I was speaking to a founder recently — a bootstrapped founder.
He has a job. And he is using his current pay to build his startup. He pays his super lean team from his salary. And they have been working on this “big” idea in secret.
Now the product is ready for some traction. And he decided to begin making calls to the contacts he knows to get some more funding to push the idea.
And that’s where he hit a wall.
He believes he has to raise money for the GTM strategy. (In case you are not aware, GTM means Go-To Market).
And so, he has been making calls and asking for investment. He is a good friend and like a brother to me, so he made that call to me too.
We spoke for a while. But then, I had to make a trip, and we saw each other in person. And then, I could be more blunt.
The Mistake
I told him he had already made his first rookie mistake. In today’s world, you DON’T build a product in secret.
Even OpenAI wasn’t built in secret.
The idea that you are working on something revolutionary that must not be copied is quite…