How to start a startup without an 💡idea
Why we are starting Gateway Labs.
our story:
Over the past 5 years me & my co-founders built Swelly — a social network that operates within popular messaging apps such as Messenger and reached 10 million users.
We started in the way we believed is the right motivation to found a startup. I’ve been working in the fashion industry for a decade and realized that people are very indecisive when it comes to what to wear and what to buy. Not only that: To make purchase decisions we tend towards relying on our partner or our friends.
That problem has been bugging me for quite some time before we started interviewing our customers in our retail stores and figured there must be a simple solution for that problem.
We created an App that later became an integration with Facebook Messenger (some call it a Chatbot) to help people make better (purchase) decisions.
Here’s some insight from our early success with Swelly
Now in retrospect I feel like the fact that we started with the problem in mind made us overlook the opportunity of what Swelly could have become: A fun voting App VS an actual decision helper.
While some people used Swelly to actually make purchase decisions and ask about what to wear, loads of our users simply compared things, posted photos of cute animals or selfies. Turning Swelly into a fun polling app while giving advertisers access to a young audience could have been a different way to go.
what’s next:
First time founders tend to think their idea is unique and they need to go all in to make it work. The more experienced you get, the more you realize that there is more than just one approach.
Let me explain:
Most ideas 💡 have been out there for quite some time, have been done before, have failed or even succeeded. While great ideas are important, ideas in the world of startups come cheap. Execution is what makes the real difference.
That’s why we decided to go with a different approach this time and start a new company with rules and strong execution rather than (just) one idea in mind.
We decided that we want to create something meaningful. Something we personally care about. A company that solves real problems.
In the process we came across Roger Dickey and his definition of a Search Lab.
A Search Lab is a company founded to create multiple ideas, execute each of those ideas for a set period of time while searching for the one idea that works. Than focus your whole efforts on executing this one idea.
Inspired by the origin story of Slack — a failed gaming company turned into one of silicon valleys most successful startups we decided to do the same, but by design.
While we are most passionate about Consumer Tech we wanted to narrow it down a bit more.
Together with my co-founders Philipp Holly & Manfred Strasser we are excited to announce the start of Gateway Labs — a Search Lab to create the next big thing in sustainability, health, education and fitness.
Gateway Labs operates fully remote while the founders are currently based in Cape Town, South Africa and Vienna, Austria.
Over the course of the next 24 months we are planning to create up to 10 ideas, turn the most promising ideas into actual products and plan to scale the one idea that can gain momentum and traction.
Other than Roger’s Untitled Labs and Slack’s approach we are planning on Bootstrapping our Search Lab. At Swelly we raised $ 1.5 Million in Seed funding at a very early stage. At Gateway Labs we want to do it differently.
We take on selected client projects (1–2 per year) in the area of our focus and build products together with them to generate the funds for our own ideas. Work with us!
The upside is to stay independent and have full control over our new company. The downside is a possible distraction that those (client) projects generate. We believe though, that we can create meaningful products together with our partners as well as on our own.
Fundraising is also distracting and we can generate enough revenue to sustain the Lab and stay independent.
How to come up with ideas?
We believe that the best ideas come naturally when you surround yourself with the right people and listen more than you talk.
Now that we decided we want to work in sustainability, health, education and fitness we are planning to talk to inspiring people in those areas.
The hardest part however is validating those ideas. We’ll be spending Q1 with our first clients project. This gives us the opportunity to get a deep insight into the sustainability space. Ideas will come naturally and we plan validating those ideas. Our metric here is all about ‘Building something people want’. As soon as we have reached a product that 1000 people love we are going all in.
Work with us
If you want to work with us, reach out to peter@buchroithner.com or comment here.
Peter M. Buch is the CEO & founder of Swelly
(Product Geek, Speaker, Forbes30Under30)
