This is the table of contents for my 6-month startup journey.
If this is your first time reading, I recommend you start with my six-month challenge: What can you do in six months?
Start: July 15, 2013
End: January 15, 2014
It has now been six months. Read the conclusion here – Cusoy: A Postmortem.
You can also read about my new B2B SaaS venture for 2014.
Table of Contents
Month #1
- Week #1 – Choosing an idea, validating a market need and bridging focus
- Week #2 – Talking to others, building an MVP and focusing on value versus growth and monetization
- Week #3 – Narrowing focus further, learning about gluten free and my own gluten intolerance, social shopping and eating experiments
- Week #4 – Building out my MVP, talking to advisors, learning how to pitch VC’s and pitching Greylock
- Monthly Review #1 – Introspection and lessons learned
Month #2
- Week #5 – Shipping my MVP, getting out of the building and staying productive
- Week #6 – MVP assumptions, iterations of MVP version 1 and 2
- Week #7 – MVP v2 (in progress), arbitrary deadlines and Parkinson’s law, looking ahead
- Week #8 – Incubators, beta testers and experiments and upcoming ebook
- Monthly Review #2 – Focus, building and talking to users
Month #3
- Week #9 – Designing the (im)perfect email experiment MVP
- Week #10 – Almost ready to launch, coworking space
- Week #11 – Getting initial feedback on MVP v3, getting help and reaching out to users for testing
- Week #12 – User testing and how to build great products, breaking into PM and rejection
- Monthly Review #3 – Halfway in, what I’ve accomplished so far
Month #4
- Week #13 – MVP v3 iterations, Rock Health chats, nervousness about shipping
- Week #14 – YC Startup School 2013, crazy week, timeline to failure
- Week #15 – Busy, busy, busy
- Week #16 – Shipped!
- Monthly Review #4 – Looking at the forest rather than the trees
Month #5
- Week #17 – Overwhelmed, slightly burned out
- Week #18 & 19 – Major crossroads and decisions, KPI’s
- Week #20 – Put Cusoy on hiatus, then changed my mind
- Monthly Review #5 – What I wish I knew or did and what I’m grateful for
Month #6
- Week #21 – Roadmap this week, B2B SaaS exploration
- Week #22 & 23 – To share or not share goals, costs of context switching and reflection
- Week #24 – Officially putting Cusoy on hold
- Annual Review 2013
It has now been six months. Read the conclusion here – Cusoy: A Postmortem.
You can also read about my new B2B SaaS venture for 2014.