After living the 24 step disciplined entrepreneurship process at #MITEDP, I was ecstatically sharing the the story of the incredible experience with many of my colleagues. One person asked me “I’m curious. Based on the course and your experiences with the others in the course, what do you plan to start, stop, or do differently?”
I had to stop for a moment but I didn’t need to think hard – instead of top 3 or 5 I have ended up providing him top 10 and here those are:

1. Stop relying only on secondary research and analytics, stop relying only on surveys, go out there and talk to people, connect with people – do genuine Primary Market Research! Never outsource this.
2. Stop focusing on the ‘idea’ too much and instead focus on the ‘Team’, ‘Market (i.e. customer)’ and ‘Execution.’
3. Start to focus more on the ‘problem – needs/wants/job to be done’ and the ‘customer’ who has the problem rather than the ‘solution’ itself.
4. Stop being obsessed with customer ‘demographic’ and focus more on customer ‘psycho-graphic.’
5. Stop wasting/spending too much time and money for a great product/solution to emerge. Move fast, fail fast, learn quick, test and iterate, pivot and progress! Start being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
6. Stop seeing a ‘failure’, ‘setback’ or ‘crisis’ as a failure, setback or crisis. Instead consider them as opportunity for learning and growth. “Never let a crisis go waste.”
7. Start to become ‘anti-fragile’, rather than just being robust or resilient, i.e. grow when exposed to uncertainty and adversity.
8. Stop showing ‘data/stat’. Start telling ‘stories’
9. Know what you don’t know, make assumptions, plan ‘tests’ to validate assumptions.
10. Stop focusing on many things – many customer segments, many value props – focus on one customer, one value prop. Nail the unit of one.

If you had similar experience, would love to know what will you start, stop or do differently after you have gone through the 24 step DE process?