GuestMeApp
New Contributor
Hey guys! I read TMF back in (mid) 2016 as I was midway through college, best book I have ever read by a damn country mile. I’ve been working on my own startup since late 2016 and it’s been a hell of a journey so far! The reason I’ve never posted before is because I felt I had nothing to contribute, so I’ve been creeping on this forum for some time!
I’ll split the next part in two, first part will be the idea, second part will be the process so far.
IDEA - a live streaming app targeted at influencers with a large following, where they can talk on video with their fans/followers and raise money for charities at the same time.
I could see MJ using this app to talk with some of you guys!
Hit me up if you’re interested MJ 
Instagram have recently installed a similar ‘invite guest broadcaster’ feature which I’ve been trying to create for over a year and a half! To give you guys a better understanding this is an example of how it works;
So I’m a YouTube personality with 1million subscribers, and I have a considerably large following. I start my own live video broadcast inside the app, and invite my followers over through my existing socials. They join my broadcast, and then I can choose to invite viewers to also broadcast alongside me for a short period of time. I’m doing a Q&A with my fans, so I invite the first viewer to broadcast alongside me, then I answer that question and this user is dismissed, along comes the next user, and the next and the next.
Revenue - my viewers can give me virtual tips, and then the revenue earned is split between a charity of my choice and the app 50/50.
*after some research and talking with 4 or 5 considerably big influencers, I learned the influencers would prefer to donate the money to good causes, as they’re already financially successful*
PROCESS - Don’t we all love this part! I initially had the idea when live streaming became sort of mainstream in 2015, but never really took off because well, it’s awkward and most people who broadcast aren’t interesting enough and mainly use these apps to make new friends, meaning they don’t bring new users to the app (their friends) because they’re looking to make new friends on these platforms! For example; younow, live.me, periscope
This app is only targeting people with a large group of fans, and unlike other apps our broadcasters won’t be spending hours on end here. Our typical user will broadcast once a week for maybe half an hour.
So at the time I was 17, didn’t have any coding experience or previous business experience. I wish I was one of those guys that ran a sweet shop in school raking in 10k a year at age 13!
Initially I decided to pitch investors, and my pitch was pretty much ‘hey I have an idea I’d like you to invest in, this is gonna make so much money. I don’t have any experience coding and I have no money so I can’t really offer much. Also sign the NDA attached so you don’t steal my idea’. I also went down the route of looking for developers which again sounded just like the pitch to investors. Of course neither worked so I decided to learn code.. boy was I naive. The app I wanted built was so complex it’d take me years to learn to build something like that! I still tried anyway with my brand new shiny MacBook. Again, failing at that I decided to look on platforms like PPH to outsource it to a developer. My first post offered £500 for someone to build this, and working part time on minimum wage this was all I had in my small pocket! Someone took the job but two months later shattered my dreams and told me they can’t do it. By this time I’d finished college so I was doing overtime at my minimum wage job.
I posted the job again this time with a budget of £3500. It was looking really hopeful at one point, however they again couldn’t build what I wanted because they didn’t have the skill. I spent over a year with these guys and over £5000 (also had to pay server fees and storage fees over the course of 15 months).
Devastated and broke, I lost hope. I decided to pitch investors again, and at one stage I had someone willing to invest 80%, I just needed to raise the other 20% which I couldn’t do. A few gave me great advice, and some said to keep in contact and update them when I’ve launched and gained traction.
A few weeks later i landed a full time job in an engineering role, aged 19 earning £23,000.
After a bunch of no’s again, I decided to give it one final shot, but this time I decided to work with a developer from the U.K rather than India. I found someone around July 2017 and he agreed to do it for £6000. this developer manages a team from India, but I only deal with the developer from the U.K. and his company based in the U.K. so I felt more comfortable. We’re about a month from launch, and I’ve managed to gain interest from an influencer with 1million followers on multiple platforms, and I couldn’t be more excited right now.
It’s so easy to quit sometimes and say ‘well I have a good paying job that pays my bills comfortably and I don’t risk going broke’ and there was so many stages where I just thought maybe this is stupid and I’m just another guy destined for the sidewalk. I have multiple income streams planned, although for now we’re only focusing on virtual gifts.
There are plans in place for traction, marketing, revenue, tackling issues such as content filtering and dealing with trolls etc. I’m so done with planning and so ready for execution!
I’m glad I didn’t give up, and networking was one of the best things I did because I have a few investors interested, all I have to do is show them some traction and that this is an investment worthy business! This is only just the beginning in reality because it hasn’t even launched yet, and I’m looking forward to overcoming future hurdles so i can eventually get to the straight road.
And of course, I must thank MJ for the eye opener as this all started with TMF . I’m going to order unscripted , I’m excited to see what I can learn from it!!! Id love to hear feedback, Criticism (constructive would be good but I can suck it up otherwise), and any questions anyone may have. My next post will be once the app is live and has gained traction with the first influencer, until then I’ll continue creeping on other peoples stories! And to anyone reading this I wish you good luck on your journey!
I’ll split the next part in two, first part will be the idea, second part will be the process so far.
IDEA - a live streaming app targeted at influencers with a large following, where they can talk on video with their fans/followers and raise money for charities at the same time.
I could see MJ using this app to talk with some of you guys!
Hit me up if you’re interested MJ Instagram have recently installed a similar ‘invite guest broadcaster’ feature which I’ve been trying to create for over a year and a half! To give you guys a better understanding this is an example of how it works;
So I’m a YouTube personality with 1million subscribers, and I have a considerably large following. I start my own live video broadcast inside the app, and invite my followers over through my existing socials. They join my broadcast, and then I can choose to invite viewers to also broadcast alongside me for a short period of time. I’m doing a Q&A with my fans, so I invite the first viewer to broadcast alongside me, then I answer that question and this user is dismissed, along comes the next user, and the next and the next.
Revenue - my viewers can give me virtual tips, and then the revenue earned is split between a charity of my choice and the app 50/50.
*after some research and talking with 4 or 5 considerably big influencers, I learned the influencers would prefer to donate the money to good causes, as they’re already financially successful*
PROCESS - Don’t we all love this part! I initially had the idea when live streaming became sort of mainstream in 2015, but never really took off because well, it’s awkward and most people who broadcast aren’t interesting enough and mainly use these apps to make new friends, meaning they don’t bring new users to the app (their friends) because they’re looking to make new friends on these platforms! For example; younow, live.me, periscope
This app is only targeting people with a large group of fans, and unlike other apps our broadcasters won’t be spending hours on end here. Our typical user will broadcast once a week for maybe half an hour.
So at the time I was 17, didn’t have any coding experience or previous business experience. I wish I was one of those guys that ran a sweet shop in school raking in 10k a year at age 13!
Initially I decided to pitch investors, and my pitch was pretty much ‘hey I have an idea I’d like you to invest in, this is gonna make so much money. I don’t have any experience coding and I have no money so I can’t really offer much. Also sign the NDA attached so you don’t steal my idea’. I also went down the route of looking for developers which again sounded just like the pitch to investors. Of course neither worked so I decided to learn code.. boy was I naive. The app I wanted built was so complex it’d take me years to learn to build something like that! I still tried anyway with my brand new shiny MacBook. Again, failing at that I decided to look on platforms like PPH to outsource it to a developer. My first post offered £500 for someone to build this, and working part time on minimum wage this was all I had in my small pocket! Someone took the job but two months later shattered my dreams and told me they can’t do it. By this time I’d finished college so I was doing overtime at my minimum wage job.
I posted the job again this time with a budget of £3500. It was looking really hopeful at one point, however they again couldn’t build what I wanted because they didn’t have the skill. I spent over a year with these guys and over £5000 (also had to pay server fees and storage fees over the course of 15 months).
Devastated and broke, I lost hope. I decided to pitch investors again, and at one stage I had someone willing to invest 80%, I just needed to raise the other 20% which I couldn’t do. A few gave me great advice, and some said to keep in contact and update them when I’ve launched and gained traction.
A few weeks later i landed a full time job in an engineering role, aged 19 earning £23,000.
After a bunch of no’s again, I decided to give it one final shot, but this time I decided to work with a developer from the U.K rather than India. I found someone around July 2017 and he agreed to do it for £6000. this developer manages a team from India, but I only deal with the developer from the U.K. and his company based in the U.K. so I felt more comfortable. We’re about a month from launch, and I’ve managed to gain interest from an influencer with 1million followers on multiple platforms, and I couldn’t be more excited right now.
It’s so easy to quit sometimes and say ‘well I have a good paying job that pays my bills comfortably and I don’t risk going broke’ and there was so many stages where I just thought maybe this is stupid and I’m just another guy destined for the sidewalk. I have multiple income streams planned, although for now we’re only focusing on virtual gifts.
There are plans in place for traction, marketing, revenue, tackling issues such as content filtering and dealing with trolls etc. I’m so done with planning and so ready for execution!
I’m glad I didn’t give up, and networking was one of the best things I did because I have a few investors interested, all I have to do is show them some traction and that this is an investment worthy business! This is only just the beginning in reality because it hasn’t even launched yet, and I’m looking forward to overcoming future hurdles so i can eventually get to the straight road
.And of course, I must thank MJ for the eye opener as this all started with TMF . I’m going to order unscripted , I’m excited to see what I can learn from it!!! Id love to hear feedback, Criticism (constructive would be good but I can suck it up otherwise), and any questions anyone may have. My next post will be once the app is live and has gained traction with the first influencer, until then I’ll continue creeping on other peoples stories! And to anyone reading this I wish you good luck on your journey!
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