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Learn from my mistakes in a checklist

We're on the 29th of March. I'm living in London and the city is in a complete lockdown. Most of the shops are closed. Social interactions are becoming scarce resources. Time to take a break and thinking how can we help the Community.

I come from Belgium, where I studied Law. I started a career as Lawyer and quickly realised I wasn't built for that. I needed something less bureaucratic. Something exciting. Five years of study, dozens of books, thousands of hours spent learning things that I wouldn't use anymore in my life. That's what I thought.

I decided to do a master's in General Management, where I learned a ton of theoretical things about "how to be a good manager", "how to be good at marketing" or "how to craft the perfect business model". I thought I was ready to fly from my own wings. After all, what are these courses made for if I can't apply them? That's what I thought.

While I was studying at this Business School, I met @vladwulf. Vladimir is more than a genius, it's the perfect business partner. But before all, a brother. We went through many difficult things, and we never gave up. "Eyes on the Prize" they say. It's true.

We quickly started to work on small projects, and I tried to apply what I learnt during these Business School classes. But... it did not go as expected.

I realised that creating a startup is everything but easy.

Entrepreneurship is most of the time depicted as the American Dream. A group of guys in a garage that are creating what will become the next big thing. But it's 1% of what entrepreneurship REALLY is.

On Youtube, you will see many inspiring videos of "teacher but not makers" saying you what to do. These guys are the replica of what business school are doing: theory. Not practice.

These last three years, I've learned many things. Mainly from my mistakes, but also by reading the story of inspiring people like Jen from @lunchbag, or john from @8bit. I feel like telling my experience could help other people reaching their goals.

When I was doing Law, I developed a process to be able to 1] remember my mistakes and not replicate them, 2] operate everything thanks to checklists. I kept that while starting my entrepreneurship journey. {at least I kept that from my Law School tuition fees....]

The Program is all about that. A checklist for your business.

I want you to know what worked for us and what didn't. It won't be perfect. But perfection is imperfection {rule #1].

I hope to be able to provide you the keys to bootstrap your startup more efficiently. Step by Step. Together.

Three weeks ago, we've started a new side hustle. We will apply all our advice to our own side project and see if The Program is a success or not. [Successful = allowing us to diversify our sources of revenues. We're not aiming at being a million $ company].

Let me know at which stage of your business are you. In the meantime, I'm working on the first video "idea validation".

I've created a page "the Program" that will be [hopefully] validated in the next few hours. Don't hesitate to follow the page once created to get notifications when a new article is added :)

With Love,

  1. 4

    there's always a market for folks who know something that other folks don't know much about.

    that gap... the delta is your opportunity. seize that fucker and go!

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      Yeah! Thanks for the support John :)

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        of course, i'm here to help!

  2. 2

    I am a checklist kind of a guy! I would love to see that, even if the checklist wouldn't be perfect, it's always a great starting point not to forget about certain things! You could always keep expanding it, and making it more detailed in some sections! Keep me posted!

    1. 1

      Exactly! The more you learn, the best your list becomes!

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    Franzou,

    What a great story - really, this is catching and will have one reading till the end.

    Now, to "A check list for your business"

    You are hoping to be able to "provide you the keys to bootstrap your startup more efficiently. Step by Step. Together." - Do you have a verifiable track record in doing this ? - If not then why would I take a chance on YOUR check list?

    I would really like to understand more about your Business Model as the intro story reads really well, but I also get the feeling you are a couple of guys who don't really have the experience of building a successful and efficient startup, yet you are trying to sell a such a checklist to others?

    Maybe I have got this wrong and you guys are successful, but if you are, then that needs to be part of the story, otherwise you will struggle to compete with the many checklists, books and start up user manuals out there.

    I would be happy to discuss / debate further, here or privately - I have 25 years experience in both failed and successful technology startups and would be happy to banter with you on this,

    Hope to hear from you,

    1. 1

      Hi Aidan! thanks for your answer. Glad that you took the time to read the article. Let me clarify your questions:

      1. I'm not trying to sell the checklist, just trying to give it to folks of the community.

      I'm planning to do some in-depth courses afterward that I might monetize if it takes too much of my time but the core value proposition is free. Moreover, I totally agree with you. It could be a "Too good to be true" list. This is why this list could be used as a basis for other entrepreneurs that would complete it. The idea is to "prove" that list by testing it live on a project. It's totally possible that this list won't work on the testing project, but at least we will learn from it.

      1. Yes, we have founded other businesses. One of them is Vc-backed with 7 figures valuation. I didn't want to mention that on the article because I don't want to brag about it. It's just not in my nature.

      Happy to talk about our respective experiences privately. I'll send you a DM :)

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        Shout when you get time we can set up a chat or hangouts.

  4. 1

    Keep up the great work bro!

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