From Zero to a Million: Why I Launched My Startup At the Worst Possible Time
Sometimes there is no chemistry when you begin a new job. When that happens, it does no good to stay — it’s time to leave. I did just that, six weeks after leaving my cozy business reporter job at Les Affaires to join a Montreal investment fund.
The day I quit, I decided to walk home along rue Notre-Dame, in Montreal. It was a two-hour walk, during which time I felt exhilarated not to have a job. In reality, I shouldn’t have done that. After all, I had over $14,000 due on my credit card, and only $8,831.03$ in my bank account.
Furthermore I was about to leave for Europe with my wife for a month, which would have been a difficult trip to postpone since we were supposed to go visit her family.
Someone saner would have cancelled their European vacation, and would have found another job the very next morning. I could have done it too; I even received an unsolicited job offer later that day.
But it was only through walking, and taking my time for the first time in a long while, did I realize that I didn’t want to work for someone else anymore. Making this decision meant that I no longer had a choice. It was now a matter of becoming either a vagabond or an entrepreneur.
I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I have always been full of ideas, and those who follow me know what I think of ideas. They are as valuable as dog shit. Everyone has good ideas, but only a few people know exactly WHY they are on this planet.
We all have a vague notion of what we wish to accomplish before dying, but few people can clearly articulate it. I gave myself a few weeks to define my personal mission. What I learned is that before I die, I want to contribute to make Quebec one of the wealthiest places on the planet. Wealthy in the material sense, certainly, but more importantly wealthy on the societal and intellectual levels too, because I believe that the first kind of wealth influences the other kinds of wealth, at least in a society like ours.
How do we do that? We could promote entrepreneurship like I did at Les Affaires, we could pass laws favouring free enterprise, and, more particularly, we could create companies, preferably giant companies, that could eventually buy other giant companies from abroad. We could create companies that will survive into the 22nd century because they move society forward and make the world a better place.
I would like to do this, even if it sounds very ambitious. I’m not saying that I’ll achieve it, but I’m ready to spend the rest of my time on this planet in pursuit of this goal.
I want to build a great monument, but for now, I have to work on the foundation, so I laid the first cornerstone on Monday, June 20, only a few hours after returning from Berlin. I got a domain name and started to do research during my vacation, but my main goal was to decompress — to get rested up before my big adventure.
Hardbacon is the first piece of this foundation; a startup that didn’t exist 10 days ago. Its mission is to help people invest in the financial world, which is unrelenting for the common person and very foreign to young people.
I’m full of ideas about how Hardbacon could accomplish this mission, but I had no choice other than to begin with something simple in order to generate revenues quickly.
It’s a very simple concept. It’s a website that compares the major discount brokers and robo-advisors. If you’re interested in this, subscribe to Hardbacon’s newsletter now. I’m calling it a newsletter, but in the end, it will be me writing to you. I will provide you with updates and even send you exclusive content from time-to-time.
I named this weekly Medium column “From Zero to a Million”, as every week I intend to share my accomplishments with you, especially Hardbacon’s revenues… until they reach $1 million. Then, I might hang up my blogger’s pen, or I’ll rename this “From a Million to a Billion”. It doesn’t matter, because what concerns me more today is to earn the initial income I need to be able to pay my rent.
As I will do every week, here’s a summary of my progress this week:
Week 1
Primary Accomplishments:
- Rented an office from the fellow Montreal startup Git.Market, on Sainte-Catherine
- Conducted 22 interviews with young customers of robo-advisors and discount brokers, both in person and on Skype
- Partnered with Wealthsimple, the largest robo-advisor in Canada
- Struck an agreement with Les Affaires, that pays me for publishing the original version of this column every week (in French)
- Launched a bilingual web page to start building my email list
- Created accounts for Hardbacon on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
- Got a ticket for Startupfest in exchange for a 0.05% stake in Hardbacon at a $1M valuation
Growth Metrics:
- Revenues: $0
- New Newsletter subscribers: 115
- New Snapchat subscribers: 6
- New Instagram subscribers: 18
- New Facebook likes: 215
Write a Response below. (Here’s how.)
You are in good company. Mark Growth is the largest publication on Medium for articles on topics related to business marketing & growth hacking. Follow us on Twitter @MarkGrowth to keep up to date with us.
Editor in Chief: Lincoln W Daniel.
