Founders spend their feedback slot on the wrong thing

tl;dr Know your first user, show what stands in their way, and bring evidence. You’ll get a more useful conversation. This article is for teams getting ready to present their product at Founder House Singapore.

During every Open House Buildathon, the three-week fully online component of the @Arbitrum builder program, we offer multiple feedback sessions. These sessions are opportunities for founders and builders to get first-hand review of their work, and help in the midst of the intense experience.

As someone who has participated in almost every single feedback session from Bangalore to NYC to London and now Singapore, I’ve seen the same type of challenges come up.

Below are the most common ones. If you address them before your feedback session starts, you’ll get more out of your limited time with the mentors and reviewers.

It could make the difference between earning a winning slot and not.

Why these questions kept coming up

In our Open House Singapore Buildathon feedback sessions, I watched the same choice play out for reviewers: spend the slot figuring out what a founder was building, or spend it testing whether the business could work.

As a founder help the reviewers focus on the latter, so you get the most useful feedback from the moment.

The clearer a founder was about who the first user is and what stands in the way, the less time we spent rebuilding the basics and the more we could offer real feedback. When an opening stayed vague, we first had to help frame the product. Questions about value and monetization came later, with less time left to answer them. You’ll face the same tradeoff at our upcoming in-person program, where most of the schedule is built around direct feedback.

Founder House Singapore runs October 23 to 25. It’s three days in person in Singapore for teams with an existing product, prototype or business concept. Day 1 covers product-market fit, product direction and finding your wedge, with direct feedback from the Arbitrum Foundation, Offchain and ecosystem partners. Day 2 turns to go-to-market strategy, positioning and distribution. Day 3 brings live pitches and the announcement of winners.

The questions below are the ones that most often changed the direction of our Buildathon feedback sessions, and they line up with what Day 1 and Day 2 will test. Work through them as you prepare for your experience in Singapore.

Make the product legible

Can you tell someone what your product does, who it’s for and what painful problem it removes in one plain sentence? Try saying it before you show the architecture. Then walk through what your user does and what they get. Once reviewers understand that, they can ask whether the design supports the promise.

You don’t need to read every slide to prove you’ve thought deeply. When founders spent too long building up to the product, business and technical concerns got squeezed into the remaining minutes or moved to follow-up. A natural pitch of a couple of minutes, supported by a visual or short demo, leaves room for the discussion you came for.

Name your first user, not everyone who might someday use the product. What are they trying to do now? What gets in their way? Have you spoken to people in that segment, and what have they done beyond expressing interest?

Broad answers led to basic follow-up questions about persona, competitors and acquisition. A short, concrete demo paired with an early usage signal let reviewers move quickly to differentiation, retention and growth.

Prove your wedge

**Who would your first user choose instead of you? Name the alternatives and explain where yours differs. If earlier attempts in the category failed, address that history up front. **The judges will be looking for it. When the failure mode and the proposed way around it were clear during Buildathon feedback sessions, the conversation could move to a useful discussion of the wedge your product is filling.

A narrow starting market can be a deliberate choice. But you need to explain why that group feels the pain now, whether it can pay, and what lets you expand later. Otherwise, “we’ll start small” leaves the harder question unanswered.

The economics deserve the same treatment. Who pays you, for what, and how does revenue grow as usage grows? If you’re relying on a marketplace or network, show why the model still works while participation is limited. Launch interest isn’t a substitute for a customer willing to pay.

Why now? The answer should come from what your target users are doing, not from online excitement about the category. Ask prospects what they use today, what they object to, and what change would make them switch. Be precise about whether you heard that from a prospective customer or a potential partner.

And if you claim better efficiency, pricing or protection, compared with what? Unsupported performance claims led judges and mentors to wonder where are the side-by-side benchmarks against existing options. Even a measured advantage won’t displace an incumbent on its own; you still need to show which user has enough reason to try you first.

Show how it works in the real world

How will that first user find you, and why will they stay? “Organic growth” doesn’t explain how you reach a specific segment or earn repeat use. Bring a first acquisition path, the objection you expect to hear, and what you’ll watch to learn whether users return.

For a marketplace or network, there’s another test: why does each side join before the network is large? Partners may want volume before integrating, while users may need those integrations before arriving. Explain what each participant gets immediately and how you’ll break that loop. If the answer depends on liquidity, say where the first liquidity comes from.

Then show the mechanism. Who bears the risk when something goes wrong? What capacity do you need to honor the product’s promise? Which inputs can be manipulated, which participants could misrepresent themselves, and which parties must be trusted? Reviewers could ask questions at this level when founders had already made the user and the value clear.

You should also know what you’ll build and what you’ll get through existing infrastructure or partners. Building every piece yourself can delay the part users need. Depending on a partner without knowing what they’ll provide creates a different risk. Draw that boundary, including how you’ll handle security review and audit planning, before someone has to find it for you in the room.

Use the feedback room well

When you enter a feedback session during Open House arrive with one or two requests that a reviewer can answer. You might want your product framing challenged, a mechanism tested, or help deciding which type of partner to approach. “What do you think?” makes the reviewer choose the question for you.

At Founder House Singapore, plan those requests around the three days. On the product day, be ready to defend your first user and wedge. On the go-to-market day, bring your acquisition plan, likely objections and retention questions.

Founder House Singapore has $300K in prizes and grants, plus access to continued mentorship from the Arbitrum ecosystem. This is a big opportunity for your emerging startup, make sure to prepare accordingly.

Apply to Founder House Singapore and get those pitches ready.