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The Paid Discovery Sprint: Validate Your B2B Startup & Secure Pre-Seed Funding

You have a game-changing B2B idea and a stellar founding team, but no product to show. Investors see potential, but without tangible traction like revenue or user metrics, they see too much risk. Your concept alone isn't enough to unlock pre-seed funding. How do you prove a genuine market need and, more importantly, a willingness to pay before you've written a single line of code?

Stop pitching an abstract idea; start selling a concrete outcome. This playbook shows you how to package your expertise into a paid 'Discovery Sprint' or 'Solution Blueprinting' engagement. Using a professional toolkit of Bonsai, Notion, and Calendly, you'll guide your first customers through a structured process to co-create a detailed blueprint of the solution they desperately need. The output? Your first revenue, powerful testimonials, and a customer-validated plan that transforms your investor pitch from a 'concept' into a de-risked, market-proven opportunity.

Expected Outcomes

  • Secure your first paying customers before building a product.
  • Generate tangible traction and early revenue to de-risk your startup for investors.
  • Create a detailed, customer-validated solution blueprint to guide your product roadmap.
  • Collect powerful testimonials and signed Letters of Intent (LOIs) as social proof.
  • Confidently answer the 'Is there a market for this?' question in any investor meeting.

Core Tools in This Stack

Bonsai

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Bonsai provides patient financial solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, helping to manage patient affordability through copay assistance, patient assistance programs (PAPs), and other reimbursement services.

Key Features
  • Copay Programs
  • Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs)
  • HUB Services
  • Reimbursement Support
  • Data & Analytics
  • Customizable Program Design
Ideal For

Company Size: Medium, Large

Industries: Health & Wellness, Technology & Software

Pricing

Model: Contact for pricing

Tier: High

Ease of Use

Medium

Notion

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Notion is a connected workspace that combines notes, documents, wikis, and project management into one customizable platform. It allows teams and individuals to create and organize using flexible building blocks like pages, databases, and Kanban boards.

Key Features
  • Connected Workspace
  • Team Wikis & Knowledge Base
  • Project Management (Boards, Timelines, Calendars)
  • Customizable Databases with Relations & Rollups
  • Notes & Docs with rich media
  • Notion AI Assistant
  • Extensive Template Library
  • Third-party Integrations (Slack, Jira, GitHub, etc.)
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Subscription, Enterprise

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Intermediate

Calendly

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Calendly is a scheduling automation platform that eliminates the back-and-forth emails for finding the perfect meeting time. It simplifies scheduling for individuals, teams, and enterprises by connecting with your calendar and only showing available times.

Key Features
  • Automated Scheduling Links
  • Calendar Connections (Google, Office 365, Outlook, iCloud)
  • Team Scheduling (Round Robin, Collective)
  • Meeting Polls for Group Scheduling
  • Automated Workflows (Reminders, Follow-ups)
  • Routing Forms for Leads and Clients
  • Website Embedding
  • Integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, Stripe)
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Very Easy

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "Consultant's Professional Toolkit" direction LR N0["Bonsai"] N1["Notion"] N2["Calendly"] N0 -- "Creates Project Page" --> N1 N2 -- "Adds Meeting" --> N1 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • Bonsai to Notion Project Sync

    This integration uses a multi-step workflow, primarily triggered by actions in Bonsai and Calendly. 1. When a new project is created in Bonsai, it triggers a Zapier workflow. 2. The workflow creates a new database item in a specified Notion Projects database. 3. Data such as Project Name, Client Name, and Scope are mapped from Bonsai to corresponding properties in the new Notion page. 4. A secondary, optional workflow is triggered when a new meeting is booked in Calendly. It finds the relevant project in Notion (by client email) and creates a new item in a 'Meetings' database, linking it back to the project page via a relation property. This keeps all client communications organized within the project's workspace.

Unlock Your Pre-Seed Funding Playbook

Learn how to validate your idea with paying customers—before you build a product.