Our accelerator cohort spent the last month identifying their startup’s current stage, next milestones and set effective Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for Q3 2026. They conducted customer interviews to understand their jobs to be done and buying triggers to unlock why their customers actually buy.
Decoding Investor Readiness and Setting Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for your startup
Julia Turnbull, Associate Director at MIT Sloan Executive Education, introduced our startups to Village Capital's VIRAL framework, a powerful GPS for startups, providing a common language for them to discuss their progress with investors. The VIRAL framework helps startups self-assess their startup's progress across 8 key categories, from team and vision to product and business model. It helps pinpoint exactly where you are and what milestones you need to hit next.
1. Where do we want to go? (The Objective)
2. How will we know we're getting there? (The Key Results)
This isn't about creating a longer to-do list. It's about creating a "to-don't" list. By defining 1-3 critical objectives, you're building a compass for your entire team. Every decision, every line of code, and every sales call can be measured against these priorities. It transforms your company culture from one of reactive busyness to one of proactive, focused execution. It’s the bridge between your grand vision and the daily discipline required to make it real.
Check out the BonBillo's blog here to set OKRs effectively for your startup.
Deconstructing a live interview to unlock why your customers buy
Peter Drucker wisely said, "People rarely buy what your company thinks it's selling."
Your customers don't buy your AI-powered solution; they buy the promotion they get from the results it generates.
This is the core of the "Jobs to be Done" (JTBD) framework, and it's a game-changer for finding product-market fit. It forces you to stop selling a product and start understanding the progress your customer is trying to make.
We recently hosted a workshop with the brilliant Lucy Heskins, Founder at Oh Blimey, who deconstructed this in a live customer interview. In just 15 minutes, she masterfully peeled back the layers of a recent purchase decision, uncovering the real motivations, hidden anxieties, and the ultimate "job" the product was hired to do.
Here’s the documentary-style approach you can use:
1. Uncover the "Trigger Event": Don't ask "What problems do you have?" Ask, "What was happening in your world that made you realize you needed a change?" For the founder Lucy interviewed, it was a specific, painful bottleneck with his team's AI coding tool.
2. Map the "Consideration Set": Your real competitors aren't just other startups. They're spreadsheets, manual processes, or tools that only solve half the problem. Ask, "What else did you try or consider?"
3. Find the "Aha!" Moment: Ask, "What was the one thing that made you say, 'This is it'?" The answer is your most powerful value proposition, in your customer's own words. For the founder, it wasn't "speed"; it was "solving a huge ERP bottleneck overnight."
What "job" are your customers really hiring your product for? We deconstructed the entire interview in this blog to show you how to find out.
From Mission to Metrics: A Startup's Guide to Building a Theory of Change
PriyoShop is a B2B marketplace in Bangladesh that empowers over 213,391 MSME retailers. They connect these small shop owners directly to suppliers, provide embedded financing, and focus on sustainable last-mile delivery.
Their mission is ambitious, but their Theory of Change breaks it down into a clear, logical, and measurable plan.
1. B2B Marketplace: Onboarding suppliers and credit access leads to a 23% increase in SKUs ordered by retailers.
2. Embedded Finance: Disbursing working capital leads to a 51% increase in monthly revenue for MSMEs.
3. Sustainability: Using EVs for 41% of deliveries and solar for 45% of hubs has saved 5,490 Metric tons of CO2 emissions.
This framework connects every activity to a tangible outcome, creating a powerful story of dual-engine growth (profit + impact).
Ready to turn your good intentions into a fundable impact story? We break down the entire framework in our blog post.
BonBillo Impact Jobs Board - New Opportunities 🚀
Join one of our community startups contributing to digital healthcare and sustainable logistics.
MedEasy is a trusted online pharmacy in Bangladesh providing high medicine fulfilment rates, fast delivery times and 24-hour customer support. 🏥
Freight Tiger makes logistics frictionless and reduce carbon emissions in India. 🚚
Check out all open roles at BonBillo community startups on our Impact Jobs Board. If you're looking to recruit for your social impact startup, you can post a free job listing for greater visibility here.
Congrats to BonBillo alumni and community members on their wins! 🏆
LULA, has made the Top 50 African Mobility Companies ranking. They ranked 27th overall and 4th in the Bookings Platforms category out of 250 companies.
Chhaya has expanded into Chittagong, the commercial gateway and second largest city in Bangladesh. Since launch, Chhaya has served customers across Bangladesh through their digital platform. Now, they're taking the next step by expanding their direct customer acquisition efforts beyond Dhaka.
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SECHA is currently on-site building the Garuda Spark Innovation Hub by Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of the Republic of Indonesia. The design philosophy is simple: a space deeply rooted in tradition but engineered for the future.
PriyoShop and ChutneyAds is expanding their network to 400 screens in MSME retail shops, bringing brands closer to customers inside the retail stores they visit.
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