@Alexi Drouin better to seek advise from someone just ahead of you in skill level. Advice from Wane Gretzky to a first time hockey player is not time or money well spent. The SMEs seemed to meet owners where they were and have recent hands on experience with the challenges offered.

Custom solution is an interesting one for me. Far too often I see stakeholders prematurely solutionizing as well as solving for the exception(s). Before customizing, it is critical that teams are data driven and can define what success is in a given challenge.

@Jing Wang in so many aspects of my life I over plan; then comes the Mike Tyson punch to the mouth. I really like what you mentioned here in an attempt to build onto what you said… For those of you out there that are not extremely comfortable at networking events I would add 1) maintain an element of fluidity (focus on others and let the conversation go where they want it to go; focus on giving not getting), 2) crawl, walk, run (start with a small goal, meet X people and be genuinely curious (what was the best investment you ever made?, what is one of the biggest challenges you are trying to solve today?, etc…), 3) analyze (should you have exited conversations earlier?, was your X goal to large/small?, did you target the right people?, etc…). A derivative of the same method could be deployed in online settings and in this way you are slowly building a network of mini-mentors that can lean in when questions arise.

@Praveen Kumar yes on all of the above. To add, Audible (audio books) and Headway (book summaries) have helped me expedite my learning. You can listen while driving or working out; and you can even listen at 1.5x speed.

@Axel Azul I am still early in my journey for B2C, but sell solutions and drive adoption in B2B all day. I found this book fascinating - How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients https://a.co/d/065G3qPW

@Michelle O'Loughlin absolutely, you can read ten books on how to swim, but you never really learn to swim until you jump into the pool 😉

Love it and keep the momentum train running; aside from hitting 5k members are there any SMART goals you can share? When does an MVP become viable?

What is your perfect client? What are their greatest challenges? What is your part in solutions (value co-creation)? What are their behaviors/values? When should you pass on a client? The mechanics of business are standard; why not laser focus on the perfect clients (you target them vs they target you; also think premium product, then you can create recipes and package to a broader audience)?