I was looking through some old post and found a draft from a few years back. I started writing this post in February 2013 about the experiences that led me on a journey which has led to bootstrapping several products and a service today. Everything that follows was written on February 21, 2013 with some minor tweaks.
I had graduated from a Tech Accelerator where I had learned a lot about building a start up. Can’t forget that I got a chance to meet some great great like minded individuals. However, most of what I was taught was about building and structuring a company that followed a certain pattern that appeals to investors. And then pitching Angel and VC investors on that start-up /idea.
There was nothing wrong with this approach if that is the path that you want to take. After all, I was interested enough in it myself to spend four months learning about it. However, I’d always considered myself more of an independent entrepreneur that wanted control over what I was building. After all, If I wanted to be without control, I would have been satisfied with my day job with a very large company that I had walked away from 2 years ago.
This was something I wanted maximum control over and based on what I’d read, seen and heard from those that had raised funding – it didn’t give me much confidence that I would be able to maintain that level of control.
Anyway, back to post graduation. The startup launched, the software world was mine and I was going to conquer it. Bloomberg West and Tech Crunch bound we were. Well, that did not happen. We failed. We didn’t fail because we could not pitch investors – which we did.
We failed because we could not find customers for the product that we built and that was partially because we built what we thought people wanted instead of finding an audience and asking them what they really wanted first, then building.
In the end, the startup failed and I closed the Corporations doors.
I had listened to a podcast called Startups for the Rest of Us for quite sometime. After taking a few months off to rest and reflect – something that I have learned is very important to anyone on this journey – I found time to read the ebook, “Start Small, Stay Small” – which I’d heard about on the podcast. This ebook had actually been in my possession for years before I dedicated myself to completing it. The books content resonated with me. I could not believe that it only cost me $19.
At the end of the book was an offer for a 7 day trial, in the form of access to something called the “MicroPreneur Academy” course content supported by a forum, for a penny. I could not turn down the offer. After-all, an investment of $19.01 was far less that what I’d spent in time and resources on a Tech Accelerator and building a failed startup.
I read the “Getting Started” section of the course and quickly felt that a large part of this process would come down to my own accountability. This wasn’t something that I lacked but it was something that I needed to focus on at another level. Having other people hold me accountable was a part of reaching that next level. It was something that I had not had from strangers in the past – with the exception of the accelerator which was a smaller group of twenty.
The more I read in the course materials and the forum, the more I saw some of the same challenges that I was facing. I felt that the course had been written for me and I was determined to take full advantage of the opportunity. The fact that this group of like minded people were telling me how they had over come challenges and obstacles and met objectives at a very detailed level, was priceless.
At this point I am interested attending a conference called MicroConf that is hosted in Las Vegas by Rob and Mike – founders of the Micropreneur Academy. To my surprise it looks like I am too late to get a ticket for the MicroConf 2013 because they are sold out. However, it appears that this year they are hosting one in Europe – Prague – later this year and tickets are in fact still available. I may give that one a shot.
