😔 I Lost 15 K 💵 In My First 🚀Startup 🚀 >< This is the bestthing that happened to me.

Ahmed Ali
2 replies
⚠️ ⚠️ Attention Entrepreneurs ⚠️⚠️ I lost : 15 k $ 1 year of my life Product that nobody had heard of. I will explain why validation is important and how I could have saved 15k $ in my first startup and will share the Do & Don't. I have learned the hard way, so you SHOULDN'T I was a first-time founder who shifted his career and was so excited about his idea and fell in love with it. 1- This is The First Lesson > Never Fall In Love With Your Idea. I want to build an APP to aggregate offline travel agencies into one platform and help clients ask for custom trips on real-time bidding styles from agencies. And here is the second mistake. I started thinking about how to build the perfect product; I wanted to build an APP with so many features so clients would be happy and convenient. 2- Second Mistake > Start with an MVP. A complicated product will kill your startup because you will initially face endless issues. 3- Third Mistake > I outsourced the technology to a software house to build the product. This is the worst thing any founder could do. It has too much liability, and they will never care about the business. You are a piece of business for them. ( There are exceptions always ) 4- Fourth Mistake. Never look for funds before validation unless you have excellent connections. I joined 3 incubator programs and kept taking advice about startups that I never managed to implement alone. This is useless, honestly, except for those with no entrepreneurship experience who have to mix it with practicality. Here is what you NEED TO AVOID DOING 1- Build full product before validation 2- DON'T fell in love with your idea 3- Be a solo founder 4- Outsource technology 5-Don't spend much time looking for funds but Improve your business, and investors will come to you directly Here is what you MUST DO 1- Build MVP and validate your idea using subscription tools, kill all the liabilities and find the fasted way to launch this. 2- Within 30 - 40 days, even to validate or kill the idea 3- Having a good team is very crucial and will make or break your business 4- Be Practical, Be Fast, go to market and adapt accordingly To conclude why it's the best thing that happened to me because that was the most intense learning curve for me. I have learned the hard way. And figured out this is a big issue in the market and built a business out of it by helping startups to find product market fit. I explained in the notion board how I should have validated it in the right way, AND GUESS WHAT. The cost was less than 200 $ with subscription tools to deliver the same value and validate the product. I summarized all the journeys and aggregated and created all content in the world in one ToolKit for every entrepreneur. Including validation, tools, funnels, lead magnets, and much more. Vote up, so we reach as many people as possible to learn about this experience. If you are interested in the ToolKit, this link includes a lifetime extended update license for free ( We update every two weeks )> this deal is only for Indie Hackers. https://smartsale.tech/launch-a-successful-business/?utm_source=product+hunt&utm_medium=Growth+Hacking+&utm_campaign=Growth+Hacking+-+product+hunt-+ToolKit+-+My+Story+how+i+lost+15+k+%24+ Cheers!