The fastest startup ever created (probably)
If I said you can launch a startup in under 10 minutes would you believe me?
Last April I had the pleasure of giving a TEDxYouth talk in front of an audience of around 700 people where I posed this exact question. And then proceeded to do it and show them how.
The crux of the talk was to demonstrate how easy it is for anyone to test an idea and get it out there.
Practically speaking the talk itself was super risky. It involved live audience participation (generally a big ‘no’ for any recorded talk), live designing/prototyping (also, a big no) and coordination with a second person, my talented friend Jacky Koh, back stage who was relying on wi-fi to make sure it all worked seamlessly (laughable).
Amazingly, or luckily, it all went off with out a hitch and the students in the audience got to see first hand how easy it now is to test an idea, launch it and get pre-orders.
In essence, they saw how anyone can become an entrepreneur. All you need is an idea and a internet connection.
What went down
The talk centred around steps for launching your startup idea. Which is exactly what we I did live on stage to launch our startup idea.
1.The Challenge: First I posed the question to the audience, ‘could you launch a startup in under 10 minutes?’. It was an audience of mostly young people and students and I wanted to show everyone how easy to test an idea.
2. The Selfie (aka creating a ‘product’): What’s a talk without a selfie? Secretly, we were using this photo as the basis of the artwork for t-shirt we were about to reveal and pre-sell.
3. Introducing the 7steps to testing an idea: During the talk I introduced some core startup concepts for the audience to takeaway, including 7 steps they can follow to launch and test an idea. Watch it above.
4. Revealing the T-shirt we created live backstage: Halfway through we revealed the t-shirt mockup we generated live as I was talking using the selfie we just took. This was essentially our ‘minium prototype’ of the tshirt. Edited and placed on our model below (note: we used a stock image of model in a cafe!).
5. The Pre-order: We then launched the t-shirt with live pre-order counter! It was a lot of fun. I asked the audience to complete the pre-order form below to tell me if they wanted a selfie shirt with the live counter in the background. 🤟
The results
- Launched a startup live on stage in under 10 minutes
- The audience submitted over 201 pre-orders, generating $8,040 in pre-order interest for the shirt
- I surprisingly actually sold and shipped 5 t-shirts to date via my online storefront here (I’m donating anything to charity)
- Designed, pre-sold and shipped a brand new T-shirt all without touching a single T-shirt in the process
Part of the message of the talk was to emphasise how I view entrepreneurship as something that is transformative. Not something for the ‘super-genius’ or rarefied few.
In particular, I’ve seen how entrepreneurship transforms ordinary people into doing great things. People that never in a million years thought they could accomplish the things they achieve. And in doing so solve a problem along the way.
Creating more entrepreneurs is possibly the best way to ensure a better future for everyone.
Special thanks to Jacky Koh, Daniel Vassilev, Fraser Orford, Fernella Kernebone and the whole TEDxSydney team for helping pulling this talk together.
In fact, you can check out the mini-site and all the services used here at selfshirttalk.com, where we took all the pre-orders. You can also check the selfie shirt store and buy a shirt if you like!
