Responding to the Brutal Comments on My Recent Video

0:00Bro, that's practically everything. I don't trust a single thing that comes out of your mouth. I get it. All successful businesses are a no. In other words, find a job. Don't start a company. In short, don't build anything. Wow. So, the comment section of the video I put out a few weeks ago got more than 225 comments, and some of them were. So, in today's video, I want to clear the air on a few of these comments since a lot of them are just flatout wrong. Let's dive in. So, to set the stage for this video, it's called seven tempting startup ideas I'd never build. And

0:36number one is adup supported anything. Number two is a percentageon revenue model. Number three is inventing a new category. Number four is BTOC. Number five is two-sided marketplaces. Number six is bootstrapping a venture scale business. And number seven is an AI model. So, one of the most common sentiments shared on this video is like this one from Mario. Bro, that's practically everything. And in fact, it's barely anything. It's barely touching the tip of the iceberg, as they say. If you go look at the tens of thousands of startups that you could start, the number of ideas, whether it's B2B software, whether you want to go and

1:14do hardware, start a consulting firm that you parlay into SAS, whether you want to go into info products, whether you want to go into e-commerce, whether you just want to look at the again the tens of thousands of ideas that are not excluded by this video. It's not practically everything. It's practically nothing in fact. And I find this type of defeist attitude. And again, Mario is not the only one that said it. This comment was probably mentioned 10 or 15 times on this episode. And what I find is that if someone's really set on building that two-sided marketplace or doing B toC, then the moment you say

1:46don't do that, they're like, well, I just can't do anything, right? But go to tinyc.com/portfolio and look at the 204 companies that through tiny the accelerator I've invested in and I have another 20 that I've invested in privately. These are companies that have a high chance of success. And that's what I'm trying to do with this video, with my books, with my podcast, is to to give people the guard rails of, hey, these ideas generally have a 1 in a,000 success

2:11rate. Right? That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm saying I wouldn't build these ideas. Seven tempting startup ideas I'd never build because I see people doing them over and over and making the same mistakes over and over and wasting their time. And every time I put a list like this out, let's say I do it on X Twitter, a bunch of people chime in and say, "Yeah, I tried a two-sided marketplace. Don't do it." They agree with me once you've done it, but before you have, you feel like I'm somehow your parent telling you that you shouldn't do this thing, but in fact, I'm giving you

2:38pretty good advice. Maybe like your parent did when you were a teenager and you still didn't listen. I like Harvard Raj's comment. I'm bootstrapping a venture scale business by inventing a new category of consumer focused products powered by an AI model designed for two-sided marketplaces with an ad supported percentage only revenue model. Well done #winning. You have integrated all of my seven don'ts into a single business idea. Then Omar says, "My first SAS two-sided marketplace with percentage only revenue focused on consumer skull emoji." This is the kind of thing I'm saying. Omar is basically saying, "I made three of these seven

3:12mistakes and it did not work out well. It cost me a bunch of time, energy, and money. And frankly, I'm, you know, I'm reading between the lines here, but when I read something like this, it's kind of like, I wish I had known this information sooner. Sam says, "There's something incredibly sexy about the idea of two-sided marketplaces, yet they are incredibly hard to pull off, and most ultimately go nowhere." And that is true. And there's a reason that on Startups for the Rest of Us, the companion podcast to this YouTube channel, I was receiving so many questions about B TOC and two-sided marketplaces that eventually I just

3:43started saying don't. They would ask advice, how do I bootstrap it? And I would say don't don't bootstrap a two-sided marketplace unless you already have one of the sides in place. If you already have an audience for either the supply or the demand side, then feel free to try to bootstrap that. If you do not, you are doing it on exponential hard mode. And you can wait on this video and say, "Well, I really want to do that, or that's the way my mind works, or you're just telling me I can't do anything." And that's fine. Go waste your time. It's not going to be fun. I'm

4:10genuinely trying to help you. I have no skin in this game. If you do a two-sided marketplace or don't, I don't care. It's your time and your money. But I do think since taking that stance on the podcast, it has actually made it a better show because it has eliminated so many of these kind of dreamy, as Sam says, incredibly sexy ideas that really just aren't very likely to work out. Matt comments, I don't totally agree with the BTOC point. I have a B2C mobile app in a very competitive industry with thousands of alternatives. It pays my bills and I

4:39have almost no work weekly with support. Just build an app without hundreds of bugs and it won't give you headaches. To be honest, I'm not in the mobile app space and mobile apps are different than SAS and I do focus a lot on SAS. I do know a handful of founders who built mobile apps and had success with them. All of them have moved on from mobile apps because after five or 10 years of it, they just got tired of all the headaches. They didn't build apps with hundreds of bugs. They didn't get lucky though. I would posit Matt that you have

5:10gotten a little lucky and that's great. I don't want to take that away from you. But if 50 or 100 other people tried the same thing, they probably wouldn't have succeeded. And again, the entrepreneurs that used to come to Microcom and write into the podcast who did mobile app, most of them have moved on to SAS. Some of them have used their B TOC mobile app to parlay into SAS. But realistically, the low price points, the high churn or the one-time payments with a lot of mobile apps just aren't a great environment to build seven figure SAS apps, multi-million dollar SAS apps, which is really my focus. If you want a

5:42truly lifestyle business, you can go B TOC. But again, when I go on X Twitter and I say, "Hey, don't do B TOC." There's a bunch of people chiming in saying, "But that's what I want to do." And then there's always a bunch of people saying, "Yes, I'm in it." And it sucks. Listen to this guy. YouTube com

5:5432 weighs in with this knowledge bomb. Here's the problem I see with so many sass YouTube gurus. You guys are way too privileged and in your own bubble to realize that for 99% of people on planet Earth, even making an extra $1,000 a month would drastically change their lives. So, here's the thing. Number one, I don't consider myself a guru. I've never called myself a guru. So, the idea behind being too privileged and being in your own bubble is a naive take and acts like I'm a dumbass. It acts like I'm disconnected from the world. And that's not true. I'm pretty well in touch with folks who are struggling whether they're

6:28in my family, my friends. I've done a lot of traveling. I know that most people on Earth are struggling and an extra $1,000 a month would be incredible and drastically change their lives. That's actually why I got into entrepreneurship because when I started building products, $1,000 a month was a huge difference for me. So, it's interesting to act as if my whole life I somehow was handed a silver spoon and I've been rich since I was a kid. That is not the case. If you look into any of my background, you'll know that when I started out, even $500 a month drastically changed my life. So, I get

6:55it. The thing is though is my focus is on helping folks build incredible SAS companies to seven or eight figures in ARR. And if that's your goal and maybe you want to get investment from Tiny Seed or maybe you just want to bootstrap it yourself. Making an extra $1,000 a month is not the goal. So it's not that

7:11I'm too privileged and in my own bubble. It's more I focus on a particular end goal and that is what this channel and startups for the rest of us and Micro Comp and Tiny Seed all focus on. If you want to make an extra thousand a month, you should look at the indie hacker crowd. They tend to focus on extreme lifestyle businesses. They do a lot of B toc two-sided marketplaces. They do things that are opportunistic. And if they can make $10,000 or $50,000 this year, even if they can't make anything more beyond that or can't sell the business, they'll do it. And that's okay. But that's not the focus of me or

7:40this channel. I'm into repeatable and sustainable businesses. And that is the purpose of this video. Martin says, "Notice how he didn't mention to avoid car and rocket companies." That's true. So when people say, "I pretty much told you to build nothing." That's not true. You could build a car or a rocket company. Ricardo weighs in. I have been doing this long enough to say that there is no formula for startup success. I've seen the most unexpected hit a niche to make a sustainable business. I believe that the key to any type of SAS or startup is to validate with experts and then potential customers and it

8:12continues from there. I agree with you. There is no formula for startup success. I've also seen really unexpected ideas and niches work. Go to tinyc.com/portfolio and look through those companies. There are tiny little niches that you would never expect to be incredible seven and 8 figure businesses. If you watch every video on this channel, what do I talk about? I talk about validating with potential customers. I talk about doing research, the 22200 framework. And I say

8:41over and over, there is no blueprint. There is no formula. And so Ricardo and I are on the same page. I'm not sure if Ricardo's weighing in implying that I have somewhere somehow said this cuz I didn't say this in this video and I don't say it anywhere. And I've written five books. And in every book, I say there is no formula. There is no blueprint. But I'm going to give you as much of my best knowledge, advice, and experience to help you not make the same mistakes that I've made and the same mistakes that so many people in the communities that I'm in have made. 714

9:12dot dot dot says, "If you're watching this video, just understand that this is the opinion of an investor who prefers to invest in particular types of businesses that would maximize his returns. In essence, this is not the truth in all caps about anything about startup ideas. Yes, exactly. No, I totally agree with this. Anything you watch on YouTube, think about where that person is coming from. It's always the opinion of a human. I happen to be a startup founder, started as a developer, built my own companies, and now I do invest in startups. I also write books to help folks. even if I don't invest in

9:43you, I have this YouTube channel that we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year putting out videos for you for free and startups for the rest of us that we spend, let's say, tens of thousands of dollars a year putting out episodes for you, 52 episodes a year. It's a lot of content. So, it's education. We do mastermind matching. We run events and I

9:59do in fact invest in B2B SAS companies. But that is just one very small part of this whole ecosystem. and why everything in this video and frankly everything you'll hear me say and write and put out on in a YouTube video or on a podcast is my opinion and you should consider where that opinion is coming from. What are my goals for my companies? I want to help folks build incredible B2B SAS companies that will change their life, bring them freedom, purpose and relationships and that they can build to seven or eight figure ARR and exit hopefully for 10 to$100 million. That's my goal. So, I'm

10:35not on the venture capital track. I don't invest like a venture capitalist, a traditional one, but I'm also not on the indie hacker lifestyle business front. So, I actually appreciate 714, whatever else his username is, calling this out. Bottom line is there is no truth about startup ideas or how to do it. There is no blueprint. So, if anyone tells you otherwise or you're seeking

10:54that, you should stop. Don't seek truth. Just seek knowledge from folks who have done it before you. Seek knowledge from folks who are trying to give it away or trying to help you not make the same mistakes that they've made. Lens Vana says, "Amazing video. I wasted two years trying to bootstrap a two-sided marketplace because I thought I was special." Yeah, I've I've heard it before. It's a bummer. It's a bummer that lens spent that time. But that is why I create these types of videos is to try to help you avoid making the same mistakes that I've made or the mistakes others have made. Julian Hecker says,

11:29"I've made many of these mistakes. My first SAS idea was Barbago, a two-sided marketplace which connected barbers with clients, taking only a small commission or ad revenue." Yeah, really. That's like three or four of the mistakes. I soon realized there was too little profit to be made here. And that's the point of this video. And finally, Stanley says, "What about a LAS lemonade

11:50as a service? I think it's a great idea. Shut up and take my money. I want to invest today." Thanks to everyone who watched that video and hit subscribe. You helped us jump past the 100,000 subscriber mark. If you haven't subscribed yet, you should. I'll keep making videos as long as you keep showing up. If you want to see the video that caused all this ruckus in the first place, you can check it out here. And if you've already watched that and you're still scratching your head wondering where to find great SAS ideas, make sure you go watch this video next. Thanks for

12:17watching. I'll see you next time.