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Dancho Dimkov

ANATOMY OF
A LAUNCH

Eight weeks from a business idea to a market that answers back. Carried by me.

€10,000

Dancho Dimkov

Your developers will get €15,000 to €20,000 to build the product. Nobody is being paid to find out whether anyone wants it.

So the product gets built first and the market gets asked last, usually after the money is gone. I have watched it happen for eighteen years, from inside my own companies and from the investor’s chair.

Anatomy of a Launch is my method for taking a business idea to market: put the promise in front of real audiences early, and let their behaviour decide what gets built. Landing pages before products, subscribers before stock, evidence before investment. It is the same anatomy for any launch; what changes is the speed and how much of it I carry. In the sprint, I carry all of it.

WHO THIS IS FOR

  • 01You have an idea, or a product in the making, and no paying customers yet.
  • 02A tech team is building it, or about to, and you have found the money for the build.
  • 03You have research, a deck, maybe a website that never launched. What you do not have is a market answering back.

The first question I ask on the call: have you started charging, or are you still in MVP?

If you already have revenue and a team, this is not your page. A running business needs a diagnosis, not a launch. That is here.

THE MACHINE, END TO END

  1. Ad
  2. Two-minute self-check
  3. Result and email
  4. Nurture
  5. Deep assessment
  6. Your offer

The self-check is the front door: a handful of questions about how the customer’s week actually runs, and a result worth an email address. The deep assessment enters warmed up, by email, once we know which audience is worth it.

I run this exact two-tier funnel today on my own diagnostic business. In the first two months it produced 113 quick checks and 15 deep dives: the light check converts cold ads, the deep one converts from the inbox, at roughly one deep for every eight light. Those are my numbers, not a benchmark I read somewhere.

HOW THE SPRINT WORKS

A sprint week includes three things: the week’s deliverable, a working call, and access to me between the calls, on WhatsApp, email, or any document that needs a second pair of eyes. Four rules keep eight weeks at eight weeks.

Drafts, not questions.

Every open topic arrives as my proposed version, and you say yes, no, or change. Reacting to something concrete is the fastest route to clarity, and it is the difference between eight weeks and six months.

The weekly call re-cuts the plan.

Two things are fixed: something ships every week, and the launch date. The middle adapts as the market answers back.

Buy, don’t build.

Where an off-the-shelf tool does the job, we rent it for the price of a dinner and put the money into customers, not code. The real platform gets built when the market has earned it.

An honest warning.

Saying yes to the sprint means leaving the comfort zone. I work agile, so decisions come in days, drafts get answered while they are fresh, and pages go live before they feel finished. That pace is the whole trick. Eight weeks of it reaches the launch date; a comfortable rhythm reaches next year.

THE EIGHT WEEKS

This is the plan as it stands for any launch. Yours gets its own version, with dates, after the first call and before you pay. What changes is the audiences, the offer and the tools. What does not change is that something ships every week.

Week 1

The audit and the first door

Focus

Where you actually stand, and the first live test.

Description

I question everything: the research, the pitch, the plan, the claims you make and who clears them, the website you built and never launched. On the first call we settle the doors: the two or three audiences the idea could serve, and my starting bet on which one leads. And the first landing page goes live, carrying the promise and ending in the self-check: a handful of questions, two minutes.

Deliverable

My audit challenges, on paper, and the first landing page live.

From you

Everything you have, and your yes on the self-check questions: an hour, not a project.

Week 2

All doors live

Focus

One landing page per target audience.

Description

The remaining audiences get their pages, each with its own promise. Then the plumbing: domain, email provider, thank-you pages, pixel, analytics. We are not selling the product yet. We are testing whether each audience wants what you stand for.

Deliverable

All pages live, wired and measuring: who starts the check, who finishes it, who leaves an email.

From you

Yes, no or change on each page, within the week.

Week 3

Traffic on

Focus

The market starts answering.

Description

Creatives made, one campaign per audience on equal budget. From here, every day produces evidence.

Deliverable

Campaigns running and a shared live dashboard.

From you

The ad budget, yours, agreed together in week 2. Plan for roughly €30 a day per audience, €2,000 to €2,500 across the sprint. It goes to Meta, not to me, and below €1,500 the verdict is not readable.

Week 4

The offer blueprint

Focus

What you actually sell first.

Description

The ads run their second week and I tune them daily. In parallel, the blueprint of the first thing people will pay for: what is inside, what is deliberately left out, how it is delivered, and the content plan that keeps the list warm until the doors open.

Deliverable

The offer blueprint and the content plan.

From you

One working session and your corrections.

Week 5

The verdict

Focus

Does the need exist, and where.

Description

Two full weeks of data: cost per completed check per audience, emails next to starts. This is the honest week. If no audience finishes the check, that is the cheapest bad news you will ever buy. We decide which audience leads, shape the founding offer around it, and the funnel deepens: the winning pages and the email sequence get the deep assessment wired in.

Deliverable

The verdict memo, the founding offer, and the deep assessment live in the funnel.

From you

The decision, on the call.

Week 6

The offer gets a home

Focus

From blueprint to something people can buy.

Description

Decided on the week-5 call, one of three routes. An off-the-shelf platform, configured and wired to the funnel: my default, because it ships in days and the money goes into customers, not code. Or a traction version built from a base I already have, with the honest caveat that if it takes off, a development team builds the real thing later. Or, if your team is already building, I direct their build and spend these weeks on launch machinery instead.

Deliverable

A working version you can click through.

From you

Your feedback on the working version.

Week 7

Launch machinery

Focus

Everything tested the way a customer will experience it.

Description

Completed on your feedback. Launch emails written, the result screens flip from “we open soon” to “come in”, the sign-up or the payment tested end to end.

Deliverable

A launch-ready system, tested.

From you

Final approvals on emails and pages.

Week 8

Launch and handover

Focus

Doors open.

Description

Launch emails fire, and the check now ends in an open door instead of a waiting list. The ads keep selling the check, so the machine keeps feeding itself past launch. I watch it daily through the first week.

Deliverable

The launch, and the handover: everything built and everything learned, documented, yours.

From you

Be on the calls. The rest is mine.

What the sprint deliberately leaves for after

Content production at scale, marketing automation beyond the launch sequence, e-commerce at volume, and the platform a grown business deserves. Eight weeks prove the need and open the doors. Scaling what works is its own chapter.

The sprint

€10,000

Eight weeks. Carried by me.

APPLY FOR A SPRINT

Included: the plan and the work, one focused day a week on your launch; a working call every week; access between the calls; the pages, the self-check, the ads run, the email sequence, the offer, the launch, and the handover documented.

Yours to pay:the ad budget, €2,000 to €2,500 across the sprint, to Meta. The tools we rent, usually around €100 a month. Your developers, if you have them.

Before you pay: after the first call I draft your eight weeks, with dates, and send it. A draft on purpose: you approve or adjust instead of us spending weeks on planning. That is also exactly how the sprint works.

Paid in three: a third at the start, a third at the end of month one, a third at the end of month two. No weekly invoices.

Two at a time: I take two clients on this service in parallel, never more. If both seats are taken you wait, or start with a coaching hour.

EVERY SIDE OF A LAUNCH

I have launched, failed, scaled, invested and judged. On the calls you get both chairs at once: the founder who started at 21 with a bank loan, and the investor who now reads other people’s plans for a living.

When I read your plan I read it the way an investor reads it, because I am one. I have turned down more founders than I have funded, and the reason is nearly always the same: the plan is filling the gaps of an idea that is not finished. Eight weeks of real behaviour finishes it.

  1. 2008

    First company at 21. AdvertSMS, Macedonia’s first mobile-marketing agency, started with €3,000: a €1,500 bank loan, €1,000 of savings and €500 from my brother. Built inside the YES business incubator in Skopje.

  2. 2009

    Global Innovator 2009, chosen by infoDev at the World Bank. Eleven founders worldwide, the only European.

  3. 2012

    Opened the Macedonian office of a UK software company and ran it for three years.

  4. 2015

    BizzBee Solutions. 600+ B2B engagements since, most of them the same job: get a new service in front of a new market and see who answers.

  5. 2021

    Joined the board of the incubator that housed my first company. Four business books along the way, including the Amazon bestseller Sweet Leads.

  6. 2024

    Started investing in businesses. Seven companies since, from a barcode SDK in Bulgaria to a menu app in Australia. Two of them pay me in equity for my time.

  7. 2025

    Judge at StartUp Club Skopje’s “I Have an Idea 3”: thirty ideas pitched, fifteen into incubation. The AdvertSMS failure story on the FuckUp Nights stage.

  8. 2026

    BusinessPulse OS. Sunday the idea; Friday a name, a logo, a website, an app and a licensing proposal on the table. The first 36 days of ads brought 121 leads at about $2 each. Balkan DealFlow the same spring: name and domain the day it was conceived, paid listings live and invoiced four months later.

Where I spend my time when nobody is paying

The startup scene in Macedonia is small enough that you meet every founder twice. These are the rooms I keep going back to.

  • YES Incubator, Skopje

    Incubated my first company in 2008, trained me as an incubator manager, and since 2021 I sit on its executive board.

  • StartUp Club Skopje

    Mentor, jury and lecturer. Thirty ideas judged at “I Have an Idea 3”, Demo Days, and the StartupRevolution.ai Summit in 2025.

  • Startup Macedonia

    Speaker at their events since 2021, the Global Entrepreneurship Week workshop in 2024, and the business-plan methodology I wrote for their founders in 2020.

  • FuckUp Nights Skopje

    The AdvertSMS story told on stage in 2025: the receivable that nearly closed the company and the €3,000 that started it.

  • Angel networks

    Zephyr Angels and the Swiss EP Angel Investing 101 programme, certified 2025. Thirty-six applications scored for the 700 Accelerator.

  • The book launch room

    A Journey to Financial Freedom launched at StartUp Club Skopje in April 2024, the book I wrote for founders at the very first stage.

THREE CHAIRS, ONE PERSON

Startup advice usually comes from one chair. The founder who did it once and tells you how. The professor who studied it. The consultant with a method and a slide deck. I have sat in all three, and the sprint is what the overlap looks like: a founder’s pace, a researcher’s insistence on evidence, and paperwork an investor or a board can read.

Practice

  • Founder since 2008, first company at 21
  • BizzBee Solutions: 600+ B2B engagements
  • Angel investor in seven companies since 2024
  • Author of four business books

Academia

  • BSc in Economics
  • MSc in Entrepreneurship
  • Executive MBA, University of Sheffield
  • DBA at UACS on AI and automation in SMEs

Consulting

  • Certified Management Consultant (CMC)
  • Chartered Manager (CMgr)
  • EBRD-registered consultant since 2019
  • Past president of MCA-2000, the management consulting association of Macedonia

NOT READY FOR THE SPRINT?

The same method comes in two smaller sizes. A coaching hour at €200, where you bring the crossroads and leave with a direction. Or consulting priced in days, where I take a piece away and bring it back done: an audit of what you have, a market analysis, a second opinion on a vendor’s quote. Both count towards the sprint if you decide to run it.

SEE COACHING AND CONSULTING

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly do I get for €10,000?+
Eight weeks carried by me: the plan, the landing pages, the self-check, the ads running, the email sequence, the offer, the launch and a documented handover. Each week has a deliverable, a working call and access to me between the calls. The ad budget and the tools you keep after the sprint are not included.
Do I need a product already?+
No. You need an idea, a promise you can put in front of people, and the will to do that before the product feels finished. If a team is building your product, the sprint runs alongside them and tells them what to build first.
What if nobody finishes the check?+
Then you have learned in five weeks and about €2,000 of ads what would otherwise have cost you a year and the build budget. We re-aim the doors or we stop. That is what week 5 is for.
Who does the work?+
I do. One focused day a week on your launch, plus the weekly call and access between calls. Pages, ads, emails, dashboard, the offer. You decide, I draft. Where a tool is cheaper than building, we rent the tool.
What is not included?+
The ad budget, roughly €2,000 to €2,500 across the sprint, paid by you to Meta. The tools we rent, usually around €100 a month. And your developers, if you have them.
How is it paid?+
In three parts: a third when we start, a third at the end of month one, a third at the end of month two. Invoiced by me, paid by bank transfer, Stripe or PayPal. No weekly invoices and no chasing.
Can I pay in equity instead?+
For the right fit, yes. Two of my portfolio companies pay me in equity for my time. Ask on the call.
How do I start?+
Send a message through the contact form with “Anatomy of a Launch” as the subject. We have a call. After it, I draft your eight weeks with dates, and send it before you pay anything. A draft on purpose: you approve or adjust. That is also exactly how the sprint works.

I know how hard it is to start something from scratch. The list of decisions never gets shorter, every choice feels like it could be the wrong one, and the more you research, the further the start seems to move.

My job is to replace that fog with clarity: something live every week, real numbers instead of assumptions, and a launch date that stops being theoretical.