Yesterday, I was the unfortunate recipient of a massive spiderweb crack in the screen of my iPhone 3Gs.  After brushing off my gut reaction – which was to use this an opportunity to rationalize buying a Google Nexus One phone – I did a quick Google search online for “fixing cracked iPhone screens”, thus learning that I had a few options:

1. Apple Store Genius Bar
2. DIY kit
3. Shady send-it-in-and-we’ll-fix-it online offerings
4. Shady fix-it-in-a-parking-lot guy

I laid out my options.

OPTION #1: Apple Store Genius Bar

Cost: $199

Upsides: A near-immediate fix without precious time away from my primary post-pc device.

Downsides: Price.

Decision: Let’s be serious, there’s not a chance in the world that I’m dropping $199 at an Apple store to repair a phone that is halfway through its product life-cycle.  FAIL.

OPTION #2: DIY kit

Cost: Roughly $90 for the parts + tools + shipping

Upsides: A near-immediate fix without precious time away from my primary post-pc device.

Downsides: There’s a slight chance that I end up ruining the phone altogether.

Decision: This was a solid option, but didn’t win out in the end.

OPTION #3: Shady send-it-in-and-we’ll-fix-it online offerings

Cost: Pricing all over the board, but all under $100

Upsides: Price.

Downsides: First, I would be without my phone for a week.  Second, I’m not very confident that I would ever actually get my phone back.

Decision: Too many serious downsides.  FAIL.

OPTION #4: Shady fix-it-in-a-parking-lot guy

Cost: $80

Upsides: First, it is a cheaper option than at least 2 of the other 3 options.  Second, I would only have to be without my phone for a mere 20 minutes.  Third, who doesn’t like a geeky adrenaline rush?

Downsides: Well, he seemed shady – as you’ll learn more below – so I had to fear for my life, or at least for my phone and my wallet!

Decision: I’m an entrepreneur; we’re intrinsically built to tolerate illogical, uncommon risks.  Option #4 it is!

The drug deal for geeks goes down…

What transpired next was what can best be described as the equivalent of a tech / iPhone drug deal, or better yet, a drug deal for geeks.

Here’s the email I received from this guy as we ironed out the details of the exchange:

“We can meet at the Walmart at 1661 Jungerman Road. I’ll park on the ‘Outdoor Living’ entrance side. I’ll be in a white Chevy van that says Midwest on the sides and back. What time can you meet?”

The video as I drive up should speak for itself:

Heart racing, I park and immediately see him making his way towards my car.   Randomly – as if everything else about this was normal – he proceeds to hand me his business card, which was probably just a gesture to ease the obvious concern in my face.  Next, I nervously hand over my phone, as I watch him hop back into his white van; you know, the type of van that you only see in movies when houses are being robbed or people are being kidnapped.  Trying not to stare, I sit in my car twiddling my thumbs for 20 minutes.  Next thing I know, he jumps out of his van and hands me a perfectly working iPhone!  He even informs me that his service comes with a 30 day guarantee!  I hand him $80 in cold hard cash and drive off.

Ah, the reckless life of a geek .

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  -Mark Twain

A fellow entrepreneur, David Garland, wrote a post worth reading entitled, “Don’t Entrepreneur Alone: The Importance Of Mentorship For Young Entrepreneurs.”  As I thought about the subject, it seemed necessary to expand upon David’s thoughts and touch on the importance of ‘quality’ mentors.

A common misconception is that all mentors are helpful.  Unfortunately, the reality is that it’s fairly difficult to find a mentoring team that adds any real value.  The wrong mentors will actually be detrimental to your startup. At best, bad mentors will waste a startup’s already limited time.  In worse situations, poor mentoring advice may actually sink a young, susceptible startup.

So how do you go about qualifying a solid mentoring team?  There’s no specific formula, but here’s a set of loose rules I have found useful in finding mentors that add real value (please note that this set of rules applies more so to business mentoring than it does to purely technical mentoring):

1. Find at least a few mentors that have endured the wild ride of a startup: Avoid the career, mid-level corporate guy who recently retired and wants to give back.  While he’s probably well-intentioned, it’s hard for this individual to offer practical and realistic advice in a world he’s never spent an ounce of time in himself.  For example, honing your financing pitch with someone who has never raised money is pointless.  Equally pointless is asking for advice on strategic decisions, product decisions, or anything else critical from someone who lacks an understanding in the unique nuances of a startup.
2. Find at least a few mentors that are knowledgeable about your market and type of startup: The more knowledgeable a mentor is about your market and type of startup, the more he/she will be able to see the market’s problem and help you build a realistic solution to solve it.  Justifying the various product development stages of a consumer technology product to someone in a service-oriented business (from an unrelated market) will leave you pulling your hair out in frustration.
3. Find mentors with the ability to challenge you: Initial ideas usually suck, even for the best entrepreneurs.  Great mentors are the ones that can tactfully challenge your assumptions, successfully pulling out from your team a more polished business strategy and/or product.
4. Find mentors that will answer a phone call at 11pm: In other words, find mentors that are willing to be emotionally invested in your startup and will go the extra mile to help you succeed.  I can name several of my mentors that have literally taken calls at 11pm (or later).  That’s something I’ll never forget.
5. Find mentors that are willing to offer introductions: Raising capital is greatly influenced by your ability to get your team’s product/idea in front of the right people.  Credible mentors are capable of opening doors.  Besides, a mentor’s willingness to offer introductions is a vote of confidence that he/she truly believes in the solution your team is building.  We were introduced to our first investor through one of our mentors.
6. Find mentors with at least a shred of humility: Dealing with a ‘know it all’ mentor will only push you into creating a copycat of this mentor’s previous wins.  If you do this, you’ll fail.  Markets change fast.  Solutions change fast.  Work with mentors that are cognizant of these inevitable changes and understand that the best solutions are yet to be invented.

The search for quality mentors can happen anywhere.  Ask to grab coffee (or hot chocolate) with anyone halfway relevant who is willing to hear your startup’s story.  Read relevant blogs and books.  Ultimately, understand that most potential mentors will be a waste of your time, but the value you’ll ultimately receive from the few good ones is usually worth it.

I’d love to hear any thoughts/rules regarding your experiences with finding quality mentors, as well as your experiences with the not-so-good ones.

Lastly, thank you to all of my mentors; you know who you are .

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” – T. E. Lawrence

Roughly 2 months ago we put a temporary, yet tight lid on nearly everything financing related.  It was following an epiphany we had regarding a new strategic focus, that we reevaluated the allocation of our resources.  As opposed to using up valuable resources on financing activities, we decided to instead direct them towards attracting reputable customers, generating revenue, and revamping the entire product.  By focusing solely on building tangible value for paying customers, we anticipated our financing story would also improve.

A week ago I received a request for our executive overview; for the first time I could barely recall when the last time was that I updated (or even thought) about that document.  This request was a nice reminder for me to look back and see what type of progress we actually made during the last 2 months.

How did this experiment work out?  Put mildly, these have been the most productive couple of months we’ve had so far at LockerDome.

The results:

• Revenue: We went from zero revenue to sealing paid licensing deals with more than a handful of decent sized, reputable customers (elite sports organizations).
• Useful Product: We took customer feedback and revamped the entire product, bringing it into good enough shape to satisfy the product requirements for our first launch with paying customers; the feedback from this new release has been overwhelmingly positive.
• Traction: Influential customers are now paying for and finding unique value in our product; not just liking the idea of what it could be.  With that, a proven business model is emerging.

What we also noticed:

• We’re more productive: Fundraising is usually a necessary evil in startups–and is something that we’ll probably approach again soon–but it’s ridiculously time consuming to be effective with it.  During financing activities, a team with limited resources can come to a near halt in many areas of the product and business.  By strategically redirecting our limited resources, we were able to focus on building value for the customer as our top priority.
• We’re more valuable: Because of the results above, our own story is vastly improving.  We are significantly better positioned not only to raise additional capital (when the timing makes sense), but to attract top tier employees as we begin to scale the company.
• Team morale is up: As we say in sports, it’s fun to win.  In the technology world, it’s fun to build something that customers find valuable enough to not only use, but to pay for.  Building for the sake of building is pointless; our customers are why we get out of bed each morning.

Back when I played competitive baseball, I received the following piece of advice:

“Do whatever you can to influence outcomes the way you’d like, but absolutely let go of anything that’s outside of your control.  How you practice, do your homework, and live your life are all things under your control.  What others think of you, where Coach plays you, and of course, when Coach plays you are all outside of your control.”

Our success over these last couple of months boils down to a similar philosophy.  Instead of worrying our team with stuff that we can’t control, such as the economy– and more specifically, how the economy affects potential investors–we are intensely focused on the facets of our business that we can control.  As a software company, within our control is our product and team, including how we use both the product and team to solve real customer problems.

As far as financing, it’s still too early to measure the exact impact because we have yet to restart these activities.  Nevertheless, between tangible improvements in revenue, the product, and traction, it’s clear that this time around, the story is going to be much more fun to tell.

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” -Norman Vincent Peale

This is a quick reference to a few of the most intriguing and resourceful blogs in the web/tech startup space.  It’s OK if you don’t agree with 90% of what you read on these blogs; I certainly don’t.  The goal for us founders is simply to be a sponge.  Knowledge, when practically applied, makes you dangerous.

BLOG STARTER KIT:

Venture Hacks:

Description: Baback Nivi and Naval Ravikant’s experience as both entrepreneurs and investors results in tremendous, practical advice for any tech entrepreneur.  They like to refer to themselves as the “hamburger helper for entrepreneurs.”  Topics include pitching your deal and negotiating terms, as well as a bunch of other general thoughts on building startups.  They just recently published their first digital book entitled, Pitching Hacks.

A little taste: Raising money is a black swan

…………………………………

Ask the VC:

Description: Authored by VCs Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, Ask the VC was formed to answer the steady stream of questions that Brad and Jason were receiving on their personal startups blogs, Feld Thoughts and Mendelson’s Musings, from curious entrepreneurs.

A little taste: Why Won’t The Venture Capitalist Return My Phone Call?

…………………………………

Startup Company Lawyer

Description: A dry, but rather resourceful series of posts on the key legal issues for startups.  It is authored by Yokum Taku, a corporate and securities partner in the Palo Alto, California office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

A little taste: How do the sample Y Combinator Series AA financing documents differ from typical Series A financing documents (or what’s the difference between seed and venture financing terms)?

…………………………………

Lessons Learned:

Description: Authored by entrepreneur Eric Ries, the former CTO of IMVU (and a list of other accomplishments), Lessons Learned chronicles key issues that startup guys face in effort to bringing meaningful products into the marketplace.

A little taste: Don’t launch

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Chris Lyman’s CEO/Janitor Blog:

Description: Sure it’s blatant propaganda for Fonality (the company in which Chris Lyman is the founder & CEO), but who cares, it’s good content.  The posts are sporadic, but enlightening; they cover a series of Chris’ random thoughts on startups.

A little taste: The Motif of Motivation

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Paul Buchheit:

Description: Paul Buchheit is most well known for his work at Google where he developed Gmail, among a slew of other big projects he worked on.  He’s currently a co-founder of FriendFeed.  His posts generally play off issues/lessons he’s currently facing with FriendFeed, or from lessons he learned while developing Gmail.

A little taste: Overnight success takes a long time

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Paul Graham:

Description: This isn’t really a blog, but more so a list of essays; although, an rss feed is now available. Whether you love or hate Paul Graham, he’s very experienced as an inventor, entrepreneur, and investor.  By default, given his exposure, this guy has some interesting thoughts to share.

A little taste: A Fundraising Survival Guide

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TechCrunch, Mashable, Center Networks, GigaOM, Read/WriteWeb, & Somewhat Frank

Description: Each of these blogs, in various ways, profile new technologies and companies in the web space.  A combination of these 6 blogs should provide you a daily beat of what’s happening.

A little taste: BuzzGain Launches Do-It-Yourself PR Service to the Public (by TechCrunch)

…………………………………

College Mogul:

Description: A group-edited blog that profiles and reviews startups founded by young entrepreneurs, new technologies from university labs, recent tech & web trends, venture capital, and ideas that have the potential to change the world.  College Mogul aims to serve as a media portal that young entrepreneurs can utilize as a launch pad, resource hub, networking platform, and source for inspiration.

A little taste: 17 Sales Tips For Startups

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EXTRA

A blog I wanted to include, but it’s not currently being updated: March Andreessen’s personal blog is a tremendous read, but hasn’t been updated since last summer.  While you’re waiting for it to restart, go ahead and dabble at some of his archived posts.  The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 1: Why not to do a startup is a classic.

Not enough? If you’re an infovore like me, then you’ll want to be sure to check out our full list of VC bloggers, quick financing resource list, and the extended miscellaneous blogroll.

“Worrying is destructive. Worrying slows you down. Worrying makes it harder for you to achieve any attainable goals.” -an unnamed fellow entrepreneur

Recently, an enthusiastic entrepreneur approached me at a networking event to mention that’s he’s working on a “tremendous” new start-up.  He was hoping that I might have a few relevant connections to offer.

Awesome.

Excited to hear about his deal, I pushed for the details.   Unfortunately, he informed me that he cannot disclose anything in too much detail because his start-up is still in stealth mode.  In fact, if I really would like to know more, he notified me that he’d be open to grabbing coffee the following week, at which time I could sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I smiled politely, wished him the best of luck, and moved on to a different conversation.

Pulling simply from the nature of our discussion that day, it’s possible I will never know just how tremendous his idea is.  Mr. Stealth Mode’s unwillingness to establish an open dialogue is just one more reason why his idea may never turn into anything of real value.

It seems like nearly every first-time entrepreneur is obsessed with the concept of stealth mode.  This turns out be a stage that most entrepreneurs would rather forget; one defined by too much theory, too much wasted time, and not enough tangible progress.

So, ditch your stealth mode. Here’s why.

Top 5 reasons why stealth mode is worthless:

1. Your initial idea probably sucks.  You’re assuming a lot by believing others will actually steal it. As entrepreneurs we like to think that we can solve almost any problem in the world.  Well, it turns out most others don’t think quite as highly of our brain diarrhea as we do; and that’s for good reason: most ideas suck.  The only way to figure out whether or not an idea has any real merit is to actually start getting feedback from someone besides your mom.
2. You have more problems to worry about than whether or not someone will steal your idea. The chances of failure from something other than a stolen idea are high.  There are countless reasons why you’re going to fail: your timing is going to be off; you’re going to build the wrong product; you’re not going to raise enough capital or generate adequate revenue to keep the lights on; you’re not going to assemble the right core team; you’re going to lose motivation; etc. (see Eric Karjaluoto’s post on “Why your web startup with fail”).
3. You’re going to turn people off and therefore miss out on great networking and investment opportunities. Investors won’t sign NDAs (VC, Brad Feld explains why here).  Most experienced entrepreneurs won’t either. Building a strong network is critical to your success and being in stealth mode only inhibits your ability to build out your network.  Bottom line, don’t give influencers in your market a reason to avoid learning and talking about your startup.
4. You’ll miss out on valuable feedback. Feedback from customers, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. will make your product and company exponentially better.  Similar to point #3, putting up barriers to constructive feedback only worsens your odds of success.
5. You’ll waste valuable resources simply protecting an idea. Time is money.  If you’re worrying about protecting your idea, then you’re not 1oo% focused on actually proving out your idea.  Ideas alone don’t result in liquidity events.  The quicker you validate your concept, the better.

Whoa, we’re actually building value!
When we finally began an open dialogue about efforts, we realized we were forced to focus 100% of our energy on learning, iterating, and building actual value.  At this very point of open communication real progress began occurring.  Notably, others began offering meaningful introductions, customers started telling us what they wanted, and our product began taking meaningful shape.

So if you’re working on a deal in stealth mode, do yourself a favor and purge that toxic philosophy from your vocabulary.

“The most important thing for a young man is to establish credit – a reputation and character.” -John D. Rockefeller

Theoretically, one can logically conclude that being the son of a tech industry veteran provides tremendous networking advantages.  Now living it, I disagree.

For a little background, those close to me know that I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for my Dad, Bob Lozano.  It’s not merely because he built and exited a tech venture in the Midwest – which folks on both coasts will argue is virtually impossible – or because he’s founded and persevered through 3 deals.  It’s largely because he ventured out on his own with 8 kids, no money in the bank account, and a fiery determination to simply make it work.  Yes, my Mom is a saint for all she’s put up with .

When I dove headfirst into my first real startup, my network was still budding.  So as expected, many early introductions came through my Dad.  The results were less than stellar.

How bad did these introductions turn out?

Well, fortunately some of these folks are charitable people, but it’s safe to say that my top 5 worst pitches/meetings ever were all in the presence of people that are strongly tied to my Dad.  Some things I noticed:

• I try too hard with these connections.  One of my core strengths is letting my natural passion, confidence, and industry knowledge take the reigns of a conversation.  When I’m trying too hard, all of that is absent.  For you baseball fans, it’s similar to gripping the bat too hard in effort to hit a home run.  Instead of a majestic Albert Pujols style bomb, you end up with a dinky, infield bleeder.
• A large portion of my Dad’s colleagues still remember me as the pimply faced kid running around the office, drinking the company’s Slurpees.  Those impressions stick.
• I receive an extra layer of scrutiny simply to make sure our deal is legit.  This is understandable, because as we know, parents always think their own kids are the best!

What did I learn?

Bluntly speaking, I learned to go out and build my own network.  I learned that if I create my own success, that alone will speak for itself.  The difference became dramatic.  Some now noticeable changes:

• Our deal is primarily judged on the merit of the team, product, & market opportunity.  Not much else matters.
• The connection to my Dad plays a negligible role.  After getting to know me, it’s common that someone connects the dots; however, at this point the blood ties either slightly reinforces a positive opinion or momentarily contradicts a negative one.  Regardless, it’s not a dominating factor either way.

You can still benefit

So for those in the same boat as me, what’s the point of a having a dad who’s built something?  That’s easy, he’ll be your #1 mentor.  The benefits are priceless:

• You’ll receive a realistic, firsthand education of the tech startup scene.  Understanding before you work on your first deal that missed paychecks, 18 hour workdays, and intense emotional roller coasters are just part of the process will keep you sane and keep you going.
• He’ll be brutally honest; providing the type of geniune, unfiltered feedback that a startup needs in order to be successful
• You’ll learn from his unscripted, unedited versions of mistakes and successes; as opposed to pulling lessons from the public, highly edited versions of other entrepreneurs’ wins and losses
• Even though, like you, he just finished his own 18 hour workday and can’t see straight because he’s so tired, you can still convince him to perform an impromptu 1am Starbucks brainstorming session
• You can get bs-free, firsthand insight on those in your industry
• You can intellectually debate the marketplace for hours; and when you’re both pissed off because ‘you’re obviously both right’, you can walk away from the conversation knowing that no bridges were burned in the process

Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO of Mahalo (also known for Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs), wrote a must-read for all tech entrepreneurs entitled, “What to Do if Your Startup Is Failing.”  In it, he proclaims that there are 2 types of entrepreneurs in this world: real ones and the folks who play entrepreneurs for some portion of their lives.

Great read .

“All men dream: but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” -Thomas Edward Lawrence

An important question that frequently arises for any product company is, “How long will it take to build?”  Internally you will debate this (our lead developer can insert his silent chuckle here).  Externally you’ll hear it constantly from your customers, partners, investors, family, and really just about everyone you meet.  If you’re honest with yourself, the realistic answer is usually simple: we don’t know, but we’ll estimate anyways.

This rule applies to every build: your alpha, your beta, & every iteration within.  This is the nature of building a new product.

Product timelines are tough to pinpoint because of the large number of unknowns on Day 1. These unknowns result in consistently evolving product requirements.  For example:

1. Innovative systems many times require innovative solutions.  Using new solutions to solve new problems is an experimental process, not an exact science.
2. Your customers may not like exactly what your’re building.  You’ll need to alter your approach to build less of what they don’t like and more of what they do like.
3. Your market itself will likely evolve while you’re developing; sometimes drastically, sometimes slightly.
4. Bugs will take 10 times longer to fix than you anticipate.

….and I could go on and on.

Don’t be discouraged, these obstacles are normal.  What’s now comforting for me is that over time we’ve continually become more accurate with our estimates.  Better accuracy occurs because we’ve become more educated about our customers and their requirements, we begin to more keenly anticipate market moves, our system has taken on a more precise form, and the economic market forces focus, etc.

So as a parting note, here are three lessons I’ve learned to stay sane during the grueling process of building a product from the ground-up:

1. Avoid constant comparison to other teams’ development efforts; especially those within a different market than you. Your product requirements are different.  Your customer needs are different.  Your technology is probably different.  Just because the HotorNot.com guys built their initial technology in a weekend, doesn’t mean that your alpha product will also only take a weekend to build.
2. Perform frequent releases.  Get feedback.  Then build more of what users like and less of what they don’t (mentioned above, but this is an important point to reiterate). This provides your team the opportunity for consistent feedback so that you aren’t just building for the sake of building.  Building for a reason (i.e. real customer requests) is so much more motivating than anything else!
3. If you can still taste the market and you have the talent, then use your team’s vision as motivation to survive the long haul. If your market requires a tough solution then many of your competitors will either lack the skill set to get ‘there’ or will simply become too discouraged at some point and quit.  Keep going.  Persistence mixed with talent, agility, and keen market awareness will result in something special.

The guys over at one of my favorite blogs, Venture Hacks, just officially released their first digital book: Pitching Hacks.

In their own words:

“We’re excited to share our first book with you: Pitching Hacks. It’s all about pitching startups to investors. 83 pages of beautiful PDF. $19.

We’ve raised $100 million for startups like Epinions, invested another $20 million in companies like Twitter, and advised many others. Pitching Hacks shows you how to apply the simple lessons we’ve learned along the way.”

Here’s a few samples of the book you may want to check out:

• Why do I need an introduction?
• Can I get investors to sign an NDA?

If the stellar free advice they’ve been pumping out on their blog is any indication then this is probably well worth the $19 license fee.

“The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road; long before I dance under those lights.” -Muhammad Ali

There are many reasons why I love software startups: innovative thinking, blank canvases for building new products, smart people, etc.   The single greatest reason, however, is that each day that you don’t die as a company becomes another opportunity to edge slightly closer to a product/market fit.  With proper focus you’ll always end up building a little bit more, generating a few more customers, gathering additional customer/market feedback, and refining your product.

Why must you keep building?  Because as Marc Andreessen writes, a product/market fit is the only thing that matters and as Paul Buchheit points out, it usually takes a long time to get there.  If you’re working on a new deal I recommend you read both posts.  Here’s an excerpt from Buchheit’s:

“We started working on Gmail in August (or September?) 2001. For a long time, almost everyone disliked it. Some people used it anyway because of the search, but they had endless complaints. Quite a few people thought that we should kill the project, or perhaps “reboot” it as an enterprise product with native client software, not this crazy Javascript stuff. Even when we got to the point of launching it on April 1, 2004 (two and a half years after starting work on it), many people inside of Google were predicting doom. The product was too weird, and nobody wants to change email services. I was told that we would never get a million users.

Once we launched, the response was surprisingly positive, except from the people who hated it for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, it was frequently described as ‘niche’, and ‘not used by real people outside of silicon valley’.

Now, almost 7 and a half years after we started working on Gmail, I see things like this: Yahoo and Microsoft have more than 250m users each worldwide for their webmail, according to the comScore research firm, compared to close to 100m for Gmail. But Google’s younger service, launched in 2004, has been gaining ground in the US over the past year, with users growing by more than 40 per cent, compared to 2 per cent for Yahoo and a 7 per cent fall in users of Microsoft’s webmail.”

The grueling process of achieving a product/market fit is one of the primary reasons, among several other important reasons, that we built the core piece of our technology in-house.  Because of such, we can listen to our market and respond with the confidence and versatility to switch focuses on a dime.

If there’s anything I am certain of, it’s that tomorrow we will be better than we are today.

Update: As I skimmed my feeds tonight I ran across another post on one of my favorite blogs, Venture Hacks, that touches perfectly on the topic of ‘learning your way to a product/market fit’.  If there’s one funny result of tough markets like we are currently in, it’s that it gets a lot of people thinking along similar lines of how do you build something of actual value.  Give it a read.