01
One live session a week
60 minutes with Chris, same day and time every week. The agenda never changes, so your attention goes to your startup.
Blueprint Zero by Erler Ventures · 8 weeks for early-stage founders
Building a startup feels like chaos. It is a process you can learn.
From idea to first invoice in 8 weeks.
Most founders guess their way through the first year and pay for it with cash, time and sleep. Blueprint Zero gives you the steps in order: who to sell to, what to say, how to close, how to deliver and who to build with. Each step lowers your risk and protects your cash and your health. One step a week, AI prompts to do the work, one live session with Chris Erler.
8
weeks
1
live session a week
1
artefact a week
The method
One loop: Sales, Delivery, Team.
Every company runs on three machines. Sales wins customers, Delivery keeps them, Team gives you the people to do both. Chris uses this loop with founder-led companies above 1M in revenue.
Blueprint Zero builds the first version of each machine: weeks 1 to 5 Sales, week 6 Delivery, week 7 Team. Week 8 joins them into one 90-day plan.
What it is
A weekly rhythm with short outputs and real customers.
Blueprint Zero is the startup version of the Scaling Blueprint, the framework Chris uses with founder-led companies above 1M in revenue. It follows the same sequence, scaled down to your stage: you have an idea or a first prototype, maybe a few users, and little or no revenue.
02
AI prompts for every week
Four to six prompts per week, ready to copy into Claude or ChatGPT. They draft your interview questions, clean up your notes and find patterns in what you wrote down.
03
One artefact per week
One page or one table, short on purpose. You bring it to the live session and keep using it afterwards.
AI never replaces a conversation with a customer. Anything it says about your market is a guess until a customer says it to you.
The 8 weeks
From a first guess to a 90-day plan.
Each week ends with one artefact you bring to the live session. By week 8 you have asked real people for money, learned from what they said and written a plan for the next 90 days.
Week 01
Problem and first customer hypothesis
Artefact
Customer hypothesis sheet
Week 02
Customer discovery interviews
Artefact
Interview table and first patterns
Week 03
Message and first channel
Artefact
One-page message sheet with first results
Week 04
First sales conversations, first paying customers
Artefact
Sales conversation log and "How I sell" sheet
Week 05
First offer, packaging and pricing
Artefact
One-page offer
Week 06
Delivering value to your first customers
Artefact
First-week plan and customer tracker
Week 07
Roles, co-founders, first hires, and founder psychology
Artefact
Team and pace sheet
Week 08
90-day plan, a company others can understand, final review
Artefact
One-page 90-day plan
The weekly live session
60 minutes. The same agenda every week.
0 to 10 min
Numbers round
Each founder reports two numbers and one finished action: conversations held this week and paying customers in total. Zero is a fine answer if it is true.
10 to 50 min
Hot seats
Two to three founders get 15 minutes each on a question they sent in by Sunday. The group asks questions first, then Chris gives his view.
50 to 60 min
Commitments
Each founder states one concrete action for the coming week and the proof they will show at the next session.
Who it is for
Founders who will talk to customers every week.
- Founders at CSE, students and recent graduates, with no revenue yet or with first customers.
- Founders who will talk to customers every week. The program is mostly conversations.
- Solo founders and teams. Each co-founder joins the live session and reports their own numbers.
- Founders with a Claude or ChatGPT account and two evenings or one half day per week to spare.
Who it is not for
What you need to look for elsewhere.
- Founders who want help with fundraising or investor decks.
- Founders who want help building the product.
- Founders who want to hand the customer conversations to someone else. You hold them yourself.
- Companies already above 1M in revenue. For those, there is Scale to Exit.
Pilot
First cohort with Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship.
Blueprint Zero starts as a pilot with Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship (CSE). CSE selects the founders for the first cohort.
Not a CSE founder? Answer "No" in the application form and Chris will get back to you.
6 to 8
seats in the pilot
CSE
selects the founders
About Chris
Chris Erler
Chris built and sold ComX and grew it to 18M ARR. He has worked on sales and marketing with more than 800 companies.
18M
ARR at ComX
800+
companies worked with on sales and marketing
FAQ
Questions founders ask first.
Apply
Apply for the program.
Six short questions. Tell Chris who you are, what you are building and what you want from the 8 weeks. He will reply by email.
Prefer to talk first? Book a 30-minute call with Chris.
Already above 1M revenue? Scale to Exit.