‘Talk is cheap, Ideas cheaper, Dreams are free’
– Source unknown, so Guru Cingh
There are numerous reasons why a person, a business or an idea would not succeed. And all the motivational quotes about taking failure in stride, would not pay for engineering and computing resources. It does not work that way for most people. In real life over an extended period of time it does not matter if you win or lose; until you lose.
So, when you are building something, developing your idea, putting money where your mouth was, and you fail, you are fucked. What worked for Robert the Bruce does not work for software engineering and product development.
But those are natural truths, and they are equally true for all businesses, without naming those who succeeded or failed.
Your idea is fragile.
So is every idea out there.
Machine Dalal is less outrageous, and the proposition clearly defined. Perhaps not crazy enough as asking people to give rides to strangers in your car (Uber) or better yet asking people to host strangers in your house (Airbnb). This is the stuff for Jordan Peele movies.
But those guys succeeded, and I am sure they had their share of naysayers,
1. Friends and Family who dismissed it.
2. Professionals and Industry Experts
3. A whole lot of investors before they grew to a certain level.
But. Not them.
They protected the idea, nurtured it, got the resources, and succeeded.
And the rest, as they say, is history, or present.
We protected our idea, by simply building it. As I have said before I have focused more on building and less on fundraising, and perhaps in hindsight that was the right way to do it. I am sure my rejection rate would be less than other founders, simply because,
1. We built something that people would use.
2. We built something that people would pay for.
And most importantly we did not ignore Sales & Marketing.
We actively tried to recruit users.
Made deliberate effort to locate those, and for most part we never thought of scalability and focused on a narrow market to flush out the kinks, fix errors, and built a feedback loop that helps us improve our product.
The best part was customers paid, and they did globally, major countries our paying subscribers come from,
1. Germany
2. France
3. Israel
4. Brazil
5. UK
… in no particular order
Well, I have to get back to work. But the story continues. I had started the hunt for a strategic partner, will let you know how that comes to pass.
Oh, by the way, I had a fruitful meeting with an investor, you will have an update once I have an update, but meanwhile and thereafter, keep building the product.