Everything, before anything

My step-by-step plan to de-risk Celi, from pain point to product

Law 29 of the 48 Laws of Power is Plan all the way to the end.

Robert Greene writes, “By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances. You’ll gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.”

The second of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to begin with the end in mind. Define your mission, goals, and priorities clearly to guide your decisions.

If my goal is to build Celi into a sustainable standalone business in 2024, I can reverse engineer my way there and progressively meet each milestone:

• Before monetization, growth
• Before growth, product-market fit
• Before product-market fit, product
• Before product, MVP
• Before MVP, thesis
• Before thesis, their pain
• Before their pain, personal pain

Before their pain, personal pain

When Lenny Rachitsky explored the fundamental steps of kickstarting and scaling a consumer business, he learned that the #1 strategy for coming up with a great startup idea was a founder…