My startup journey

[LucyRider]

Hey all! For the last 3 years I spent the majority of my life working on a startup. It was quite a classic Silicon Valley story in a way ... went through an accelerator, raised a bunch of money, and unfortunately failed.

I put the feelers out to see if anyone would be interested in me chucking my story up and a few of you said YES so I will put it here.

I plan on posting various 'chapters' of the startup with my main focus to be entertaining and hopefully spread some knowledge for those interested in building a startup.

Startups have a lot of buzz words (at pitch nights I use to play buzzword bingo with investors) so ask if I use one without explaining. Force of habit haha.

Also I will be posting in a way to avoid revealing my irl identity so please respect that.

TLDR : thread to share my startup story. We failed but we learned a lot and I want to pass on the knowledge.

 

[LucyRider]

Chapter 1: how we 'came up with the idea'

In startup world ideas aren't worth anything. If you're not talking about your idea your not doing it. If you don't talk about your idea for fear that someone will steal it you will be laughed out of the room.

This is great because it encourages what startups like to call validation. Validation is the process of testing your idea in the market and ensuring there is demand for it. However, constant talking about ideas means you end up with some pretty half baked things coming out of people's mouths. I see it a lot in this forum where someone comes in with a new idea asking for feedback. I actually did that myself when I first joined the forum. I was so immersed in the startup world I didn't even stop to consider how I sounded. I just wanted feedback and as fast as possible.

So when people ask me how I came up with the idea for my startup it always sounds a bit weird to me. I didn't come up with an idea - I talked to my friends in the industry I wanted to develop for. I explored problems and I proposed solutions. Eventually we hit on something that seemed to suit.

TLDR: To come up with the idea for my startup I drunk way to much coffee with way too many people.

(PS first post - don't go to hard on me but feedback is great. Next post will probably be on how I got a team together followed closely by how we got initial funding and the process of building our first product ... but if you'd prefer something else let me know! Happy to cater to you!)

 

[LucyRider]

Side rant:

I sat down with someone today who wants to put GPS into clothing. She wants to tackle the problem of missing people - people with Alzheimers Disease through to children with Autism that don't respect boundaries. She wants to sell it initially to schools to enable them to track lost children.

It doesn't matter what I think about her idea - I don't have Alzheimers, I don't have children, I don't know anyone that is particularly impacted by what she is talking about. She still spent over an hour trying to explain it to me. When I suggested she go and ask someone who would be impacted by what she is doing what they think about it she looked at me blankly. Sigh. She then told me she couldn't because she needed an app.

I seriously see so many people get stuck at this point. They have an idea and they want to build it but 'they can't code' and so they just think they are stuck there. I can't express enough how much this is not true. This woman could tell me end to end exactly how her app would function. She could have just gone and told that to her potential customer and asked them if they'd use it. If they said yes she would be able to get funding to build it (or justify the investment in building it herself). Not being able to code is not a problem in startups.

 

[LucyRider]

Chapter 2: finding my team

I was involved in 5 different startups before I committed full time to only one. All of the others had just as much if not more potential as the one I went all in on. The only difference was the people working on them.

To say I found an amazing team wouldn't be correct because they found me #sap. I still feel bad, like I let them down now that our startup is dead. Even though in reality we all let each other down in various ways (but more on that later - this is the happy early honeymoon days of startup life haha).

Anyway's - I met my cofounder when he literally fell over in his hurry and excitement to grab his laptop to show me his code based for a ticketing system he was working on. Turns out he'd been wanting to show it to someone for like half a year but noone was interested. I mean looking at code isn't exactly my cup of tea but I'll always take the time to talk to someone trying to start a business. And lucky I did because this guy became family as we built our startup over the next 3 years. This guy was running an app development business.

My second cofounder was actually my boyfriend. We hadn't been dating very long. He is now my fiance. For those wondering what it's like to work with your partner? It's the funnest thing in the world (for me). He had a background in accounting and had been running a small business for 2 years.

With all of us doing other things and no money to quit those other things we began working on our startup in evenings. We very quickly realised how much we enjoyed working together and it was at that point that we began looking at how we could make it feasible to commit full time. My next post will be on that.

My team was made up of people that just honestly really wanted to be entrepreneurs. We all had things we were doing - running companies, getting masters, other startups. It's kind of rare to find people that are willing to give lots up to persue an idea so when you do give them the time! They might be your next cofounder.

PS If anyone out there wants to do a startup let me know! Always keen to find more cofounders

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Side rant:

I sat down with someone today who wants to put GPS into clothing. She wants to tackle the problem of missing people - people with Alzheimers Disease through to children with Autism that don't respect boundaries. She wants to sell it initially to schools to enable them to track lost children.

It doesn't matter what I think about her idea - I don't have Alzheimers, I don't have children, I don't know anyone that is particularly impacted by what she is talking about. She still spent over an hour trying to explain it to me. When I suggested she go and ask someone who would be impacted by what she is doing what they think about it she looked at me blankly. Sigh. She then told me she couldn't because she needed an app.

I seriously see so many people get stuck at this point. They have an idea and they want to build it but 'they can't code' and so they just think they are stuck there. I can't express enough how much this is not true. This woman could tell me end to end exactly how her app would function. She could have just gone and told that to her potential customer and asked them if they'd use it. If they said yes she would be able to get funding to build it (or justify the investment in building it herself). Not being able to code is not a problem in startups.

I'm really enjoying these. I spent 20 years in the Valley mostly a couple of big companies but there was a startup also. I've been doing Angel investing for the last ten years. It is fun to hear the other side.
IMO, GPS tracking startup is probably 10 years too late, I mean there is GPS tracking for pets, your stuff and with IOT the functionality is increasing just going to built in. I'd just make sure the kids or Alzheimer's patients carry a phone.
But what I really disagree with is "not being able to code is not a problem." Ideally, I like to see at least one (but not all) of the co-founders have a technical background. Software engineers are at a premium everywhere but especially in the Valley. So tech co founder will save you money. Although, I do agree it is not absolutely required that you be able to code.
The lady you talked to sounds like a wantrepreneur not an entrepreneur. She should have at the very least talked to some app developers and got an estimate. Not only is important for an entrepreneur to understand the cost associated with starting the business. But the process of working with a developer to describe what you want in a step by step process is critical in understanding your business.

 

[LucyRider]

Welcome to the thread! Haha pretty awesome to have an angel investor here. I'm sure you'll have a lot of thoughts once I get into our raising path

But what I really disagree with is "not being able to code is not a problem." Ideally, I like to see at least one (but not all) of the co-founders have a technical background.

^^definitely concur that having a tech cofounder is important. However my comments were made based on the stage this person was in. I see a lot of people get stuck in the 'I have to build it before I start talking to people but I can't build it because I don't have tech skills'. Most of the time you can talk to people without a fully developed product and you should probably do that before you even try to find a tech partner otherwise you might not even quite know what you are building. Plus there are so many hacks out there now for putting together products with minimal tech skills. It's totally possible to build a prototype or even more without writing a line of code.

eg just came across ShareTribe the other day - build a membership site like airbnb without writing any code. There is so much stuff like this out there.

Just my opinion!

 

[Dan Epstein]

I’m proud to say that I know you as a killer blogger. I have no doubt that you’ll be branching out in every direction you opt to

 

[LucyRider]

Haha thanks @Dan Epstein - I did all the content for my startup and it was always the funnest thing in my opinion. Though maybe not the most productive.