Learn Startup: Building a starter startup from scratch in your spare time

Time to eat the dog food.

The idea of the learn startup is to be able to learn about startups, utilize the lean startup methodology, and date to mate a co-founder - all without losing your shirt. The vision, if you will, of a learn startup, is make starting up less intimidating. If we make it less daunting, we can encourage more startup activity and perhaps help reinvigorate a stagnant American economy.

So let’s do it.

I’m a big fan of learning in the open. Too often we tell our stories only when we have a successful conclusion. When we know the resolution and we can talk about our victorious triumph. All of our stories are after the fact - a nice neat package that we can present anecdotally at a TED conference.

Bullshit.

The problem is that we’re losing all the stories that don’t have a nice bow attached to them. We’re losing perspective of the struggles and failures. Everyone has a fairy tale ending, everyone lives happily ever after - and that’s just not reality. That’s why we have the entrepreneurial mythology - every success a hyper super mega giant one.

Here’s the deal.

The “leap of faith” assumption for learn startups is that we can create a small, well-understood, low-risk, low-commitment startup. Furthermore it will enable learning and will increase the success rate of your “shoot-the-moon” great idea startup.

To put this assumption to the test, let’s chronicle the startup from scratch. We’ll go down to the details, make mistakes, and learn out in the open.

The idea.

One of the tenets of the vision is that we can create a starter startup in a well-defined industry. For this, I’m going to enter the T-shirt business. The T-shirt business is really great for this for a couple of reasons.

Low barrier to entry : This is anathema for venture backed startups but for the learn startup - this is great. We want to have a low barrier to entry because, quite frankly, we want to be able to learn quickly. Our Minimum Viable Product is how quick we can get to learning. A low barrier to entry helps this.

: This is anathema for venture backed startups but for the learn startup - this is great. We want to have a low barrier to entry because, quite frankly, we want to be able to learn quickly. Our Minimum Viable Product is how quick we can get to learning. A low barrier to entry helps this. Infrastructure already in place : When I started my first startup back in the late 90’s, there was nothing in place. We had to buy our own servers, rent our own co-location space, purchase firewalls, purchase routers and switches and proportion our own bandwidth. Nowadays it would cost a fraction of the price to do this because the infrastructure is all there. The T-shirt business has tons of infrastructure in place. Screen printing technology is hundreds of years old. Making cotton shirts is as old as the hills. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, it’s already rolling.

: When I started my first startup back in the late 90’s, there was nothing in place. We had to buy our own servers, rent our own co-location space, purchase firewalls, purchase routers and switches and proportion our own bandwidth. Nowadays it would cost a fraction of the price to do this because the infrastructure is all there. The T-shirt business has tons of infrastructure in place. Screen printing technology is hundreds of years old. Making cotton shirts is as old as the hills. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, it’s already rolling. Well understood product : Everyone understands T-shirts. It may skew younger but everyone knows what the product is, and what the product does. There is absolutely no need for customer education, which is a major risk factor for new-fangled products. T-shirts are as normal as blueberry pie. The less uncertainty about our learn startup the better.

: Everyone understands T-shirts. It may skew younger but everyone knows what the product is, and what the product does. There is absolutely no need for customer education, which is a major risk factor for new-fangled products. T-shirts are as normal as blueberry pie. The less uncertainty about our learn startup the better. Thin Edge of the Wedge : The great thing about a universally understood and received product is that there is great opportunity to segment the market. Our business doesn’t have to take on t-shirts as a whole, we can target a small niche fan base with custom niche product. If it’s successful we can branch out to other items - or branch out into other niches.

: The great thing about a universally understood and received product is that there is great opportunity to segment the market. Our business doesn’t have to take on t-shirts as a whole, we can target a small niche fan base with custom niche product. If it’s successful we can branch out to other items - or branch out into other niches. Don’t quit your day job: A well understood, well defined business means we don’t have to quit our day job. Nobody is going to steal your idea. It’s already out there. It’s something we can learn about with less commitment. We’re dipping our toe into startups - come on in the water’s fine.

In the next few months, we’ll explore a nuts and bolts journey into creating, marketing and measuring a new venture in T-shirts. Our goal will be to see if we can learn about starting up with less risk and less uncertainty. I’ll try to document everything, from finding a co-founder, to which analytics package is picked. My hope is that any mistakes and any decisions made can help others lower the activation energy they need to get started too.

Should be an interesting ride.