Helping over 200 startups go from great idea to scale, I learned there is a hierarchical order to test your most risky assumptions. As a (corporate) startup founder, you need to prove there is a problem, prove you can solve that problem, prove your customer will pay, and last but not least, prove you can scale. To do this for a longer period of time, you need some kind of process to constantly ask yourself what is currently most risky and how can we test that. In this Ask Me Anything, I'd like to share the process we use to turn assumptions into steps forward using experiments and dive deeper into the challenges of keeping focus during the journey from idea to scale.

Timan Rebel is co-founder of GroundControl, a software platform to help large organizations set up innovation accounting. Together with Esther Gons, he is writing a new book “In Four Steps to Scale,” a practical guide for startups to find a business model that works. Timan has over twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur. He sold his first startup and invalidated a few after that. Then, as a startup coach and mentor, he helped over 200 (corporate) startups go from a great idea to scale.