At Malpani Ventures, we like to engage with founders who think on first principles. There is a deluge of new-age entrepreneurs wanting to start-up in without really assessing whether they can build businesses which are sustainable and scalable businesses. In our view, in today’s environment there are too many startups actually ‘building hammers seeking nails’. We like founders who marry optimism with a rationalism. The below post expands on the brilliant MGP framework by TK Kader. This post should help assess whether you or not should commence with your startup just yet:

MGP = Market, GTM and then finally Product!

Assessing the Market:

Instead of beginning to think about your idea, the first step is to rather consider the market/ need you are serving?  Just because you have a wonderful concept and believe it to be great doesn't imply the market or your potential customers, you'll be selling it to will agree. 

Consider your target market in detail as the first step. Kader urges applying a version of a modified BANT approach while scrutinizing the market:

• Is it an urgent problem for potential customers? 
• Is it an important one? 
• And do they have budget? 

No matter how fantastic the product is, no matter how fantastic your sales and marketing are, it will always be difficult to persuade a non-existent market or a poor market to actually buy your items if they lack these three things. It would be wiser for you not to spend months creating that product.

Specifying your GTM or go-to market

Founder should consider they have any unfair advantages in going into this market? Do you already know a lot of people in this market? Can you tap into an existing network in a unique manner?  

Having domain knowledge about the market is a big plus:  Domain knowledge ideally means no one else in the world knows as much as that founder about that specific market.

The result of the above is that you're more likely to be able to go into this market because you know a lot of people that can introduce you to a lot of people. You speak their language, you understand how they work and how they think, which makes you more likely to be able to actually introduce a winning product into this market

Finally build put the product/ solution?

Yes, but only if you can build one that is 10 times better.  The world of new ventures today is very competitive, so unless your product is 10 times better, you should rethink before developing it. Eg: For a software if your product reduces the number of clicks from a hundred to two clicks to get the problem solved, it uses AI to completely automate or streamline the process, or it automatically syncs the data instead of importing, then it is worthwhile building it!

In summary, identifying the right market plus your right to win are pre-cursors to building a winning product!

We are keen to work with startups who have answers to the above questions! Write to us at pitch@malpaniventures.com