This was a near text book case of Peer-Mentoring. This was also the first startup. Sateesh (founder) approached but did not sign up. After about 9 months of moon-lighting, he approached again. As with most solo moon-lighters, he had progressed on technology front but there was still a long way to go. Revenues and +ve cash flow were even further away.
On signing up, using one of our thinking models, he reinvented the offering. We lined up his passion into a larger purpose. We started the pretotype and dived into the XP model of execution. On 30th day of signing up with Peer-Mentor, he got his first paying consumer. Next couple of days we had a handful more paying consumers.
We struck to the Peer-Mentor principles and grew by the +ve word of mouth. Couple of investors reached out to us. Soon, though we were not ready, we got an offer that was hard to resist. We got funded in about 18 months after signing up with Peer-Mentor.
All along, there were lots of hardships. Passion and perseverance saw us through.
From a Peer-Mentor point of view, easyTaaza was the first pretotype.