In the final session of YSpace’s Founder Fundamentals Winter 2025 series, we have Tanika Mcleod, co-founder of MinuteSkill, a community learning network, and One Cliq, a platform that helps creators amplify their content across platforms. Packed with practical insights, the workshop focused on how founders can navigate challenges, pivot with confidence, and build products that truly resonate with customers. Attendees were equipped with actionable strategies rooted in real-world startup experience and current industry practices—especially for those working in tech, research, and AI.
The Power of Customer Discovery
Effective customer discovery is at the heart of building products that solve real problems. Despite its importance, only about 2% of startups get this process right. The key is to learn about customers’ existing behaviors—what they do today, their goals, workflows, pain points, and tools—not to seek validation of an idea, but to uncover evidence that can shape a better solution. Customers won’t validate your product idea directly. Instead, their behaviors and frustrations reveal the real opportunity.
Building with Purpose: Four Critical Product Development Skills
Once the problem is clearly understood, the product development process should follow a structured approach to avoid wasted time and effort. Four essential skills were highlighted:
Managing Work: Organize feature builds into actionable tasks, assigning roles and aligning the team to execute effectively.
User Journey Mapping: Visually map the user’s habits, tech stack, and friction points to identify where value can be added.
Roadmapping: Prioritize which features to build now versus later to avoid overengineering and to stay focused on impact.
Shaping Features: Clearly define the problem, objective, and constraints for each feature to ensure development is intentional and realistic.
Embracing Setbacks as Momentum Builders
Setbacks—such as running out of funding or discovering the product-market misfit—are not failures, but critical turning points. Setbacks often precede a breakthrough, provided founders are willing to adapt, listen to their users, and pivot strategically. It is important to take it in a positive way, and find a solution.
Generative AI as a Strategic Advantage
Founders can upskill in generative AI through self-taught prompt engineering. AI should be used not as a one-size-fits-all solution, but as a tool to automate manual tasks and enhance efficiency—especially in areas like qualitative research where human analysis traditionally took weeks or months.
Real-World Applications
The MVP Philosophy: Early product versions don’t need to be polished—they need to work. Even rough prototypes can deliver value if they solve a clear problem, which was evident in the success of the startup’s reimagined AI tool.
Product Pivoting: A case study showed how a startup sunsetted its original microlearning platform after discovering a mismatch between user needs and product functionality. By continuing customer discovery, the team identified a more urgent problem and quickly built a new AI-powered insights engine.
Customer-Centric Innovation: Through interviews with marketers and agencies, the team uncovered that manual sentiment analysis from platforms like Reddit and YouTube was a huge time sink. They built a system that automated this process and directly fit into existing workflows.
Pitfalls to Avoid
It is critical to have the mindset that: setbacks aren’t signs to stop—they’re signals to adapt. One of the most compelling insights shared was the idea that setbacks can actually generate momentum when approached with clarity and intention. Founders were reminded that growth doesn’t come from avoiding challenges, but from learning through them and using those lessons to drive the next iteration of their product or strategy.
The importance of staying rooted in customer needs, prioritizing the right problems, and building lean was emphasized throughout. Whether facing product misalignment, funding gaps, or a pivot in direction, the message was clear: resilience and responsiveness are what set successful startups apart.
As said by Tanika McLeod, “Setbacks create momentum”—a reminder that even difficult moments can push founders toward their next breakthrough.
About Founder Fundamentals
Founder Fundamentals is a 12-week workshop series by YSpace and Markham Small Business Centre (MSBC), designed to equip you with essential entrepreneurial skills like business planning, bootstrapping, and Shopify setup. Attend 9+ workshops to earn a Certificate of Recognition and take the first step toward entrepreneurial success!
About the Speaker
Tanika is a dynamic entrepreneur, educator, and Co-Founder of two innovative startups: MinuteSkill, a community learning network, and One Cliq, a platform that helps creators amplify their content across platforms.
With a strong foundation in education and research, Tanika has honed her ability to foster transformative learning experiences in academia, entrepreneurship and community environments. Her passion is leveraging technology and education to cultivate critical thinking, equity, and limitless innovation.