Instead of pitching a solution, create a presentation deck that outlines your core assumptions as bold statements. Use this "story deck" to facilitate a conversation, not a presentation. This prompts customers to agree or disagree, revealing their true pain points and validating your hypothesis more effectively.

In initial meetings with enterprise prospects, Nexla's founder didn't pitch a solution. He focused entirely on validating the problem. By asking, "Do you see this problem as well?" he framed the conversation as a collaborative exploration, which disarmed prospects and led to more honest, insightful discussions.

Instead of searching for a market to serve, founders should solve a problem they personally experience. This "bottom-up" approach guarantees product-market fit for at least one person—the founder—providing a solid foundation to build upon and avoiding the common failure of abstract, top-down market analysis.

The ease of AI development tools tempts founders to build products immediately. A more effective approach is to first use AI for deep market research and GTM strategy validation. This prevents wasting time building a product that nobody wants.

For deep tech startups aiming for commercialization, validating market pull isn't a downstream activity—it's a prerequisite. Spending years in a lab without first identifying a specific customer group and the critical goal they are blocked from achieving is an enormous, avoidable risk.

Maintain a running list of problems you encounter. If a problem persists and you keep running into it after a year, it's a strong signal for a potential business idea. This "aging" process filters out fleeting frustrations from genuinely persistent, valuable problems.

Don't jump straight to building an MVP. The founders of unicorn Ada spent a full year working as customer support agents for other companies. This deep, immersive research allowed them to gain unique insights that competitors, who only had a surface-level idea, could never discover.

First-time founders often over-intellectualize strategy. Decagon's founder learned from his first startup that a better approach is to talk directly to customers to discover their real problems, rather than creating a grand plan in a vacuum that fails upon market contact.

Instead of a generic 'ideation' phase, Rainbird's stage-gate process begins with a 'Basis of Interest.' This forces teams to articulate *why* a problem is interesting and worth solving for customers and the business before defining a solution.