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Jeroen Coelen is a PhD researcher and mentor focused on making startup knowledge practical and accessible.

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Startups Entrepreneurship PhD research
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The article argues against the notion that product-market fit (PMF) is dead due to the rise of AI, presenting five common misconceptions about PMF in the context of AI. It emphasizes that PMF is not a static concept but rather a d...
The article discusses three common reflexes that founders exhibit when facing problems: the engineering reflex, the design reflex, and the MBA reflex. Each reflex has its strengths and weaknesses, influencing how problems are appr...
The author critiques common entrepreneurship books, labeling many as 'airport pulp' that fail to provide substantial insights. They emphasize the importance of understanding the evolution of technology, the philosophy behind it, a...
The article discusses the concept of 'uniqueness bias,' which leads entrepreneurs and project managers to believe their projects are so unique that they cannot learn from past experiences. This bias often results in significant co...
The post reflects on the startup Lovable, highlighting its unprecedented growth and comparing it to competitors like Wordpress and Webflow. It discusses the factors contributing to Lovable's success, such as its affordability, eas...
The author introduces an AI tool called PM-FIT GPT designed to help startups assess their product-market fit through a scoring system based on nine essential questions. The tool provides direct feedback to guide users in identifyi...
Julia Vidal, co-founder of Badge, identified a problem for remote workers struggling to find suitable café workspaces due to no-laptop policies. She created a prototype map of laptop-friendly cafés, which gained traction. After in...
The author reflects on the irony of not practicing what he preaches as a startup mentor, specifically regarding the importance of conducting customer interviews. He shares a personal anecdote about meeting a Dutch founder who runs...
The author shares 9 tips for getting customers, including the importance of CEO outreach, not outsourcing sales too early, experimenting with marketing channels, recognizing hair-on-fire problems, focusing on why some say yes, tar...
The text discusses tarpit ideas and problems that attract many founders but never result in a profitable startup. It provides examples of such problems and advises on how to identify and solve them.
The text discusses the importance of finding a beachhead market for startups to achieve product-market fit. It provides a visual example of how to identify and target the right customer segments to establish a repeatable sales pro...
The text discusses the concept of disruptive startups and provides a 3-question framework to assess whether a startup idea is truly disruptive. It emphasizes the importance of unlocking new demand, entering the market at the low e...
The text is a manifesto for product-market fit, outlining 10 commandments for startups to achieve success by creating a superior product, understanding customer needs, and delivering value.
The text discusses the importance of understanding indirect competition for better customer discovery. It explains how to use indirect competition to our advantage and lists five indirect competitors that are red flags for startup...
The text discusses the strategy of creating inferior products to unlock new markets, using examples of successful companies. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the tradeoffs and compromises in disruptive strategies.
The text discusses the limitations of competitive matrices in proving product market-fit, using the author's personal experience and examples from other companies. It emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs and m...
The text discusses the challenges of beachhead segmentation for startups, using Tesla as an example. It emphasizes the difficulty of executing a 3-wave strategy and the importance of focusing on a niche market.
The text discusses the concept of tarpit problems, which are problems without a solution that attract many founders but are unable to create a viable business. It provides examples of tarpit problems and explains why they are diff...
The text discusses four different frameworks for understanding product-market fit, highlighting the important elements and providing details on what to look out for to see if you are improving your product-market fit. The author a...
The text discusses the importance of financial modeling for startups, providing examples and tools to help understand the financial risks and viability of a business. It emphasizes the need for proper cashflow management and forec...
The text provides 12 meditations on deep tech startups, focusing on the challenges faced by deep tech startups, the differences between hardware and software startups, and the importance of understanding customer needs. It also di...
The text explains how to articulate product-market fit using a structured, logical story called Value Logic. It provides 9 key ingredients to create a value logic for a startup, emphasizing the importance of problem framing and so...
The text discusses the misconception that startup ideas are valuable and likely to be stolen. It argues that most startup ideas are not worth stealing and that there is a huge market for selling great startups, but not for selling...
The text discusses the challenges of landing the first customer for a startup, including lack of trust, new market, dealing with corporates or B2G, effort and coordination required to implement the solution, and the longer decisio...