Diary of an Unconventional MVP - Incubator reflections
Dear diary,
One of the great things that I learned from 2020 was the importance of resilience, reflection, research, implementation, pivoting, and action.
Based on the market, I lost immediate income streams such as workshops, face to face training days, and 1:1 clients so had revisited projects specifically for:
SAAS
Digital Business Transformation
Equity share M & A
Training opportunities
After working on a Robotic Automation project, I knew that with the current events and the Pandemic, there were huge opportunities for a saas platform project which had been on ice due to being unable to travel to conduct R & D.
My next step was to deepen my Strategic Venture Mergers and Acquisition knowledge and I cannot put into words, the wonderful experience that I had in the Epic Mastermind with Roland Fraiser. There is a saying that you are the 5 people whom you spend time with. I am grateful that I was able to network, mastermind with global Investment managers, Enterprises, and Business owners and review, critique, and contribute to billion-dollar deal flows, opportunities, case studies providing invaluable insights.
Next step to my own personal and Business Transformation, I was selected to take part in an Executive training program in Silicon Valley in July. I had previously applied in 2018 to an Incubator and was turned down. Armed with my own market opportunities for my SAAS platform, knew that I was ready to take my MVP to the next level and applied to an Onetech program. I was chosen from 300 applicants alongside another 24 startups on the MVP stream and I accepted a place to a JP Morgan Tech Incubator, to support my Martech platform which has been the beginning of an amazing growth journey.
As we progress to deliver to Market, one of the things I have learned from One Tech, my peers, sessions, JP Morgan, and my Tech mentors is what it takes to build an MVP.
The pandemic taught me as a mother, the importance of being present and to a certain extent, unschooling and forming better habits and an adaptive lifestyle to the pandemic.
Whilst we have been in isolation, I have used the time and opportunity to focus on;
Negotiating deals
Partnerships
Licencing
Review
Wellbeing
Family
Learn and Grow
Read
Train
Trademarking
Review ‘good’ Debt
Opportunities
Having always made it a priority to spend quality time with children, our previous schedule and routine were on autopilot. Although we transitioned into home-schooling, we still made time for each other daily as well as checking on extended family, friends, and colleagues.
We have never lived through a ‘pandemic’ before and therefore my immediate response to the lockdown was to focus on daily quality time. I observed my children’s habits, behavior, and language for triggers of anxiety, isolation, distress due to the news, the lack of outdoor usual school activities, routines, and going to school.
“We have lost loved ones, so I made an emphasis on emotional wellbeing, talking about how we felt at the time…”
We have lost loved ones, so I made an emphasis on emotional wellbeing, talking about how we felt at the time, emotional resilience, and intelligence to the new world that we have to live in. All of this whilst experiencing worry and anxiety myself.
MVP focus
A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. In industries such as software, the MVP can help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product. - https://www.productplan.com/
I knew for my MVP to be a successful extension to my business, I would have to become fearless and one of the things that I learned from my mentors is that often as Entrepreneurs, we overbuild.
I was grateful to have more than enough mentors, content, technology stacks to build a no-code solution and roll this out to my Beta Testers. I was grateful to receive support from Universities and launched without launching and enrolled beta-testers who validated the MVP and became customers.
“I have been working with Katrina regards scaling and setting up my funnels for passive income in my business. She has got data analytics set up within my website and assisted me with governance and compliance - which to be honest - I didn't really understand what it was, why I needed it, and why it seemed so complicated!! Katrina walked me through, step by step the policies and procedures I needed to protect my business as I grow, where they should be accessible, and how to remain within the law. I'm very grateful for that. There are things you know you don't know - and then there are things you don't know, that you don't know! Katrina covers both. Moving forward to scale the business, this is the kind of work needed to grow, yet often gets left behind until there is a problem... This is the place many soloprenurs can get stuck as it's not in their zone of genius.. that's where Katrina comes in. With these foundations in place... more to come!”
I transmuted fear to focus on self and professional development to pivot and thrive. I took courses, upskilled and personally developed, read, took part in coding programs, wrote, accredited my educational curriculum, pitched, reflected, crafted a post-pandemic career/business plan, and took to executing.
I launched a technology start-up and applied for and was awarded a place on a JP Morgan and Capital Enterprise Onetech Business Incubator program. I sought to make the most of this time to create opportunities.
One of the things that I am guilty of is holding back from fear of failure and judgement .....
Are you are guilty of this too, stop it ! Take imperfect action !
