Inside the Box with Josh David Miller

In part 4 of JDM's series on business models, we look at how you create and deliver your value proposition, and the one key strategy most founders miss.Read more in the show notes →

TopicsThis is part 2 of JDM's deep dive into business models, and it's all about the customer.Why? No one invests in weak business models, and no successful business is built on one. Duh!The customer is at the center of any business model.Who are they?Where are they?What are there wants, needs, & fears?How do we discover them?And more!SponsorInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction, or fail fast trying.LinksJDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsNo one invests in weak business models, and no successful business is built on one. Duh!Yet most early stage startups and other innovative efforts have generally terrible foundation that go on to plague them in their later stages. Without a crystal clear understanding exactly how your company meets the four basic components of any business model, you are doomed to fail.This is the first in 6-part deep dive on business models.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction — or fail fast trying.LinksJDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsWhat makes a question great, and how to be a great questioner.What kinds of questions can you ask, particularly when you want to understand something more deeply than you already do?How to use distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives to ask smarter questions.JDM's three favourite questions that you can put to work right now.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction — or fail fast trying.LinksBook recommendation: Stop Asking Questions by Andrew Warner.Sign up for JDM's weekly newsletter. It's one weekly tip or trick to go to market faster and find traction sooner, or fail fast trying.JDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsToo often, early in an entrepreneurial or other innovative effort, we resist doing inefficient things. It often goes against our nature. So we create tools & processes to save ourselves effort, and then we spend time & energy refining those tools & processes.The problem is that the nature of doing innovative things is that we don't actually know what we're doing yet! We have an hypothesis, but that's all it is.So we're literally spending time getting efficient at something that we don't know is the right thing to get efficient at.This is the efficiency trap. And design thinking can get us out.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction, or fail fast trying.LinksThe live show on the top ten best ways to test your business model.JDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsFor this episode of the pod, we're going to do something a little different. Our own JDM co-hosts the Startup Shop Talk live show on YouTube every Friday at 11am Pacific. On January 21st, they had a fantastic discussion on everything you need to know about pitching your startup to investors, to co-founders, and even to potential customers.We thought our podcast audience might find the discussion interesting, so here's an edited version of the conversation between JDM of The Right Box and his co-host, Dan Casas-Murray of the Lean Innovator.Let's do something a little different.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction, or fail fast trying.LinksOffice Hours with JDMJDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsProduct-market fit isn't one thing. It's best to think of it as a spectrum that matches the lifecycle of the startup, and guides founders on what to do next.In this episode, JDM talks about the four steps of product-market fit:Customer-problem fit: there is a sufficient volume of customers who are experiencing a particular pain acutely enough to make it worth building a business to solve it.Problem-solution fit: we have a group of potential customers who passionately want us to solve their problem in a particular way.Product-market fit: we have compelling evidence that the high-level mechanics of the business model are working.Business model fit: when the product is sufficiently repeatable so as to be scalable.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction, or fail fast trying.LinksCompanion article on product-market fit: https://rightbox.co/content/the-best-way-to-think-about-product-market-fit.Link to the "mom test" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi6Yh-amM7s.JDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show

TopicsThe business model canvas is a fantastic tool for innovators and entrepreneurs, but books, online courses, incubators, and even accelerators all commit a fundamental mistake when it comes to making proper use of it. They all treat the business model canvas as a documentation tool, but that completely misses the point.In this episode, JDM talks about why the business model canvas is a fantastic tool, but only if you use it correctly: not as a task, but as a process.SponsorsInside the Box with JDM is sponsored by The Right Box, a bespoke team of entrepreneurs and innovators who help startup founders find the quickest past to traction, or fail fast trying.LinksJDM's website: jdm.bioThis podcast has a new home! insidethebox.show