IDEA TO AN IPO

‍ ‍“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”

ERIC RIES, Entrepreneur and Author of Lean Startup

To help you and the rest of your team at your early-stage technology company learn faster than anyone else while moving from an “idea to an IPO” we've put together a list of three essential playbooks for making it a successful journey.

First, an essential read is "Traversing the Traction Gap” by Bruce Cleveland, which goes into detail regarding each of the steps from an “initial idea to minimum viable traction (MVT)”, including fundraising and the construction of the four architectural pillars - product, revenue, team and systems.

Second, within the initital "go-to-product” phase of "Traversing the Traction Gap” is the step for reaching Minimum Viable Category (MVC).

Reaching this value inflection point is a critical part of the market engineering process.

You must develop and validate the category your early-stage technology company is attempting to create or redefine - and provide evidence that it is capable of supporting an early-stage technology company in creating significant value.

Here is where the book "Play Bigger - How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets” by Christopher Lochhead and Kevin Maney can provide you with a well-developed process on how to create or redefine a category.

Third, the best-selling book for successfully designing and executing a go-to-market strategy for "crossing the chasm” to scale up after "Traversing the Traction Gap” and achieving MVT is "Crossing the Chasm - Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers” by Geoffrey Moore.

Geoffrey has successfully validated this approach at the Chasm Group - which he founded in 1991- that has supported the successful scale up up of 1500 early-stage technology companies for a success rate of 70% versus the industry average of 17%.