Biome

“A solution looking for a problem” ”Markets did not accept the product” How often have you heard this when discussing a startup that did not make it? Chances are you’ve heard this yourself while looking at your own startup's metrics. While there are many possible reasons behind this, at Biome, we believe a core driver is understanding your problem statement. We find that it allows us to focus on what matters and discard the noise. A well-constructed problem statement, researched and thought through is an exercise in clarity. It also serves as a forcing function for #founders to understand their customers better before writing a single line of code. It is also a rallying cry for the team - a single, easy-to-understand cause to organise your troops. Amazingly, a lot of #entrepreneurs in the early stage still don’t break their problems down and communicate them. If this is you, I recommend this exercise - either to reframe your problem or to bring a better sense of clarity for yourself, your future investors and your team. A problem statement should be able to communicate in a few sentences, in simple words, the exact opportunity/ an undesirable gap in the current state of a performance, that your business wants to address. A good problem statement is Concise, Specific, and Measurable and should include absolute or relative measures of the problem that quantify that gap. Well-written problem statements need to answer 4 key questions What is the Problem? Who is affected? Why is this a problem? How big is this problem? (Quantifiable Market Size) This looks fairly straightforward, however, it requires a deep understanding of your target industry. It requires speaking with customers to understand the why and the who questions, and it requires deep research to understand the how questions. Here’s an example template: “Most back offices of __(The Who)_____ in India, still rely heavily on (The What)___ for Quality Assurance. This leads to (The Why)____ in an industry employing over _(How big) people across the country” Try it out for your startup/product! Let me know if it was a helpful exercise. PS: If you’re still reading, Biome Bot, a GPT we trained on OpenAI on all our templates and playbooks can help you do easily this and walk you through all the steps to better capture the problem. Just search for "BiomeBot" in the GPT store or click the link in the comments #buildStrong

I’m thrilled to announce the public unveiling of Biome, a full stack Venture Studio that transforms bold ideas into impactful enterprises. We are Institutional Co-founders that use an integrative approach to craft the next generation of high impact, market-defining companies with speed & efficiency. Our mission is to better a billion lives by focusing on businesses that benefit the planet, people and industry, & our goal is to build at least 10 game-changing companies over the next 5 years. Over the past year, in stealth, we have crafted a firm that brings world-class processes, playbooks, talent, and networks to each stage of the startup journey— from ideation and product development to GTM, growth, and capital formation. I’m really excited because this builds on all my past experiences as a product manager, entrepreneur, investor and ecosystem builder. It also resonates deeply with my core philosophies—of making the world a better place, and of helping people reach their true potential. It is my privilege to work with great colleagues who have decades of collective experience in entrepreneurship, investment, technology, and leadership across diverse global ecosystems: Madhu Poomalil (leadership & board positions at The D. E. Shaw Group India, UBS India, Arcesium India, and ADP India), Kaustubh Patekar⚡ (former Product Director at Oracle & Core Team at nasscom deeptech), Nishita Gill (Founder, Treemouse), Rupa Saumil (25 years of experience building early teams at D. E. Shaw India, Amazon, Google, and CrowdStrike - Seattle) and Zaran Bhagwagar (former EIR at Mountain Partners & Principal at Anthill Ventures). The team is rounded out by the very capable Mani Rao, Usha K., Aditya Sharma, Mohammed Khaja Kamaluddin & a roster of Biome Fellows. We are partnered with amazing firms—T-Hub, Xelpmoc Design and Tech Limited, ProdZen and Treemouse—that work deeply alongside us. A special mention and gratitude for the support extended by Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Srinivas Koora and Srinivas Rao Mahankali (MSR). We know from hard-fought experience that startups take persistence, and that the road to success is never straight or smooth. We stand by our co-founders through their entire journey, supporting them with our expertise, empathy & network. To the founders & future founders in my network; whether you’ve already started a company, you’ve just begun building one or are working on an idea… if you’re open to us stacking the odds in your favour, and accelerating you to further success, please reach out and build the future with us! To learn more, and to apply to Biome, follow the link in the comment below. #BuildStrong #Entrepreneurship #Startups #Innovation