Purpose: The purpose of Disrupt is to give you the knowledge and skills you’ll need to start a company. I’ve structured this program to move extremely quickly so every week you should be growing exponentially. Because we’re optimizing for speed, the products/problems you choose need to be easily executable - no, we aren’t trying to solve the world’s biggest problems in Disrupt. This program mimics accelerators like YC and Alchemist, but the biggest difference is you have specific objectives to hit, which is what accelerators should be doing! So I think you actually have an advantage.
I’ve had this reviewed by a bunch of successful founders/friends and they’ve helped me shape this program. This is what we wish we had before starting a company.
Here’s an overview of what you will be learning in Disrupt:
Note: given our limited time, we will not cover each area in-depth over the next 10 months, but you should have some level of exposure.
The sessions will be a combination of:
- Power-up exercises
- Feedback circles
- Skill building
- Knowledge building
- Expert guest speakers
- Group Discussions
I will also provide a ton of resources on best practices in the areas above. I’m sure you’ll also find great resources to share with each other, and I’ll help you filter them.
My goal is to provide you with guidance, support, and best practices so you can accelerate your journey to solving big problems. I expect you to put in the work, iterate, and figure it out. Above all, I expect that you really want to learn how to build products and solve problems. If this isn’t something you really want, don’t do disrupt.
DISRUPT: OBJECTIVES AND MILESTONES
In Disrupt, you will find yourself doing 1 of 4 paths based on your product:
- B2C Free
- B2C Paid
- B2B $
- B2B $$
Note: You can change paths at anytime, just like in the real world.
Each path has its own milestones and objectives. This will help you prioritize what’s important and where you should focus your time to build a strong foundation and achieve long-term success. During Disrupt, your success will be measured on these milestones and objectives. However, you will also be measured on rate of failure.
So, you will succeed in Disrupt if you:
- Accomplish a lot of milestones and objectives. OR...
- Experience failures and make a lot of iterations and pivots.
You will not succeed in Disrupt if you:
- Stay stagnant - low progress while not failing.
- Don’t have valuable insights and experiences to share weekly.
PATHS
Below are the objectives and milestones for each path. These may vary depending on your product, but it’s generally what you can expect. I’ve only outlined the first stage of the objectives and milestones, since I’m not sure how many of you will make it to the next part. You know the ultimate goal - creating a unicorn company. But, baby steps.
B2C Free
Objectives: Stage 1
Milestones: Stage 1
Success Metrics:
- Engagement: Time spent per day using your product.
- Virality: How many times users are sharing your product.
- Usability: Number of downloads to number of active users ratio.
B2C Paid
Objectives: Stage 1
Milestones: Stage 1
Note: you will not have actually programmed anything until this point.
Success Metrics:
- Relevance: Number of ad/post/content impressions to clicks ratio.
- Conversion: Number of website views to number of sign-ups.
- Virality: How many times users are sharing your product.
B2B $
Objectives: Stage 1
Milestones: Stage 1
Note: you will not have actually programmed anything until this point.
Success Metrics:
- Economic Incentive: Total amount of money you’re generating or saving for your customer.
- Virality: Number of customers that recommend you to their colleagues.
- Personal Engagement: How quick are your customers responding to your emails? If it’s fast, it usually means this is important to them.
- Demand: Ratio of total customer meetings to total signed LOIs.
- Urgency: Ratio of number of meetings per customer to signed LOI.
B2B $$
Objectives: Stage 1
Milestones: Stage 1
Note: If well known companies like your product and are willing to pay for it, you could be on to something. Investors will take this as a good sign and will likely give you capital to build out your idea further.
Success Metrics:
- Economic Incentive: Total amount of money you’re generating or saving.
- Sales Cycle: Length of time required to get a customer to purchase your product.
- Legitimacy: Reputation of your CAB members.
- Desire: On a scale of 1-7, how badly does your CAB member want to purchase your product?
- Market Size: What is your Total Addressable Market (TAM)? How much revenue could you generate?
Founders you need to meet:
VC's you need to meet:
Choose any 3 firms.
- Sequoia
- Greylock
- Lightspeed VC
- Khosla Ventures
- Canaan Partners
- Shasta Ventures
- Storm Ventures
- Mayfield Ventures
- Google Ventures
- True Ventures
- Lux Capital
- GGV Capital
- Founders Fund
- Accel Partners
- US Venture Partners (USVP)
- Kleiner Perkins
- New Enterprise Associates
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Draper Fisher Jurvetson
- Battery Ventures
- Sierra Ventures
- Menlo Ventures
- First Round
- Redpoint Ventures
- Relay Ventures
- Trinity Ventures
- Index Ventures
- Benchmark
- Bessemer Venture Partners
- Institutional Venture Partners
- Floodgate
- Felicis Ventures
- General Catalyst
- Collaborative Fund
Don’t expect this to be easy.
This stuff is hard. It will take dedication, effort, and hustle to crush it. In my eyes, you’re getting value as long as you’re moving. If you become stagnant, you lose. Whether you feel like you're succeeding or failing doesn’t matter. You will go through down times. And you will go through periods of excitement. That’s part of the roller coaster you will ride during Disrupt.