Re: Your Startup Idea

Feb 07, 2021

When you see an a16z-backed startup rising to a billion dollar valuation or a flashy tech company launch into public markets via the newest SPAC, it’s hard to imagine those companies as having anything but Allbird shoe unboxing parties, famous YouTubers as investors, and not to mention millions of users.

It’s true that the companies we admire and read about in startup news hit upon a fundamental need in the market for their product or service.

What’s untrue is that all those companies raised millions to validate their business idea, and had sexy websites and sophisticated products to make money and earn traction.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a young professional who’s had their fair share of billion-dollar business ideas in the shower or perhaps you’re already in the middle of exploring a side hustle or startup of your own.

Accordingly, the key theme today is this: you can prove the validity of your startup or side hustle in the most basic, simple ways through your minimum viable product (MVP).

So we’re going to share a few stories from some awesome student entrepreneurs to give you some inspiration.

Why not start with us (lol)? Our Future founder, Michael Sikand, wanted to build a better business podcast for young professionals. After getting together a microphone, podcast hosting service, logo, editing software, and a few other items, he dropped episode #1 to a fantastic reaction, affirming that the length and style of the show was disruptive and primed for the modern young professional.

Boom, the idea was validated with less than $50 of costs. And it’s birthed this newsletter, merchandise, career packs (and more) 8 months later…

Let’s move to Andrew Tan and Akshaya Dinesh, Stanford students and Co-Founders of Ladder (LinkedIn for college students). They threw a bunch of career resources into a newsletter and sent it out to friends, before it went explosively viral on LinkedIn (70k+ subs).

This “Remote Students” newsletter was giving people opportunities, but there was so much more Andrew and Akshaya wanted to do. So they built an online professional community that currently boasts tens of thousands of active users...all from a super simple newsletter idea.

Similar to the prior startup, Wade Fletcher, a sophomore at Indiana University, wanted to help students locate opportunities during COVID-19. So he whipped up a really basic website with job listings called covintern.com, allowing companies to post internships for college kids amid the pandemic.

The site that he built in two days and claims “he was not proud of” was eventually visited by over 500,000 students and was featured by Morning Brew and MarketWatch.

The takeaway is that Wade coded up something really simple, and when he realized the demand for the website, he put in more resources, iterated upon it, and eventually sold the site to pursue an innovative VC fund, Undercover VC.

While Wade and the Co-Founders of Ladder leveraged their coding skills and built tech products, the best product you can create to get started, might be yourself…

A.J. Eckstein is a graduate of USC and the founder of The Career Coaching Company, which pairs students with coaches from consulting firms, investment banks, and beyond to help them land their dream jobs.

In A.J.’s startup idea, the MVP was himself. Having landed internships at McKinsey and a full-time consulting gig at Accenture, he was the first “coach” in his career coaching business, which he scaled when he realized he could build a business around the idea.

And in honor of this being an email newsletter, we have to reflect on our interview with Alex Lieberman, Founder & CEO of Morning Brew, who just sold his media company for $75 million.

His initial MVP was a PDF document summarizing the news that he sent out each morning. He would have people text him to receive access, and various individuals started reaching out to obtain it, so he knew it would have legs if he made it more scalable. Now, what started as a PDF is sent out to 2.5 million people daily…

Now we hammer this all home.

No matter what idea you have, it can gain traction easily. If the idea fails to get validation from friends, family, early users, customers, and the market, you can always move on to try something else, and you won’t have lost anything.

Launch your consulting business via a Squarespace page. Create a blog or a podcast and get feedback from close friends. Launch a Google Form to start a matchmaking business or an excel spreadsheet full of resources.

You don’t need a million dollars from Marc Andreesen or a beautiful logo and website to see if your idea is worth pursuing. All you’ll need is self-confidence, an open mind, and willingness to put yourself out there.

The possibilities for Our Future are endless.

Listen to the full podcasts below featuring the young entrepreneurs you just read about!