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Bonus Episode: Building Products Around Real Customer Needs with Filipe Castro Matos
Filipe Castro Matos is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Altar.io, where he helps founders go from idea to MVP with clarity and speed. With over a decade of experience across B2C and B2B startups—including an early exit, viral growth experiments, and advising dozens of founders—Filipe specializes in helping teams find their first customers and build Go-to-Market strategies that actually work.
His work today centers on solving one of the biggest problems in early-stage startups: the gap between building and growing. He's quietly building something new to bridge that gap.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- [00:00] Intro
- [01:19] Learning ecommerce by evolving with companies
- [02:50] Avoiding guesswork through real user engagement
- [04:57] Avoiding costly guesses in early channels
- [07:24] Finding people who match your avatar
- [08:23] Returning to basics for direction clarity
- [08:51] Distinguishing buyers from friendly critics
- [11:29] Starting small when validating ideas
- [14:36] Simplifying business ideas through existing tools
- [15:29] Stay updated with new episodes
- [15:40] Capturing insights for go-to-market
- [17:36] Separating problem discovery from solutions
- [19:55] Going where the market is active
- [21:10] Introducing payments only after solutions
- [22:24] Digesting conversations into ICP
- [23:17] Pulling branding assets from real conversations
- [24:56] Testing organically before paid ads
- [27:04] Building a brand as key differentiator
Resources:
- Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
- Digital products for entrepreneurs and business leaders: altar.io/us/
- Follow Filipe Castro Matos linkedin.com/in/filipecastromatos
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Published on 12 hours ago