7 months in, what have I learnt from running a startup?

Hey Hey! Just hitting you with another reflective post.

In this article, I want to give off some of the lessons I have learnt in the first 7 months of deciding to take a gap year to build SkillBoost - a Research & Development company focusing on the Education sector. This is not only a post of self-reflection but I hope it can shine a few key lessons for some of the people who would like to get into entrepreneurship one day.

To start of with, a bit about me and the company. I was in my 1st year at Pearson College London studying a bachelors in Business Managment. I completed that with several challenges in that first year to overcome as well as several blessings to take. During that 1st year, I competed in a university challenge that required the teams to create a product/service for the education giant - Pearson. From that challenge, SkillBoost was born.

After finishing that 1st year in June, the idea of SkillBoost kept pulling on me and I was still excited by it after creating the initial idea almost 8 months prior. That first year of university, I attended several events in the tech and education space and roughly knew that there is a massive opportunity in both spaces.

With that in mind, during the summer of 2018 I had a choice: do I stay in university for 2 more years and half-heartedly balance university and this idea or do I take a gap year and dedicate myself to building this idea? I chose option 2. I felt like I had something to prove to myself and all of the greatest people I look up to have taken random risks so what's the worst that can happen. That is where the journey began.

Now, onto the lessons:

Your business plan is bull****

This is one of those things I have been told to write in my GCSE's studying business, in my university course, and from several business professionals. A business plan is basically this document that lists out things like: what is your business, what does it do, how will your sell your product/service (marketing), what will the financials look like over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc. and other annoying sections that will just waste your time.

I wholeheartedly believe that the whole purpose of the business plan is to waste the founders time and push them away from the initial idea of starting a company. The reason I say that is because the VERY FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO WHEN STARTING A COMPANY, is not to actually start the company, but test the idea and if their is a need for it in the market. More on this in the next point.

I have looked at several business plans, business plan templates and heard several business ideas over the last few years and I have not once written a business plan for SkillBoost yet because it makes me sick to my stomach. There are around 230,000+ businesses being created every year. At least 1 of them will be similar to your own. So, your first point of action is always to 1. Figure out why you want to start this company and 2. Is there a need for it in the market?

I am a firm beliver of writing out your business ideas. Literally, writing out bullet points or short sentences of how you envision your business to look like, and how it could work. But not spending hours on hours thinking about it because the bottom line is, in the first 6 months of your business, your idea will transform several times. This was my problem with most of the ideas I had before SkillBoost. I thought more then I acted and I never really considered my motivation to create the ideas or the actual need for them in the world.

SkillBoost has changed hugely, from the time the idea was created in university back in December 2017, to the first week I decided to take a gap year back in August 2018 to where it is now in April 2019. I am pretty sure that the idea will develop even further over the next 6 months. But that's entrepreneurship for you. I also entered SkillBoost in 3 competitions so far.

Below, you can watch 2 pitches I did for SkillBoost. The first was a month in and the second was 6 months in.

Pitch for NACUE 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ymkbzjJ6c

Pitch for F-Factor 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5-QxdNc5Q

Test the idea - Why do you need it? Why does the Market need it?

This one is bouncing off the first point which is to ask question and gather answers. First and foremost, ask yourself why do you want to build this idea? Is it for financial gain, freedom, being your own boss, having something to do or just because you like it? Could you picture yourself running this business for 50 years? Whatever your reason, make sure it is clear to you because it will help you in the long run.

Not every business will require you to work 50 years on it though. You may want to start a company with a vision to sell it 2 years later. You may want to start a company and have it as a side business on top of your regular job. You may want to only start this company to use the term #entrepreneur in your bio, which has been so hugely popularised in the last 10 years. Some of these reasons will help the founder secure ￡1M in funding while another may help a founder secure a lot of headaches. Either way, only you can figure this bit out.

My reason for starting SkillBoost was because I was, and still am, super psyched about the idea that I can be aroud people and learn about them every day and get paid for it, for having the flexibility of testing different ways of learning and learning from super smart people. Imagine getting paid to learn and helping others to learn. The whole idea of teaching a man how to fish, instead of just giving him a fish, is super spot on with what I am trying to accomplish.

The next part is - does the market need it? Your motivation to your business may change over time so I wouldn't spend to long thinking about that question as I believe your intentions for your business will naturally come out to you. However, understanding if there is a need for your product/service can either make or break your company.

Like mentioned in the 1st point, there are around 230,000+ businesses being created every year in the UK alone. At least 1 of them will be similar to your own. This can already inform you that the market is hugely competitive and will be fighting long hours for customers. So, you first want to figure out if there are any other companies already doing what you are looking to do and how many of them are there in total. Competitors split up into 3 categories:

1. Primary - This competitor offers the same products and services aimed at the same target market and customer base, with the same goal of profit and market share growth.
2. Secondary - This competitor may offer a high- or low-end version of your product, or sell something similar to a completely different audience. For example, Volkswagen and Rolls Royce cars, similar product with a different quality. 
3. Tertiary - This category includes businesses that are only slightly related to yours, and really come in handy when you’re looking to expand your product catalog. These could be related products and services that are trending, as well as businesses that may be beneficial to partner with further down the line.

If you are entering the watch, car, cryptocurrency, food markets, etc. then you may find it very difficult to differenatite yourself in those markets. This is because the market is hugely saturated and each company has already positioned themselves within the market, long before you have, and have already created their own customer bases. However, it is not impossible to break in with the right product/strategy.

If you find that, actually there aren't many companies with ideas similar to your own, or your idea is of a higher quality then existing products/services in the market, then go and check if the market actually needs your idea. What I mean by that is, figure out who would use your product/service and go ask them for the types of problems they are facing.

Ask them if they are using a product/service similar to your own and if they are, how are they finding it? If they aren't, ask them if your idea could help them solve their problem. Remember, your idea is still just an idea and not everyone will get what you are trying to create at first. The simplest ways you can gather this data is through:

1. Talking to potential customers
2. Conducting surveys/questionnaires
3. Asking people to buy your idea now
4. Doing some secondary research (This is information from someone else)

What I did in the first month with SkillBoost was I created 2 surveys on SurveyMonkey that had several questions asking the tester about their problems, the product I am trying to build, and the features they may want in it. I put out one survey to 32 students and one survey to 32 employees. Out of 64 testers, 59 have said that if I build the product that I explained, then they would buy and use it. That was enough for me.

Prepare for a ride

If you have been thinking about getting into entrepreneurship then you may have been watching or reading content from exisiting entrepreneurs. My personal favourites include Elon Musk, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jay-Z, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Mark Cuban, Tim Ferris, Peter Thiel, Patrick Bet David, and Warren Buffett.

Watching people in positions that you want to get into is a natural part of learning and they can answer a lot of questions that you may have about the role. Luckily, because of the internet, it doesn't take a lot of effort to find an entrepreneur giving you industry secrets about the life of an entrepreneur.

At the age of 16 when I was graduating from secondary school, I got a certificate in my end of year school assembly which read "most likely to become an entrepreneur". I didn't know what an entrepeneur was so I googled it and began religiously consuming content on these people since then.

At the age of 16, a few months after graduating school, I was diagnosed with Agorophobia, a combination of anxiety, panic attacks and depression. For the next 2 years, I spent a lot of my time by myself, thinking. Sometimes I thought about the past, sometimes the future, but very rarely about the present. From those thoughts, I decided I wanted to leave football and get into entrepreneurship at some point. Problem was, I didn't know any entrepreneurs.

From the age of 17, the mindset has been "build what you need before you actually need it." So, I went out and seeked entrepreneurs. I met one, then two, then three, and my network of founders began expanding.

In the first 7 months of running SkillBoost, I have felt lonely, exhausted, and I burnt out twice from over-working already. But, if I didn't have that network of founders which I can tap into and talk to, then I am pretty sure this would have been a lot worse. My network has taught me that entrepreneurship, much like life, is a marathon, so think strategically. I am still learning this one.

Being a founder, I have always been told to prepare for a roller coaster of emotions. In these first 7 months, I believe I have only started to get the small bumps of emotions. I have been more emotionally aware of my mental and physical states, giving myself time off when I need it. That was again, enforced in me by my network through practise and trial & error.

I believe anyone wanting to get into a job position, especially entrepreneurship should build their network of founders who they can tap into for advice because you will need it, both on a technical level as well as an emotional one.

Be a part of the game, both in the verbal and practical sense

This might be a weird one from the sound of it. What I found from the several unsuccessful projects I have tried to start over the years is that I was often very good at pitching these ideas to anyone who would listen. I would talk about these amazing ideas that I was trying to accomplish, how I thought they could change or improve lives, how I hoped that the project could be something outstanding and I was often so good at the pitching part, that I was able to sell it to myself.

While 'trying, hoping and thinking' are nice words, they are absolute bull**** in practical terms. Imagine if Google, Apple or Amazon told you about all the things that their products could "potentially" do for you. Imagine if they pitched to investors about their amazing services that they "think" could make money. Not in this game you don't. There are 3 messages from this point.

Speak and Act like you mean business

If you are going into entrepreneurship, don't talk about all the things you could do, but all the things that you will do. Advice is one of the cheapest things you can acquire in this day and age because everyone is offering it. From your next door neighbour, to your aunty, to your barber, to the that one kid you've been following on Instagram for no reason, to the president of Canada on your TV screen.

Most people know what to do and what they should do. The tough thing is actually going out and getting the job done, taking your own advice so to speak (more on this in point 3). What I mean from this point is, if you are going into a specific market in business, don't put out empty promises or words. In all honesty, you are not only hurting yourself by using these empty words but subconsciously losing trust from potential stakeholders.

In my younger years, I was so good at talking about the game and charming everyone with my amazing ideas that I am 100% sure that many of the people I have charmed have lost faith in my ability to deliver. My natural ability to act like a big man who was just about to launch the next ￡1 million idea was second to none. But where did that get me? Well, I still have many notes in my old notebooks about the ideas that I was GOING TO start.

Now, with SkillBoost, I made it my responsibility to shut up and listen, focusing entirely on building the actual idea with the people it could affect. Which brings me to point number 2...

Do your Research

This is the standard. Do your research. Whatever your business idea is, you have to be able to speak about it and sell it. Selling is the lifeline of the whole company. You cannot sell an idea without understanding what the idea is and who is it aimed at.

I love people who play the 'devil's advocate'. You know, the types of people that ask you a series of questions to really figure out if you know your stuff, almost challenging you in a way. I believe every start-up should have one of those people as early as possible for as long as possible. They might be annoying, but they are pure gold in helping you to understand what you don't actually know.

There is a huge difference when you want to start a car company, with a vision to design a new and more efficent version of a Tesla, and pitching it off to your friend who knows nothing about cars compared to pitching the idea of to an F1 Motor Car Mechanic. The Mechanic will question you on every part of the product and test your market knowledge. If you are lucky, they will be nice about it and not embarrass you when you prove to yourself that you have only been speculating up until that point.

Whatever market you decide to enter, each market has its own terminology in which you will need to know to be able to understand what people are saying. Technology, Education, Finance, Government, Health all have their own terms and meanings and if you don't study your market, you will be left looking like a duck.

Not only the terminology itself but also how the market works, the types of competitors in the market and how their product differs from your own, the key trends and problems in your market, how the market is expected to change in the next 5 years and perhaps what types of opportunities have you spotted. If you want a seat at the table and have the chance to speak, you must first be prepared for it.

I had this initial problem with all of my ideas up until SkillBoost where I spoke from speculations without ever investing time into understanding what was already going on. When I decided to build SkillBoost, I set out to spend the first year consuming as much information about my market as possible. The first 2 months, I basically spent 6 to 8 hours only doing market research. This means I was speaking with my target customers and going through a series of videos/articles/podcasts and attending events.

Because of that time spent, I can run you through the types of words used in the Education sector, the 18 competitors in my space and how their products work, the problems and trends that are happening over the next few years, the amount of money being invested/made in the Education sector, the countries that have the biggest potential for educational expansion. All of this is written out for me to come back to when I need it, and I am so grateful to myself for doing that.

Your best bet is being Practical

The last point is your most important one - practicality triumphs all. This is already the key difference between entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs, between the thinkers and the doers, between joining the hall of fame or joining the hall of lame, sad but true.

Your best bet is being practical. This means going out and actually getting started on building your product/service. Try spending time actually building your minimum viable product. Remember, as you build an MVP, you need to have a feedback loop. This is where you are testing the product you built with your customers so you can gather feedback which you can use to develop the product further.

There will be several rejections and disappointments of your idea and I can now tell you from experience because in the first 7 months, SkillBoost has been rejected from 4 competitions, 2 investors, and I got hammered at during my 1st public pitch in February by 2 more investors who didn't understand the idea. That does mean it is a bad idea, it just means both the product and explaination of it needs to be improved.

For the first 3/4 months of running SkillBoost, I spent most of my time performing market research and writing out what SkillBoost could look like. I briefly mentioned to relevant people of what I am aiming to build and used those comments to strenghten the idea even further. I realised however, that many of the people I pitched to were only partly understanding what I was saying. So, the next step was to build the idea.

The initial minimum viable product for SkillBoost is a simple website. Bare in mind that I do not consider myself to be a technical person. After reading the book Sprint by Jake Knapp in 2018 which is a fanatstic book to be used as an intruction manual for running a Sprint, I decided to take a week off from the world to build the 1st prototype.

In the course of 5 days, I planned, designed, wireframed, built and prototyped the website with actual people. The website was not fully complete, it was only half complete, meaning that the front-end of the website looked like the real thing but the back-end of the website I was operating manually - this is known as a 'Wizard of Oz'.

The book not only gives examples of technical products you can build and test in 5 days but also practical ones like robots or hair salons or coffees. The aim of building and testing these prototypes in the course of 5 days is literally to have something that you can show another person, gather feedback and then use the feedback to build it again. Another great point of spending 5 days and not 5 months or years on the product/service is that if the people testing your product tell you that it is 'shit', then you just saved yourself a lot of time and money.

My biggest lesson from the experience with SkillBoost has to be around, practicality being the King in this game we call life. We now have a prototype that has been tested with customers, and we will be building Version 2 over the summer. I've learnt to talk a lot less and act a lot more from this experience. This has always been a weakness of mine, getting things going I mean.

Conclusion

This is a reflective post and not an essay so I will not be adding a conclusion as I don't have one. Take the information written here however you want it and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them below.

Warm hugs, Damian Zabielski