Guest lecture I gave for Deakin university in Melbourne. It talks about my personal experience and the startup world: startups can be grouped in two categories; the ones following the VC funded approach and the ones following the indie hacking and bootstrapped approach.
8. What do I want to do?
Industry
PROS
Real applications with users
Work in a team
Pay
CONS
Easy to get lost
Startups?
Academia
PROS
Your own project
CONS
Stressful
9. 9
❑ My background
❑ VC startup way
❑ Indie hacking
❑ Info products
❑ Personal branding
10. Find an existing project or people
Angellist
F6S CoFoundersLab LinkedIn
11. Follow advice / join an accelerator
📅 Is my idea any f#%!ng good?
In your area of expertise - Build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
📅 How to select co-founders and build great teams
Complementary skills
📅 First customers and growth
Product-market fit - Growth hacking - Sales
📅 Investors and fundraising
Good pitch
www.icebreaker.vc
www.antler.co
Some accelerators provide small salaries and good networks. Being located in a big city is important.
Nowadays there are plenty of relevant events for startups: e.g. Slush in the Nordics
17. Tywai
Advertisement placement with AI
• Built a team
• Built an MVP
• Not found product-market fit
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top/
18. SciAR
Help lab experiments with Augmented Reality (AR)
• Scientific advisor
• Many competitions won
• Got initial funding
19. 19
❑ My background
❑ VC startup way
❑ Indie hacking
❑ Info products
❑ Personal branding
20. Turning side projects into profitable startups
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0
(and make > $50K a month)
21. Just do it
Code it up
(superpower)
No Code
https://twitter.com/bentossell/status
/1232412610278109190?s=20
22. Indie hacking and Bootstrapping
https://www.indiehackers.com/
https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/zero-to-sold/
https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/zero-to-sold/guide/
A community of people working on their
independent projects
(Also an indie project and acquired by Stripe)
23. Bootstrapping vs VC funded
https://twitter.com/mynameis_davis/status/
1297884332179238913?s=20
https://twitter.com/mynameis_davis/status/
1297884333626347520?s=20
25. Solve your own problem
https://www.feedbackpanda.com/
From the author of Bootstrapped Founder
(making $55K a month before selling it)
https://www.indiehackers.com/
podcast/086-lynne-tye-of-key-
values
https://www.keyvalues.com/
(making more than $300K a year)
26. Solve a small problem
https://closet.tools/
(making $35K a month)
27. Solution for a problem / get your audience first
https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/zero-to-sold/guide/ https://leanstartup.co/falling-love-problem/
“Fall in love with the problem not the solution.”
44. Do what YOU want to do
❑ VC startup way
❑ Indie hacking
❑ Info products
❑ Personal branding
I could tell you to read books like: The Lean Startup, The 4-Hour Workweek
but I started them and found them boring.
Don’t get stuck in a bullshit job.
"a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or
pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part
of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is
not the case."