Startup Blueprint: From Concept to Execution
Insights on MVP Development, Quick Launch Hacks, and Key Metrics
Hello, I am Saurabh Tandon and welcome to the free weekly edition of More than Buzzwords.
Today’s newsletter is relevant for CEO’s, tech founders, and executives in operations and strategy. It’s also very useful for aspiring entrepreneurs who aim to make it big in the industry someday. In this newsletter, we’ll explore the key steps and strategies needed to take your tech startup from a mere idea to a fully executed product.
Important topics we will be discussing in this newsletter are:
Steps and strategies to take your idea from conception to execution.
Build a Working MVP Early
Why Founders Should Build the Product Themselves
Hacks for Quick Launch
List of useful tools for startup founders
Scaling & Sustaining the startup
Key Metrics to measure success
So, let’s begin!
Why do some startups thrive while others fail?
The difference often comes down to how founders navigate the journey—from ideation to scaling. Building a startup is rarely a straightforward process. It’s a journey of constant learning, adapting, and executing relentlessly.
Did you know approximately 305 million startups are created worldwide each year, of which 1.35 million are tech-focused? Yet, only 1-2% small fraction sustain and thrive. What sets successful startups apart isn’t just a brilliant idea—it’s the founder’s ability to take decisive action, adapt to challenges, and navigate through setbacks.
The “let’s begin today, we’ll figure out the rest later” mentality works wonders in the world of startups, as building a startup is all about constant action and adaptation. It’s no lie that startups move fast; once you have an idea, take action and launch your product without delay.
One of the biggest mistakes founders of a startup make is focusing too much on the idea and not enough on execution. Founders often become emotionally attached to their initial concept, believing the idea itself is the key to success.While many may have great ideas, it’s the relentless action, perseverance, and timely execution that enable startups to not just survive but also grow tremendously.
#1. Ideation: Turning Thoughts into Tangible Concepts
Prototyping
Build a prototype as soon as possible to bring your ideas to life. This makes it easier to sell, explain your vision and do effective user research.
Additionally, don’t get emotionally attached to your ideas. Be open to criticism and iterate based on user feedback. Once you've gained traction with your prototype, it's time to move to the next step.
Customer-Centric Ideation
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your product, think back to a time when you were the consumer. Reflect on what you needed then and what would have convinced you to spend money on a particular service.
By putting yourself in the shoes of your potential customers, you can design your product to meet their needs effectively.
Most of the startup ideas stem from the personal issues faced by founders and hence they are passionate about solving it.
Focus on Market Interest Before Scaling Further
Before investing loads of money and time on the product, it’s important to analyse if there’s genuine demand for your product.
Many founders waste valuable time and resources developing features or a product that fails to resonate with their target audience.
Some ways in which you can gauge market interest is by creating a waitlist to build excitement and get signups from potential users, run ads on a reasonable budget
Avoid the “No Competition” Trap
A common mistake many founders make is fixating on entering a market that no one has entered, thinking, "There’s no competition; it will be my area to reign!"
However, they overlook the fact that a new market with no competition might indicate a lack of demand or a fundamental flaw in the business model.
Instead, you can target markets where there are huge incumbents making tons of money but haven’t innovated or introduced anything interesting in decades.
In these markets, you can be confident that people are already paying for the service and are actively searching for something remarkable.
Take Zerodha, a discount brokerage startup that launched in 2010. Entering a market dominated by giants, Zerodha disrupted the space with a simple, affordable fee structure and a tech-driven platform, Kite, alongside educational initiatives like Varsity. By addressing the pain points of retail investors—high costs and outdated systems—it carved a niche with a tech-savvy, cost-conscious audience.
#2. Minimum Viable Product
The next step is to build an MVP that actually works, and again do it as soon as you can. It should be valuable enough to get your users to pay. MVP (Minimum Viable Product) should be a functional, value adding product.
The PICS framework which I discussed in my previous newsletter is a great starting point for it.
Want to know if your MVP is ready for the market?
If over 40% of your users say they would be “very disappointed” if they could no longer use your product, it's a strong indicator of product-market fit. Same goes for key features.
Other key indicators of PMF are consistent user feedback, growing demand, strong retention rates, and positive unit economics.
Do some dogfooding with your friends, colleagues. If you can't identify a clear use case for your agreed-upon MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and not even a single person benefits from it, then it’s definitely not the type of product you should be launching in the market.
Why Founders Should Build the Product Themselves
When building a product, if possible, don’t hire people initially, as it can really slow down the launch. Finding skilled people, who understand your vision, and can manage the chaos happening in the initial days of startup is no cakewalk.
Additionally as founders, you’re going to miss out on a lot of key insights of your own product, if someone else other than the founders is building the product.
One example of an Indian startup where the founders were deeply involved in building the product themselves in the early stages is Freshworks, a customer engagement software company.
Similarly, companies like Zepto, Lenskart, and NoBroker all have CTOs as co-founders.
#3. Launching Quickly and Effectively
Once your MVP is fit for the market and you have customers waiting for the launch, launch the product quickly and effectively.
Find hacks for a quick launch
Instead of creating time-consuming software for self-onboarding, consider doing the onboarding manually.
This allows you to get started while building the technical infrastructure alongside, letting users recognize and engage with your product early on. Tasks like building a scalable back-end and handling heavy engineering can be deferred until later.
A great example of this approach is Dunzo, Flipkart: when launched initially, they were offering delivery services manually. This helped them launch quickly, get initial users on board, and understand their pain points and requirements before building a more complex backend.
Takeaway- Delay building scalable infrastructure until necessary.
In this stage, you can also focus on developing SEO content strategies, leveraging paid ads, and exploring field sales.
Iterate Relentlessly
In this stage, you have to perform analysis of the data as well as the observations/insights and iterate to ensure your final product is market fit.
As a tech founder, you can use hard data to ensure you have set up a dashboard with analytics that correctly tracks your main KPI. And, choose basic and simple technology for your analytics stack for speed, for example google analytics and amplitude.
Use qualitative data by conversing with users after the launch and assess accordingly why users choose to stay or churn, and try figuring out what problems are your users facing.
In this phase, keep experimenting and launch continuously by adding new features week after week. Don’t overcomplicate the launch and think that you’ve got only one shot at launch.
You can make any number of changes to your product, launch again and again, and one day you’ll definitely hit the jackpot and launch a version or a product that will up your startup game.
Another thing to look after in this stage is to maintain a balance between fixing and building. Sometimes you can delay fixing some bugs which aren’t critical and focus on bringing bigger and more important things like introducing new features.
#4. Execution
Execution turns ideas into reality—without it, even the best concepts fall flat. This is the most crucial stage in your startup journey. Trust me, execution is often the difference between success and failure- many startups fail due to lack of action, not bad ideas.
It has two legs to it, one is “What to focus on” and second is “How to focus on”
What to Focus on:
a. Onboarding- Personalizing User Experiences
We all know how crucial are first impressions- they can make or break a deal. So, onboarding is where you set the tone for your users’ journey. Here, you can focus on creating an engaging, seamless onboarding experience tailored to individual users.
Personalization can make a significant impact—think of welcome messages, interactive tutorials, or one-on-one walkthroughs to help users understand your product better. A smooth onboarding process can significantly improve user retention and satisfaction.
b. Activation - Delivering the “Aha Moment”
Your goal during this stage is to ensure your users experience the core values of your service or your product as soon as possible.
Highlight key features with product demos or walkthroughs. Basically, bring out the marketer in you and sell what you’ve worked so hard for.
The sooner your users reach the “aha moment,” the more likely they are to stay hooked and eventually convert.
c. Retention - Keeping Users Engaged
Keep in mind, retaining existing users is far more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. So, build mechanisms to keep users coming back, such as regular updates, personalised and engagement reminders, and loyalty programs.
And now the second leg - How to focus…..
Building a Strong Team – Hiring, Goal Setting, Sprints, and Reviews
Execution isn’t solely about the product; it’s also about expanding and managing the team behind it. In this phase, hire people who are aligned to your vision and can adapt to the fast-paced environment of a startup.
This is what you can do to ensure you’re building a strong team.
KRA Setting: Set clear KRAs to align your team, foster accountability, and ensure everyone is working towards shared goals
Sprints and Timelines: Breaking down the project into sprints with clear deadlines and milestones helps the team stay productive, keeping execution on track
Performance tracking: Regularly track your team’s progress against defined goals, and provide constructive feedback to boost efficiency
Reward and Recognition: Celebrate milestones with your team and reward exceptional performers. This boosts team morale and motivates them to deliver their best.
#5. List of useful tools for startup founders
Being actively involved in every facet of your product as a founder is crucial to fully understanding its workings and making informed decisions. Using the appropriate tools can streamline this procedure and increase productivity in a number of areas. Here are some recommended tools to get you started:
#6. Scaling and Sustaining
In India, it’s easy to get high DAUs (daily active users), impressions but hard to get them to pay and hence ARPUs (Average revenue per unit) are low. With India’s low-income cohort, convincing users to pay is difficult.
Founders should pursue freemium models, tiered subscriptions, in-app purchases, or ad monetization to build trust and convince users of their product’s value proposition.
How much better is your experience?
According to Kunal Shah's Delta 4 technique, the new experience should be at least 4 points better than the old one.
For example,
Using Uber/Ola instead of a regular cab. If the difference is 4 points, the shift becomes irreversible. Users tend to tolerate minor failures, and such a proposition is often shared or talked about extensively.
Amazon/Blinkit: Expanding the catalogue, increasing convenience, and lowering costs. This creates a significantly better experience compared to offline shopping—easily a 4-point improvement.
Spotify: The music streaming experience versus downloading music. Streaming offers far more convenience and variety, making it a clear upgrade.
Zomato: The food ordering experience via an app compared to ordering over the phone. The seamless process and easy tracking makes it a much better user experience.
This is why these models stick!
To get to this brilliance, the founders need to be pragmatic and super smart.
So, What Sets the Best Founders Apart
They are quirky thinkers who approach problems differently, making them true outliers. A great example is Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder of Ola, who shifted from the cab booking business to automobile manufacturing.
They are intensely passionate and stubborn about their ideas. Once determined to make something work, they will find a way. With unwavering conviction in their product's potential to revolutionize the market, they are unstoppable.
Take Aadit Palicha from Zepto as an example. His dedication to building the company is evident in his 80 hour work weeks. This kind of dedication, paired with a clear vision quickly helped Zepto grow at an extraordinary pace.
They acknowledge their shortcomings openly and are honest about what they don’t know. At the same time, they are confident in their accomplishments and don’t hesitate to admit what remains undone.
Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal has shared insights about his early mistakes in scaling the business and the lessons learned from customer feedback.
#7. Best Metrics to measure the success of your business
To gauge the success of your startup, it's essential to track key metrics that reflect your performance in various areas.
a. Software Subscriptions (SaaS) -
ARR (Annual recurring revenue), Churn rate, NRR (Net recurring revenue), Up-sell, High net profit margins. Another interesting metric is EBITDA + Revenue Growth. Target a 40% combined growth rate. For new organizations, revenue growth will be fast, but EBITDA will be low. For mature organizations, growth rate will stabilize, and EBITDA will be higher.
b. B2C Subscription-based businesses
LTV (Customer Lifetime Value), CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), Retention rate, ARR (Annual recurring revenue) , and NPS (Net Promoter Score).
c. Marketplaces
% commission earned, CAC, Active users, Average order value, seller to buyer ratio, conversion rate, and seller quality score.
d. E-Comm/Q-Comm
Conversion, CAC, LTV, refunds/return rate, and cart abandonment rate.
Wrapping it up
Truly exceptional startups aren't created overnight; they are shaped through challenging moments, tough decisions, uncertainty, and setbacks.
If you’re building a start-up, don’t go out seeking superficial validation. Not getting enough responses to your cold emails on linkedIn doesn’t mean your idea or your product is not up to the mark.
Approach your work with the goal of helping people and enjoying the journey. A great founder doesn’t obsess over, 'Will people buy my product?' Instead, they focus on, 'How much will I enjoy solving my customers’ problems?'
If you’ve enjoyed this piece, do consider referring our newsletter to a friend. All my writing has topics related to startups, businesses, career, and entrepreneurship - Published at 10 am IST every Friday.
Also do provide your feedback or any questions that you may have on my email id: saurabh.substack.2407@gmail.com