Build the Right It
Most founders don't have
a marketing problem.
They built the wrong thing. And nobody told them.
I've seen the pattern dozens of times. In startups, in my own companies, in the communities where founders ask for help. The diagnosis is almost always wrong. The solution is almost never more marketing.
The pattern is always the same.
of startups fail because nobody wanted what they built. Not because of bad marketing.
(CB Insights)
of founders in 600+ conversations built without truly understanding the problem first.
(Indie Hackers)
of startups scale too early. Before product-market fit exists.
(Startup Genome)
The fix is not more distribution. It's what happens before you build.
Talk to customers. But ask the wrong question and you'll learn nothing useful.
What real customer discovery looks like.
Most founders ask: 'Would you use this?' That question is useless. People are polite. They want to help you. They will say yes when they mean never.
Real customer discovery asks about behavior, not opinion. What have they already spent money on to solve this problem? How often does it hurt? What have they tried before? Those answers can't be faked.
A proven framework gives you a structure for conversations that produce real signal. Real evidence, not enthusiasm.
What you'll learn in the slide deck
- The three questions you should never ask
- How to spot a false positive in real time
- What a commitment signal looks like vs. polite interest
- A 6-step structure for a discovery conversation
Get the free slide deck: Customer Interviews
I'll send it to your inbox. No sequence. No pitch.
Don't build a product to test an idea. Build the smallest thing that proves it.
Pretotyping. Simulate before you invest.
A prototype is a working version of your product. A pretotype is a simulation of the experience, built to test whether anyone actually wants it, before you build anything real.
The method has one job: find your key assumption. The one thing that, if wrong, makes everything else irrelevant. Then test it with the cheapest possible signal from real market behavior.
Not from surveys. Not from your network. From strangers who have no reason to be polite.
What you'll learn in the slide deck
- The 4 pretotype types and when to use each (Fake Door, Mechanical Turk, Pinocchio, Provincial)
- How to formulate an XYZ Hypothesis: "At least X% of [group Y] will [action Z]"
- How to read ILI vs. OLI signals
- A real example of a pretotype that saved 6 months of build time
Get the free slide deck: Pretotyping
Practical. No theory fluff.
Your price is a validation signal. Most founders price it wrong from the start.
Value-based pricing. What the market tells you about your idea.
Cost-plus pricing asks: what did it cost me to build this? That's the wrong question. Value-based pricing asks: what is this worth to the customer, in money, time, or risk avoided?
The price you set is also an experiment. A price too low signals low value. A price that someone pays without negotiation is a signal that you underpriced. The market tells you if you listen.
Most founders avoid pricing conversations. That's the most expensive mistake in validation, because willingness to pay is the clearest signal of whether the problem is real.
What you'll learn in the slide deck
- How to run a pricing conversation without pitching
- The three price anchors that reveal true willingness to pay
- Why early discounts destroy your market signal
- How to use price as a pretotype before you build
Get the free slide deck: Value-Based Pricing
This one changes how you have every conversation.
Stop waiting for the right resources. Start with what you have.
Effectuation. The logic that expert entrepreneurs actually use.
Most people think entrepreneurs start with a goal and find the resources to achieve it. Research on expert entrepreneurs shows the opposite: they start with what they have. Who they are, what they know, who they know. And discover what's possible from there.
This isn't improvisation. It's a discipline. It means deciding based on what you can afford to lose, not what you hope to gain. It means treating unexpected events as material, not interference.
Effectuation is not a strategy for when you're stuck. It's the logic you use when the market doesn't exist yet. Which is the situation every early-stage founder is actually in.
What you'll learn in the slide deck
- Causation vs. Effectuation. When each logic applies
- The Means Inventory: who you are, what you know, who you know
- Affordable Loss as a decision filter
- How to use pre-commitments to reduce uncertainty without spending money
Get the free slide deck: Effectuation
The mental model shift that unlocks early traction.
Free bonus
Not sure where you stand?
Take the Idea Validation Score.
10 questions. 3 minutes. You'll know whether you have a real validation problem, or a real idea.
No email required for the score.
Who is behind this.
I'm Lothar. Co-founder of Timeular, a hardware-software startup that reached an exit. Former COO. And the person who then built the wrong thing, with a patent to show for it.
I've spent the time since understanding the pattern. Why smart, hard-working builders end up with products nobody buys. What the signal looks like before it's too late.
These slide decks are the beginning of what I know. If they're useful, there's more.
Why this site looks the way it does.
This website is itself a pretotype. Four topics, four slide decks, four email captures. I'm testing which problems founders actually care about before I build anything bigger. The site exists to validate the idea, not to sell a product that doesn't exist yet. I'm practicing what I teach.