How to Start a Business in 5 Steps: A Founder's 90-Day Playbook
Stop dreaming and start building. This is your tactical, 90-day playbook for validating your idea, setting up your company, and getting your first users and investors.
TL;DR: This guide provides a 5-step, 90-day framework for launching a startup. It covers validating your problem with 50+ customer interviews, building a "smoke test" landing page, correctly handling legal and financial setup, issuing founder equity, and preparing for your first angel investor conversations.
Key takeaways
- Validate the problem, not your solution, with 50+ customer interviews.
- Build a simple landing page 'smoke test' to collect emails before you build the full product.
- Incorporate as a Delaware C-Corp and get a 409A valuation before issuing any equity.
- Avoid common mistakes like forming an LLC, co-mingling funds, or promising equity informally.
- Your goal for the first 90 days is a validated problem, a waitlist, and a clean legal structure.
- Use a one-page business plan as a living document to force clarity and focus.
Your First 90 Days: A Tactical Playbook for Launching Lean
Every founder wants to build something that matters. But the path from idea to viable business is a minefield of early decisions that can kill your company before it takes a single step. This isn't another generic guide. This is your tactical manifesto for the first 90 days, built on one principle: ruthless efficiency.
Forget vague advice. You need concrete steps, dollar figures, and frameworks. This playbook organizes your launch into five clear phases, designed to get you from a raw idea to a fundable entity in one business quarter.
Step 1 (Days 1-30): From Idea to Validated Problem
Your idea is a hypothesis, and it's probably wrong. The single biggest mistake founders make is building a solution for a problem that doesn't exist, isn't urgent, or that no one will pay to solve. Your only job in the first 30 days is to validate the problem.
Action: Conduct 50+ Customer Discovery Interviews
This is non-negotiable. Don't talk to your friends and family; they will lie to protect your feelings. You need to talk to strangers who represent your ideal customer profile.
How to find them:
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Search for your target persona by title, company, or industry. A 1-month subscription is worth the investment.
- Niche Communities: Find the Reddit, Discord, or Facebook groups where your target users complain and ask for help.
- Cold Email: Use tools to find email addresses and send a simple, honest outreach message.
Sample Cold Outreach DM/Email:
Subject: Quick question about [their industry/role]
Hi [Name], I'm doing some research on how [role, e.g., 'e-commerce marketers'] handle [problem, e.g., 'shopping cart abandonment']. I'm not selling anything. I'm just trying to understand the challenges in your workflow. Would you be open to a 15-minute chat next week to share your experience?
Asking the Right Questions
Your goal is to get them talking, not to pitch your idea. Avoid leading questions. Focus on past behavior, not future promises.
Good Questions vs. Bad Questions:
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