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How to Test New Startup Ideas with Sramana Mitra
Rating: 4.6 out of 5(24 ratings)
1,066 students

How to Test New Startup Ideas with Sramana Mitra

Lessons From The Trenches On Testing New Tech Startup Business Ideas
Created bySramana Mitra
Last updated 11/2025
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • How to ideate.
  • How to evaluate if your idea has legs.
  • How you make sure that your tech startup idea is viable.
  • How you make sure that your tech startup idea is scalable.

Course content

4 sections • 37 lectures • 7h 54m total length

  • Introduction1:38

    Explore real startup pitches through case studies with Sramana Mitra, learn how investors respond, and master validating ideas and answering VC due diligence questions.

  • How to Test a New Startup Idea6:46

    Validate startup ideas to determine if they have legs and are fundable, test ideas through case studies, and compare investor and entrepreneur perspectives on go to market strategy.

  • Pitch: Idea for upskilling tech professionals14:21

    The pitch outlines a freemium upskilling platform for American tech workers that uses resume-driven AI to identify skill gaps, and provides curated training, expert coaching, evaluation, and interview prep.

  • Pitch: Software for running small services businesses, customer acquisition16:53

    Reserve offers an all-in-one SaaS for service providers, combining online scheduling, loyalty, invoicing, and website templates to help multi-location studios digitalize bookings and grow through proactive business-tier acquisition.

  • Pitch: Plus sized men’s clothing brand from India15:34
  • Pitch: Personalization front-end for fashion retailers9:00
  • Pitch: App for processing store credit for retailers of fashion and footwear13:30

    Present a b2b2c platform that deposits store credit into a virtual bank, replacing refunds. Reduce processing fees for online fashion and footwear retailers while keeping customers within the retailer ecosystem.

  • Pitch: Social media tracking app for brand mentions8:53
  • Pitch: Loyalty program for car rental companies11:30

    Beasts offers a reputation-based loyalty platform for car rental companies, using soulbound tokens on the blockchain to tailor rewards, enable coalitions, and empower smaller firms through pilots and governance tokens.

  • Pitch: 2-sided marketplace for professional services15:47
  • Pitch: 2-sided marketplace for music discovery, concept stage11:14

    Pitch a two-sided marketplace for music discovery and validate long-tail TAM, onboarding strategy, and influencer-driven promotion in a restricted alpha of 200 users.

  • Pitch: Water purification technology13:10

    This pitch introduces a nanoporous water purification technology with a community purifier, a non-electric domestic unit, and an IoT monitoring tap, pursuing scalable B2B/B2C growth via NGOs and Crompton licensing.

  • Pitch: Financial planning software for banks to service their customers14:41
  • Pitch: Kinetic glass, market validation discussion8:41

    Kinetic glass offers a next-generation light-control solution for luxury homes and commercial windows, contrasting electrochromic and PLC tech, while guiding market validation and MVP development through customer input.

  • Pitch: Ad marketplace, focus on product not marketplace16:27

    Focus on building a product that delivers value to advertisers through automated AI-driven campaigns, validating paying customers before pursuing investors or a marketplace model.

  • Pitch: NFT valuation platform, ID investors in FinTech-data driven lending14:51
  • Pitch: App for gauging the mood of conversations, correct the positioning14:18

    Deliver real-time emotional subtitles on the Apple Watch to improve emotion perception with 92% accuracy, using edge processing and haptic feedback for neurodivergent users.

  • Pitch: Social media and dating platform, focus on Uganda and dating14:25

    This lecture pitches Extend World, a privacy-focused social media and dating platform with three networks in one app, featuring verified dating, end-to-end encrypted calls, and Africa-focused traction, especially Uganda.

  • Pitch: Shipping service for travelers to ship shopping back home19:35

    Pitch for Pidgey, an omni shipping marketplace enabling travelers to ship large, delicate items home via Bali shops; onboarding vendors and a B2B2C model with insured shipping.

  • Pitch: Talent platform, ready for funding19:36

    Explore how a talent platform moves from bootstrap to funding—from friends and family to angels and micro VCs—while offering mentorship and data-driven vetting.

  • Pitch: Fact checking app on blockchain, ask customers before making product10:37
  • Pitch: AI-based waste management, repurpose15:16

    Explore an AI-based waste management platform that digitizes waste data, uses invoice analytics and mobile tagging to cut landfill waste, and discusses seed fundraising and growth trajectory.

  • Pitch: Customer experience platform for contact centers, pivot strategy9:19

    Pitch centers a customer experience platform for contact centers that analyzes 100% of calls to improve agent coaching, CSAT, and revenue, with a potential pivot strategy amid a crowded market.

  • Pitch: Wellness wearable, positioning discussion10:10

    Remind is a no-screen wellness jewelry bracelet that vibrates to cue self-care reminders, with a scheduling app. It targets Gen Z with prevention-minded mindfulness and an idea box for community.

  • Pitch: Corporate culture solution, positioning strategy discussion20:32

    Discover culture talk, a system that measures team strengths and motivations to craft a new function vision, articulate compelling messages, and teach a culture code for organization-wide learning.

  • Pitch: Scheduling app, positioning strategy15:31

    Pitch presents Font App, an appointment platform that digitizes the appointment system across hospitals, salons, and premium stores to reduce crowding and enable one-on-one experiences.

  • Pitch: Online video production agregator service, not a scalable so bootstrap23:40

    Explore a bootstrap online video production aggregator that pairs freelance project producers with creators to deliver affordable, high-quality videos via a single point of contact and built-in quality checks.

  • Pitch: Bill.com-like SMB, great revenue17:34

Requirements

  • None.

Description

The 1Mby1M Methodology is based on case studies. In each course, Sramana Mitra shares the tribal knowledge of tech entrepreneurs by giving students the rare seat at the table with the entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders who provide the most instructive perspectives on how to build a thriving business. Through these conversations, students gain access to case studies exploring the alleys of entrepreneurship. Sramana’s synthesis of key learnings and incisive analysis add great depth to each discussion.

I started blogging back in 2005 and became well-known in the technology startup circuit very early on. Tons of entrepreneurs started writing to me asking for advice and mentoring. At the time, I used to consult for lucrative clients who paid me $5000 a day for advice. The startups who approached me could not afford to match that pricing model.

But my passion was with startups. With entrepreneurs braving storms and turbulent seas to build something from nothing.

Fast forward to the fall of 2008. My first Entrepreneur Journeys book was launched. We started experimenting with online mentoring roundtables.

Fast forward to 2010. One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), my global virtual accelerator was launched, the first of its kind in the world. From Silicon Valley, I was able to mentor entrepreneurs all over the world.

In this course, I will share case studies of such mentoring sessions.

I would like you to put both hats on: entrepreneur and investor.

Learn to think like an entrepreneur and refine your pitch.

Then switch.

Learn to think like an investor and poke holes at an entrepreneur pitch.

As you practice this way of thinking on the case studies I offer, you will develop muscle memory on the style of how to test startup ideas.

I hope, then, you can, on your own, start invalidating bad ideas.

I hope, then, you would have the intellectual honesty to discard ideas without legs.

I hope, then, you would hold out for the uncut gem that you can then polish to build your venture.

An entrepreneur I knew and admired who passed away used to say that entrepreneurship is like sculpture. You have to chisel your masterpiece out of a slab of marble.

Well, start chipping away on your stone!

Who this course is for:

  • Tech entrepreneurs interested in coming up with new tech startup business ideas.
  • Entrepreneurs interested in coming up with new tech startup business ideas.
  • Aspiring entrepreneurs interested in coming up with new tech startup business ideas.

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