Before the Product: Two Founders Who Built Their Mindset First
When we talk about startups, we often jump straight to metrics: product- market fit, funding rounds, or perfecting “the pitch.”
But the most sustainable, impactful ventures don’t actually begin with a product- they begin with a mindset.
Entrepreneurship starts before the startup.
It starts with curiosity.
With grit.
With the sensitivity to spot a real problem- and the courage to take action without knowing exactly where it will lead.
The product, the funding, and the team? Those are tools. What comes first is how you think.
Let’s look at two powerful founder journeys that prove this:
two very different stories, with the same starting point- mindset first.
The Mindset of Mission: Whitney Wolfe Herd and Bumble
Before founding Bumble, the world’s first female-first dating app, Whitney Wolfe Herd wasn’t chasing a new startup dream. She was walking away from one.
After co-founding Tinder, she left the company in the midst of personal and professional fallout - including a public legal battle, online harassment, and press scrutiny. It was a deeply discouraging time. She was done with the startup world - or so she thought.
But under the surface, something more powerful was building: conviction.
Whitney had seen how dating platforms were reinforcing power imbalances, especially for women. She knew the tech could work - but the culture around it needed to change.
Instead of diving straight into code or pitch decks, she turned inward and listened- to her own frustration, and to the women around her. Friends, mentors, and eventually allies like Andrey Andreev (founder of Badoo) helped her see the opportunity to reimagine dating apps from a place of safety, self-respect, and agency.
She didn’t chase “the next unicorn.”
She chased a solution to a deeply personal problem - one she knew millions of other women were facing too. She founded Bumble
“The moment I understood I didn’t have to follow the rules, everything changed.”
Mindset Lesson:
Whitney didn’t wait for the perfect idea or big funding.
She led with her values, and let the business follow the mission- not the other way around.
The Mindset of Empathy: Tristan Walker and Bevel
Tristan Walker didn’t plan to disrupt the shaving industry. He just wanted to fix a problem he’d been living with since his teens.
As a Black man, he struggled with razor bumps and skin irritation- a common issue caused by coarse, curly hair and razors designed for other skin types. For years, no brand seemed to care. Every aisle in every pharmacy carried products that worked for someone else, but not for people like him.
That’s where the mindset began.
Walker didn’t just leap into product development. He started by listening - to himself, to his peers, to the long-ignored segment of customers who needed something better. He studied the science of shaving, spent time on formulations, and built a product that didn’t just work — it respected the people it was built for.
He didn’t romanticize the startup journey. He rooted it in cultural context, empathy, and listening - skills he’d sharpened long before building a brand.
Today, Bevel is more than a product. It’s a statement of identity, inclusion, and innovation. And it started, like all great ventures do, with a shift in mindset.
“I wasn’t trying to disrupt shaving. I was trying to solve a personal problem that no one else was taking seriously.”
Mindset Lesson:
True innovation doesn’t always start with invention - it often starts with empathy. Walker’s success was born from solving a problem that mainstream business had ignored, but he understood deeply.
The Real Takeaway: Mindset First
Whitney Wolfe Herd and Tristan Walker had vastly different stories - One started with burnout and a broken system.The other started with a quiet, daily frustration.
But they had one powerful thing in common:
They didn’t begin with a business.
They began with mindset.
Here’s what that mindset looked like:
A personal connection to the problem
A commitment to deep listening before acting
A willingness to start without certainty
The patience to build something meaningful - not just marketable
At Entreprenerds, we believe the first step of entrepreneurship isn’t an idea.
It’s how you think.
That’s why our programme begins with Gate 0: Intro to Entrepreneurship - a free, practical entry point into building a startup-ready mindset.
