We use concrete examples on how to use AI to present and organize information, specifically financial data. We use AI to create spreadsheets and direct it to populate the spreadsheet with specified information. This can be very powerful for people that do not like math. Even if you do like math, it eliminates a huge amount of grunge work in setting up the spreadsheet and also when finding and plugging in numbers.

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In this week’s episode, Ben and Derek talk about how you can use AI effectively as an “intern” or assistant to offload time consuming tasks such as research or analysis of competitors, the market or even customer feedback.

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In this week’s episode, Ben and Derek discuss AI’s deficiencies in being a good partner or advisor for entrepreneurs. In the following two episodes we will talk about what AI is actually good at and how founders can use ChatGPT and Claude to be their most efficient self as they grow their company.

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In this episode, Ben and Derek give tips on how to find out if you’re conflict-averse and how to overcome it so that you can be a successful entrepreneur and leader.

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In this sprint, Derek and Ben describe the realities and the challenges faced by high-risk entrepreneurs in finding investors for their startups.

We describe the keys to getting funding from angels, being accepted by an accelerator with a good track record and ultimately getting series A funding from a VC. We also go over the numbers of how few entrepreneurs succeed in getting to series A.

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In this sprint, Derek and Ben describe the frugal and risk minimizing mindset required to be the successful bedrock entrepreneur. The sprint also outlines and describes the different funding mechanisms available to bedrock entrepreneurs, including non-profits.

The accompanying article concludes with how to adapt if your idea does not or cannot receive enough funding to be viable.

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In this sprint we go over the fundamental strategic decisions that prescribes which of two different paths you will likely be taking in funding your startup, whether it is for-profit or not-for-profit. We lay out how to think through whether you will want to use bedrock or high-risk funding methods to get the funds you will need.

While data shows that 97% of all entrepreneurs go bedrock, many bedrock and high-risk entrepreneurs inadvertently use techniques suited for the alternate strategy, causing unnecessary rejections, wasted time, and sometimes unnecessary failures.

This sprint helps you understand the choice – including for entrepreneurs interested in non-profits.

The two following sprints go into details of how you prepare for one or the other type of funding.

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In this sprint, Ben and Derek walk you through how you get this deeper understanding and can then intentionally make decisions to differentiate your brand in the market.

First, we teach you how to create a visual brand map that will help you developed the detailed knowledge of other brands you’re competing with. Then we walk you through how to pick a great name for your brand.

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In this sprint, Ben and Derek challenge you to start thinking about the branding process so that you do not make any naïve missteps along the way.

This is not a one and done exercise, as a brand will develop and evolve as your enterprise forms and its products or services are introduced and evolve.

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In this week’s episode, Ben and Derek discuss how you successfully create a relationship with a potential mentor.

This episode prompts to you also listen to Sprint 8, 9 and 10 to learn the basics skills of relationship building.

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In this sprint, Derek and Ben describe specifically what level of planning and anticipation of the future makes most sense for an entrepreneur once they feel their idea has potential.

As the entrepreneur now wants to invest some time and money in working out how to turn the idea into an actual product or service a customer is gladly willing to pay for, they need to make sure the needed money, time and people will be there when needed.

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In this episode, Ben and Derek will help you reflect on the learnings and coachings from Sprints 7-16. Doing so, will help you set your personal priorities, which can be difficult under the pressure of a startup.

You will learn to create a Personal Leadership Strategy (PLS) which enables you to formulate an objective list of strengths and weaknesses relative to your entrepreneurial ambitions, and, even more importantly, develop and implement strategies to leverage your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses, further improving your chances of entrepreneurial success. This also helps keeping a balance with friends and family.

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In the US, over half of all startups have more than one founder. On a global basis, over 75% of all startups involve a family member. Once a startup finds traction for their product, co-founder conflict is the biggest cause of failure.

Only 1 in 4 founding teams stay together for more than four years. Co-founder relationship building skills we discussed in sprints 8, 9 and 10 are essential for maximizing a startup’s chances for survival, let alone success.

When family members, friends and love interests are involved, these skills are even more important.

We describe how do use these skills to carefully structure and document the shared objectives and payoffs you agree to pursue before working together on a startup.

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The takeoff, climb, cruise and landing correspond to 4 very specific stages of enterprise maturity. In the previous sprint you learned about the 3 essential flight controls: projects, processes and culture.

Without understanding how these controls work and how to pilot your enterprise through the 4 stages, expect poor performance and then failure.

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You have only the vaguest ideas of what a few of the controls do, how the plane reacts and what it takes to find a place to land, let alone land it.

In this sprint, Ben and Derek describe the essential basics of how a startup creates value and how to stabilize it, despite the turbulence of competition and the real world. Not understanding these basics results in poor performance and failure.

This is the first of 2 sprints that help you fly your startup and here we focus on the three controls on how you create value: projects, processes and company culture.

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In this sprint, Ben and Derek go into detail on the best methods for doing the initial alignment and then for monitoring alignment and for re-aligning as might be required by unforeseen circumstances.

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In this episode, Ben and Derek explain the importance for startup leaders to understand and master the skills required to get all stakeholders comfortable and supportive of constant change.

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In this sprint, Ben and Derek give you an understanding of skill set involved with motivating others to dedicate themselves to helping you successfully achieve your vision.

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To illustrate this we will go into detail about the various shared objectives Derek had with his COO at iSuppli.

We will go into more depth with plenty of examples to help you get more comfortable about identifying shared objectives. It also important that you realize how powerful relationships are composed of combinations of cooperating, competing and retreating shared objectives.

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In this sprint, Derek and Ben coach you to understand the cooperating, competing and retreating types of communications, how to tell them apart and how you use the right one in any situation required to lead your startup.

Most communication is done poorly, so it is easy to just assume that communicating is too hard to master or that it requires charisma. This is bunk and we will explain why and help you be respected as someone people trust to communicate the things they need to know and understand.

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We want to help you understand how to work effectively with almost anyone. You will need to work with many types of individuals to make your enterprise a success, including strangers. You will also need the people you work with to work productively together.

These are broadly useful and powerful skills that revolve around understanding the role of shared objectives in forming relationships and the three types of shared objectives, cooperating, competing and retreating that you can use to mold together to create more powerful relationships with almost anyone.

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Accurately understanding your own capabilities is an essential starting point, specifically understanding your motivations, traits and skills.

Knowing where, when and how to be confident in your decision-making is critical to not screwing up, withstanding brutal startup pressures, and ultimately making better decisions because of your teamwork and leadership.

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You want to set a price that gives you a fair profit by capturing its full value—whether tangible (like savings) or intangible (like a super fun experience). You need to set a price that takes into account other alternatives a potential customer in achieving a similar state of happiness.

Naive pricing can set prices too low and destroy your ability to be profitable or too high and turn away potential customers, threatening your ability to stay in business.

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To figure out how many customers you might get, we take you through several steps. You will need to reason through how potential customers will find you and decide they love what you are doing so much they want to be your customer (and not a competitor’s).

Many great ideas fail because founders forget that they need to go out and thoughtfully solicit customers. This is a critical risk reduction exercise.

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We explain how you find the persona that will be easiest and most profitable to make super happy.

Your competitive advantage comes from how much better you know a customer group than your competitor, so this is important!

This sprint enables you to segment potential customers into groups, called personas, which in turn helps you more precisely target your sales and marketing efforts.

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This is a very demanding session, but the benefits in risk reduction are immense. We first walk you through our extensive material on: Testing ideas with strangers.

We then challenge you to plan, then execute and then think about and analyze the ton of information you will gain from asking open-ended questions to strangers.

Come back to this sprint and its exercises as many times as you need until you feel confident in your idea.

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First, you will learn about The Fundamental Principle of Entrepreneurship which underlies every successful business idea. This principle applies to for-profit and non-profit ideas and ventures.

In the sprint exercise, we teach you how to do an assessment of your ideas and how to prove an idea’s potential for success.

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We emphasize the significance of preparation and learning in the entrepreneurial journey, as well as the reflection on good and bad motivations for entrepreneurship.

Understanding one's ultimate selfish desire is highlighted as a key aspect of motivation. The sprint exercise helps you uncover your own personal motivation to be a founder and start a business.

Takeaways

• Understanding your true motivation for being an entrepreneur is highly correlated with your chances of being successful.
• The key to determining if your primary motivation to be successful is strong enough is whether you have a strong desire to prepare.
• Use the sprint exercise to reflect and uncover your own motivations

Chapters

• 00:00 The Motivation to Be an Entrepreneur
• 05:02 Reflecting on Your Motivations
• 10:27 The Importance of Preparation and Learning

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All sprints are based on Derek’s extensive, world-leading research, his 3 books and the various classes we’ve created and taught at Princeton. With jointly more than 1000 students and 100s of entrepreneurs we’ve mentored, we’re excited to offer the same guidance now to founders of all kinds, anywhere in the world.

Lastly, we share with your a glimpse into our future build-out plans as well as our membership plan that offers premium support for those who want more, such as 1:1 video coaching with Ben and Derek, private community chat, and members-only events and webinars to answer your burning founder questions.

Our mission is to help you be successful entrepreneurs. So, please share with us any and all feedback on how we can make the platform better for you.

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