About this episode
“Get ready to fail. In reality it’s business, and it’s going to hurt.” - Fabian Bollhalder
After graduating from University, Fabian gave himself one year to work on his business ideas. He started with a startup in the legal sector and had to experience his team falling apart because of equity issues between the founders. Next, he joined the renowned Swiss Startup Factory in Zurich, built a new team up from the ground based on his learnings, and acquired his first clients. The new product, an app called Shout, helped companies get qualitative feedback from their customers via video. When the team decided to pivot, things started to go downhill. Listen on to learn more about his experience working on the new product Yelloh, and his time in the Finnish accelerator called Startup Sauna.
In this episode you will learn:
Why it’s better to talk about equity distribution before starting to work with your team
How to build the perfect team
How a pivot can kill your startup
The importance of product-market-fit
The importance of defining and testing hypotheses
What to look out for when applying to a startup accelerator
How to create a good customer description
Our favorite quotes:
“When we pivoted we didn’t take into consideration that our target audience would not appreciate the new value proposition we created with our product.”
“Before you’ve found product-market-fit nothing else is important.”
“If you don’t have focus, you’re going to waste all your resources.”
“When you’re first starting out, you really have to know who your customer is, to the detail.”
“Get ready to fail. In reality it’s business, and it’s going to hurt.”
“If you can’t get your team right, you can’t really get anything right.”
Other useful links:
What is an MVP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product
What is a Lean Canvas - https://canvanizer.com/new/lean-canvas
What is a SaaS business model - https://empireflippers.com/saas-business-model-explained/
What does NPS mean - https://blog.capterra.com/what-is-nps-net-promoter-score-explained/
What’s OKR - https://www.slideshare.net/HenrikJanVanderPol/how-to-outperform-anyone-else-introduction-to-okr
Accelerator programs:
Swiss Startup Factory - https://www.swissstartupfactory.com
Startup Sauna - http://startupsauna.com
Kickstart Accelerator - https://kickstart-accelerator.com
YCombinator - https://www.ycombinator.com
Axel Springer - http://www.axelspringerplugandplay.com
