Founder/CEO @ LEANSTACK | Bestselling author and founder

I have bootstrapped several products to millions of users and worked with thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs worldwide - helping them systematically find repeatable and scalable business models using my battle-tested playbooks. 

Instead of:
-Spending several months building a product you hope people will buy.

Imagine a world where you:
- Spend several weeks defining a product you know people will buy.

For aspiring or early-stage founders:

If you’re looking to bootstart your idea, consider joining my 30-day Business Model Design Challenge below: 

You'll learn how to:
- Find or test a big idea worth pursuing,
- Design a business model blueprint,
- Stress-test your idea before investing time, money, and effort. 

Join the next Business Model Design Challenge:
https://runlean.ly/challenge

Ash Maurya

There are three core jobs of a business model. 

1. CREATE VALUE
You create value with your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). To craft a compelling UVP, you need to deeply understand your Customer Segments and their Problem(s).

2. DELIVER VALUE
You deliver value through your Solution and Channels.

3. CAPTURE VALUE
Value capture (getting paid) lies at the intersection of your Cost Structure and Revenue Streams.

The Lean Canvas also helps you describe two more essential jobs:

4. MEASURE VALUE
You measure the output of these three jobs using your Key Metrics.

5. DEFEND VALUE
You deter copycats and competitors using your Unfair Advantage.

Lean Canvas = Business Model Story

I build systematic frameworks for early-stage founders. Author and creator of Lean Canvas.

Your product is NOT "the product" of your startup.
Your business model is THE PRODUCT.

Too many founders obsess over features while ignoring:
→ Customer segments
→ Problems
→ Revenue streams  
→ Distribution channels
→ Cost structure
→ Key metrics

Building the best solution means nothing if the other pieces in the puzzle don't fit.

No alternative text description for this image

In 2006, I had 6 months of runway left. Everyone told me to raise money immediately.

Instead, I did the opposite.

My mentor asked one question: 'Would you rather spend 6 months pitching to investors or pitching to customers?'

I picked customers. Six months later, we were profitable. Never raised that round.

The counterintuitive truth: When you're running out of money, don't chase investors. Chase customers.

Every founder thinks they need funding to get customers. It's backwards. Customers fund your business. Investors fund your story.

Which would you rather have?

Most founders pitch their solution the same way to everyone.

Big mistake.

Investors care about market size and traction.
Customers care about their problems and outcomes.
Advisors care about learning from their experience.

Your solution stays the same. Your story must change.

Good entrepreneurship isn't about changing worldviews—it's about framing your business model in terms of your audience's existing worldview.

Are you telling the right story to the right audience?

Simple models help us understand the complex. 

Before investing in any company, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger use a latticework of mental models to evaluate the company. 

If it passes their tests, they move all in. Otherwise, they do nothing and wait.

Evaluating early-stage ideas is no different.

I have settled on 3 universal (product-agnostic) mental models that I use to
- baseline progress,
- prioritize risks, and
- formulate a “right action, right time” next step.

Here they are: 

1. Lean Canvas: Deconstruct an idea using 12 basic building blocks.

2. Customer Factory: Chart key milestones using 5 customer-centric metrics.  

3. Customer Forces: Understand customer behavior using 4 causal forces. 

BELIEFS + METRICS + INSIGHTS = BUSINESS MODEL STORY

Most founders think a great offer is about discounts and bonuses.

But the most powerful offers tell a story that makes saying no feel irrational.

I call this a "Mafia Offer" 

Here's a 4-Act structure:

Act 1: Identify an undeniable market shift (external to your product)
Act 2: Show why their current solution can't bridge the gap
Act 3: Demonstrate your different approach (transformation, not features)
Act 4: Present pricing as natural extension of the story

After rebuilding my pitch this way, I no longer get butterflies in my stomach when I reach the pricing conversation. 

Customers don't buy products. They buy a promise of something different AND better.

Are you pitching features or selling a customer story?

The hill climbing problem in startups:

Rushing to pick your first customer segment is like getting trapped on a local peak - you find success, but miss the mountain next door.

Start by brainstorming ALL possible customers. Test multiple segments in parallel.

Your odds of finding the best market increase dramatically.

I gave AI complete control of my product launch.
Not just "helping with copy" or "writing some emails."

Full control. Landing pages. Customer segmentation. Multi-variant email campaigns. Sales tracking automation.

The result? 209 paid customers in 40 days. Before the product was finished.

But here's the plot twist that surprised me:

The AI didn't win because it was smarter than me.
It won because it helped me focus on what I do best, while it took care of the rest. 

Full video here: https://lnkd.in/gruip9bq

Open video: AI Ran My Product Launch (Crazy Results) on youtu.be

Most startups defer pricing because their MVP feels "too minimal" to charge for.

This is backwards thinking.

Price is part of your product. It shapes customer perception and defines your market position.

If you intend to charge eventually, charge from day one. Getting paid is your first real validation - not downloads or signups.

The biggest mistake in customer interviews? Leading with your pitch.

When you pitch first:
• Customers pretend to agree
• You do most of the talking
• You hear what you want to hear

Instead, frame it as learning:
• Set context, then let them talk
• Ask how they solve the problem today
• Seek their advice, not their approval

People love helping. They hate being sold to.

Get the frame right and customer interviews become easy.

Most founders think they need to quit their day job to validate a startup idea.

This is backwards.

With the right approach, you can achieve problem-solution fit in 90 days working just 10-15 hours per week. Only then does going full-time make sense.

The myth of "take a leap of faith" has burned more founders than market crashes ever will.

What if the biggest risk isn't your idea failing, but you never properly testing it?

If you can't convert a warm prospect in a 20-minute face-to-face interview, it will be much harder to convert a visitor in under 8 seconds on your landing page.

Yet most founders skip this step entirely.

They build their MVP, launch a website, deploy AI agents, and then wonder why their conversion rates are terrible.

Worse, they don't know why.

Test your messaging, pricing, and user flow with 10 early adopters first. 

If you can't sell them, you won't fare any better with strangers.

The harsh feedback you get face-to-face will save you months of poor online performance.

Don't rush outside the building without first stress-testing your idea.
Stress testing is NOT customer testing, BUT business model testing.

2025 was the year of vibe coding.
Developers typed vibes into Cursor. AI wrote the code. Products shipped in hours.

But here's what nobody's talking about: AI just made the biggest startup mistake easier than ever.

The (Faster) Build Trap.

And it's creating thousands of zombie startups—built in days, dead in weeks (which I guess is still better than dead in months)

---

A founder I know spent 3 weeks building a B2B scheduling tool with Cursor. Beautiful interface. Clean code. Zero customers.

"AI made building so fast," he told me. "Why waste time on validation?"

Sound familiar?

Before AI, building took months. So we validated first. We had to.

Now building takes days. So we think we can skip validation. 

That's the trap.

---

But here's the plot twist:

The same AI creating this problem is also the solution.

Traditional lean startup? Plan-Do-Check-Act took 6 weeks per cycle. You'd run maybe 8-10 cycles per year if you were disciplined.

Most founders ran 2-3 cycles, got impatient, and just started building.

Why? Validation felt slower than building.

2026 changes the math completely.

---

AI collapses the PDCA cycle from 6 weeks to 6 hours:

• Plan experiments: 2 hours (not 2 weeks)
• Build tests: 2 hours (not 2 weeks)  
• Analyze results: 1 hour (not 1 week)
• Decide next steps: 1 hour (not 1 week)

You can now run 50+ validation cycles in the time it used to take to run 5.

That's not incremental improvement. That's a different game.

I'm calling these Vibe Startups—companies that use AI to not just build fast, but validate as fast as they build (before and after).

---

Speed isn't the competitive advantage anymore. Everyone has speed.

Systematic validation at the speed of your thinking is the new moat.

---

Watch the full breakdown of how Vibe Startups work and why the 75-year old PDCA loop just became a lot more relevant (again):

https://lnkd.in/gXWHQpMn

undefined undefined

youtube.com

The New Way Startups Will Be Built in 2026

Joseph Bunga

Everyone tells you to start with a free plan and worry about revenue later.

That's exactly what's killing most startups.

Even MailChimp spent years as premium-only before introducing its famous free tier.

The problem with freemium-first:
• You give away too much (like an artist wanting appreciation)
• Low conversions drown you in non-actionable data
• Free users give bad advice about hypothetical features

The premium-first approach:
1. Charge from day one - pricing is your riskiest assumption
2. Launch with one plan for one customer segment
3. Target early adopters (they're not price sensitive)
4. Use trials or guarantees instead of free plans
5. Add freemium later as a marketing tactic

When I 10x'd my prices and repositioned from B2C to B2B, conversions went UP and I doubled paying customers.

Premium is a marketing tactic, not a business model.

Are you building for users who might buy or customers who do buy?

Most founders start backward.

They get hit with an idea and try to estimate how big it can get. But if you had three ideas to work on, wouldn't you always start with your most promising one?

Instead of starting with an idea, start with a goal.

Define your minimum success criteria: the smallest outcome you'd need in 3 years to call it a success. Then stress test your business model against that criteria.

If your model can't deliver your minimum bar, fix it before investing time and money.

What's your minimum success criteria?

The biggest startup myth? You need a "perfect idea" to begin.

I've seen countless founders wait years for that breakthrough moment that never comes. Meanwhile, successful entrepreneurs use a completely different approach.

In this video, I reveal the "Innovator's Gift" framework—a systematic way to find viable startup ideas hiding in plain sight.

Watch: https://lnkd.in/gts9nruM

Know if your idea will work -- in 90 days, not 9 months.
100X Founder registration closes tonight.

Stop chasing fictional 5-year forecasts.

Most founders waste time inventing big goals or pulling out Excel wizardry when pitching investors. Even Mark Zuckerberg didn't think Facebook would be a billion-dollar company.

Instead, define your Minimum Success Criteria: the smallest outcome that makes 3 years of your life worth it.

Pick your game:
→ Level 1: $100K/year (solopreneur)
→ Level 2: $1M/year (small team)
→ Level 3: $10M/year (VC-backable)
→ Level 4: $100M/year (unicorn)

There's no right answer. But you must pick a game to play it well.

What game are you actually playing?

Roy AI Agency

Co-Founder

MendelHire

Cadentia Technologies

Next generation of hyper personalization and conversational AI powered by GenAI.

Business validation

STRGL/TREE

A builder of interoperable data ecosystem for digital products and new business models.

Data ecosystem lead

Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS)

A one-stop shop to enable value creation from the secondary use of public and private data.

User flow and journey story

Sitra

The Gaia-X Finland Hub collaborates with Finnish companies and organisation to accelerate the development of national data spaces and elevate them to the European level.

The hub aims to federate, animate, enable, and accelerate the development of these data spaces. While sharing and disseminating knowledge gained across 15 other Gaia-X hubs in EU countries.

As a Business Designer, I led the co-funding call for data spaces initiatives with 1 million € budgeted. We reached +800 individuals, +60 consortiums applied and we co-funded 5 pilot initiatives.
I am the curator of the #NordicDataFestival2024 event attended by 450 participants.

The Finnish Innovation Fund, Sitra is an independent public foundation which operates directly under the supervision of the Finnish Parliament. Sitra collaborate with partners from different sectors to research, experiment and implement bold new ideas that shape the future.

Business Designer @ Gaia-X Finland by Sitra's Fair Data Economy

TEDxRuoholahti

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.  Our event is called TEDxRuoholahti, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxRuoholahti event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.  The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

Cofounding Team

Muna.io

Muna.io is a privacy-first mobile app where users share their personal data with companies directly in exchange for discounts.

For companies Muna.io is a new channel to market their products and collect data ethically. Companies receive real data, from real people, in real time and with explicit consent. We currently focus only on climate-friendly and sustainable brands.

For users Muna.io helps them to discover new products that they like, control who can access their data and has the ability to exercise their data rights to ask for data deletion in one-click. 

We are on a mission to help companies to collect data ethically, and for individuals to monetise the data they already shared online.

Value creation is independent of value capture. Creating value does not mean that you are able to capture it. The Value Pyramids canvas helps you to map this.

Value creation: You create value by solving a problem that someone has, who are ready to pay to get it solved. Value capture: This is your ability to make a profit from the value created by you or others through your business transactions.

Value pyramids canvas

W&H Sprl

W&H is for my management consultant projects.

My specialities: Startup, chatbot, process automation, general management, operations, digital transformation, e-commerce, omni-commerce, new market/product development, product marketing, SCRUM/Agile, software development, customer success, international sales management.

Management company

Business designer - Gaia-X Finland, Sitra | TEDxRuoholahti 2023 Co-organiser

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Pioneer & beginner mindset. Relentless. Get the job done.
Create value, capture, and repeat.

--- Some highlights:

Started as a marine engineer, sailing from Asia to Europe. Jumped ship and joined a Belgian corporation to build their Asian sales organization from scratch to €10 million in six years. 

Left the large corporation to work in SMEs to help companies export. Got into e-commerce, helped Fortune 500 companies to build and operate their direct-to-consumer channel, and break even in record time.

Caught the startup's bug. Co-founded an e-commerce software company, sold it to a Belgian pharmacy chain. Then led product development at a startup with a mobile app for patients to centralize their medical health records.

Co-founded a chatbot startup for companies to use AI to automate their repetitive processes conversationally. Grew it to XXX,000 € annual recurring revenue.

Launched, tested, and validated Muna.io - a marketplace for individual to sell their data directly to companies. Onboarded over 15 sustainable product brands on the platform.

Launched Gaia-X Finland coordinated by Sitra's Fair Data Economy Unit - to help Finnish companies to shift from traditional pipeline to platform economy enabled by data ecosystem (also known as data spaces). Curated #NordicDataFestival2024.

Moved to California to learn about building startups the Silicon Valley's way. Building my next chapter.

--- Worked in:

China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, Finland, Australia, and the United States.

--- Experience in:

AI assistant, process automation conversationally, natural language processing, lean startup, startup fundraising, startup idea validation, product-to-market fit, AI, and scale readiness.

Mobile commerce, e-commerce, analytics, omnichannel, customer-centric organization, online marketing, digital transformation, software development, SCRUM, product owner.

Sales, sales management, internationalization, channel management, strategic sales, negotiation, intercultural management, doing business with China, visualization system, VR, stereoscopic 3D display, TEDx Organizer.

--- About me:

I am pragmatic and an autodidact. Love solving hard problems and building a scalable business. 
Experienced in leading multicultural and cross-functional teams to success in an FUD environment.
Believe that school needs an alternative narrative.

taplio

The Battle

Ash Maurya

Denny Wong

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAsh Maurya's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Ash Maurya

Denny Wong

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ash Maurya's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAsh Maurya's LinkedIn Performance