Before You Build It: Testing an Idea Before You Bet a Year on It

Every founder hits a point where the path forward isn't obvious. Maybe the product works but the market doesn't. Maybe there are two directions and no clear reason to pick one. Maybe you've been circling the same decision for months, gathering more input and getting less certain.

Most advice at that moment is useless — build more, talk to more customers, trust your gut. What's actually missing is a way to decide.

The host: Court Lorenzini is the founding CEO of DocuSign and the founder of FounderNexus. He's spent 30 years building companies and backing founders — with early investments in Uber, Palantir, Spotify and Airbnb — and has sat with hundreds of founders at exactly this crossroads. He's made the call himself more than once.

What we'll cover:

• How to tell the difference between a hard patch and a signal to change direction
• Testing an idea before you spend a year building it
• What the people who tried this before you already learned — and how to find out
• When to commit, when to pivot, and how to know which one you're facing

Open discussion: bring the decision you're sitting on

This is a working session, not a talk. Come with the thing you've been going back and forth on — the pivot you're not sure about, the two paths you can't choose between, the product you're not certain is worth another six months. You'll leave with a way to think it through rather than another opinion to weigh.