Reality of executing a big idea – Bootstrapped startup and Freedom

When we started executing our idea, we thought we're going to get done everything within a year. We want to build a Headless API for developers and a no-code solution for everyone who starts to online business (marketplace business model initially). It’s been 4 years, I don’t think we are super confident to say we have 100% of everything for both users. We do have customers, but I will explain why it’s not 100% in a while.

The Start and The Struggle

As a founder, you like to build big things with a big dream, but in reality it takes many years. I was too naive about it when we started. The pitch deck is super ambitious ?? and I still believe in it. I remember the initial sales call trying to explain to leads that we have the marketplace solution but not the iOS app(2019). Only Headless API and Android. Through a partnership, we had an iOS app after a year(2020). And again, we didn’t have a web storefront.

Then after a year, we got a basic website with branding customisations, etc. The stack was React(2021). My friend siddiq helped me to do that for a small amount which we had. We need to scrap that after a while, because nextJS was promising on what we wanted. Tailwind gave us the flexibility with its design system goal first. The goal for us to build a no-code builder, so anyone can use it. I have a big aspiration to build something that is intuitive at first. Webflow did a good job, notion did a fantastic job. I don’t think we are yet. Our use cases are marketplace first model. We just want to make it easy for social entrepreneurs to start their idea and break monopolies.

In the backend side, there was no bottleneck or any problem because my co-founder is committed as I’m and he is genius in what he does, System design. As he is committed, there is no delay in feature releases in API front. The one thing which I always complain is not shipping the API fast to our postman collection haha. Because he works on full time job, family and then this. It’s a tight packed. For me, I was fortunate to have a good stamina without even food, meaning able to continue life without a full time salary. It’s not easy for everyone. But through Joseph/Yusuf Story of storing/saving grain, I started the habit of savings for all this rainy days/operating cost for family.

There are few reasons why initially were not able to close deals. Marketplace business is a complex model.

1. Payments are easy but payouts are troublesome because not many vendors provide this options except Stripe Connect. So each countries will have different players, so trying to implement vendor for each market is tough. And we can’t pick markets as well. Because marketplace is already niche and trying to focus on a specific market already reduce the market size. How many entrepreneurs want to build a marketplace in single country? And how many wants to use a solution like us? And finally they choosing us. (We currently support 50+ Countries with marketplace payout options)
2. Product marketplace has a shipping and they expect a shipping integrations. We eventually got to integrate with one player and built native Fleet solutions as well (Not promoting the fleet much as of now)
3. Service marketplace or event marketplace need a different feature set. Booking Engine.
4. One thing we did well is Revenue Engine. We support revenue model like commission, subscription, Featured Ads, Markup fees, etc.
5. Each marketplace type has a different niche workflow. Product is Cart, Services are booking, crowdfunding is fund/donation with public profile/updates. And all of them has inventory/stocks.

The only thing was common for all of them is initial Data Structure (Accounts, Listings). And we did provide good flexibility in them. So the CMS part was well done from the initial time.

I remember the time when sitting with one mentor who is trying to advise it’s too hard to build something for every use case. I was confidently saying him, it’s possible. I learnt slowly it’s possible through the experience but it takes a LONG TIME. If I’m patient and persistent enough to that, we can really do that. And this is also why it’s important to have co-founders who has the same quality of patient and persistence.

The Goal and The Persistence

For both of us, the end goal is clear. Build something remarkable, and get the freedom to work on what we like and what we believe in. The freedom part kept pushing us to continue on this. We too had fights occasionally about time spent on project. But from a podcast, there is a learning which is a self-reminder is “Sometimes you are working more, sometimes he might work more but it may not be at the same time”. So if you believe in that, it would make your job easier. You always need to do personal nudge each other.

I’m also sometimes lazy and get sidetracked to other stuff but it always brings me back here. Because with God’s grace, there is users coming into the platform and you always get pulled in to the platform development whether you like it or not. And this is also another why it’s better to release the product early and have the mindset of SHIP IT. So your customers will pull you in.

So from what I have shared above, you could see that we never had 100% solutions. And we will never have 100% solutions at point of time. It’s a journey. It’s a Progress. You keep going as much as you can to support the users. If you are lucky, you will get the full dream executed at short span, otherwise it might take more time.

Money & Sustainability

VCs like to say you can always change the speed of anything through money. It’s not true, they are just in swapping business, they make up you and sell to another one. The one who receive the parcel realise they can’t sustain. The farming has taught me many lessons in my life recently. If you keep putting fertilisers to grow the tree, it will not be sustainable to run your business. It’s just add additional cost to your operating expense. Similarly growing a teak wood tree vs the mango tree vs small plant has different result. A Teak wood to be valuable takes 15-35 Years and it’s can withstand strong wind but not the small plant. The small plant can give you short returns but it will fall easily and die in short time. It can be a supporting tree to grow other trees.

Like others I can build something that can last for 5 years and try to make money. But I’m not doing a nursery business here. I’m building my own forest that going to benefit me iA all around the year. It will be a diverse one with teak wood tree, palm trees ??, and fruit trees like mango tree ??. A natural one that will take care of them after a certain stage. It’s called Ecosystem. And the Forest Ecosystem.

So all the different use cases we have is diverse plant saplings, that is not a significant one now but they would take time to grow and benefit us in long term. The modular backend is going to the field. The No-code editor is going to be the water. And different use cases(the plant) would grow as diverse until we can have a flexible no-code editor.

Now

From 2021Q3-2023Q3, 2 years after lot of attempts at different POC, different design framework, different reddit advices, etc, we are here with new editor. I’m not fully satisfied when I think from notion standard of UX. But with the small team, with all prayers, and mere persistence, we have got here. The mindset of code re-usability has helped us to avoid any tech debt in the new editor.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtQmoTOqKNg

Some of the lessons I realised from the whole journey is

1. It’s take time to build a big dream. Especially when you are bootstrapped and small team. So keep the consistency. May be pivot but don't give up.
2. It takes lot of pain to finally accept and go with an approach “One step at a time”. Founders usually have big ambitions, and it’s not easy for them to accept that we will only do small number of features now. You also realise you need to make money to sustain for now and then in future, you can always build the rest. So keeping the vision in heart and getting the hand executing the small needed stuff is practical. Visionary don’t accept practicality. But they will eventually would do it. Steve Jobs proved it. Lisa(1984) was a failure but not the iPhone(2008). It took? 24 years. Remember now the years for a teak wood tree to grow!
3. Working with Passionate people and Empathetic is important. They are committed, self-motivated and empathetic about certain situations. sometimes delay in salary. sometimes no big rewards. Sometimes nothing. Because the money is secondary for them.

I’m been building my startup in public for past 4 years, write about personal freedom from corporate life and about bit of ethics in everything. I never lie or believe in “Fake it until you make it”, I share original stories happen in my life towards this goal. If you like it, follow me for more stories like this.