In startup land, we've been using the same playbooks for two decades. It's time for something new.

The problem with current methodologies

Every founder I meet follows one of three paths:
1. Wing it and pretend that they know what they are doing.
2. Steve Blank's "4 Steps to the Epiphany".
3. Bill Aulet's "Disciplined Entrepreneurship".

Most fall into path 1 which always confused me. Why wouldn't you learn everything you can before taking one of the most important journeys of your life? Ego? Pride? Dunning Kruger?

I'm still baffled. Someone please tell me the answer here.

The other 2 transformed entrepreneurship from gambling to science. Both teach us to validate with customers. Both work, until you need more.

Here's what no one talks about: these methodologies stop suddenly. They get you to product-market fit, then wave goodbye. What happens when you need to hire your first employees, let alone your 50th? When you're juggling multiple product lines? Building an ecosystem? When acquisition offers start coming in?

Most founders find out the hard way. They don't have to though.

How we got here

The lean revolution

Steve Blank changed everything when he told us to "get out of the building." Eric Ries packaged it into The Lean Startup:

  • Build-Measure-Learn loops
  • Pivot or persevere decisions
  • Business Model Canvas as a living document
  • Build quickly to gain insights

Suddenly, we weren't just guessing. We were experimenting.

The disciplined path

Bill Aulet took a different approach. Where Lean preached speed, Disciplined Entrepreneurship demanded rigor:

  • Systematic market segmentation
  • Detailed customer profiling
  • Quantifiable value propositions
  • Only building an MVP if everything else is viable

Both share the same core truth: talk to customers, validate everything.

Where they fall short

Let me share a story. Last year, we advised a founder who'd perfectly executed the Lean Startup playbook. Great product-market fit. Growing revenue. Happy customers.

Then reality hit:

  • Their sales team was fighting with product over roadmap priorities
  • Marketing was burning cash on channels that didn't convert
  • They had no idea how to price and do sales for enterprise customers
  • The tech debt was crushing their ability to ship features

The methodologies that got them to $1M ARR couldn't get them to $10M.

A new framework for the full journey

We've built something different. Not a replacement for Lean or Disciplined Entrepreneurship. An evolution that covers the entire entrepreneurial journey.

We've synthesised insights from:

  • Hundreds of business books and case studies
  • Our experience founding and scaling multiple ventures
  • Lessons from Y Combinator, Techstars, and other top accelerators
  • MBA and university entrepreneurship programs
  • Direct work with startups at multiple stages

The result: a framework that doesn't abandon you after product-market fit.

The three phases of building a company

Building a successful company isn't one journey, it's three:

Phase 1: Launching (0→1)

Steps combining the best of lean and disciplined approaches. From idea to paying customers.

Phase 2: Running (1→1)

The core functions every business must master.

Phase 3: Scaling (1→100)

Advanced strategies for exponential growth.

Who needs this

If you're starting out

Stop piecing together advice from random blog posts. Get the complete roadmap now, not after you've made expensive mistakes.

If you're already building

See around corners. Know what's coming next. Fix problems before they're critical.

If you're a specialist

Understand how your function impacts the whole business. Make decisions that help the company, not just your department.

If you're investing or advising

Share a common language with founders. Spot gaps before they become craters.

If you're in corporate innovation

Apply startup thinking that actually works in big company constraints. Become an intrapreneur.

Why now

The game has changed since The Lean Startup launched:

  • With AI, barriers are being broken down
  • Remote work isn't a perk. It's table stakes
  • Customers expect enterprise-grade everything from day one
  • Regulatory complexity has 10x'd
  • There is more competition than ever and you need every advantage you can get

What you'll learn

Over the coming weeks, we'll walk you through each step of launching a business. Not just theory, actual tools, templates, systems and techniques we've used to build and advise companies.

But more importantly, you'll develop a mental model for thinking about business systematically. You'll stop fighting fires and start building empires.

The 24 steps, mapped

The full series, grouped by Aulet's six themes. Each step is a standalone essay you can read in 5-7 minutes.

1. Who is your customer? (steps 1-5)

  1. Market Segmentation — why 99% of startups target the wrong customers first
  2. The Beachhead Market — why starting small is your only path to going big
  3. Building Your End User Profile — why demographics are dead
  4. Why Every TAM Slide Is a Lie — bottom-up beachhead sizing in 9 days, not 9 months
  5. Building Your Persona — the one customer who matters more than all the others

2. What can you do for them? (steps 6-9)

  1. Mapping Your Full Customer Journey — the $2M feature nobody wanted
  2. Drawing Your Product Brochure — sell before you build
  3. Quantifying Your Value Proposition — outcomes have numbers
  4. Finding Your First 10 Customers — strangers, not friends

3. How will they buy? (steps 10-13)

  1. Define Your Core — what compounds when moats fall
  2. Charting Your Competitive Position — Excel is your real competition
  3. The Decision-Making Unit — who actually signs the cheque
  4. Mapping the Customer Acquisition Process — the 17 hidden steps founders mistake for three

4. How will you make money? (steps 14-17)

  1. Calculating TAM for Follow-On Markets — win the beachhead first
  2. Designing Your Business Model — strategy, not tactics
  3. Setting Your Pricing Framework — value-based, not cost-plus
  4. Calculating Customer LTV — the 3:1 LTV:CAC rule that decides if you have a business

5. How will you design and build? (steps 18-22)

  1. Mapping the Sales Process — missionary, channel, scaled
  2. Calculating CAC Honestly — top-down beats bottom-up
  3. Identifying Your Key Assumptions — what you've been pretending to know
  4. Testing Your Assumptions — prepayments beat surveys
  5. Why Your MVP Is Already Too Big — drawings beat 10,000-word PRDs

6. How will you scale? (steps 23-24)

  1. Will the Dogs Eat the Dog Food? — data beats wishful thinking
  2. Developing Your Product Plan — beyond the beachhead

The vision

This isn't another methodology. It's the definitive resource for 21st-century entrepreneurship.

This framework doesn't replace what came before, don't fix what isn't broken, it completes it. Because finding product-market fit is just the beginning. Real success requires mastering every aspect of building, running, and scaling a business.

Whether you're sketching your first business model or prepping for IPO, you now have the complete playbook.