The biggest challenge in entrepreneurship 🏔️ is that founders of startups with no customers need a way to know if they’re about to “make something people want”. This motto from Y Combinator is a goal not a strategy. The question remains: How can founders know if their startup idea is something people want? More founders struggle with this challenge than any other and they often waste a year before recognizing that the startup was not making something people want.

Many founders try to overcome this challenge by mimicking the most successful entrepreneurs, which fails. The best entrepreneurs have an innate sense for a good startup idea, but they don’t know how it works. For instance, Paul Graham says that he has an internal compass for good startup ideas but he can’t explain it.

For the rest of us, instinct isn’t enough. Founders who use a gut-feel approach usually waste a year or more before realizing that their startup is not something people want. This painful outcome has happened to me repeatedly which is why I’m laser focused on solving the biggest challenge in entrepreneurship. I believe that measurement is the key to a meaningful solution. Specifically, I’ve created Nascent as a strategy for founders to quantify the price that their first customers might be willing to pay. This adds up to an ERNY™ value, the Estimated Revenue Next Year for a startup with no customers. In other words, Nascent replaces intuition with a metric in dollars ($) for how much people want what the startup is about to make. I want to tell you a bit about me so that you’ll have reason to trust Nascent.

Why am I the right guy to solve this challenge? Three reasons:

1. Measurement systems. I worked for years creating measurement systems for consumer products that had never been measured before. Specifically, I worked as a regulator at the US Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada, creating energy efficiency standards and test procedures for power supplies, televisions and Christmas lights. My experience quantifying these products translates directly into my ability to measure startups with no customers.

2. Crossing borders. I’m drawn to the boundaries of things and combining seemingly different concepts. Conventional entrepreneurship strategies have not solved this challenge so we need to cross borders and bring in new ideas. This is why Nascent’s quantification frameworks include concepts from oil prospecting, nursing and behavioral economics.

3. Table stakes. I have decades of experience with the two pillars of Nascent: entrepreneurship and education. I’ve been a teacher my whole life — from a teaching assistant in college to mentoring 100 founders through the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. My superpower is explaining things and I’ve focused specifically on startups with no customers.

The spark for Nascent

When I did my MBA at Berkeley, the best class I took was Lean Launchpad with Steve Blank and Jerry Engel where I worked on my startup, Yaygo. The professors said that my idea for Yaygo sucked, but couldn’t explain why. They were correct, but I ignored them and wasted years because I couldn’t understand their reasoning. In the class, my team and I did everything right -- we ran 100 discovery interviews and iterated a business model canvas. But I never had a robust way to analyze the data, to see why my idea sucked, to know whether Yaygo was something people wanted.

Nascent is the strategy that I wish that I would have had. Quantifying those interviews in dollars would have immediately clarified why Yaygo wasn’t worth building. I wouldn’t have needed 100 interviews and I wouldn’t have wasted years.

Now I’m trying to share Nascent with founders. To begin using Nascent, here’s your first step: record a conversation with one person who might benefit from your startup. That’s it. In Nascent strategy only recordings count -- no memory, no notes. Let me know what you record at Podcast@NascentIdea.com.

If you’re a founder of a funded startup that’s pivoting, intuition isn’t enough to decide which new idea to pursue. Let’s get on a call and talk about how to kill bad ideas fast so that you can protect your remaining runway.

As of 2026, I’m publishing Nascent methodology, a few ideas at a time, in regular podcast episodes. This is the companion newsletter that summarizes the podcast. For a deeper dive, check out the podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube.

In my last post, I argued not to chase customers because founders often waste years before realizing that their startup won’t get customers. You need an earlier signal so instead you should search for People in Pain. Insight: anyone who’s ever been a customer first began as a Person in Pain™.

Nascent is a strategy with the perspective that knowledge is what defines a business. Nascent categorizes businesses based on how they acquire their knowledge:

• Conventional businesses (e.g., pizza shop, car mechanic) - founders learn most of the knowledge because it already exists

• Breakthrough startups - founders create the knowledge because it doesn’t yet exist.

  • Technology breakthrough - a new solution to a valuable, obvious problem (e.g., Ozempic, teleportation)

  • Customer breakthrough - a new solution to a valuable, hidden problem (e.g., Airbnb, Uber)

Let’s talk through a few examples.

🍕 A pizza shop is a conventional business. To run a pizzeria, most of the knowledge exists already, such as making pizza and serving customers. Founders can learn this knowledge from books and by working at other pizzerias.

💊 Ozempic is a technology-breakthrough startup. The problem of weight loss was obviously valuable. Founders just needed to create the knowledge for the solution: a miracle drug that delivered weight loss and then they knew they’d have customers.

🏡 Airbnb is a customer-breakthrough startup. The problem of strangers staying at each other’s homes was not obviously valuable. It was hidden. Airbnb’s founders had to create the knowledge about both the problem and the solution. It was not obvious that solving the problem would result in paying customers.

What about you? Is your startup similar to a conventional business, like a pizza shop? A technology-breakthrough, like Ozempic? Or a customer-breakthrough startup, like Airbnb?

I expect that you’re pursuing a customer-breakthrough startup. You’re trying to create a new solution to a valuable, hidden problem — the opportunity is compelling to you, but most other founders don’t see it.

If you jump into building your product and your business, you’re likely to waste months or years. Instead be strategic. Your best first step is to use Nascent to find People in Pain with the hidden problem and quantify their Pain in dollars. Since your startup is a knowledge-creation project, begin by measuring the value of that knowledge using first-hand data from the People in Pain who could become your customers. To do this, you must overcome the challenge that People in Pain are invisible.

To clarify the distinction between hidden People in Pain and visible customers, Nascent has a framework called the People-to-Prospect Funnel™ to let you map the journey for your potential customers:

1. Blockers: There are 8 billion people and your startup is irrelevant to most of them

2. Distractions: People interested in your startup who will never become customers

3. People in Pain: Invisible people with the potential to become customers

4. Prospects: Visible people who want what your startup provides

5. Customers: Visible people who’ve paid money to your startup

To see the People-to-Prospect Funnel in action, picture a food cart pod filled with chefs eager to serve customers.

At the more popular food carts, you can see a line of prospects waiting, cash-in-hand, ready to pay the chef. You can see a customer paying money to the chef. Here’s what you cannot see: the invisible People in Pain nearby. There are hungry people walking by who don’t realize that the chef is right there and wants to serve them.

As a founder of a startup with no customers, of course, you ultimately want customers. But if your first step is chasing customers then you’ll likely waste years. Instead, get an earlier signal. Before anyone ever becomes your customer, they’re first going to be a prospect, and before that a Person in Pain. In other words, for your startup to have a chance of ever getting a customer, first you must find People in Pain with an expensive, excruciating problem.

Over the coming posts, we’ll get into how to search for those People in Pain and how to quantify their Pain in dollars so you can quickly get a signal whether your startup might ever get a customer.

As of 2026, I’m publishing Nascent methodology, a few ideas at a time, in regular podcast episodes. This is the companion newsletter that summarizes the podcast. For a deeper dive, check out the podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube.

“How can founders get customers for a startup?” is a question with many wrong answers. The answers are all wrong because the question is wrong. The most likely outcome from trying to get customers is that you waste months or years seeking customers in vain.

Most startup ideas don’t get customers and pursuing a startup idea is a huge time investment. So the right question is “What are the chances of my startup ever getting customers?” -- a question you can answer in days.

When you’ve got a startup with no customers, your first step should not be to try to get customers. It’s too tedious and takes too long. Statistically, the most likely outcome is that you invest a year or more trying to get customers, with nothing to show for it. I can attest to this personally. Instead, you should look for an earlier signal.

A metaphor: Think about creating a successful startup like another complex goal: playing baseball for the Yankees. These goals have high failure rates and require huge investments of time. So your best first step is to get a small reason to believe that success might be possible. To play for the Yankees, you should first answer the question: Can you get a bat to hit a ball? ⚾️ If you can, there’s a chance you could become a Yankee. If not, then you probably want to pursue a different sport. Of course, there’s lots more work to do beyond hitting the ball, but at least you have a reason to believe the time investment might be worthwhile.

As a first step for your startup, seeking an initial signal of a paying customer is too difficult and time consuming. I believe that anyone who’s ever been a customer of anything ever, always starts as a Person in Pain. So instead of trying to get customers, the best early signal is searching for People in Pain. If you can find people with expensive, excruciating Pain, then there’s a possibility your startup could get customers. If you can’t, the chances are doubtful and you probably want to pursue a different idea.

Searching for People in Pain is easier than trying to get paying customers, but it’s still really hard. Customers are easy to identify because their action (payment!) is visible. By contrast, People in Pain are invisible -- it’s not obvious who exactly is a Person in Pain. Another challenge is that a startup is fundamentally a knowledge-creation project -- and that knowledge is also invisible. As a founder of a startup with no customers, you’ve got two invisible challenges: you’re searching for an invisible component in a knowledge-creation project. This is the big idea we’ll unpack next.

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As of 2026, I’m publishing Nascent methodology, a few ideas at a time, in regular podcast episodes. This is the companion newsletter that summarizes the podcast. For a deeper dive, check out the podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube.

Startups with customers face different challenges than startups with no customers — but conventional startup strategies don’t make this distinction. There’s no Playbook A for startups with customers and Playbook B for startups with no customers. Even The Lean Startup, one of the canonical texts of conventional entrepreneurship, begins with the premise that the author’s startup had customers: “We really did have customers in those early days.” (Eric Ries on Page 4)

Conventional entrepreneurship strategy has a glaring gap. Today, there’s no single resource dedicated to quickly determining (in days!) whether a startup idea is an opportunity worth pursuing. There’s no straightforward way to distinguish between ideas where success is possible versus ideas where success is doubtful. So founders often waste a year or more pursuing a startup idea before giving up.

This is the most important problem in entrepreneurship because it’s the most common problem: more founders face this challenge than any other. This is also the most limiting: until a founder can identify a meaningful opportunity, all of their other work (building prototypes, recruiting team members, etc.) is likely wasted effort.

If evaluating startup ideas truly is the biggest problem in entrepreneurship, then why does this challenge even exist? Why hasn’t this been solved by now? After all, so many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs have written extensively about their approaches to startups, such as Marc Andreessen’s blog and Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” and Peter Thiel’s “Zero-to-One”. Why can’t founders just use these playbooks?

I believe that, by definition, the most successful founders inherently have spent very little time working on bad ideas. In other words, if successful founders had been distracted for years working on bad ideas then they wouldn’t have had the time to be successful. They’re not well-versed in the challenge of wasting time on bad ideas.

Additionally, I believe that the most successful founders have an innate ability to evaluate a startup idea that most of us lack. When I’ve talked with some of these special founders they told me their evaluation method is: “I know it when I see it.” And this actually works for them! Unfortunately, this gut-feel approach doesn’t work for the rest of us, the majority of founders. To be clear, our limitation isn’t our lack of innate ability -- it’s our lack of toolkit. It’s like the difference between the lucky few who have 20/20 vision and the rest of us who wear glasses. It’s not that we can never see; we just need the right tool — and without it we stumble around and get hurt. Most of us lack “20/20 vision” for startups so applying “I know it when I see it” results in frustration and 1+ years of wasted effort.

I found a great parallel in YouTube cooking videos. For a while, I followed celebrity chefs who said to ‘get the pan hot’ and ‘season to taste’ -- instructions that work for them because they have an innate ability. For me, their recipes failed because I’m normal -- I don’t have innate cooking ability. Another instructor, Helen Rennie, articulates the challenge perfectly:

“They are trying to teach you to make pasta … by touch and feel. Think of these chefs as native speakers of pasta. Intuitive pasta making is not for people learning from books and screens. You need a lot of details and accurate measurements if you want to make quick progress.”

The gut-feel and innate ability of the most successful chefs has a direct parallel with the most successful entrepreneurs. When Paul Graham tried to articulate his innate ability to identify good startup ideas, he said:

“I seem to have some sort of internal compass that helps me out.”

Most founders lack that internal compass, that innate ability, that gut feel. Instead, we need details and measurements. And this is my goal with Nascent methodology™ -- a playbook for founders of startups with no customers to measure their idea in dollars and drive decisiveness in days. Essentially, Nascent allows you to take an idea for a startup and boil it down to a few core metrics like the ERNY value™ (Estimated Revenue Next Year) to get a sense of whether success is doubtful or possible. All without writing a single line of code, without building any product. I’ll be discussing the mind-shift and mechanics of Nascent over the coming weeks.

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As of 2026, I’m publishing a few ideas at a time from Nascent methodology in regular podcast episodes. This is the companion newsletter that summarizes the podcast. For a deeper dive, check out the podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube.

A good idea is the foundation of a successful startup. But today there’s no way to measure a startup idea, to determine if it’s an opportunity worth pursuing. Consequently, most startups fail and the most common reason they fail is lack of customers. What’s worse is that founders often waste a year before realizing they’re pursuing a bad idea.

This is true for the 1 million startups launched each year as well as the 7,000 startups that get seed funding. Founders can’t control whether their startups succeeds or fails, but founders can control how much time they invest pursuing an idea. I’m obsessed with the challenge of founders wasting time on bad ideas, because I’ve done it so many times myself. For instance, with my last startup Creyon, my co-founder and I worked for two years before we pulled the plug.

Recognizing a bad idea should not take years.

The closest thing I’ve found to a “tool” for evaluating startup ideas comes from a lecture that Paul Graham (co-founder of Y Combinator) gave at Stanford:

“History is full of examples of young people who are working on problems that no one else at the time thought were important... On the other hand, history is even fuller of examples of parents who thought their kids were wasting their time and who were right. So, how do you know if you’re working on real stuff? ... Well I know how I know: real problems are interesting... My life is full of case after case where I worked on things just because I was interested and they turned out to be useful later in some worldly way... So I seem to have some sort of internal compass that helps me out.”

Founders desperately need a version of Paul Graham’s “internal compass”, a faster way to identify whether they’ve identified a problem worth solving. In other words, founders need to distinguish between startup ideas where getting customers is possible versus doubtful. In that lecture, PG struggled to clarify his approach so others could use it:

“But how do you tell what is a real problem? I don’t know. That’s like important enough to write a whole essay about and I don’t know the answer. I probably should write something about that, but I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Another framework for distinguishing startup ideas that are opportunities from distractions comes from The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, though he seems to have moved on to other challenges.

As far as I know, I’m the only person actively trying to solve this problem by developing novel tools to reduce the time wasted on bad ideas from years down to days. To that end, I’ve created a Nascent methodology as a version of Paul Graham’s internal compass. In the simplest sense, Nascent methodology takes a batch of discovery interviews as input and produces what I call the ERNY value — Estimated Revenue Next Year in dollars — as output. ERNY (pronounced “Ernie”) is based on first-hand data gathered by founders, as opposed to TAM/SAM/SOM, which are top-down market estimates. If a startup’s ERNY value says revenue next year could be $1,000,000, that might be an opportunity worth pursuing. If it’s $0.09, it’s probably a distraction. This simplified metric drives decisiveness so founders can evaluate an idea in days and avoid wasting years.

Although the ERNY metric is simple, the shift in mindset to understand it requires a rethinking of conventional entrepreneurship and a new toolkit for founders focused on startups with no customers. This is why I’m relaunching Nascent with a goal of publishing 100 podcast episodes in 50 weeks. Each episode will present a few big ideas or tools in Nascent methodology. I expect the methodology to improve as more founders apply it and give me feedback.

If you’ve ever wasted time on a bad idea, I want to hear your story. Add a comment below or email me at newsletter@nascentidea.com.

Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube so you don’t miss the next episode.

After publishing 18 podcast episodes in 2024 and 2025, I went quiet. I spent most of 2025 running workshops with founders and refining my ideas. Starting on Monday March 30th 2026, I’ll be publishing much more regularly.

I’m relaunching Nascent 🪺

I’m Mike Vladimer, the founder of Nascent -- the methodology for startups with NO CUSTOMERS.

Today, founders often waste a year or more pursuing a startup idea before giving up, when they could have come to that same decision more quickly. I believe founders are using flawed tools: conventional startup strategies are for startups with customers. Nascent is tailored for startups with no customers, which enables founders to decide within days (not years!) whether their idea is an opportunity worth pursuing. I’m publishing because I’ve made progress worth sharing and I expect to iterate as more founders use Nascent.

What’s changing

• The podcast is back with a goal of 100 episodes over the next 50 weeks, roughly 2 per week. In addition to the podcast, I’ll publish a companion newsletter and video shorts

• Each podcast episode and companion newsletter will cover a few ideas in the methodology, real case studies and what I’m learning as I go.

• The podcast is on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts. The newsletter is staying on Substack.

• Funded founders struggling with a pivot can embed me in their team, details on the new website: https://nascentidea.com/

• I’m simplifying the previous nomenclature (e.g., Nascent Startups → Nascent methodology; nascent-stage startup → Nascent uncertainty)

What to expect

I’ll soon publish Episode 019 where I lay out the core problem that Nascent focuses on: founders waste years on bad ideas. I believe that founders with no customers can still generate an Estimated Revenue Next Year, in dollars $, a metric I’m calling the “ERNY value” (pronounced “Ernie value”). ERNY is based on first-hand data that founders gather through discovery interviews. Measuring a startup idea using ERNY will enable founders to shrink the time wasted on bad ideas from years down to days. After Episode 019 sets up this challenge, the following episodes will dig into the mindset shift that founders need to understand the ERNY value and the mechanics to implement ERNY.

You can always reach me at podcast@nascentidea.com. Ok founders, let’s find some opportunities worth pursuing.

You’ve got this!
Mike

Shout out to Paul Orlando at USC for all the support 🙌
https://www.marshall.usc.edu/personnel/paul-orlando

Links we referenced in the show:

• https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter/

• https://subsummit.com/

• https://www.strava.com/

• https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/

• https://pmfsurvey.com/

• https://boldcommerce.com/

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-pienta-15a8298/

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcchambers/

There was initial data showing this could work! Adara’s friend Susie used Adara’s TENS technique to increase milk production 5x in just a few days :

In this podcast, Adara walks us through her journey:

• Feeling inspired by other “delusional” founders in Silicon Valley / San Francisco Bay Area

• Deciding to create Believe in Breast Milk in summer 2019

• Struggling to determine her first steps

• Incorporating the startup into a business

• Taking out a personal loan of $5,000 to pay engineers to create a CAD drawing of a prototype of the smart TENS unit

• Avoiding paying another $5,000 to build the prototype.

  • Adara used the Nascent Startups methodology to focus on “creating initial value”. Instead of the expensive and tedious IoT TENS, Adara quickly and cheaply created similar value for her first users by paying less than $100 for a conventional TENS and using a free Google Form.

• Recruiting 6 people to use the TENS and measure milk production

• Shutting down the startup informally when it “fizzled out” in summer 2020

Lenny’s newsletter/podcast is for people interested in creating tech products — he currently has 600,000 subscribers. For context, this newsletter/podcast has 200 subscribers. Lenny’s audience is mainly people working at established tech companies; however, I expect that many folks in his audience are also interested in creating a startup but struggling to navigate their first step. There couldn’t be a better opportunity to support those current and aspiring founders.

Below are prompts from Lenny’s Fellowship application in italics followed by my responses. I’m publishing my submission to Lenny as part of my effort to build Nascent Startups in public 🛠️.

Mike’s application to Lenny’s Fellowship

Where have you worked, what have you done, what's your story

I believe there are at least two stages of startups: nascent-stage and early-stage. A nascent startup consists of just the kernel of a business idea, but no customers, no product and no funding whereas an early-stage startup has initial customers, product and funding.  There’s tons of “startup methodologies”, but they mostly apply to startups with customers. Founders of nascent-stage startups (i.e., no customers) face dramatically different challenges and lack a methodology for their unique situation. To that end, I’m obsessed with finding answers to the question: When you’re a founder with just an idea for a startup, what’s your best first step? 

My professional goal in life is supporting founders of nascent-stage startups. Over the last 20 years, I’ve created 10 startups, mentored 100 founding teams and worked in 3 corporate innovation labs with the (nominal) goal of creating new businesses. The corporate roles have been at world-class companies in consumer electronics, healthcare and telecommunications, all with $10B+/year in revenue. 

I’ve been mentoring founders since 2014 and they’ve consistently said that my approach is unique and compelling. In 2018, I started writing a book called “Nascent Startups: How to spend your first 100 days and $100 when you have an idea for a tech business.” In January 2024, I pivoted the book into a project that I’m building in public. To that end, I launched a free mentorship program and newsletter/podcast partly inspired by you, Lenny! I’ve often said that I want Nascent Startups to become a hybrid of Lenny Rachitsky’s knowledge sharing and the next evolution of ’s entrepreneurship strategy. I’m incredibly excited that your Fellowship could help accelerate achieving my goal. 

Unique lessons, insights, or stories you’d be able to share with Lenny’s readers

Help Lenny understand why you make you a great fit for the fellowship

1. The big reset: April 2015 was an inflection point in the world of entrepreneurship. Before then, a founder’s highest priority was securing funding. Now what’s most important is searching for People in Pain and quantifying the pain. Understanding this shift unlocks a world of opportunity for founders of nascent-stage startups. 

2. Case study: How a founder invested just 10 days and $0 to decide whether her good idea for a startup was the right opportunity for her right now. What’s most important is the speed and affordability to make the decision, not the decision itself. For context, I’ve mentored many founders who invested 6 months and $1,000 before deciding whether to pursue similar ideas.

3. XYZs of a “crappy” startup idea: I present two extremes: the best idea and worst idea for a startup, ever. You can use this yardstick to gauge the potential of your startup idea.

Why do you want to do this?

You can link to a video here if you’d prefer.

Any writing samples you can link to?

Here’s my first newsletter: 

Anything else you’d like to share?

Here are brief bios for my partners on the Nascent Startups project who are supporting the free mentorship program: 

Adam mentored 1,000 founders through TechStars, Google for Startups and Lean Startup Co.

Kathleen is a UX researcher who has worked at Nike and Imperfect Foods.

P.S.

It feels very “meta” writing a newsletter about applying to a Fellowship for newsletter creators 😂. I’ve gotta say that Lenny’s Fellowship really feels like a perfect fit for me. Now we just need to see what Lenny thinks 😜.

Here are a few of Lenny’s podcast 🎧 episodes that I thought could benefit founders of nascent-stage startups:

• Teresa Torres on how to interview customers, automating continuous discovery

• The ultimate guide to Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) | Bob Moesta

• The essence of product management | Christian Idiodi

• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy | Richard Rumelt