7 years ago, I quit my job to pursue my first startup. I was living at home, my bills were less than £500 per month and I was confident I would build, launch and have 1,000 customers within 6 months. Easy, right?
I spent the first 3 months fighting with myself on the “right way” to code my application, spending hours in IRC talking about “clean code” and “spec tests”. After 3 months, I had some of the basics done... and lots of spec tests.
When I reached the end of 6 months, I failed to launch, and I ended up falling into freelancing.
Over the next few years, I would see another company launch what I had dreamed of, and I slowly drifted away from the idea that was Raw Gains.
Over the next few years, I would see another company launch what I had dreamed of, and I slowly drifted away from the idea that was Raw Gains.
Freelancing was pretty great. I was making more money doing 80 hour months than at my previous full time job, so I had 80 hours spare to work on other ideas each month.
One of the ideas that really took my fancy was an Instagram growth automation tool.
One of the ideas that really took my fancy was an Instagram growth automation tool.
The way it worked was:
1) You would enter some influential figures (e.g. Eminem if you’re target audience was rap fans)
2) It would automatically follow people who followed him.
3) If they hadn’t followed back after 1 week, it would unfollow them.
4) Repeat
1) You would enter some influential figures (e.g. Eminem if you’re target audience was rap fans)
2) It would automatically follow people who followed him.
3) If they hadn’t followed back after 1 week, it would unfollow them.
4) Repeat
This was actually me scratching my own itch, and if you check out rawgains on Instagram, you can see I grew the account using it for a month or so. I then turned it into a complex audience analysis tool, and was deep in the rabit hole thinking about ideas.
But then I found a competitor called SumAll. And they were live, had users and, woah, they had $13.5M in funding. How was I supposed to compete with that much money? Imagine the amount of developers they could hire. That turned me off the idea, and I shelved the project.
A few years later, I moved onto Pico, and now Fathom is my dream company. The dream I'd had since I was 17. But why am I even sharing this all with you? What is to be learned from this?
The competing company of Raw Gains currently has a net worth of less than $10,000, after 5+ years in business. They have over $400,000 in debt, and it looks like they outsource all of their development work rather than do it in-house. And guess what, development isn't cheap.
The competitor to my Instagram tool sent out an email at midnight to say farewall and that they're closing down. The email suggested it was related to "current environment", but you've got bigger problems if you had $12M+ in investment and your tech business died in 2 months.
This isn't me publicly laughing at competitors, this is me publicly sharing how I saw them 5 years ago to how I would see them nowadays.
Thoughts:
1) Huge amounts of venture capital does not equal success
2) If you can do it better than a competitor, keep at it
3) 1,000 customers takes longer than 2-3 months
4) Expect and embrace failure
5) You only fail if you stop trying
6) Keep your company as lean as possible
1) Huge amounts of venture capital does not equal success
2) If you can do it better than a competitor, keep at it
3) 1,000 customers takes longer than 2-3 months
4) Expect and embrace failure
5) You only fail if you stop trying
6) Keep your company as lean as possible
