The 0→1 Ladder

Before the idea, the problem. You’ll spend years on this — so pressure-test whether it’s worth them. Score your problem on pain, frequency, market, budget, timing, and your edge, and find the weakest link that decides everything.

A real problem can still be too small to build a company on. Size your market the honest way — bottom-up, from customers and price down to the share you can realistically win — and judge whether the prize is venture-scale.

Every idea is a stack of assumptions. Before you build anything, find the one that is most fatal if wrong and least proven — and test that first. You leave with a ranked plan and your cheapest next experiment.

You found the assumption to test — now go ask people, without poisoning the answer. Learn to run customer interviews so honest that even your mum couldn’t flatter you, and leave with a bias-checked script.

Who owns what, why it matters more than almost anything else you decide early, and how to build a clean founder cap table you will not regret at your first round.

The single clause that protects the company from the cofounder who walks in month four — and how to set it fairly for everyone, including future-you.

Why the instrument you raise on is a regulatory choice in India, not just a number — SAFE, iSAFE, CCPS and CCDs in plain English, with the FEMA/SEBI reality.

A clause-by-clause read of a real seed term sheet — liquidation preference, anti-dilution, pro-rata, board — and which lines are standard versus which should make you pause.

Why investors ask for the option pool before the money — the "pool shuffle" that quietly dilutes only the founders — and how to size a pool that hires your first team without giving away more than you need to.

Dilution does not add up — it compounds. Model a full Seed → Series A → Series B plan and watch your founder stake erode round after round, so you raise on purpose instead of by reflex.

You sized the pool — now grant from it, properly. Learn what makes an option different from a share: the strike price, the value that only exists above it, and how vesting gates all of it. You leave with a real grant on your cap table.