How I Saved My Startup Before It Even Launched

Launching your product first and looking for customers second will leave you dead in the water

Armando Romeo
Marker

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Young female entrepreneur taking an online order on her phone, writing down notes while checking her laptop.
Photo: TravelCouples/Moment/Getty Images

OOne of the most important things I’ve learned after running a company for 10 years is that before you talk to an accountant, a lawyer, or even your spouse about starting a business, you need to talk to your future customers and understand their frustration points. Most importantly, you need to put their names on a list.

This can be life or death for a startup. It was for mine. It’s what kept my business afloat when I had almost no money left in the bank.

Building my list

I started my multimillion-dollar cybersecurity education business 10 years ago at age 26. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I had really started building my audience at 14. Back in 1998, I was an aspiring white-hat hacker, and the best internet speed I could dream of was 56 kilobits per second — something that, for economic reasons, I only had access to for an hour at a time, once a week.

I was eager to learn everything about computing, and I wanted to share my knowledge with others because it reinforced my understanding and forced me to do thorough research. I published a newsletter containing tutorials, how-tos…

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