Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
tomblomfield · 2012-11-08 · Original thread
Talk to them!

Or start with a hypothesis based on your past personal or professional experience.

The point is that you should try to validate consumer demand as quickly as possible without wasting too much time or money. It's the "Lean Startup" approach:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successf...

For example, I recently tried to rent a house in London. The process was painful and time-consuming and I think I could improve it by writing a great software package. But instead of spending 2 years and several million dollars building that software package to a "vision", I would put up a simple landing page, market it to potential customers and perform the main parts of the service manually to gauge consumer interest.

vmurthy · 2020-07-26 · Original thread
The second part of your need is interesting. I'm being a bit generic but to speak with CEOs, it would greatly help to know about strategy and competition. It's a loaded term and here's what I would recommend:

1. Michael Porter's Competitive Advantage [0] or Understanding Michael Porter [1]

2. One of the things that really applies well to tech businesses has been Platform Business Model. This book [2] is a good starting point

3. The Lean startup [3] and Hacking Growth [4] round up the tech books that I have benefited from.

3b. Warren Buffet's letters are a classic to learn about businesses and help when you are dealing with CXOs.

4. With these basics in place, I would recommend Stratecherry - the blog and Economist for keeping up with the current developments in the field.

Good luck!

[0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Competitive-Advantage-Creating-Sus...

[1] https://www.amazon.com.au/Understanding-Michael-Porter-Essen...

[2] https://www.amazon.com.au/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Tran...

[3] https://www.amazon.com.au/Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successful...

[4] https://www.amazon.com.au/Hacking-Growth-Fastest-Growing-Com...

FYI, I come from a similar background. Was a techie for 9+ years before switching to an MBA and can personally attest to the materials given above :)

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