Venturing into my Startup

I didn’t wait to graduate from my program to start developing my app idea. I was so inspired and got a bunch of really positive feedback so I decided to hit up one of my friends from my software engineering program and see if he was interested in joining me on this venture. Lo and behold he thought it was an incredible idea and was 100% for it. So we started talking about it in our free time and soon the app became some kind of obsession for me. My friend is a REALLY great coder and it was pretty obvious that I was going to take on the administrative and marketing role and he was going to take on more of a tech lead type of role. I opened Google docs and started furiously typing away, outlining the plans for the app. I started watching videos and reading articles about Jack Ma. He inspired me the most. He said, “Wherever there is a problem — there is an opportunity.” Great advice!

Although I cannot divulge the nature of my own app just yet, I can tell you that it arose from wanting to solve a problem. If you can identify a problem, then offer a solution — you have a potential for a good startup. I also came across a genius talk by Patrick Lee, the founder of Rotten Tomatoes, and his strategies informed how I would proceed.

In his talk, he said that the app has to have one feature, one category, and one market. You have to focus on one thing. If you throw in every feature you can think of, then you will lose focus and not have a niche market. That talk was incredible.