Meeting your Customers

It's week two of eleven for all of the teams participating in the 10x Xelerator program in Columbus, Ohio.  There's a very common question / piece of advice I've been getting from some of the amazing mentors participating in the program.  Each asks the question in a different way, but essentially they want to know...

"How many customers are you meeting with?"

It's such a simple question, yet so, so critical to businesses like ours at this stage in the startup process.  It doesn't matter at all how great of an idea Bryan and I have.  I know that.  Our success is dependent on our ability to say "Yes!" to the following three questions:

1. Does our product/service actually solve a real problem for our customers?
2. Is the problem that we solve significant enough where customers are willing to pay for it?
3. Can we execute and see our solution through?

So in week #2, it's absolutely critical we talk to customers and answer those first two questions.  I better stop blogging and get to work.