Day 4. Bringing the Band Together
Thursday, the 28th of March 2024
This is the day-by-day story of an idea to an MVP project. The MVP should be completed in 4–6 weeks or 42 days — v Douglas Adams. To read about the other days, check the homepage of Built In Public.
Yesterday C. has spoken with the payments services provider Adyen and received a refusal. Not because Adyen doея not want to do it, but because they cannot do it in Asia at the present moment. Adyen for Platform (AfP) works only in Hong Kong.
“But they gave us a positive signal, ‘if you become big, come back to us’.” C.’s eyes are alight under his glasses.
“I know them from before, so it was friendly.”
“The €20 000 margin for them we would not have managed anyway. I would have tried to lower the requirements.”
“But no tragedy.”
Kein drama. There are words and phrases in the German language, which calm one down. They show that the speaker hat alles im Griff, is in control of the situation.
“We will go with Stripe.”
I am both surprised and not. Not, because I know that Stripe offer advance integrations, surprised — because I had expected a more exotic solution.
“Stripe works with the concept and in the country.”
The country is Thailand.
Why a guy from Hamburg starts a startup that will work in Thailand is one of the wonders of this world.
‘There are similar solutions there and they use Stripe.”
The payment services provider question is solved.
“Yesterday I spoke with a colleague who is active in that market and we faced a challenge with the NSFW content. In Asia there is a strong Manga culture with sexualised content and this does not work with payment services providers like PayPal for example. PayPal is not important, because it is not strong there, but Stripe might have similar restrictions.
“We will leave the Manga for a 2nd phase. Could work with payment tokens.”
How will you control that? I ask.
“There are ways to prevent. PayPal, for example, scans the name for embargo goods.”
C. has experience building one of the best and most advanced German delivery platforms.
“This does not worry us. There are other creators.”
He means merchants.
The second of the three challenges C. wanted to resolve and did resolve was the commitment of the technology lead D.
Today C. showed D. the plan and told him about Stipe. D. is happy. The payment services provider was the biggest unknown.
“Now we know how it will work. We have a rough idea. There are many blueprints. We will not invent the wheel.”
C. dictates with excitement. He has always been a very excited person.
D. being happy was important. D. has a frontend developer who works for him and both are in.
C. is relaxed. A second major issue is stabilised — the crew.
“Now, we must have a design first. It is always easier to have the design and then to implement.”
C. has someone in Thailand and he used to speak with her over an intermediary. But this was too slow. The Thai culture is very quiet. So C. spoke directly with the designer and she confirmed, she will do it.
With a design one can already acquire customers.
C. is happy.
The payment services provider is organised.
The programmers are on board.
The designer is on board.
C. has created all collaborative and communication accounts for the crew: Jira, Confluence, GitLab, etc.
Also today the Notary has began to work.
C will register a UG — Unternehmergesellschaf (an Entrepreneurial company). Or as it is called in Germany — a mini-GmbH or a mini-Limited company. A GmbH requires €25 000 capital. A UG can be registered with €1 capital and must set aside 25% of the profits until it saves €25 000. Then the UG is converted to a GmbH.
The UG is needed in order to sign up the payment services provider.
And the payment services provider is needed early in the MVP — because it is so central to the platform.
“vom baum gefallen”
“gleich insolvent”
C. uses many funny German idiomatic phrases. We will write something about them later.
The platform will be multilingual. It will start in Germany and then in Thailand.
The Thai partners will translate. Next Monday is the first meeting.
There are translation files.
First ChatGPT will translate, then local people can polish the translation.
The Terms &. Conditions and the Privacy will be in English only.
Now come four days holidays (Easter).
C; will do some holiday days and some days he will create tickets, will define the user flow and then the first design tickets.
Now we a have 42 days countdown — one cannot wait. The non-verbal communication is important.
The conversation turns philosophical. I have never done this, but I like it.
For C. this is a pressure situation, he has responsibilities towards everybody.
And also a realisation dawns upon us. There are people, who “want to be their own boss”. But then you realise, the Notary is your boss and the customers are your boss and the workers are yours boss.
It gets real.
€400 is spent.
C. invests his own money.
It gets real!
“I feel internal excitement and anxiety. Will I manage? Will we manage?”
“The confirmations of the crew makes it easier.”
“To be a lonely founder is hard…”
“Many people search for a co-founder on Internet Forums and know not whom they meet.”
“To do it with people you know is the best!”
“You know who they are. What are the expectations. How can you build it.”
“My level of nervousness is now not 100% but 40%.”
“You will get out what you put in…”
C. reminisces about previous experinces.
“One thing is the idea, another thing is the follow up. People sometimes expect stuff without saying it…”
I remark, that I had a boss, who used to say, “if you want something from people, you should tell them.” The communication is the Queen, I like to say.
“Dedicated people do dedicated stuff. If you do not say it they will not do it.”
“The moment when you doubt the most, is the moment you have to walk forward.”
C. is philosophical. I know the feeling. It is not unknown for brides to run away from the wedding.
“One feels the stress and uncertainty. But also the excitement.”
C. is excited. This is what I love him for. He is always energetic. Working with him I wonder where the cliché about the dull Germans has come from. Germany is full of not dull people.
“The UG is over point of no return.”
It is interesting how small things make big points.
C.’s people, work and friendships philosophy is more balanced than mine. I work only w/ people I can call friends. For some people “friend” is a big word. I suppose I make people friends with giving and dedication. Expecting people to become one’s friends has never worked for me. But if I commit — people respond.
From our next call we will begin recording the calls. It is impossible to note everything down.
I ask C. what do these conversations give him. Every time we talk about 25–45 minutes.
He said, “three things”.
First, an accompaniment. “Can one go in later and reflect. What have I done? How do such ideas work?” Previously someone C. knew used to write pitches and then go to look for investors without depth and preparation. Then come questions, which he had to answer fast and the answers are shallow and embarrassing and you invent on the fly… “There are cycles in the foundation of an idea, where someone is the devil’s advocate. If you are, after that, focused and motivated to do it — the idea is strong. This was for me the work on the payment services provider, on the crew, on the designer, the components which would have been shaky.”
Second, self pressure. Like going to fitness with a buddy. I remember reading about the English Channel Swim — how one is allowed a co-swimmer, but with restrictions.
Third, a relief. “It is similar to having an idea while having a shower. If you can write it down, you can go to sleep.”
“When I have an idea and everyone tells me it is a good idea… the confirmation kills it…”
The word masturbatory comes to my mind. I do not say it out loud.
