Creating a Startup
TL;DRCreating a startup is not always about having the best or a totally new idea. Entrepreneurship is just another way to deliver value and achieve your goals, and it’s within everyone’s reach. We chose this path because it is flexible, stimulating, profoundly empowering, but also fun.
# The Creation Process
Ideation
Ideation is not fixed in time; it’s a long-lasting process that demands to iterate. It’s about refining some initial ideas with the first test and developments, as well as with the first customer feedback. Yet, it is always good to keep in mind some guiding drivers.
- “What and why?”: Represents what you are trying to solve and why it matters. There is a difference between nice-to-haves, must-haves and hair-on-fire issues, which often leads to forgotten failures.
- “Why now?”: Is essential with regard to market dynamics and technology advancement. Maybe new opportunities are opening up, or a new technology could solve previously too complex problems.
- “Why you?”: The “right” to solve the outlined problems of this precise market at this precise time. It’s important to be able to justify your legitimacy, which involves understanding your edges. More in the team section.
Next, I will present the team-forming process, followed by the official creation, and lastly, the pitch. I think that for us, and in general, the idea should come afterwards and can be shallow, drafty and blurred at the beginning. What feels the most important is the will to make things happen and the determination to innovate, constantly feeling that you are the perfect team.
The Team
The team presentation has two primary motives. First, it is important for potential investors or clients to get to know the team they’ll be working with, but it is also crucial to present our edge and answer the question, “Why us?”.
Edge @1Each individual has a specific edge, which is the combination of all his experiences and knowledge. There are three edges to consider in startup. The market edge, the technology edge and the catalyser edge. The latter is the diverse experiences and soft skills relevant to the given startup.
The critical points for a startup are the diversification, adaptability and agility of its founders and their processes. In the beginning, it’s essential to have quick feedback loops first in the team and then with what you’re building. Each founder has to take the lead on various subjects, and they shall not fear learning beyond their edge.
In terms of the founding team size, three seems the most convenient. For two people, it’s faster to discuss and brainstorm ideas, yet the workload might be too heavy at the beginning. Four people is a lot of discussion channels/energy, and with regard to cohesion, it might be hard to keep everyone at the same level of commitment. At three, it’s still possible to communicate smoothly, the tasks can be divided, and when one person is unavailable, two are still on duty. And last but not least, it’s easy to break ties!
So here are the three champions:
Alexandre the CEO: Market edge. He graduated with a Master’s in marketing, management and business. He has expertise in web agency building websites with Shopify and other software like Webflow. Moreover, he has plenty of precious entrepreneurial skills as he also runs another startup in parallel and always listens to market waves.
Florian, the COO/CFO: Catalyser edge. With his engineering diploma in logistics, he has a broad background ranging from process optimisation and organisation to software and coding skills. He has a diverse set of lead experiences from projects as well as consulting that logically put him in charge of our processes. His engineering background enables him to understand and link technological solutions to market needs.
I, Yoann, the CTO: Technology edge. With my research degree and background, I have a broad knowledge of cutting-edge AI technology. Yet I also practised ML engineering during my apprenticeship, where I had projects linked to model training, MLOps, DevOps and cloud deployment. I am running and architecturing the backend logic of our solutions as well as the AI integration.
I always feel that my cofounders are just fantastic for the job they do and the efforts they put. If you don’t feel the same, maybe you should take a step back to assess your team edge deeper or speak up. Team cohesion is the cornerstone of the startup, especially in its early stages. Don’t forget to fail fast!
The Official Creation
Our startup has now officially 6 months, but its inception is way older. Our CEO matured his ideas during his studies as I remember talking about Shopify (our first “niche” target) four years ago. He embarked our CFO first, last year, to begin brainstorming concrete startup ideas. I can’t document their journey, but in January, we discussed their obstacles and the market gaps they found. As we saw that I could extend the team edge to tackle these, they fairly easily convinced me to jump on the boat.
My first mistake (and theirs) was to discuss the share distribution too soon. I embarked with cold feet as I had my own agenda and career expectations, and my time schedule was already heavy. I neglected this part in the beginning and grew resentful the more time and effort I put into the work. The legal process is not the funniest part, but it is undoubtedly the most important as it practically defines how the startup will run. It should be considered after a trial period where the team has begun to build a POC, as it is important to test your team and entrepreneur fits.
GotchaShare distribution is the core issue when building a company, and it should be thoughtfully discussed. It is the moment for everyone to shed light on his strength and acknowledge others’. Yet this phase should come after a trial phase so that you can be sure of everyone’s commitment. This is especially tricky when you’re not beginning full-time, as commitment is hard to measure. Above all, the final decision should be unanimous and primarily based on what’s to come rather than what was brought.
Once everyone has agreed on the distribution, the official creation can begin. It is fairly important to be quick and efficient regarding legal, finance and administration. In the beginning, there is no time to lose time on such matters, and later, if the startup works, its foundations cannot be shaky. Therefore, don’t hesitate to invest some money in these processes to delegate dull and boring tasks and focus on what matters and where you can add value.
# The Pitch
Why BlockLoads?
As you always start somewhere, the initial startup ideas were really focused on automated website creation specifically for Shopify. If you have already developed with Shopify, you should know that composability is somewhat more complex compared to other platforms like Webflow, especially for non-developers. Thus, we envisioned an easy platform to use where you can select pre-built sections ready for integration on your website. In this respect, we think that Blockloads conveys the core idea of code modularity, component integration, and customisable software.
With the months, ideas got broader, and this trademark might fail to capture our deep essence.
The RoadMap
Describing our current roadmap is hard (and we might keep some aspects private) since it has changed a lot. Yet, this is expected in the early stages, and we were prepared for it since we work in agile mode. Our leading guidelines are to make website development much easier and cheaper as well as to provide tools to enhance productivity and business.
As a matter of fact, integrating AI was the reason I joined, yet I might have been too naive about the amount of work needed, especially minimising tech debt. At the time, I already knew DevOps, yet I thought it was only helpful for more prominent companies. It turned out that this is the fundamental component that helped me build highly stable, reproducible and easily deployable applications. We also changed the roadmap to include more dev tasks to make the most of my edge when I fully joined the team.
GoalOur ultimate goal has always been and always will be to facilitate and accelerate the shop’s development and administration. We want to be accessible to the modest shopkeepers, empowering them in their market adventure.
What’s next? We envision first launching our long-thought-out products this year. As there are some settled competitors, we plan to cut the prices. We’ll also have some applications ready for this summer which can finally integrate AI into everyone’s shop. Obviously, we are open to changes along the road with the first dead-ends (very likely) and customer feedback. We keep an adaptative mindset, and when it comes to products, we don’t forget the fast-failing aspect.
Meet Us
In order to get close to our customers and partners, we decided to create a Discord server BlockLoading. We chose Discord as it is the perfect match for community building, but also because we are already using it to run our startup.
DisclaimerThis server is under development regarding its architecture, bots, automation, and purpose. While we are committed to growing a community, this server might just be for customer service in the end.
We envision this media and cyber-space as a way to deliver fast and tailored customer service. We planned on hosting conferences, discussion groups and obviously QnA about our solutions but also about the Shopify ecosystem.
# Resources
References
- A. Bentinck and M. Clifford, “How to Be a Founder: How Entrepreneurs can Identify, Fund and Launch their Best Ideas,” in Bloomsbury Business; 1st edition, 2022.