What is different about Disrupt 2.1?

• You will be creating a company, not just a project.
• It’s not a random app, but also not a huge moonshot. It’s kinda in the middle. Company idea = high ability to execute + interesting problem.
• You’re not required to choose one of the paths in Disrupt 1.0 because those paths are based on SaaS companies. But, if your company ends up being a SaaS B2B or B2C company, then you will likely follow the milestones (e.g. WaypointAR).
• I’m changing the “due dates”. Instead of something being due that date, it will be objectives for you to accomplish, but if you haven’t accomplished the objective by that date, then you’ll face consequences. The implication of this is that you can move as fast as you want, but nobody can move too slowly. If you already have an idea, you can start going hard on the execution and objectives.
• Nadeem and I will interfere if we think you can be working on something better. We’ll give you feedback and support you through the process. We want you to spend your time effectively on something with high potential.
• You can work in teams. But, if you work in teams, you’ll need to make an agreement with your teammates before starting. This agreement will outline what happens if things are going downhill (e.g. create a cliff in your agreement).
• Less articles, more building.

By the end of Disrupt, you will:

• Be working on an interesting company using exponential technology.
• Have an advisory board of at least 3 industry leaders and 3 high-value people.
• Industry leaders: people with unique insight and connections in the industry you’re working in.
• High-value people: world-class people with unique knowledge that can help you execute. This can include marketers, lawyers, investors, founders, etc.
• Note: this is not a Board of Directors.
• Have a strong understanding of what it takes to start companies and execute on ideas.

Your idea should meet the following criteria:

1. It’s something that is not being done mainstream. Ideally you’re working on something new, but if you’ve heard a few companies recently starting to work on it, that’s ok too. It just can’t be something that a lot of people are working on.
2. It uses exponential technology. This is because if you didn’t need exponential tech, you likely wouldn’t have a competitive advantage. Your advantage over everyone else is your knowledge in these emerging technologies, so use them to your benefit.
3. High ability to execute. You should be able to start building something. It can be a prototype/simulation, but ideally you can fill in your knowledge/skills gap quickly and build version 1 (MVE) of your idea.
4. You should be excited by it. A good test is if someone asks you what you’re working on, you should feel good when you explain what you’re working on. It should make you feel legit. You should be excited every time you talk about it, and proud talking about it in front of smart people.
5. Meaningful impact. If you are successful, your idea should have the ability to make a meaningful impact on people.

Here’s a good way of thinking about your idea: What's possible for you to do today that other people aren’t doing?

Good Example: Zilic: Detect any disease with machine learning.

• It has a high ability for execution.
• It can have a meaningful impact.
• The technology exists, but nobody is really using it this way.

Other examples include: WaypointAR, G-nome, Lumen, Synex, HonestBlocks, SmartCane, Bio Sensors, BCI for Alzheimers.

Real company examples: Click here.

Note: Your company doesn’t need to be completely brand new. You can take a variation of something successful today, and apply exponential technology to it. For example, Coinbase was basically an online bank for crypto. Or the Apple Watch was just a watch with sensors and software on it. When you really think about it, exponential technologies are not being used in the mainstream as much as you’d think. There is a lot of opportunities that haven’t been discovered, which means a ton of possibilities for you!

Deliverables before starting your company:

After you get approval, you will then do the following before you start building the product:

Then you can start working on your company. Here’s some other things we’re going to do:

Plan Details:

Your 2-pager plan will specifically outline:

1. Part 1: Overview
• The problem
• Your idea
• Proof that you can execute on it quickly
2. Part 2: Optimizing your probability of success
• Knowledge gap - what do you need to learn?
• Skills gap - what skills do you need to build?
• Network gap - who can help you achieve this vision?
3. Part 3: Best Practices
• Identify 3 companies that seem similar to yours
• What is their story (how did they start, what are the backgrounds of the founders, how much $ did they raise?)
• What is their business model?
• How did they get customers?

After you get more data, you will build a 2-pager execution plan:

Purpose: to give you clarity on what you need to be prioritizing. Distractions are the worst enemy of an entrepreneur.

You can be working on your company before you complete this plan. Your execution plan should include the following:

1. What are the key pillars to successfully getting customers/users? (i.e. mission critical things)
2. If you failed to get customers/users, why would you have failed?
3. What could you do to prevent that from happening?
4. Who would be the best people in the world to be on your advisory board?
5. Create a 30-60-90 day action plan.
• Outcomes your want to hit.
• Action items you need to do.

This all leads up to...

Invite-Only Demo Day:

I will plan to host a demo day with investors in April or May. The goal of this is learning how to pitch to investors and get feedback from them. If you happen to get their attention and they want to invest… well, I’m not gonna stop you 🙂. Since many of you may want to pursue your idea after Disrupt, this will be a good indicator if you should keep going or not.

Overall:

• You’re going to build a company that uses exponential technology to solve an interesting problem.
• You need to have a high ability to execute since you’re going to be building a solution.
• You will create an Advisory Board to give you guidance and open doors for you.
• Nadeem and I will help you identify an idea so you don’t spend too much time thinking.
• There will be an invite-only demo day with investors towards the end of the year.

Goals by end of Disrupt (at minimum):

• Have a working MVE.
• Have an engaged advisory board.
• Have active users or confirmation of users/customers by a specific date.
• Or… you completely fail. That’s not a bad thing if you’re putting in the work. “If you’re not failing, you’re not innovating enough” - Elon

Things that could hold you back:

• You can’t think of an idea.
• The idea is much harder to execute than you thought.
• You lose interest in the idea/problem.
• You get demotivated by not making traction as fast as you thought.
• You have team issues.

Sessions

The sessions will generally have the following structure:

1. Mind/Body Exercise (10min)
2. KDs: Person and Company of the week (10min)
3. Updates (10min)
4. Power-Up (10min)
5. Activity/Guest Speaker (70min)
6. Discussion (30min)

Other things you’ll be doing in Disrupt:

Building your personal brand:

• Newsletters: Monthly updates on what you’ve been working on.
• Blog posts: Bi-weekly (minimum) posts on ideas or topics you want to write about.
• LinkedIn posts: Bi-weekly (minimum) posts on your perspective on something, interesting news, what you’re working on, or shoutouts for others.
• Tweets: Weekly posts or replies about the industry you’re working in. Must tag someone in the industry in 1 post/week. Goal is to get attention from people.

Knowledge/Skill requirements:

• Person of the week.
• Company of the week.
• Navid’s content: I’ll send out interesting content each week. Some might be content you’ve already seen, but I might think it’s useful to read/listen/watch it again.
• Skills I want you to develop (I’ll give guidance on this):
• Logic
• Storytelling (yes, more!)
• Frameworks
• Mental models
• Excel
• Design

Mind/Body:

• Track # of hours/sleep you’re getting.
• Max 3 cheats/week.
• Do a 20min+ workout 3 times/week (not sports, need to be training).
• Train being mindful:
• Go on 3 walks/week (20min) by yourself.
• Do Sam Harris’s app.
• Schedule thinking time.
• Schedule reminders in your day to be mindful and realize what’s going on in your head and the world around you.

Support the TKS community:

• Schedule braindates, meet people from around the world.
• Look at content people are creating on tks.life and give feedback. Hopefully you learn things from their content.
• Be active in Slack and engage in discussions.
• Be helpful, kind, and be a role model.