Everything42 + GSA Edition
Life, the Universe, and Fusion42 #014
Hello Hello,
I hope you all had a fantastic week and are making great moves. It was an up and down week here at Fusion-42. Here’s the 😇 Good, 😈 Bad and the 🤢 Ugly so we can all learn together.
😇 The Good
It’s all good.
WOW — what an incredible first week!
We’re beyond excited about how the Fusion42 Global Super Accelerator has kicked off. The energy, engagement, and community spirit have been amazing — and it’s only just the beginning!
Here’s a quick recap of everything we covered:
Key Highlights:
Incredible MasterClasses and Workshops with Peter N. Townshend, Dan Bowyer, Anvita Varshney, and Rym Bachouche — thank you for sharing your expertise!
If you missed them you can catch them here.
Startups from around the world connecting, collaborating, and sharing ideas.
Amazing discussions, great input, and serious energy — this is exactly what Fusion42 is about: sharing, learning, making new connections, and having fun!
Key Takeaways:
Investors Invest in People: Strong, cohesive teams are more likely to secure investment and succeed.
Execution is Everything: Be an operator, not just a dreamer.
Lay a Solid Foundation: Get your basics right before scaling.
GTM Before GTF: Validate your Go-To-Market strategy before raising funds.
Start with Problem Fit: Solve a real, urgent problem first.
Think Simpler, Start Sooner: Build a Minimum Viable Experiment (MVE).
Core Identity Matters: Authentic leadership wins.
Seek Early Customer Feedback: Shape your product with real insights.
Define Your ICP and Personas: Know exactly who you're serving.
Choose the Right Channels: Meet customers where they are.
Measure Everything: Track key metrics and optimize.
We’d Love Your Feedback!
Your experience matters — help us make the Fusion42 GSA even better!
Please take 2 minutes to fill out the Week 1 Feedback Survey here:
Thank you for helping us grow and improve!
This week at GSA we rolled out two new ways for F42+ members to stay accountable and make real progress: the Lean Business Canvas and The 100 Challenge.
They’re both built to help you take action, share your journey, and stay on track with the community behind you.
As we get into the hardwork and the practicalities of building a startup I certainly hope we have provoked a shift in consciousness about the sheer scale of the startup undertaking.
The Lean Business Canvas, guided by the Startup Checklist, marks the start of our journey towards building a successful startup. The insights in the first report serve as early indicators, laying a foundational view of your business that will evolve with deeper exploration and structured refinement over the course of GSA, and support you through your entire journey.
F42+ members will be receiving their first Lean Canvas report in the coming days.
The 100 Challenge is to nail your problem fit.
We will be holding a Monday huddle check-in … watch out for the time in the 100 challenge channel.
We heard a lot of suggestions for the Mom Test for Startup Problem Fit, but is it Enough ?
Short answer: It’s a solid start—but not enough on its own.
Rob Fitzpatrick’s *The Mom Test* is great for teaching founders how to avoid leading questions and get honest feedback. It helps them stop pitching and start listening. But for real problem fit, especially when insisting on 100 conversations, you need more structure.
Here’s why *The Mom Test* is useful:
- Teaches how to ask better, non-biased questions
- Helps founders avoid false positives from polite feedback
- Encourages discovery over validation
But here’s what it misses:
- No framework for mapping patterns across conversations
- Doesn’t push for quantifying the pain or urgency of the problem
- Lacks segmentation logic to refine the ICP as conversations evolve
- Doesn’t guide how to filter noise from signal when talking to 100+ people
What we suggest instead:
Pair *The Mom Test* principles with a structured customer discovery scorecard, covering:
- Problem severity (1–5 scale)
- Current workaround (and its cost)
- Buying intent (would they pay for a solution today?)
- ICP alignment (do they fit the target profile?)
Bottom line: *The Mom Test* is a tool, not a system. Use it to sharpen the questions, but build a repeatable process to nail the problem fit.⭐️ Let us know if you want a plug-and-play scorecard template—we can build one for exactly this use case.
🔥 One of the strongest qualifiers? Ask what they'd actually pay to fix it.
It’s a forcing function. If there’s no willingness to pay—even in principle—it’s a red flag. Payment intent signals real pain, not polite interest.
It’s still not too late to join GSA
😈 The Bad (and how we deal with it)
➡️ We want to do so much more, but the day is still only 24 hours long, so we are busy working on getting more partners involved in creative ways.
➡️ We're looking to bring more sponsors into Fusion and the GSA—where we’re actually helping founders get **it done. The outcome-led workshops are already producing the right feedback which will make for stronger startups and laying the foundations for a real ecosystem.
Gone are the days of talking AT founders or building ecosystems around bright lights, vanity metrics, and fluffy photo ops. (Bit of a rant, I know 😄)
But here's the thing—we’re seeing a shift. As the community grows, and more people see the value (and are talking about it) of flipping the script, new opportunities are landing on our doorstep. One deal already signed—and in true F42 fashion, we made sure it includes something meaningful for founders too.
If you want to get involved please be sure to JOIN OUR PARTNER PROGRAM or reach out for a chat.
➡️ We were so busy we didn’t even manage to activate two new community hubs … but the priority is what we already have, you.
🤢 The Ugly
Apparently, some people expect the Raise Report—packed with new fund names, insights, and investor data—to be free.
So let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what a business actually is:
Buys stuff (time, skills, materials, data, attention)
Turns it into value (a product, service, experience, result)
Sells that value to someone who needs it enough to pay
I’m not here to justify whether it’s worth $42/month. That’s your decision.
But if you honestly think you’ve got the time, skill, and systems to source, vet, and organise this level of intel faster and better than we have—then by all means, crack on.
Let’s be real:
Are you going to track hundreds of investor updates every week?
Map them to stage, sector, and geography?
Package it all in a format you can act on—quickly?
And do it all for under $42/month?
(Spoiler: impossible. I pay the bills. I know what it costs.)
If you can—genuinely, best of luck. But most founders won’t. Because they value their time, know this isn’t their area of expertise, and have more important things to build.
That’s why the Raise Report exists. We do the unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work—so you don’t have to.
No, it’s not free. And it shouldn’t be. Just like your startup isn’t either.
FREE
Access to the 24/7 Telegram community with expert-led channels
Access to Masterclasses on Startup Resilience, GTM, Fundraising and AI
Newsletters. Mon. The Brief. 📈 Trending, 💡Innovator Spotlight, 🛠️ Tools
Wednesday The Raise Report. 💸 New Funds looking to give you cash.
Friday: Everything42 😇 The Good, 😈 The Bad, 🤢 The Ugly
Fusion42+ GSA | US$42 per month
Everything in Free. Community | Masterclasses | Newsletters Plus
This includes:
Access to Fusion42+ Members only Private group
Access GSA BUILD IN LIVE WORKSHOP
Opportunity to Pitch at Pitch Kung Fu, FUSE and RAISE Events
Weekly Cohort/AUA Huddles
Full Content Store –All Masterclasses Recordings, Podcast, Interviews & ebooks
Please drop any comments below or ask the team directly in telegram / whatsapp.
Well that’s it from me, I am so excited and pumped for what’s to come over the next days, weeks, months. Thanks to all for being part of this journey.
For the ❤️ of startups
Cheers,
Enjoy and hope to see you soon.
If you have not joined the Fusion42 Community on Telegram —
it is probably time to do so.
For the ❤️ of Startups
📅 Upcoming Online Masterclasses, Panels and Workshops.
Get the calendar here.
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