PRIMER by InnoEnergy - Helping European startups build a sustainable future

Introduction - Start Here
- About PRIMER by EIT InnoEnergy
- Introduction
Section 1: Planning Your Business

In the first section, Planning Your Business, you will learn how to find your customers, how to create a value proposition (a product that customers want) and how to build a business model around it. You will also learn how to use your startup to test your business model quickly and cheaply, and how to make necessary changes.
- 1.0 Introduction – An idea is not a business
- Exercise 1: Think problems, not solutions
- 1.1 Meet your customer
- Exercise 2: Problem brainstorming
- Exercise 3: Find your first customers
- Case study: Enervalis
- Exercise 4: Online research
- Exercise 5: Pick your problem
- Exercise 6: Is your problem validated?
- 1.2 From idea to solution
- Exercise 7: Mind maps
- Exercise 8: Creating a customer profile
- Exercise 9: Ranking customer problems
- Exercise 10: Creating a value map
- Exercise 11: Ranking value propositions
- Exercise 12: Finding fit
- 1.3 What’s a business model
- DELIVERABLE: no. 1 – Letter of intent (LOI) or softer letter of support
- 1.4 Types of business models
- 1.5 Make your own business model
- Exercise 13: Make your own business model
- Case study: Tecnoturbines
- DELIVERABLE: no 2 – Business Model Canvas
- 1.6 Test your business model
- Exercise 14: Creating a hypothesis
- Exercise 15: Creating experiments
- Exercise 16: Create your MVP
- Exercise 17: Pivot or proceed?
- Case study: EOLOS
- 1.7 From startup to business
- DELIVERABLE: no. 3 – Competitive landscape
Section 2: FUNDING Your Business

In the second section, Funding Your Business, you’ll learn how to test your startup like an investor. You’ll also better understand how venture capital works.
- 2.0 Introduction
- 2.1 Opportunity assessment
- Exercise 18: How an investor sees your startup
- 2.2 Road test your startup
- Exercise 19: Road test your startup
- DELIVERABLES: no. 4 – Go-to-market strategy
- 2.3 Exploring funding options
- Case study: Skeleton Technologies
- 2.4 Setting up your business
- DELIVERABLES: no. 5 – Roadmap
Section 3: PRESENTING Your Business

In the third section, Presenting Your Business, you’ll learn how to present your startup to investors and customers.
- 3.0 Introduction
- 3.1 Telling stories
- 3.2 How to pitch to investors
- Exercise 20: The elevator pitch
- Case study: Hygen
- 3.3 The pitch deck
- DELIVERABLES: no. 6 – Pitchdeck
- 3.4 Putting it all together
Resources

Finally, the Resources section at the end contains a glossary and reading list to help you on your journey from an idea to a profitable business.
- Glossary
- Further reading
Primer Demo Day
- Presentations from Demo Day

PRIMER by InnoEnergy – Helping European startups build a sustainable future

1.1 Meet your customer

You have a great idea. That great idea will make a great product. As soon as the product is available, customers will automatically know about it and rush out to buy it, right?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

You might think your idea or innovation is great, but if you want to start a business, it doesn’t matter what you think. One more time: it doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what the customer thinks.

After all, it’s the customer who will give you money for your product. You’re not going to sell it to yourself, are you?

So how do you find out what your potential customers think? Great question! The answer is simple: talk to them.

In The Startup Owner’s Manual, authors Steve Blank and Bob Dorf continually stress one main idea: “Get out of the building.” What this means is get out from behind your computer or workstation, stop building and start listening.