SIX

WAYS
SV.CO’s free online course that tells you why & how to
build startups even while you are in college.
INTRODUCTION
Before You Begin

Here’s what you need to know:

You should take this course if building a startup in college interests you.

You’ll not find this course useful if you already have significant experience with startups.
Think of this course as the basics—the ABCs of starting up.

The course is in simple English. If you find certain words difficult to understand, we’re
sorry. Let us know and we’ll help fix it.

We think there are several “Big Ideas” to know about starting up in college. The first
one is the simplest: Why Should You Start in College?

We explain each Big Idea through several chapters. But each one of them is short,
perhaps about a minute or two to read.

You can read the entire content of the course at one sitting. But you’ll never learn until
you apply some of the lessons learnt.

That’s it! If you’re a teacher trying to adapt this course for your
college or University, we have some tips here.
Tips for Teachers

This is for teachers who would like to contribute to, work with or adapt this course for
their classroom.

If you’d like to contribute to this course, some notes on structuring:

The course consists of several modules. Modules are structured around Big Ideas. These
are ideas that we want students to take away at the end of the module.

Each Big Idea is introduced in a chapter. There are 4-5 chapters per module.

Each chapter must be readable in 1 minute (approx 300 words).

Each chapter is in very simple english. To validate this, the entire text will be measured
using a complexity measuring tool like Hemingway.

For curious students who would like to learn more, Additional Reading will be
provided alongside each big idea. These explore the idea in more detail and provide
more advanced students a way to jump start their exploration. These also serve as
authoritative references. These provide evidence to students who do not (and should
not) trust information just because “it’s out there on the internet”.

At the end of a chapter, Big Ideas will be illustrated by concrete case-studies. These
case-studies will be a picture or video representation of a startup’s journey. We call this
a startup timeline.

To ensure that students understand these Big Ideas, they are asked to answer optional
multiple-choice questions at the end. Students can attempt these questions any
number of times. The intention is to promote understanding, not to score students in
any way.
Now, some tips on adapting the course material:

The course material does not cater to being read out in class. Instead, ask students to
do independent reading, and then help set up a group discussion.

When you describe a big idea to students, use local examples they can relate to.

Switch case studies and startup timelines with startups the students can relate to. From
the same college or University is ideal, but at least from the same state.

Bring a local founder to the college and ask them to explain the big idea in their own
words. Often, the founders can illustrate the big idea with their own personal story. This
is most effective.

If you’re stuck, you can ask us for help!

 WHY SHOULD YOU
START IN COLLEGE?
Building Skills

B uilding startups in college is a good way to pick up a lot of skills you need after
college. To take just one important example: how to work together as a team.
College seems to be a race to see who scores the highest grades in a subject. Or
who hands in that group assignment first. In the real world, people work together and
help each other succeed. This is how startups, big companies, even the entire world moves
forward.

Why choose to build a startup? It’s because learning to build a product is a good way to get
a truckload of skills. Besides Teamwork, here’s five more:

1. Creativity and Vision. How to plan a future for your product, everything from how it
works to what features you’ll add.

2. Financial knowledge. You learn how to manage money.

3. Endurance. Real life is not a sprint. It’s a long marathon.

4. Selling to Customers. And making them happy.

5. Leadership. How to inspire and motivate your team.

It’s hard to get these skills all at once anywhere else. Not in coaching classes or tuitions.
Nor a part-time job. Not even an MBA. Building a startup is better—and more fun—than
any alternative.
A few students continue working on the startup that they built in college. A lot more
decide that they’d like to do something else. Like take up a paying job to earn money. Or
go deeper in their subject by taking up a higher education degree. All this is fine: what’s
important is that the skills you learn will help you.

Extra Reading

ÍÍInc. article about how working together (collaboration) is better than competition

ÍÍPaul Graham (Y Combinator founder) talks about why to start up early

ÍÍThis Quora thread answers a question that’s asked often: ‘What happens if I fail at my
startup?’
Learn How to Learn

M ost exam halls ban mobile phones. They do not want students to copy off the
Internet. Why? They assume that:

1. here is only one correct answer to every question.

2. Students should learn that answer exactly as taught.

3. Using any tool (even a calculator) as a reference will harm a student’s

understanding.

The current way students learn is an invention of the Industrial Era. Large factories
demanded huge numbers of trained workers. We then created schools that taught
obedience and uniformity, creating perfect factory workers.

This is not so great for the 21st century. We now need students who can work together and
be creative to solve real problems.

In the Internet Era, we should make these different assumptions:

1. There are many important problems that need a solution. Students should
understand and explore these problems while attempting solutions.

2. Students should combine different fields to come up with a better answer to

problems.

3. The entire Internet is available to provide information and tools.

Being a great student is not longer about learning the most. Or being the best at
completing a task. It’s how to find and apply relevant information to solve hard problems.

This is how you learn in the Internet Era:

1. Pick an interesting and important problem to work on.

2. Learn everything about the problem—both deep (into the problem) and
broad (about similar problems).

3. Develop a solution and test it on real people who face that problem.

4. Pick up new skills and knowledge: Learn from your experiences.

5. Repeat 1-4.

The most important thing to learn is how to learn. In the Internet era, the world is no
longer static. Skills that are in demand today will become outdated in a few years. This
requires lifelong learning, and is a challenge but also an opportunity. Students who can
learn early how to pick up new skills will become successful.

Extra Reading
ÍÍThe Emerging future illustration depicts accelerating technology change and how
humans perceive it

ÍÍThe P21 partnership for 21st century learning has resources describing Creativity and
Innovation

ÍÍThis Wikipedia entry on Experiential describes how everybody can learn by doing
Six Ways

Building a startup in college provides you six options when you graduate.

There are three options if you decide to continue with your startup:

1. Get funded.
You find an investor who believes in your team and gives you money to
scale your startup.

2. Get into a Startup Accelerator or a Startup Incubator.

You move to a home for startups for extra guidance or better access to
your customer market.

3. Become Self Sustainable.

The money you make from the startup is more than your expenses, and
you are able to build a profitable business.

er Education com
e Self Sus
gh tai
Hi Be
na
or

ble
Go f

Get into
red
-hi aS
ui
ta
qq

rtu
Get A

p Acc rator
ele

Get a ded
Be un
tte tf
Ge
rJ
ob
And three options if you decide not to:

1. Get Aqqui-hired.
Another company that values your skills and team chemistry hires your entire team.

2. Get a Better Job.

You get hired at a great startup because of the skills that you acquired while building
yours.

3. Go for Higher Education.

You decide to learn deeper in any interesting field by getting a formal degree.

Deciding to continue with your startup is great. You’ll be in for an adventure, trying to
build real products and learning along the way.

Deciding not to continue with your college startup is also just as good. Just building it will
give you a significant leg up. If you build a great product in college, your resume will be
better and richer. You will also find great mentors to write you letters of recommendation
or help you in life.

You might decide to continue with your startup, and some of your co-founders might not.
This is a common scenario, and the best thing to do is to wish them well and still be great
friends. Every student is different, and building a startup gives you six choices.

It’s up to you to choose.

Extra Reading
ÍÍStripe, a payment company in the US now accepts applications for jobs as a team.

ÍÍ37Signals has a great list of startups who are self-sustainable.

ÍÍThis Quora thread describes qualities of a good startup engineering hire.

Starting Early

It takes (on average) eight years to build a startup into a mature company. You have to:

1. Form a Team.
Team members need to be great at what they do. But they also need to
be able to support each other and work well together.

2. Identify an Idea.
Solving a real problem that customers have is a good start. Good ideas
also come with a plan to make a startup money.

3. Create a Prototype.
Once something is real, it’s much easier to explain to everybody. This
includes potential mentors, investors and customers.

4. Get First Customers.

Startups experiment quite a lot before they arrive at a solution
customers like. The important thing is to learn from each attempt.

5. Find an Efficient way to Get Customers.

Startups who have their first customers go on to get many more. But it’s
important to reduce cost and effort to find the best customers.

6. Scale Up the Business.

At this stage, the startup is a young business, generating cash and
adding more resources to grow. A lot of good startups also raise
funding.

7. Generate Profits.
Raising funding is just the beginning. The goal of a startup is to become
a mature business and generate profits.

8. Defend Profits Against Competition.

To not lose customers, there has to be something special about a
startup’s product. Or something that only that startup team or product
can do.

9. Manage Cash.
Startups at this stage should be careful to spend cash right. It’s always
wise to have enough cash in hand for when things don’t go according to
plan.

10. Generate Returns on Investment to Shareholders.

Startups can list at a public stock exchange. Or other companies can
buy them. These events generate profits for shareholders who took a
risk to invest in or work for the startup.
 Form a Team Identify an Idea

Find an Efficient way Get First Customers Create a Prototype

to Get Customers

Scale Up Generate Profits Defend Profits

the Business Against Competition

Generate Returns on Manage Cash

Investment to Shareholders

Again: it takes (on average) eight years to go from Idea to ROI. Most founders only achieve
this success after many tries. Starting early, even while you are in college, gives you a great
advantage. You learn the skills needed early.

Because building a startup is hard, you can find out if this is what you’d like to do—early.

Extra Reading
ÍÍA Entrepreneurship.org article that talks about effective ROI.

ÍÍSequoia Capital’s Elements of Enduring Companies is a great read.

ÍÍThe Startup Genome report talks the different stages of a Startup Lifecycle journey.
Jobs

B y 2020, India will have one of the highest numbers of young people in the world. This
is a great opportunity. But it’s also a challenge to make sure that all these young
people realize their dreams.

Until recently, a big driver of job growth was the IT service sector. But because of new
technology developments, a lot of IT jobs will become obsolete. The Indian IT service
sector is set to reduce hiring—in some cases by a lot—because of reduced demand. Thus
India needs a new IT job growth driver.

“When I look back at the 10th year of MobME as a student start-

up, it’s amazing to see how the employment we have generat-
ed is equal to creating 22 Lakh NREGA workers employment for
at least one day and the taxes we have paid is equal to paying
for 25Crore Indians to get one kg of rice.”

One of the best ways to meet this demand is to build new startups. Talented engineers
can join these new startups and get more rewarding jobs. Instead of job seekers, young
founders can become job creators.
Indian product startups will create around 250,000-300,000 jobs by 2020. One of these
startups could be yours.

Extra Reading
ÍÍThis article in the Hindu talks about how India will become the youngest country in the
world by 2020.

ÍÍLivemint has talks about how Indian IT firms have slowed down hiring.

ÍÍQuartz has a great interview with the author of the Sharing Economy, Arun
Sundararajan.
WHAT ARE STARTUPS?
Baby Business

A mature business is a grown up adult. A startup is a baby.

A baby learns so many different things like how to walk, speak well, understand the world
and add up numbers. Just like this, a startup also needs to learn many things across five
broad categories:

1. Engineering.
Involves translating business requirements into a good product. Finding the
simplest and cheapest way to build is important too.

2. Product.
Everything necessary to translate an idea to reality. Includes understanding
how similar products work and figuring out how to make money.

3. Design.
How to build a product customers will want and love. Includes designing
the entire experience for a customer.

4. Marketing & Sales.

Getting to your first customer, and then getting more customers.
Developing a plan to let your target customer know about your product is a
good first step.

5. Operations.
Everything else necessary to make a company work. Things like finding a
place to work. Getting food for your team. Making sure your startup follows
all legal regulations.
Babies learn super fast. And they can adapt to new situations much faster too. This is true
for good startups as well. Good startups learn a lot in a short time and change based on
what they’ve learned. If a product direction doesn’t work, they change it. If a certain mar-
keting plan doesn’t bring in new ideas, they work on a new one.

One of the biggest advantages of a small startup is how fast they can get things done. This
is how baby startups often build a better product than the biggest companies.
Waves

A round 1900, scientists thought that there were no more big discoveries left in Physics.
Then Einstein discovered Relativity, leading to an explosion of new thought in the
field.

Innovation is similar. A big new thought leads to several related inventions and new
products. As a startup founder, it is important to be aware of these new ideas, these
Startup Waves. How they form, when they start, and how you can ride a wave to build your
own product.

There are there important things here to keep in mind:

1. Great startup founders recognize technology changes early. And build great
products to solve old problems better.
Let’s take a product like Uber or Ola. These technology companies often work
better than old taxi companies. Why? They use new technology (smartphones) to
rethink how an existing industry should work.

2. It’s important to ride a large enough wave that has momentum.

Just like real waves end on a shore, technology waves also die out. Regular
mobile phones are rarely bought now that smartphones are cheap. So new
startups succeed best when they ride a new wave. The pace of technology change
is also accelerating. New waves now form and reach the shore much faster.

3. The best startups form at the intersection of industries.

It’s not always obvious what impact technology waves have on the world. Taxi
companies never thought that a new kind of phone would impact their business.
Yet, this is how technology change works.
Great startups do not just ride waves, they create them. This requires having a vision of
the future: to think and imagine a world that does not exist yet. To become that founder,
the first step is to study the world around you. Imagine small improvements you can make
with the new technology that surrounds you. And then build a great new product.
Kinds

What kind of startup do you want to build?

Growth Startups Sustainable Startups

Investment

Multiple rounds of investment Can be bootstrapped with savings

Impact

Potential for large customer impact Smaller, more focused customer base

Exit

Acquisition opportunities from growth-focused players Targeted Offers from niche players

Income

Not a source of income until profitability is reached Designed for revenue from day 1

Ownership

Lots of investors, so less control Less investors, and more equity ownership

1. Growth Startups have a strong focus on growing their number of customers. They
have the potential to become large companies and make incredible revenue.
Growth Startups succeed by capturing a large percentage of their customers
before their competitors. Examples of such companies are Uber & Ola, and
Amazon & Flipkart.
 2. Sustainable Startups have a strong focus on making money from day 1.
They usually become smaller companies and never capture a large market.
Sustainable Startups succeed by keeping a smaller set of loyal customers happy.
Examples of such companies are Basecamp & Freshdesk, and Github & Hasgeek.

Both kinds of startups succeed by building a great product people love. They also gener-
ate returns for their founders and investors. They also solve real problems faced by their
users.

Both are valid paths to follow for a startup. We’ve already talked about how Growth Start-
ups become larger companies. Here are five other tradeoffs:

1. Investment. Growth Startups generally need more money to become profitable.

Sustainable Startups become profitable faster, and some can even bootstrap
with founders’ savings.

2. Impact. Because they reach more customers, successful Growth Startups have
more impact on the world. For ambitious founders, Growth Startups might be the
right choice. Sustainable Startups stay smaller.

3. Exit. If you want to build a startup and then sell it to a larger company, it might
make more sense to build a Growth Startup. This is because acquisitions value
growing companies.

4. Income. Good Sustainable Startups provide a dependable revenue stream for

founders, employees and investors.

5. Ownership. Growth Startups usually need many rounds of investment. Founders

will usually have a smaller percentage of ownership in such companies. If having
ownership (& control) is important, starting a Sustainable Startup might be wiser.

Use the factors above to decide how you want to start up. A quick idea test is this:

Growth Startup ideas should address a large market.

Sustainable Startup ideas should make revenues from day 1.

What Startups are Not

Here’s 3 common reasons young founders start up:

1. Money. It seems like a quick way to become rich.

2. Freedom. To work your own hours, to decide what you want to do.

3. Fame & Glamour. To become a celebrity like Mr. Zuckerberg.

But most startups fail. In fact, 99% of startups fail. So those three reasons are usually not
logical:

1. Money. It makes more sense to join a working startup as one of the early
employees. You get valuable equity & a good salary package.

2. Freedom. Startup founders are their own bosses on paper. In reality, they
answer to customers and their investors. They have a huge responsibility to
their employees to pay salaries on time. In fact, most startup founders have less
freedom than most employees. Startups that build great products do what is best
for the product, not for the founder.

3. Fame & Glamour. It’s pretty exciting to see your name in a newspaper the first
time. Or win an award. But real success is difficult. It’s not glamorous to work
long hours or get rejected 14 times for an investment. Building a startup is not an
easy path to becoming a celebrity.

Startups are not an easy mechanism for money, freedom or fame. Instead, Startups are
experiments where founders try to build a useful product. A successful founder prepares
for a long marathon, working hard to build a great product.
STARTUP ROLES
Three Roles

B uilding a software startup requires three fundamental roles when you begin. First, a
person who can decide what to build: we call this the Product role. Second, a person
who can design the user experience, the Design role. And third, a person who does
the actual building: the Engineering role.

Every role has equal importance. And they work together to build a great startup product.

Here’s a simple example:

Imagine three friends: Suresh, Asif and George, who want to build a startup. Suresh is the
kind of guy who always knows about the latest and greatest products. He also loves to
think of new features and improvements in the products he uses. Asif loves Photoshop
and graphic design. He also likes to think of better ways that products around him could
work. And George is the programmer. He’s always stuck to a computer writing code and
building tiny toy projects.

If Suresh, Asif and George can work together, it’s possible for them to build a first product.
We learn how in the next three chapters.
The Product Role

P roduct people think of two broad things all the time: “What features would my
customers want?” and “What is the best way to build them?”

They translate the Startup’s vision of the future into concrete day-to-day actions. Here’s
five important things they do:

1. Design surveys that can collect information about product features, and novel
customer ideas.

2. Design experiments where customers can use proposed features and collect
feedback.

3. Document and model feature requirements within a product narrative.

4. Analyse and document potential system changes for any feature or product
improvement.

5. Work with the Engineering role and incorporate their input to the product.

In some ways, a Product person is able to keep the product goals in mind, and break them
down into achievable tasks. These tasks provide feedback that is then used to fine-tune
the Startup’s vision.
The Design Role

D esign people concern themselves with how best the product can work. It’s a
combination of three disciplines: usability, user experience, and visual design.

Usability is the answer to the question: “Can the customer use this?”. User Experience is
“Will the customer use this?” and visual design concerns itself with appearance and taste.

Here’s five things Design folks do:

1. Draw out product workflow to make customers understand how it works.

2. Design a wireframe from a product narrative or from user needs.

3. Extract UI components from a wireframe & model that until it looks life-like.

4. Compose pages or screens from these UI components and groups.

5. Work with the Engineering and Product role to build design assets.

Design is not look and feel alone. It’s a broader role that answers the question: “What
should my customer’s experience be like?”
The Engineering Role

T he Engineer is the builder: he translates product & design decisions into actual
software. Programming is the most important skill here. But it’s also important that
an engineer picks up sufficient knowledge of the other roles.

Here’s five things an engineer must be able to do:

1. Understand product requirements and translate that to detailed engineering

action plans.

2. Detect instances where engineering code quality is low and work out how to
improve it.

3. Understand and develop backend web stack components. This includes backend
programming, and a good understanding of databases.

4. Understand and develop frontend web stack components. This includes frontend
programming, and a good understanding of the browser model.

5. Work with the Product role in the Startup to ensure acceptance of all work
engineered.

Good engineers understand that code by itself does very little. There is a purpose behind
writing code, and it’s that purpose that is most important. Sometimes the best option for
an engineer is to find a way to write no code at all.