical and actionable to me. This is just what worked for me, and I hope you can benefit from it. Let’s get into it!

So, I did 36 customer development calls with B2B SaaS (Software as a Service) Founders to validate a new startup idea.

Here’s how:

✅ Step 1: Map Target Customer

Template:

[Customer type] of [company type] with [specific characteristic/qualifier].

Our Example:

SaaS founders of growth companies with $10M+ Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

✅ Step 2: Identify Assumptions

Guiding Question: What must be true about our customer for our solution to work?

Template:

Customers have ___ problem

Customers are willing to invest ___ to solve this problem

This problem affects our customers ___

My Example:

• SaaS companies have bad pricing & packaging.
• Don’t understand the upsell path bc they don’t know what features drive upgrades.
• They lack a structured process to revise pricing & packaging.
• Pay 5%-10% on new revenue if we grow it 10%-20% from current customers.

✅ Step 3: Write a Problem Hypothesis

Template:

I believe [type of people] experience [type of problem] because of [limit or constraint].

Our Example:

I believe [SaaS companies with $1M+ ARR] [miss out on revenue] bc of [bad pricing & packaging].

✅ Step 4: Prepare Cold Emails (+ 4 Follow-ups)

I tested our idea through interviews.

Cold emails and intros helped me find people to talk to.

​Click here for cold emails I used to book 36 calls.

✅ Step 5: Minimum 20 Reach-Outs Per Day

Every morning, I sent at least 20 outreaches.

And followed up with those who didn’t respond.

The goal: book calls quickly!

(I used the email tool Superhuman to speed up the process.)

✅ Step 6: Prep Interview Questions

Important: Avoid bad data—No leading questions.

I asked questions about specific actions in the past.

Why? Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Bad Question: “Do you think this is a good idea?”

Good Question: “Tell me about the last time X happened.”

Questions I used:

Tell me about how you do _____ today….

Do you use any [tools/products/apps/tricks] to help you get ____ done?

Last time you did _______, what were you doing right before you got started?

Once you finished, what did you do afterward?

Is there anything else about _____ that I should have asked?

✅ Step 7: Make Mistakes

I jumped into the first 20-minute call and asked many moron questions.;)

Especially in my last startup. I conducted 20+ calls and felt after every interview like:

“This was a great conversation”.

But thinking a conversation went well is useless if it just gives you nice words instead of real facts about what people actually do and need.

Yet, I got better and caught myself when asking bad questions.

✅ Step 8: Create Shareable Notes

After every call, I wrote down takeaways in Google Docs using this format:

• Validates Hypotheses
• Invalidates Hypotheses
• Also Interesting

And I shared it with my entire team.

Bc you don’t want 1 person with all the knowledge about what product to build.

💡Conclusion

These steps are the legwork.

But they helped me validate business ideas I believed in quickly and cheaply.

I learned all this from the following books:

• Lean Customer Development – Cindy Alvarez
• The Mom Test – Rob Fitzpatrick

I hope that helps. Let’s crush the new week!

Nicola

PS: I do a podcast where I pretend to have a Swiss accent (wink). 190+ episodes online about high performance and business. You can subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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This week on the Catch The Zenith Podcast:

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#191: How I Know My True Friends – 2 Simple Criteria. Listen on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or my Website.

Inspiring Things This Week:

Podcast: The biggest YouTuber on earth is MrBeast, who has 365+M subscribers. Recently, he had a podcast conversation with Steven Bartlett from The Diary of a CEO about his companies and insights into what led to his extraordinary success. A conversation worth listening to. Click here. Here are some quotes I like from the conversation:

• “Something I always tell myself is how you feel right now is why no one else does what you want to do or does what you do. And if you push through this, that’s just even more of a reason why no one will ever be who you are.”
• “When your making lots of money it’s admirable, it’s respectable. Those are traits we want… But when you’re not successful, you’re a lunatic when you have all these traits”.
• “If my mental health was a priority, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today.”

Problem Hack: How to fix problems/challenges fast: Tell the truth and state the facts.

Quote of the Week:

– Patrick Bet-David, American businessman and podcaster

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