Jul 26, 2025

Week 1 (EF)

  1. Productivity > Activity

The difference between productivity and activity is huge. The former makes you feel like you are doing a lot. The latter leads to a step change in anything you are doing.

  1. Invalidate > Validate

It is very easy to look for the reasons to do something. It is much harder to look for reasons not to do it. To me, getting to a good idea is getting to zero reasons good enough to drop it.

  1. Lightbulb Moment

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have it in a week (or if you started in week 0, then 2 weeks) into working with someone. Lightbulb moments are a myth. It may seem like other teams are having them. If they are, they either: came with an idea (20% likely), aren’t digging deep enough (70% likely), or are incredibly lucky (10% likely).

  1. Move Fast & Work Hard

Your success is in your own hands now. And it is directly correlated with how fast you can move. Which is directly correlated with how much work you put in.

If you move fast, you can invalidate fast.

  1. Have regular check-ins with EF

Be proactive in booking time with EF. Solo, and as a team. Talk to them openly about how you feel. Get free advice. They have done this many times before. Use them as a sounding board.

  1. Ask about the past cohorts

In the check-ins that you have proactively booked, ask if anyone from the previous cohort has explored the idea you are working on. Someone likely has. Connect with that person. Use their learnings to accelerate your invalidation process.

  1. Check market size

Check how big the market is before falling in love with it. My co-founder and I worked on an idea for 3 days before realising that the total market we could eventually win was too small compared to the scale of our ambitions. Don’t waste 3 days like we did.

  1. Framework for invalidating the space

On the previous note, EF will give you a talk midway through week 1 on selecting markets. It’s a really good talk. Reflect on what you learned from that talk when you explore ideas.

  1. What is you “1-line joint belief”?

This came up in a team-check in with an EF team member and it stuck with me.

What is the X joint core belief you and your co-founder have, which is the reason why you are working together on a Y idea. Turn it into a 1-liner.

  1. Force Feedback

Set time blocks in your calendar if you have to, to remember to give feedback 2-3 times a day with your co-founder. Good practice for me so far has been: start of the day, after lunch, end of the day, and 15-min after every customer call. Feedback on everything - it will help you both grow 10x faster.

  1. Do the Hard Stuff

This applies to small scale activity, and longer term approach to ideation.

Small scale: We went to a 4am food market because we knew it would be a good source of “industry experts” for what we were looking into. I am glad we went. It helped us invalidate the idea in hours, not days.

Longer term: Ideation is hitting your head against the wall 1000 times because you don’t know which turn to take anymore, and you end up bumping into a wall - again. Just continue. It’s meant to be that hard.

  1. Trust and Respect

This is easy to overlook. And I don’t mean trust that “they can build”, or that “they can sell”.

Remember that your co-founder is a person you should spend years of your life with. You need to trust them and respect them, more than you need to like them. They will be the only person that cares about your business as much as you do. Don’t you want that person to be someone you trust?

  1. Sweat it off, if you want to

Slightly stupid one, but if you like exercising, don’t be afraid to do that during the programme. Don’t come into the programme worried people will judge you for taking 30-45min to exercise. In our cohort, most people went to the gym or for runs. As long as you meet the professional goals you have set for yourself (because no one manages you anymore or does that for you), time for fitness is fine.

  1. Have a copy paste-able pivot message

You will cold outbound many people, and by the time they reply you may have pivoted. If a chat with them is not relevant anymore but they took time to reply and offer a chat with you, try to reply. Prepare a message you can send in this scenario: “I am not exploring this space anymore, but it’s great to connect and I will be in touch if this becomes relevant again…”.

  1. Shaking is OK

During our Week 1 Friday morning pitches, 50% of people were shaking when pitching. I have 10+ years of on-stage acting under my belt, and I was shaking.