dream crushers

Hello Predictable Revenue community,

Book update: Thank you to all the early ARC reviewers for sharing your reviews and comments! If you haven’t shared yours, your review is still helpful because I’ll be adding them to the website later this month. I’ve now submitted my first round of copy edit feedback and we’re working on the design/typesetting of the book (check the bottom for a sneak preview).

Community update: our next Revenue Roundtable is March 14th (next Friday) at 930am PT, we have a few more spots and then I’ll be instituting a waitlist. Hit me back if you’re interested in joining us.

Here’s an early review from Susan Abbott, founder of Just Know:
“I’m absolutely loving the book. I initially thought it would be a light read, reinforcing things I already knew or had read elsewhere—but it has completely blown me away. So many aha moments have made me pause and reflect on what they mean for my startup.”

tl;dr 

• Play Dream Crushers as a fun way of testing / validating new startup ideas

• Founder Story: How Courtney Krstich (EarthaPro) found her first customers over Instagram and at conferences (check it out on Spotify)

I recently connected with a fellow founder who stumbled upon what seemed like a massive gap in the market. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and our conversation inspired today's post.

Here’s a bit about their situation:

They were convinced they had a surefire opportunity—a huge, untapped market with only around 10% penetration, based on their calculations. They had the technical skills to build the software, but there was a catch: the product required hardware manufacturing. That meant real capital, established supply chain partners, and a supporting team.

At just 19 years old, they had zero capital, no significant manufacturing network, and couldn’t find a co-founder to help shoulder the load. They felt stuck—as if all the puzzle pieces for a successful business existed, but they couldn’t get the first domino to fall.

Does this resonate? Let me know if you started out with similar ideas and how you broke through.

Their situation brought me back to the early days of my first company, voltageCRM, when I faced exactly this kind of dilemma. Here’s an exercise we used that helped me (and might help you) break through:

Dream Crushers

I don’t remember who created the game, but I vividly recall Mack Flavelle MC’ing our event and turning the act of getting your dreams crushed into a cathartic and hilarious experience. We played it over beers at our co-working space, among familiar faces. It was a safe space… kinda.

Here’s how Dream Crushers works:

• The Founder’s goal is to convince The Crowd their dream is still alive.

• The Panel’s goal is to convince The Crowd that the Founder’s dream is dead. The Panel assumes the role of disgruntled, skeptical VCs whose sole mission is to find fatal flaws in the Founder’s pitch.

• The Crowd’s role is simple: decide who wins by cheering loudly for whichever side made the most compelling arguments.

The Structure:

1. Pitch: The Founder gets 2 minutes to present their idea.

2. Preparation: The Panel has 2 minutes to quickly research and prepare their toughest questions.

3. Hell breaks loose: 5 minutes of intense Q&A and spirited debate between Founder and Panel.

4. Judgement: The Crowd cheers for the winner based on the strength of the arguments.

Yes, it's intimidating—but somehow, knowing the Panel was instructed to act like assholes actually made it easier to digest criticism.

We later adapted Dream Crushers into a fun version for pitch practice or unwinding after a tough week. Here’s how we tweaked it:

Instead of pitching real startup ideas, founders drew randomly from three hats:

• Hat 1: Startup name

• Hat 2: Market vertical (sales, healthcare, fintech, etc.)

• Hat 3: Product type (SaaS, marketplace, consumer app, hardware, etc.)

Participants had 1 minute think, 1 minute to share the value proposition and market hypothesis and 2 minutes to defend their new idea..

We ran it as a ladder-style tournament, pitting two founders head-to-head, with The Crowd deciding who moved forward. It was a fun way to practice thinking on our feet and have a few laughs with our fellow co-working space inhabitants.

Back to my conversation with the new founder, my advice was for them to play Dream Crusher Solitaire. They should give themselves an hour to draft a document clearly laying out their hypothesis. Then, they should take on the role of the panel and give themselves another hour to ruthlessly tear apart their own hypothesis. Afterward, they can decide for themselves or toss the documents into an LLM and let Skynet decide.

What’s the toughest feedback you’ve ever gotten on your startup? Hit reply and let me know. 

Collin 

PS - I’ve been interviewing founders lately to learn about their product-market fit journey and I’d like your feedback. Have a look at the below preview. Do these belong in a separate post? Or are you good with a summary appended after my regular post? 

Founder Spotlight: Courtney Krstich, EarthaPro

I sat down with Courtney, to talk about her journey to product-market fit. Courtney’s story is a masterclass in customer discovery, validation, and persistence.

She started her career in field sales, working directly with landscapers and lawn care businesses. Over time, she noticed a glaring problem: these businesses were running on pen, paper, Apple Notes, and Excel, with no streamlined system to track jobs, invoicing, or operations. When she asked why they weren’t using software, the response was always the same—it was too expensive, too complicated, or just not built for them.

That was the spark. Courtney teamed up with an old friend, and software developer, and started Eartha Pro—named after her cat. But before quitting her job, she put in the work. She did 50+ customer interviews, attended industry trade shows, and joined a pre-accelerator to validate the idea.

Her first customers didn’t come from ads or outbound emails. They came from Instagram. Want to hear the full story? Check out the episode here. 

Interior Sample Design Preview

Let me know what you think of the font.