approach-v2

HOW we

WORK

We are here for the whole journey. We work with you to take your early MVP / offline business and adopt a goal-oriented approach to ensure that your tech business reaches product market fit and begins to scale in a sustainable way.

Intros

Meet our key members of our Product, Investment and Founder Success team so we can start due diligence, understand your business and what your next goals are.

Workshop

Meet in person at our London office for a 4hr workshop to explore your business goals. Using lots of questions and post-it notes we explore your pipeline, user journeys, user pain points and identify the riskiest assumptions that would stop us achieving these goals.

Discovery

We then use the riskiest assumptions to define the activities that are carried out during our 2 week Discovery. You will work alongside our team so you can experience how we work.The outcome is a Product Strategy outlining what value we could add with the available budget.

Build

We work alongside you to execute on the product strategy. Our data driven approach ensures that we are continually testing, iterating and validating our solutions with your users to ensure a stable, revenue generating tech product with evidence of product market fit.

Grow

Post product market fit you are ready to scale your offering. We help you scale your business sustainably, at the correct pace for your business, and identify other key areas for growth.

Move In-House

Our teams are designed to get you off to the best possible start. Eventually you need in-house support and we’ll be here to help you identify when is the right time and who are the right people to hire.

Don’t BACK

YOURSELF

into a CORNER

Bringing in an unknown CTO as Co-Founder because you need help to build your product will be a mistake. As an early-stage Founder, you need to give yourself the freedom to explore all the options without committing yourself to a direction you can’t change. It seems counter-intuitive but we advise Founders to slow down, be cautious with Co-Founders, and protect your capital and equity dearly. Here’s why we think we can help you to go further, faster, for less:

Limit dilution

You don’t need a co-founding CTO. Only grow in-house when it makes sense. Don’t give away equity at the wrong time for the wrong things. We help maximise return-on-exit.

Focus on goals, not scope

With every step forward you take, there should always be options to pivot or change direction going forward. Don’t lock in a pathway that may doom you to failure from the start.

Less code, more value

You don’t need to write code to build intellectual property. The value is in your product and customers, not code. Invest
in product design and testing; wait before coding.

If you meet a development agency that wants a fixed scope from you for a fixed price, be very wary. Without validated learning – about your target market, customer needs, and how you differentiate yourself – you will be building on foundations of sand. Our approach means that we are constantly testing, learning and adapting as we bring your product to life. We only build products we believe will be successful.

Only BUILD

on strong

FOUNDATIONS

Launch products that will succeed

We do customer discovery, problem/solution validation and rapid prototyping/testing so that we know the initial release or MVP of your product will find a market.

Onboard users and get to revenue

Everything else, from hiring to fundraising, is easier once you’re winning customers and revenue is flowing. Our approach aims to get you there as fast as possible.

Iterate and constantly improve

With us, you’ll constantly be speaking to your users, iterating on designs, testing hypotheses, and seeking validated learning. That way, nothing is wasted as you grow.

We’ll help you to ensure that when we start building, we do so from a validated, strong foundation. To find out more about our approach, tell us a bit about yourself, your project and what you’re looking for help with and we’ll reach out to book a call.

FAQ

The initial Build process is 6 months which is all about getting to product market fit. However, we think of ourselves as a long-term partner to the Founders we work with. We have some Founders who have been working with us for 3+ years, who we have helped scale their offering and hire an in-house team. We support for as long as Founders need.

Before the initial 6-month period we also do:

Introductions - founders meet key members of our Product, Investment and Founder Success teams to get to know each other.
Workshop - prior to investment, we meet Founders in person for a 4hr workshop to explore business goals, user journeys, user pain points and assumptions.
Discovery - Founders work alongside our team so they can experience how we work and a Product Strategy is built.

From this 6-month period, we get you and your tech business to the point where your product is generating sustainable revenue, has found product market fit, and we have helped increase the valuation of your business. Beyond that Build period, we help you continuously build, iterate and improve your product to always suit the users’ need.

A standard team is £30k for 4-weeks; this consists of product, design, development and quality. This can change depending on the nature of your business, and the team adjusts depending on your business goals.

For those we have invested in with F+L Capital, £150k is invested into the business to taking you from inital MVP, or offline revenue, to finding product market fit. This £150k must go into the product, tech, development, user research and everything we do to help you build and get to revenue with a product that customers love.