Podcast: The Female Founders Network with COO and Co-founder Lilian Chen
Listen to our COO and Co-Founder Lilian Chen speak with The Female Founders Network about her startup learnings from starting Bar None Games
Our COO and Co-Founder Lilian Chen spoke with The Female Founders Network in their podcast released recently about how to start an early stage startup and her journey with Bar None Games thus far. Listen to the full episode here, and check out below for our key learnings from it.
How to test an idea to find product-market fit
When looking for a company idea to start, ideally, you’re able to find a natural spark where people are asking and begging for the product. Lilian’s biggest recommendation is to talk to your customers and make sure there’s a big pain point before you engage in the startup endeavor. When talking to potential customers, she specifically points to The Mom Test as a must read for how to conduct early-stage customer interviews. The book details out how to ask questions that aren’t presumptive and likely to influence your customer interview to be biased to give you a false indication. The goal is to figure out if the company idea that you want to start is a “nice to have” or a “need to have” and talking directly to your potential customers is the best way to figure that out as long as you can ensure they’re giving you honest feedback.
How to set your relationship with your co-founder up for success
Lilian and her co-founder Spencer Fertig met while in business school together and had the benefit of both being friends as well as working together during business school on a prior business idea. It’s important to ensure that you have complementary skills with your co-founder that extends beyond just a friendship and that you know your co-founder in different contexts. Because Lilian and Spencer started the company remotely from two different locations during the pandemic, it was important that they already knew and trusted each other deeply. When they started the company, to help set their co-founding relationship up for success, they talked about their own expectations for the company and life, and they continue to host regular feedback sessions to provide a forum for open conversations.
How to create a start-up with natural network effects to create virality
When starting a company, having natural network effects can make your go-to-market plan a lot easier. With Bar None Games, they came up with a product where one point of contact invites on average 20 co-workers and friends to join a game. Because Spencer and Lilian are obsessed with creating an amazing product that people love, these 20 people who join act as nodes to spread the word to their friends and family who are looking for a fun team building event. From there, a snowball effect is created with a naturally high word-of-mouth and referral-based product. By having this virality built into the business model, it made immediate scale and growth come a lot easier than other business models where you have to pay to acquire new sales.
