Founders Thriving with WISE Guides - Real Success Stories
Building a successful startup is an intricate process that requires not just vision but actionable guidance. The WISE Guides have been a beacon of support for numerous founders, providing customized, step-by-step advice tailored to their unique challenges. This blog post highlights the journey of WISE Guides and shares inspiring stories of founders who have benefited from this valuable resource.
A Journey of Dedication and Innovation
A Volunteer's Beginning
My journey of helping startup founders began with volunteering 3-5 hours per week at the NC IDEA accelerator called Groundwork Labs, run by John Austin. For the first four years, I dedicated my time to mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs, sharing my insights, and guiding them through the early stages of their ventures. After each accelerator cohort, I continued to advise those founders who sought further assistance, deepening my commitment to fostering entrepreneurial success.
The Power of Customer Discovery
During this period, I realized the immense value of customer discovery and its pivotal role in building a successful startup. To help founders grasp this concept more efficiently and effectively, I developed the UNBIASED app from Unbiased Insights, sponsored by NC IDEA. This tool empowered over 700 founders to enhance their customer discovery processes, laying a solid foundation for their ventures.
The Advent of WISE Guides
The emergence of ChatGPT from OpenAI marked a turning point in my approach to startup guidance. I discovered that ChatGPT 4 could provide more effective and efficient advice, offering founders tailored, step-by-step solutions for their specific challenges. This revelation led to the creation of the WISE Guides, a series of topic-specific manuals designed to meet founders where they are and provide precisely what they need.
Real-World Impact: Stories of Success
From Volunteer Mentoring to Transformative Tools
Over the years, I've had the privilege of advising over 100 startups, leveraging my 30 years of experience in the startup ecosystem. This extensive background, coupled with my passion for teaching entrepreneurship at UNC, culminated in the writing of the book "LAUNCHED," which my students use in their "how to build a startup" class. However, the book's linear approach didn't always align with the real-time needs of startup founders. They often required immediate, focused guidance rather than starting from scratch.
Crafting Topic-Specific Guides
To address this, I began creating topic-specific guides, starting with prompts derived from "LAUNCHED" that were tailored to the unique challenges faced by startups during advising sessions. This approach expanded into live sessions and talks at multiple accelerators. Over six months, I conducted sessions with seven different local accelerators, crafting prompts in real-time to help each startup tackle their biggest hurdles. These interactions shaped the comprehensive and practical WISE Guides available today, with plans to expand the number of guides as more founders benefit from them.
Founder Success Stories
Ayush Garg is just beginning his journey with the WISE Guides. He will soon be using the first few guides to navigate his startup's path, and his excitement highlights the anticipated value these guides will bring.
"We're actually really excited about this, is to get your help with the AI prompts.”
“This has been insanely useful.”
“I think getting those guides would be absolutely amazing on how to build this like five-step process."
— Ayush Garg
Ayush's feedback underscores the practical potential of the WISE Guides. The tailored advice is expected to provide him with a clear roadmap, enabling him to tackle specific challenges and achieve significant milestones.
Growing the WISE Community
The WISE Guides are designed to have a positive impact on the startup ecosystem, thanks to support from NC IDEA and the collaborative efforts of numerous experts and founders. As we continue to refine and expand our guides, our mission remains clear: to help founders build successful startups faster, enabling them to create jobs and drive economic growth.
Special Support for North Carolina Founders
Thanks to the support from NC IDEA, WISE Guides will soon be available for free to founders in North Carolina. If you are a founder or organization outside NC, please contact us to learn how you can access these valuable resources.
Conclusion
The WISE Guides represent a fusion of expert insights, real-world problem-solving, and decades of experience, all aimed at empowering founders to succeed. By leveraging these guides, numerous founders have navigated their startup journeys with confidence, achieving the essential fits needed for sustained success.
If you’re ready to transform your startup idea into a success story, explore our WISE Guides today. Whether you’re facing challenges in sales, marketing, or overall growth, our guides are here to provide the customized, actionable advice you need to thrive.
Thank You
Thanks to NC IDEA for supporting the WISE Guides project. Thanks also to Merrill Mason, John Austin, Jan Davis, Dina Rousset, Dave Neal, Jay Bigelow, Josh Guter, Lewis Sheats, Gabe Gonzalez and the numerous founders, students, accelerator managers and others who helped me do the Customer Discovery that led to these Guides