You know exactly what is broken.
You have never had to find a customer.
Twenty years in an industry is the hard part, and you already did it. The part nobody taught you is the part that decides whether any of it becomes a business.
The program I built for this now lives at The Lean CPTO. Start with the Manual MVP Check. It is free.
There are two ways people end up here.
You have had the idea for years. You can describe the problem for four hours and you cannot get it into one sentence.
You built it. Six weekends, some API credits, and it works. Four people signed up. Two of them were family.
Same problem underneath, and it is not the product.
The Day Zero Method.
Three enemies. Three cures. Build is not one of them.
The blank page. Twenty years of knowing exactly what is broken, and no way to say it in a sentence a stranger understands. If you cannot say it, you cannot test it.
The build trap. Building is now the most comfortable part of starting a company, so it is where people hide. A beautiful product nobody asked for, faster than ever before.
Won't ask. You will build it, you will research it, you will refine the wording. What you will not do is put a price on it and ask someone to pay. That is the one move nobody in a fifteen year career ever had to make, and the only one that produces an answer.
This is the method inside the Global Day Zero Sprint.
From founders I've worked with.
I came to Matt @ Innovators Campus as a founder with ideas but not yet the confidence to articulate them clearly. What I found was a room full of people who genuinely wanted each other to succeed · and an environment that made it safe to be a work in progress. The feedback I received on my pitch was specific, honest, and immediately actionable. I left with a sharper message and a clearer sense of what I’m actually building.
Matt is truly intelligent, well-traveled, and highly experienced in both Japan and Australia. With his business background, cultural understanding, and tech-savviness, he mentored me to establish my business in Japan and expand to Australia in less than a year.
Matt is a great and responsible person to work with. I tried different coaches before but he is the best · I got a lot of insight every session. If you work with him, I promise you will develop some great outcomes.
Two decades in the room, across two markets.
Nine years working with founders and VCs across Japan, on pitching, product, cofounderships and raises. Back in Australia, mentoring, judging and running events across the ecosystem, with one foot still firmly in Tokyo. I help founders get unstuck and build things that travel.
The honest answers.
What is Global Day Zero?
Where did the Sprint go?
Who is this for?
Are you going to teach me AI?
What does "designed to travel" actually mean?
Do I have to be planning to go global to find this useful?
The weekly has stopped. The writing has not.
Every past issue stays here, free to read. New writing goes out as founder notes from The Lean CPTO, where the program now lives.
