My Failed Venture Into Entrepreneurship

I have to start by saying, that it was all a wrong choice of plan, starting with the idea though it seemed like a good one at the start, and even by the end, once you meet investors, all your hopes and dreams will be destroyed :').

Now let's go back and go over this step by step.

I'll be discussing three topics in this newsletter:

• The Story Of The Project: From Start To Cancelation
• Our Mistakes
• A Little About The Startup System In Algeria

I hope that all of you get something out of this article.

Don't forget to subscribe to the Betterlancer Newsletter :).

The Story

2022-December:

I Contact my teacher, whom I wanted to become my supervisor for the project about having 3 project ideas, these weren't the typical 3-month speedrun projects that you usually see in Final Year Projects (no offense :D)

These ideas were "Startup" Ideas, this was a time before they announced the startup program in universities and all.

I Got a reply from my teacher confirming he would be my supervisor, and asking me to decide on a good idea and to wait for some time as there was some news about a program for innovative ideas that would be soon launched.

One of the three project ideas was an idea for a business management system powered by AI. The second one was an examination system that would use AI to automate the correction process, and I honestly don't remember the third one as it was a battle between the first two.

The progress of AI at that time was quite bad :(, the latest from OpenAI was GPT-2 which was a very hard model to utilize as it was very random, and by that I mean it was random, you ask about sports you get cooking, you ask education you get fashion, you get the point ':D.

Well, I decided to go with the second one.

2022-December Still :)

I searched for a colleague to do the final project with hoping we can get rich :D.

One of my previous roommates decided to join as he didn't have any colleagues either and I saw from his previous school projects that he was qualified enough to do this project with.

Startup System In Algeria

This system was invented to presumably give students with bright ideas a platform to get started developing them and turn them into successful businesses.

Which Started A Series of Presentations And Learning Sessions Throughout The Whole Semester.

-- Will Talk About This At The End.

2023 - Starting The Project

With much ambition we started the work on the project, we decided on the name: "PivotPointBMS", we got the domain, we deployed a landing page as soon as possible and we got an email service for any emailing we needed.

we even hired a logo designer from freelancer.com to get the logo done.

This was quite a lot of expenses to start a project to be honest and all of this just to get a good starting point.

The Start of Development

Our plan at first was to try and create an NLP model that was a little bit more interesting than the currently available ones for sentiment analysis, not only that we wanted it to go a bit further and tell us about the topic the text was discussing.

This was a few weeks after the release of ChatGPT but it wasn't widely known yet.

Sadly we couldn't get a model that was accurate enough even while selecting a few topics of discussion, so we cancelled this after two months of research with the hopes of coming back to it later.

While trying to do this research, we prepared a very simple landing page for potential leads to know more about our project and join the waitlist for it.

Features, Features, And More Features

It's very difficult to decide which features to have and which not to when doing a 6-month project, especially after losing 2 months trying to create a custom model but failing.

Though it was a little difficult we decided to develop two parts and do some cool integration features between them, the CRM and the SCM.

We wanted to have these two feature categories finalized with at least enough functions to give it to potential users as an MVP and see how they react to it.

Time-Skip To The End Of July

we finished both memories and did our presentation and a couple of weeks after we got the "Innovative Project Label" from the government.

This, at first, seemed like the greatest thing to happen to us, but... we were unsure of what the next step was.

It was quite an interesting event, but with no clear guide on what to do next, we failed to utilize this opportunity.

Investor Meetings

This is the point of this story where I will warn you, you will not enjoy it.

I had met with 2 investors, more like 1 algerian investor and one buyer from a foreign country, who wanted to buy the whole source code and re-brand it as his own.

I had a long talk with the first investor but at the end, he told me the main reason why I have decided to abandon this project.

"We Use Free Software, How Good Is Your Software Compared To That, How Good Will It Become So It Becomes Worth Paying For" - Not his words, but the meaning is the same

I honestly didn't have an answer for these two questions, I haven't thought about it before, I thought just having AI might be a big advantage but it wasn't, also trying to give companies the ability to share online, have backups and all of the "Cloud" features were enough.

But I guess Free Stuff is the go-to, And I kind of agree.

The Second encounter wasn't any better but he told the inverse, he told me that he used another service; which costs 400$ per month; to create a white labeled version of this service that he could sell, which was more interesting than taking the code and finishing it.

With these two I didn't want to go any further as i know anything more than this won't bring better news.

The End - Not Really

With this, I decided with a heavy heart to stop the development of PivotPoint BMS.

Such an important decision came from further analyses, the thought of continuing the development for 1-2 more years just to have a free product be used instead is rather disappointing.

So I decided it was time to give up on PivotPoint BMS and start something else, something more likely to succeed.

(follow for updates on this super secret project :) )

But with this failure, I think I've gotten a lot wiser and I have better decision-making when it comes to this.

For now, I'll continue freelancing, working on interesting projects until the time comes when one of my projects hopefully succeeds.

With this, I can conclude the chapter of my life titled "PivotPoint BMS" and start a newer chapter.

Our Mistakes

1. A Lot Of Market Research

Unless you do good market research never feel confident about your idea, as it can always go sideways if there is a free solution that can be used instead.

Recommendation: Do Open-Ended (not sure about the name) Surveys, They are a great way to gather information from potential clients and investors.

2. Have An Attractive Sales Page / Landing Page Before You Even Have A Functioning Product

It's important to have a landing page where potential clients can land and learn a bit more about this project, and if interested always give them a CTA whether it is a waitlist or a newsletter.

For this, you can use a simple CMS as an initial step or create it using your favorite framework.

3. Have The MVP Feature List Ready, But Don't Start Yet

Having a list of features for the MVP is quite important, it shows you what path you will take for the first 3 months of development.

It's an important part, having an MVP is no less important than having a finished product.

Developing the MVP as soon as possible is a good thing but having created a landing page, now you know whether to start developing this MVP or even switch the idea completely.

4. Getting A Label Doesn't Mean Anything

It's as simple as the title says, if you get a label, it doesn't mean that you have won, it means that the path has just started and you'll face even greater challenges in the future.

5. Ask Investors / Potential Clients From The Start

Don't wait until the end of the development cycle to look for investors, start from the beginning, this will give you a general idea of how successful your idea might be.

6. If you can't beat the free software in features, try still, but always take actions that bring in money

There is a lot of free software, if you can't beat it in terms of features, try to beat it in another way.

Algerian Startup System

I feel like this system of startups is still not well integrated into society, the consumers don't have the mindset that would make them pay for a monthly service that can make their lives easier, it's either free things or you won't get any customers.

Here are my recommendations if you want to join this program as a final-year student :

• Don't Think of financial Gains
• Price your services at a very low price: ~2000DA per month, This may be shocking to you but people don't like to pay subscriptions that are more than 2000DA unless they are necessary.
• Start with a small idea that can be easily expanded, and always think of being one step ahead of any competitor or free software available.

Thanks for reading don't forget to subscribe to the betterlancer newsletter, I have a lot of topics to discuss with you so you better not miss them

and also comment on what you thought of this story and whether I was right or wrong in stopping the development of PivotPoint BMS.

Regards.