Tristan Shaw

Most founders make a pivotal mistake when entering a new market.  And they don't realise until it's too late... They fail to test local demand. If you fail to understand this and you will: - waste time - waste money - potentially sink your business So, what can you do to test demand?  (before investing heavily in the market) You sell your product or service into that market! And you, as the founder, should be the person to do it. Here's how: ✅ Start with ONE potential ICP.  ✅ Get a list of ~100 potential customers ✅ Get ~20 meetings  ✅ Seek to understand their world first ✅ Qualify ~10 as prospects ✅ Convert 1 - 5 into customers (leveraging existing relationships, investors, partnerships & direct outreach to get to those 100) Yeah, sometimes regulatory issues will mean you can't start selling into a new market without additional foundations. But for a lot of B2B companies you can sell first. Which is the ultimate test of demand. Because remember: No sales = No demand = no business in that market. So test it EARLY. Need some help? 👇 Get immediate access to GTM resources that will help you sell into a new market in the Snowballn' Sales Vault: https://lnkd.in/g-NSPeR2 🔔 Follow me (Michael Lovegrove) for more like this PS - thanks Marcel Wijermars for having me share common mistakes founders make when trying to expand internationally at the Amsterdam Founders Club meet up last week!

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The fastest way to supercharge a founder is to give them a world-class Founder’s Associate. But what makes a great Founder’s Associate? At Bifrost we have seen how powerful this role can be. Bring in sharp, hungry generalist talent and suddenly founders unlock 2x the output with half the errors. We call it “smart muscle,” the people who get things done with speed and precision. So what separates the best from the rest? 1) A track record of owning outcomes with limited resources and supervision (running a student org, building a startup, leading a project in a scrappy company). 2) The ability to think on their feet and solve problems fast (we test this with case assignments relevant to the venture). 3) A strong bias for action and a natural sense of urgency (we test this with Atlas People). 4) Hunger: they know success is earned through persistence and execution, not handed out. (Hard to test, but sharing a culture one-pager helps set expectations.) The Founder’s Associate role is one of the most underrated accelerators in startups. That's why we have built it into our core framework at Bifrost. Shoutout to the star roster making it happen: Diana Semenosa Troels Jørgensen James Radford Lukas Dissing Lundsgaard Mats P.

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The Thin Line Between Confidence and Arrogance Being a founder is incredibly tough. You’re constantly getting told “no” by investors, customers, and sometimes even your team. And the mental load can be overwhelming when things go wrong (as they inevitably do). To survive that rollercoaster, founders MUST have confidence, a deep, almost irrational belief in themselves and their vision. But here's the catch: there’s a very thin line between confidence and arrogance. So what’s the difference? Confidence is believing in yourself and your mission, while recognising that you don’t know everything. Others, including your team, customers, and even investors, might have valuable perspectives that can help you refine your approach. Arrogance, on the other hand, is believing that you do know everything. That no one else gets it. That feedback is a nuisance; people are either on your train or in your way. At Cocoon Capital, we back visionary founders, but we also challenge them. That’s part of the value we bring. For many of the founders we work with, this is their first time building a company. And we’ve seen too many startups fail because of basic, avoidable mistakes. That’s why we see our relationship with founders as a true partnership, not just a bank transfer. The best founders, the ones who go the distance, listen. They adapt. They value input from their team and surround themselves with people smarter than they are in certain areas. They build strong cultures because people feel heard and respected. Arrogant founders? They don’t last. They ignore data that contradicts their narrative. They struggle to retain top talent. They usually want money with no strings attached – “just give me your cash and stay out of my way.” We run from those. Now, of course, there are outliers. Elon Musk. Steve Jobs. But let’s be honest, for every one of them, there are a hundred brilliant, humble founders who win because they know how to listen, learn, and grow. So if you’re a founder, ask yourself honestly: Am I confident enough to take the hits, but humble enough to learn from them? We’re betting on the ones who are. #startups #founders #venturecapital #humility #confidence #entrepreneurship

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Imagine this: You sell plant based protein bars. Someone buys one, leaves a 5 star review… and never orders again. Weird, right? Here’s what’s likely going on: → They bought it for a trip → They were just curious and not ready to stick with it → They liked the taste, but maybe bars just aren’t their thing every day So how do you turn a one time buyer into a repeat customer? Send a simple follow up email and ask: “What made you try the bar?” Depending on what they say, you can guide them to what fits best: → If they say it’s for daily use → Suggest a subscription → If it was for travel → Offer a 10-pack before vacation season → If they were just sampling → Point them to a variety pack The product might be great. But if it doesn’t match their needs, they won’t come back.

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We spent WAY too long building before launching. Like, embarrassingly long. Despite this being my second startup, we spent 16 MONTHS building before shipping an MVP. And guess what? 8 months later we pivoted and shelved half the code. Yes, we were building a marketplace (infamously complex). But still no excuse. If I could start again, here’s what I’d tell myself: 🏃‍♂️ HOW FAST? Ship in 2-4 months. Absolute max. No excuses with GPT, no-code, low-code, and rapid prototyping tools. ❓ AND HERES WHY You don’t just need feedback on the product. You need feedback on the sale. Trying to sell something that’s “coming soon” rarely gives you real signals. You need genuine feature requests, objections and most importantly - reasons why someone doesn’t buy (or use, if it’s free) 🥇 That feedback is golden. The earlier you release, the earlier that learning loop starts. And that loop is absolutely everything in the first 2 years. We’d be 6–12 months ahead if we’d launched earlier. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, so sharing here in case it helps someone else avoid the same trap. Would love to hear what you guys learned from your early releases?

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