Avoid the classic startup validation trap

We touched upon this before, but it’s so important that it’s worth revisiting again.

Think of a typical startup and you will see three kinds of people involved:

Bedrock: These are people that will make and fulfill the promises of the startup. These are the people at the core of the startup.

Getters: These are people who will make money when the offers made by the startup are being accepted.

Givers: These are people who will give the money to the startup (and in turn to the Givers) by accepting offers that are made by the startup.

Take for example, CDBaby. One of the core offers made by the startup is to sell music by independent musicians. The people who work at CDBaby (may be employed by CDBaby or maybe not) are the Bedrock of the company. Independent musicians are the Getters and the customers who buy this music are the Givers.

When entrepreneurs are validating the startup idea, entrepreneurs may get into a trap of validating only with the Getters and forgetting the Givers.

Getters are always excited about good avenues for getting their products out and making money. So they will most probably support you with your idea.

Day in and day out if you focus on “Getters”, you will continue to get positive validation.

Ultimately, as you know all three categories of people are important and for a startup to gel well, you need to focus on all categories of people.

If you have come so far, you are ready to go.