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- Sep 16, 2015
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Hello,
3 years ago I had my first copy of the book from MJ that I got from a friend of mine. Started reading it and page after page I wan't stop. As if I have a dead sea scroll in my hands full of wisdom, in 3 days I was able to finish all of them. In this article, I will share each of the learning from the book and how it applied in my life.
Unique Selling Proposition (are you a me too) - It was painful to see my app flop, I only manage to get 1 download a week. That was because I created an app that google and fourthsquare had been doing for years. It has no added value in its feature, a copy cat not even close to the image. Within 2 months, I closed it and manage to burn 5000 USD worth of money. This time, I am 5, 000 USD further from success.
Business Model - still not giving up from my past 2 failures. I launched a new app. This time it has a compelling story. I went to a place named Cebu City. It that place had became very memorable to me, eventually I realised I was not able to document all the good things I had in the city. So I started again an app named "mekomiks". It is an app that allows people to document their life into a digital book and have it published in social media. It was an instant hit, 300 downloads in 1 day and 300 active users in 1 day. The problem was that I lived in the principle build now and monetise later. Failed to monetise it to pay the bills, ended up to tap in the game 3 months after. Again I failed.
Marketing is your Queen, product is your knight - in my last ditch of effort to chase millions. Which MJ clearly thought us not to chase money, otherwise its like a mythical creature you'll never catch. I built a platform named "June Queue Management System". It is a solution that aim to eliminate long lines of transactions and waiting e.g. people queueing in IRS. The solution enables people to reserve a spot in a line and allows them to physically leave the area to grab a drink, roam around, or make other important stuff. They then get SMS notification when it is about their turn so they can come back.
The problem is I targeted B2B market, this market is full of bureaucracy. Unlike Consumer to consumer, B2B requires lots of connections and need to convince 5 decision maker. I failed to tap the B2B market due to limited connection that time. Lesson learned, I have a beautiful product here a knight, but i dont have a marketing queen. The solution is still active but not much of an effort are being done.
With all the failure I got. I became more wise, stronger in which failure got tired to me. I didn't realise that success was just besides me since I started 3 years ago.
Here's how I succeeded - there are 4 major problems in startups which are:
1. The Execution - People who has brilliant idea but failed to execute only to find out someone else act upon it and succeeded.
2. The Shortage - Everyone has a startup idea but not everyone has the time, money, and resources to make their dream come true.
3. The Risk - There were also those entrepreneurs who took the risk and spent tens of thousands of dollars building and perfecting an app only to find out on the end nobody cares about their idea. Manage to meet 3 guys who built 30, 000 dollar worth of app in which no body wanted to use. Not that its technology is bad, people simply just don't wanna use it for some reason.
4. People are afraid - they got great idea, but choose to go 8am - 5pm job.
Having all these said, I launched a company named "700 Dollar Startups". It's Unique Selling Proposition was
If you have a dream but can't build your dream, we will build MVP for you for 700 USD in 7 days.
Launched it in 2 weeks already and got 3 paying customers. It was my first time to succeed and receive paying customer. I don't even have to watch for it 8am - 5 pm as I built an effcient model to make it run by it self.
Here are my learnings in that startup:
- launch early
- iterate early
- pivot early
- marketing marketing marketing
- help others build their dream, forget of money as MJ said. If you help others succeed, money comes along the way.
- Minimize expenses
- Validate your market
- Don't get feedback from non paying customers, they give you tons of useless feedback
In now way I am a multimillionaire, or got lambo like MJ but things had been far far better now compared before. Hope I helped.
3 years ago I had my first copy of the book from MJ that I got from a friend of mine. Started reading it and page after page I wan't stop. As if I have a dead sea scroll in my hands full of wisdom, in 3 days I was able to finish all of them. In this article, I will share each of the learning from the book and how it applied in my life.
Journey Began (Hard times)
My first encounter was "Ideas were dime a dozen" - after reading the book, I rushed my self to join a startup community. There I met WANAPRENEURS. These people are the same guys who pitches their idea month after month in different events asking funding and yet they were not able to show their idea months had passed. Me not wanting to join their league launched my startup app. It was a location based marketing system that shows the nearest deals and coupon to a consumer. Guess what!!! it was an instant FLOP, DOD dead on arrival. I was abe to produce and execute but yet still fail, which brings me to the next point from the book.Unique Selling Proposition (are you a me too) - It was painful to see my app flop, I only manage to get 1 download a week. That was because I created an app that google and fourthsquare had been doing for years. It has no added value in its feature, a copy cat not even close to the image. Within 2 months, I closed it and manage to burn 5000 USD worth of money. This time, I am 5, 000 USD further from success.
Business Model - still not giving up from my past 2 failures. I launched a new app. This time it has a compelling story. I went to a place named Cebu City. It that place had became very memorable to me, eventually I realised I was not able to document all the good things I had in the city. So I started again an app named "mekomiks". It is an app that allows people to document their life into a digital book and have it published in social media. It was an instant hit, 300 downloads in 1 day and 300 active users in 1 day. The problem was that I lived in the principle build now and monetise later. Failed to monetise it to pay the bills, ended up to tap in the game 3 months after. Again I failed.
Marketing is your Queen, product is your knight - in my last ditch of effort to chase millions. Which MJ clearly thought us not to chase money, otherwise its like a mythical creature you'll never catch. I built a platform named "June Queue Management System". It is a solution that aim to eliminate long lines of transactions and waiting e.g. people queueing in IRS. The solution enables people to reserve a spot in a line and allows them to physically leave the area to grab a drink, roam around, or make other important stuff. They then get SMS notification when it is about their turn so they can come back.
The problem is I targeted B2B market, this market is full of bureaucracy. Unlike Consumer to consumer, B2B requires lots of connections and need to convince 5 decision maker. I failed to tap the B2B market due to limited connection that time. Lesson learned, I have a beautiful product here a knight, but i dont have a marketing queen. The solution is still active but not much of an effort are being done.
Journey Began (Success Started to come)
With all the failure I got. I became more wise, stronger in which failure got tired to me. I didn't realise that success was just besides me since I started 3 years ago.
Here's how I succeeded - there are 4 major problems in startups which are:
1. The Execution - People who has brilliant idea but failed to execute only to find out someone else act upon it and succeeded.
2. The Shortage - Everyone has a startup idea but not everyone has the time, money, and resources to make their dream come true.
3. The Risk - There were also those entrepreneurs who took the risk and spent tens of thousands of dollars building and perfecting an app only to find out on the end nobody cares about their idea. Manage to meet 3 guys who built 30, 000 dollar worth of app in which no body wanted to use. Not that its technology is bad, people simply just don't wanna use it for some reason.
4. People are afraid - they got great idea, but choose to go 8am - 5pm job.
Having all these said, I launched a company named "700 Dollar Startups". It's Unique Selling Proposition was
If you have a dream but can't build your dream, we will build MVP for you for 700 USD in 7 days.
Launched it in 2 weeks already and got 3 paying customers. It was my first time to succeed and receive paying customer. I don't even have to watch for it 8am - 5 pm as I built an effcient model to make it run by it self.
Here are my learnings in that startup:
- launch early
- iterate early
- pivot early
- marketing marketing marketing
- help others build their dream, forget of money as MJ said. If you help others succeed, money comes along the way.
- Minimize expenses
- Validate your market
- Don't get feedback from non paying customers, they give you tons of useless feedback
In now way I am a multimillionaire, or got lambo like MJ but things had been far far better now compared before. Hope I helped.
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