How I failed my first startup

With three friends, we try to create our first startup 5 years ago, we failed it, and we learn a lot with this !

I will tell you the story from scratch !

The idea

The main idea was to develop a mobile app that will help user to make great recipes (depending on the price setup by the user) and generate a shopping list !

The target was the student, people that have not a lot of money, big family ect...

First step

We were all student in the same school, we had no a lot of free time, but we need to use our free time to learn mobile development !

We first learn Java, me made the first sketchs, call designer, a friend help use to make video for recipe !

We made a lot of survey on facebook in order to check if our app can really help people !

All things was very nice, but some mistakes begin to happen...

Identify the target

Our mind were too attach to the idea, we were on our bubble, we don't check competition, we don't made a correct and viable business plan, no marketing, we were not ready for the business...

When we check the competition, a lot of competitor was here with the same idea globally, with a solid marketing !

Our main mistake -> Be focus and be only in our idea all day, but we don't check the other app, we don't check the real solution for our client.

We made an app, and we need to convince the client and sell it our solution with a bad business plan -> bad marketing !

Other important errors

• Our skill in mobile development was not enough, we had a bad architecture, we were too junior !

• We don't use git, so we develop our feature on our side, and merge it together, very bad to practice this !

• Not using good management practice like Scrum

• No Mentor (very important)

Conclusion

We were young, we had a beautiful idea, and we try to make an app without business experience.

We learn a lot, very lot, for example, the marketing of a product is essential, it's more important than the product itself.

I'm developer not a marketing man, but when you create a product, the client don't care about our technos, your methods, the most important is the solution that your product can solve. And the marketing will convince your client to use your solution !

Advice that I can give you:

-> Be aware of the concurrence

-> Find clients and identify their problem and how your product can solve them, BEFORE creating our product

-> Have a mentor and a good management method like scrum

-> Use git !

-> Marketing > product

-> Have a correct and business plan viability