Entrepreneur

Grow a Business to $1,000 MRR

24 weeks · 5 milestones

Build a product or service and grow it to $1,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue from real paying customers. Proofs at every milestone require financial evidence — not self-reported numbers.

Milestone map

5 milestones

Identify a specific problem experienced by a specific type of person and validate that they would pay to solve it. Talk to at least 10 potential customers using the Mom Test framework — asking about their behavior, not their opinions. Do not build anything until you have evidence the problem is real, frequent, and painful.

Proof required

Submit your problem statement (1 paragraph), a summary of 10 customer conversations (one paragraph per conversation: who you talked to, what they said, and what you learned), and your decision: build or pivot, with the reason. Each conversation summary must include what the person currently does to solve the problem today.

What gets checked

At least 10 conversations, each with a different person — not 10 conversations with the same 3 people
Each summary includes what the person currently does to solve the problem — behavior beats opinion as validation evidence
At least one pivot or scope change happened as a result of the conversations — if your original idea is unchanged, you did not learn enough

Resources

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Mastery

Lenny's Newsletter

Search for 'validating your startup idea' on the site. The jobs-to-be-done framing gives you a way to organize what you hear across 10 conversations into a coherent pattern.

Unlocks after completing Foundation + Depth