Episode description
In today’s show, we are joined by Rohan Gilkes - Serial Bootstrapped Entrepreneur who has built and sold multiple online businesses. In today’s episode, we are going to be exploring Rohan’s framework for successfully building and launching new products. From validating ideas with his 10-point system, to exploring practical strategies for acquiring those first customers, bootstrapping new ventures successfully whilst capping the downside, finding lucrative opportunities in areas that just aren’t seen as sexy, and more!
Rohan has such a great way of telling his story and giving an ‘under the hood’ view of how he builds his companies. I highly recommend checking out his threads on Twitter.
Check out Rohan -
https://twitter.com/rohangilkes
https://www.facebook.com/RohanRGilkes/
https://www.instagram.com/rohangilkes/?hl=en
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Show notes;
- Intro’s - 1.32
- First Business - “What is a simple business that can make me money in the next 30 days?” - 3.30
- “What channels did you use to get your first customers?” - 5.30
- “At what point did you start removing yourself from day-to-day operations? - 7.11
- Teething problems in building a team - 8.50
- “What metrics are you using to measure your new businesses, do you time-box these experiments?” - 11.03
- “How do you triage new ideas & build a $1m dollar business from scratch?” - 13.16
- Rohan’s 10-point system for validating ideas - 14.05
- $4k Reddit Acquisition of Wet Shave Club to $1m dollars 16.20
- How Rohan grew Wet Shave Club - Content Strategy - 18.23
- “What are you working on now?” - 20.36
- “Hows the business doing so far?” - 21.35
- Bootstrapping 101 - 22.40
- “Do you put a cap on how much time/capital you would invest in a new bootstrapped idea?” 24.40
- “Bootstrapping is the cheapest MBA you will ever get” 25.57
- Advice to first-time founders - 27.00
- Launching to an audience vs an ‘empty room’ - 29.35
- Additional thoughts on different approaches on D2C vs B2B vs B2C - 31.40
- Quick fire round - 35.27
a. What’s next for you?
b. What are you enjoying learning about right now?
c. What are the most important things that new founders should learn?
d. Who would you like on the show next?
e. Where do you see opportunity at the moment?
f. Where can we learn more about you?
You can find me on twitter at @heyya_jonathan or sign-up to our weekly newsletter via the https://talkingwithfounders.com landing page.