Startup Strategy, Step by Step for 2027

Takes founders from a first idea to a company that can grow beyond its founding team: validate the problem, find product-market fit, manage cash and raise funding.

Who it's for

Founders, would-be founders and the people who work closely with them: early employees, advisers, mentors and students of entrepreneurship. You need no business degree, only a problem you care about and the willingness to test your assumptions with real customers.

What you'll learn

• Run problem interviews with Rob Fitzpatrick's Mom Test and choose a beachhead market, drawing on Geoffrey Moore and Bill Aulet
• Sell to early adopters with Steve Blank's customer development and win paid pilots that prove demand
• Measure product-market fit with market pull, the Sean Ellis survey and cohort retention curves
• Choose a North Star metric with Dave McClure's AARRR model and find repeatable growth channels with Weinberg and Mares's Bullseye framework
• Calculate burn and runway, apply Paul Graham's "default alive or default dead" test and plan milestones for the next round
• Agree founder roles and equity with vesting and a cliff, and compare UK funding routes from bootstrapping and grants to angels and venture capital
• Build a ten-part investor deck and a basic data room, and use Larry Greiner's growth model to reshape your role as the team grows

What's inside

• 86 pages, 12 chapters
• Every chapter follows the same pattern: key concepts, a step-by-step method, an illustrative example from a fictional UK organisation, a ready-to-use tool, common mistakes, a key-steps recap and a "Try it" exercise to apply the chapter to your own work
• Tools to copy and use, including a Problem Interview Script and Scorecard, PMF Scorecard, Runway Model and Equity Split Worksheet
• A 90-day founder roadmap and a glossary; funding, tax and company law points are general guidance, with pointers to check current UK rules
• PDF in A4 format — read on screen or print
• Instant download after purchase

Contents

1. Finding a Problem Worth Solving
2. Choosing a Beachhead Market
3. Selling to Early Adopters Before You Scale
4. Measuring Product-Market Fit
5. Choosing a North Star and Startup Metrics
6. Finding Repeatable Growth Channels
7. Managing Burn and Runway
8. Planning Milestones for the Next Round
9. Agreeing Roles and Equity Among Founders
10. Choosing the Right Funding Route
11. Pitching to Investors
12. Scaling Beyond the Founding Team

Part of The Business Library

This title is one of the 55 ebooks in The Business Library, available together for £109 (worth £1,437 if bought separately: the total of the individual prices of the included titles in our store). It is also included in The Ultimate Business Bundle, which adds 8 checklists and toolkits and 10 workbooks — all 73 products for £147.