Having TOO much money in the early stages of building a startup can be an absolute curse.
Your stupidity has no consequences.
You have no incentive to become less stupid.
Costs you later. Suddenly.
As early-stage startup founders, our biggest learning was to stop dreaming of millions/ billions of dollars and to first focus on doing enough so we NEVER think of quitting.
1st time founder:
1. Picks the "latest" tech stack
2. Uses buzzwords like AI/ML & Web3
3. Looks for fancy tech solutions to problems
2nd time founder:
1. Picks a comfortable tech stack, even NoCode
2. Focuses on customer pain points
3. Happy to get things started manually
Most "sexy" work at a startup has many volunteers.
Find the simple but boring things no one wants to do & get them done.
They unlock the most amount of progress.
We grew our startup to millions in revenue, fully bootstrapped & $0 in paid marketing.
Now, we know enough to make paid marketing a success without being at its mercy.
Using paid marketing with clarity results in growth. Addiction to it just kills your startup.
As we began our startup journey, we were told:
1. Can NOT be bootstrapped
2. Should NOT build a remote team
3. Do NOT build product on NoCode
4. Can NOT grow with $0 in paid marketing
Each time, we tried the opposite.
Truth: There is NO one truth in growing startups :)
Great startups are built by solving "boring" problems no one wants to solve.
Lesson: Find startup ideas by looking for "boring" problems others don't consider "sexy" enough to solve.
SEO is not "sexy", but a superpower for your startup:
1. 5.6bn searches/ day
2. Well, Inbound > Outbound
3. High-quality & high-intent leads
4. Buildd your brand with your target audience
5. ~ZERO spend for consistent monthly traffic
Ignore SEO at your own risk!
Early days of a startup require you to find the "quickest" solution to a problem.
While scaling your startup you need to find the "right" solution to a problem.