Week 15 Being a Founder

The Zinc Venture Builder is a full time, 12 month programme where a cohort of 70 from across the globe unite in founding teams to build startups that tackle the biggest social challenges. This week we filmed our video for our YC application and confirmed our expectations for our MVP ??

Highlights from Week 15 ??

As discussed last week, my days are looking more similar currently - focusing on sales, while Alfredo works on the product. I talked a lot about learning about sales last week so will focus on the non-salesy things I did.

My highlights were:

Filming our YC Application Video ??

We’re applying for the Winter 2024 cohort of YC. We’re applying because:

1. YC has accepted lots of community-focused startups in recent years so think the cohort directors and alumni would be amazing mentors (especially for us!)
2. There’s lots of excitement and growth in community in SF and the US in general compared to the UK (our aim is to be a big part of growing the ecosystem here but fun to be where a lot of action is)
3. Our initial customers inc B2B startups so having access to the YC startup community could power our growth

It’s of course highly competitive and having spoken to lots of alumni, it’s quite common to apply multiple times before you’re successful. So we’ll get the first application under our belts ??

England vs. China ??

Loved watching our Lionesses bang in 6 in their final game of the group stage ???I’m writing this while watching the Semi Final against Australia (it’s 2 - 1 to England ??) which tells you that I’m a bit behind on these posts… hopefully one of my highlights next week will be us having won this game ??

Thoughts from Week 15 ??

The main things on my mind this week: learn by doing and only do things when you need to.

Learn by doing

This is my second time running a business, first time running a (hopefully) venture-backed tech startup. When I started The Funding Crowd, I felt so out of my depth I read as much as possible about “how to start a business” and only started when I felt like I had enough information.

What I quickly learned was that 1) I never did know enough information lol 2) as soon as you start you realise what you actually need to know and 3) you learn much better by doing.

So I’m taking these lessons into Lima - I’m reading a lot but more about specific subjects (like B2B sales ??) and seeing it as supplementary to me actually doing the work.

Do things when you feel you need to

This moves on to how I’m managing my time. There’s a lot of information out there on what you should be doing as a startup founder. Some is useful, some is not, none of it is going to be perfectly fit for purpose because everyone’s time/lifestyle/business/way of thinking is different. Add in the fact that you already have a hundred things on your mind of things you wish you could be doing - things you actually know would be useful - and it can get a bit overwhelming. My process at the moment, is to trust my instincts and introduce processes/practices/tasks when I actually feel like they’re needed.

For example, not every business needs to start a mailing list. I started one because we’ve now onboarded 18 communities and I felt like I needed to keep them updated - we’re not paying for a marketing platform yet, I’m literally just sending out these emails manually when I feel like it’s important to.

On the other hand, despite using LinkedIn a lot (you may have noticed), we haven’t setup a LinkedIn page for Lima yet - we will soon but it just hasn’t been a priority so far because we haven’t felt a need.

So I’m doing things when I feel like we need to do them and then if there’s time in the day I’ll do some less pressing/less needed things and do some reading.

I say all this knowing that things change quickly and I may look back on this and think I should have been doing other things completely - but at this point… this process is keeping me sane ??

How You Can Help ??

Excited to say we’re getting a huge amount of interest from sponsors to work with our founder communities ???And many have come from these posts, so please keep introducing us to people ??

Lima helps B2B businesses reach highly targeted leads via private founder communities. Our community managers define their pay expectations and their partnership preferences, we find them the perfect-fit and then they post about your business to their community. As well as in-community ads we also support event sponsorship, channel sponsorship and more ??

If you’re a business that could benefit from being in front of founders (whether that be for sales or for research) - get in touch ??

Thank Yous for Week 15 ??

• Big thanks to John for joining me for breakfast - so good to catch up and talk about startup life! ??
• Thank you to Jaron - great to speak via Meetsy (which I mentioned last week!) through the Proud Ventures network ??
• Thank you Loveleen - great to catch up on CF Markets and thanks for your enthusiasm regarding Lima ??
• Thanks Declan for your time this week - great conversation on Lima and lots of good food for thought
• Big love to Julia, what a pleasure to watch the Lionesses with another die-hard fan (shame for me that you’re now in Australia and I’m in the office…)

What’s Coming Up ??

Next week I have A LOT of calls. A big test of my new-founder energy and focus I discussed last week. I also have a few great events that I’ll be attending so look forward to sharing and shouting about them ??