Starter half a year. Results
Hello to all.
In the late summer of 2010, I got the idea. I will not go into details, I will say only that this is an educational site for children built on the basis of games. A quick search put me in amazement, I did not find such sites. Studying the English-language Internet, I also did not find anything similar to my idea. I decided that here it is a million dollar idea that will bring me success and began my journey. Who cares how it ended, well under the cat.
There was nothing left, to solve a few small problems. Firstly, my experience in website development is the creation of a site for my small business as a hobby, first in HTML and then on CMS Joomla. But difficulties never frightened me, and I set to work. I determined for myself what part I can do myself, and for things that I would have to understand for a very long time, I decided to hire a freelancer.
I found a freelancer, made an order and started to wait, simultaneously starting to study and analyze the market of children's Internet, as well as a start-up movement. The freelancer sucked in quite a bit with the task and eventually disappeared altogether, for which many thanks to him. During the waiting period, I realized that it was utter nonsense to approach this issue in this way, relying on my own strength, having absolutely no experience.
')
Then I decided to go on the other side and set off in pursuit of a long investor ruble, sending presentations to all possible venture funds and business angel communities. Slightly departing from the plot, I will say that I just killed the efficiency of our venture capital funds. Most of them either didn’t respond at all, even without notifying about the receipt of the message, or responded after a couple of months, or even later. I think any comments are superfluous.
My experiments with venture funds ended with the decision to take part in the 2nd StartupWeekend, held in early October. Well, I registered and went to conquer Moscow, hoping to find my investor with a tight wallet. I prepared for Weekend, it seemed to me thoroughly, learned how to make a presentation correctly, read Guy Kawasaki’s book about startups, generally broadened my horizons in the direction I needed.
Of course, I did not find any investor, because the idea was raw, there was no command. But still I did not regret that I came, the main lesson that I learned from these three days is that it is worth forgetting for a short time about conquering the planet and starting small. I also realized that without a prototype you look at least frivolous.
I decided to put together a team of enthusiasts who would catch fire with my idea and was ready to share with her laurels and of course a share. I thought it would be a trifling task, because I offered to participate in the project in my free time, and in addition I took upon myself all the financial costs. Ideal conditions, as it seemed to me, people risk nothing, except for their own time. I would stand in line if I were offered such conditions, but everything turned out to be much more complicated.
I will not describe the whole process of my searches, because it has practically not stopped for a day until now. I published ads on freelance exchanges, created topics on thematic forums, but there were very few people who wanted, stinging jokes constantly appeared in the comments, and on one forum I was even banned with such arguments: “we will not let you substitute the forum’s naive visitors.” This is a very indicative quote, which shows perhaps the biggest problem of the startup movement in Russia.
In fact, this is a topic for a separate post, that in our culture it is considered that to err is bad and we are taught this from childhood. Therefore, everyone is afraid to take a wrong step, be afraid of being deceived and refuse to provide opportunities. Moreover, the majority do not even try to find out the essence of the project, the proposals, everyone repudiate at once and try to get away from such proposals, not realizing that all life consists of mistakes. Practically not one of the most successful startups, was not the first from their creators, they made one attempt after another, until they were successful.
In the end, I still managed to assemble a team, and remotely, all the people from different cities. Not the first time, there were many people who agreed, then disappeared, there were also those who started to work, took the first steps and also disappeared. In essence, the project is still at the starting point, although quite a lot has been done. We still lack a designer in a project working with raster and vector graphics.
I will take courage and responsibility, and I want to give some advice, to those who are at the beginning of the path, to those who possibly doubt whether to start on this path or not, especially to those who have no experience or qualifications.
First, be patient, everything will be harder than it seems, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it. As they say, "master the road going."
Secondly, if you go to different start-ups and get away at least once, then do not pay attention to the negative reviews about the project. I assume that you are not a stupid person, and certainly analyzed the project for yourself before you start doing something. Therefore, not one expert knows about your project more than you. You are not a dollar that everyone would like. There is not a single project that everybody likes. Listen to criticism, listen to advice, but always draw conclusions yourself.
Third, constantly check to see if you have gone astray. Perhaps it is worth changing or correcting the course, try to periodically look at the project from the side. Think about what you want to come to, what you want to make the planet happy and pave the way.
Fourth, do not take to heart various "failures". I take the "failures" in quotes, because this is complete nonsense, it all depends on you. Lost someone from the team or someone said that your project is bad, do not get stuck on this. Think of this as the inevitable environment in which you are forced to dwell, as a ridiculous misunderstanding, like the beginning of rain, when you find yourself without an umbrella. Unpleasant, but not fatal.
Fifth, even if the result is negative at the end of the path, this is also a result. They say that only 1 out of 10 startups survive, but this means that you need to make 10 attempts and you are lucky.
For these more than six months, I have killed a lot of time, but I have gained a good experience, acquired new knowledge, which will undoubtedly be useful to me in the future and may become the starting point for a new breakthrough. In addition, today, March 8, 2011, my works gave a very specific result. With one of the programmers of our team, we launched the Lost Millionaire project today and I have every reason to believe that it will be successful. This project is a topic for a separate post, so I’ll probably limit myself to this.
In the late summer of 2010, I got the idea. I will not go into details, I will say only that this is an educational site for children built on the basis of games. A quick search put me in amazement, I did not find such sites. Studying the English-language Internet, I also did not find anything similar to my idea. I decided that here it is a million dollar idea that will bring me success and began my journey. Who cares how it ended, well under the cat.
There was nothing left, to solve a few small problems. Firstly, my experience in website development is the creation of a site for my small business as a hobby, first in HTML and then on CMS Joomla. But difficulties never frightened me, and I set to work. I determined for myself what part I can do myself, and for things that I would have to understand for a very long time, I decided to hire a freelancer.
I found a freelancer, made an order and started to wait, simultaneously starting to study and analyze the market of children's Internet, as well as a start-up movement. The freelancer sucked in quite a bit with the task and eventually disappeared altogether, for which many thanks to him. During the waiting period, I realized that it was utter nonsense to approach this issue in this way, relying on my own strength, having absolutely no experience.
')
Then I decided to go on the other side and set off in pursuit of a long investor ruble, sending presentations to all possible venture funds and business angel communities. Slightly departing from the plot, I will say that I just killed the efficiency of our venture capital funds. Most of them either didn’t respond at all, even without notifying about the receipt of the message, or responded after a couple of months, or even later. I think any comments are superfluous.
My experiments with venture funds ended with the decision to take part in the 2nd StartupWeekend, held in early October. Well, I registered and went to conquer Moscow, hoping to find my investor with a tight wallet. I prepared for Weekend, it seemed to me thoroughly, learned how to make a presentation correctly, read Guy Kawasaki’s book about startups, generally broadened my horizons in the direction I needed.
Of course, I did not find any investor, because the idea was raw, there was no command. But still I did not regret that I came, the main lesson that I learned from these three days is that it is worth forgetting for a short time about conquering the planet and starting small. I also realized that without a prototype you look at least frivolous.
I decided to put together a team of enthusiasts who would catch fire with my idea and was ready to share with her laurels and of course a share. I thought it would be a trifling task, because I offered to participate in the project in my free time, and in addition I took upon myself all the financial costs. Ideal conditions, as it seemed to me, people risk nothing, except for their own time. I would stand in line if I were offered such conditions, but everything turned out to be much more complicated.
I will not describe the whole process of my searches, because it has practically not stopped for a day until now. I published ads on freelance exchanges, created topics on thematic forums, but there were very few people who wanted, stinging jokes constantly appeared in the comments, and on one forum I was even banned with such arguments: “we will not let you substitute the forum’s naive visitors.” This is a very indicative quote, which shows perhaps the biggest problem of the startup movement in Russia.
In fact, this is a topic for a separate post, that in our culture it is considered that to err is bad and we are taught this from childhood. Therefore, everyone is afraid to take a wrong step, be afraid of being deceived and refuse to provide opportunities. Moreover, the majority do not even try to find out the essence of the project, the proposals, everyone repudiate at once and try to get away from such proposals, not realizing that all life consists of mistakes. Practically not one of the most successful startups, was not the first from their creators, they made one attempt after another, until they were successful.
In the end, I still managed to assemble a team, and remotely, all the people from different cities. Not the first time, there were many people who agreed, then disappeared, there were also those who started to work, took the first steps and also disappeared. In essence, the project is still at the starting point, although quite a lot has been done. We still lack a designer in a project working with raster and vector graphics.
I will take courage and responsibility, and I want to give some advice, to those who are at the beginning of the path, to those who possibly doubt whether to start on this path or not, especially to those who have no experience or qualifications.
First, be patient, everything will be harder than it seems, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it. As they say, "master the road going."
Secondly, if you go to different start-ups and get away at least once, then do not pay attention to the negative reviews about the project. I assume that you are not a stupid person, and certainly analyzed the project for yourself before you start doing something. Therefore, not one expert knows about your project more than you. You are not a dollar that everyone would like. There is not a single project that everybody likes. Listen to criticism, listen to advice, but always draw conclusions yourself.
Third, constantly check to see if you have gone astray. Perhaps it is worth changing or correcting the course, try to periodically look at the project from the side. Think about what you want to come to, what you want to make the planet happy and pave the way.
Fourth, do not take to heart various "failures". I take the "failures" in quotes, because this is complete nonsense, it all depends on you. Lost someone from the team or someone said that your project is bad, do not get stuck on this. Think of this as the inevitable environment in which you are forced to dwell, as a ridiculous misunderstanding, like the beginning of rain, when you find yourself without an umbrella. Unpleasant, but not fatal.
Fifth, even if the result is negative at the end of the path, this is also a result. They say that only 1 out of 10 startups survive, but this means that you need to make 10 attempts and you are lucky.
For these more than six months, I have killed a lot of time, but I have gained a good experience, acquired new knowledge, which will undoubtedly be useful to me in the future and may become the starting point for a new breakthrough. In addition, today, March 8, 2011, my works gave a very specific result. With one of the programmers of our team, we launched the Lost Millionaire project today and I have every reason to believe that it will be successful. This project is a topic for a separate post, so I’ll probably limit myself to this.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/115412/
All Articles