How to build and sell companies **fast**

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1/ My Process

I prefer selling companies (my sweet spot is $5M to $10M 💰) instead of collecting the revenue until a bigger competitor comes in or a new trend comes over.

📌 Here is how I do it (and why):

• Build a prototype that showcases the basic idea. It shouldn't be beautiful.

You should be embarrassed by it (and get over it!)

• Show it to as many people as you can to collect feedback. Can you not find these people? Not even on Reddit/Twitter/LinkedIn? Reconsider your idea as customer acquisition won't solve itself in the future.

Build to manage demand and not creating demand.

• Listen to feedback and find at least 100 paying customers in the next 3 months. Can you not find them? Either you are not working hard enough, the market is small, or you don't know how to monetize. Kill the idea and move on.

The worst thing it can happen to a founder is working on a zombie idea.

• If the market is healthy and you haven't done the stupid mistake of raising VC money, expect to sell your company for a 5 to 7-digit, depending on how hot the space is (I sold my latest one for 8 digits).

How long this will take depends on the market and your network.

🎯 The reason I prefer to sell (or kill) companies are that I love collecting revenue 5 to 10 years in advance (when you sell a tech company, the multiplier usually is 10x-20x your revenues) and then moving to the next interesting thing and putting this money to work for me.

There you have it. The blueprint 📋 of the building and selling of a company.

2/ Build to Fail

The one big mistake that ALL Entrepreneurs make is they build products that scale . They should be building products made TO FAIL.

The best thing that can happen is that your product doesn't scale because YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS.

This is the best problem you can have in your Startup life because

1/ Scaling software is not rocket science

2/ Fundraising is 100000x times easier when you have so many customers that you need to scale

3/ You didn't waste your life building something that no one cares about.

Grab my 100% FREE email course, Build To Fail; it will make you a better founder!

It's good to fail.

3/ GPT4 pregnancy

Last week I posted how ChatGPT saved a dog.

This week I read about how ChatGPT is a good companion but could make fatal mistakes.

Here is a doctor using ChatGPT in ER and his findings.

Would you trust A.I. to save your life?

4/ This is The Most Powerful Startup Community In The World

💡 The concept is simple; Bring together brilliant technologists, give them a little bit of money, and a really good community, and this will give founders a huge advantage.

Out of this idea came the first batch of Y Combinator startups.

A few months ago, I shared an incredible FREE course offered by Y-Combinator - the Aspiring Founder Track course. If you are an ambitious founder looking to learn from the best, you should definitely enroll. 📚

Today, I have something special for you.

🚀 Y combinator funds hundreds of companies at a time, and it's the only place in the world that produces generational companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Coinbase, and a whole lot more again and again and again.

So, if you are ready to level up your game, here you are. Y Combinator is now accepting applications from startups for the Summer 2023 funding cycle, happening from June to August 2023.

Apply by April 7

✨ Need some extra inspiration? Check out this link.

5/ Do you like stories? Then this is for you. 📖

Once upon a time, in the vibrant city of Athens 🇬🇷, our Chief of Chaos embarked on a magnificent journey. He attended the MIT Global Startup Workshop, a place where eager minds from around the world gather to connect, learn, and create. In this enchanting conference, blazing ideas met seasoned experience.

Here, entrepreneurs, students, investors, and unceasingly curious souls are assembled, united by their passion for igniting the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Upon his return, I couldn't contain my curiosity, so I asked him about the most valuable lesson he had learned. 🧐

❓ With a twinkle in his eye, he shared this riddle: Entrepreneurship 101 Quiz: "What is the singular necessary and sufficient condition to have a company?"

Is it the idea? The team? A skillful grasp of technology, or perhaps an invaluable patent? Mull it over for a moment...

The answer? None of the above!

In a flash of profound simplicity, he revealed the truth:

The singular necessary and sufficient condition to have a company is, quite simply, to have paying customers.

This fundamental truth is somehow submerged in the quest to build the perfect startup. Remember, your task as a founder is to create something that people not only crave but are willing to exchange their hard-earned money 💵 to acquire.

At the workshop, Bill Aulet, a celebrated author with wisdom to share, showcased this undeniable truth while brandishing a fistful of Benjamins.

His book, 📕 "Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup" serves as an illuminating guide for anyone embarking on the ever-enticing road of entrepreneurship.

So, dear reader, let us never forget the essence of a successful company: paying customers who yearn for what you have to offer.

And with this gem 💎 of wisdom, you, too, can embark on your startup odyssey.

That's all for now. See you next week!

- Jon V (as in Victory) 🚀

- Fri 07 April 2023