The First 1000

Have you ever thought about leaving an inside joke inside your will, the kind of stuff you would see in a rom-com, so that if you died... you could make your mates laugh from beyond the grave?

Well, Dan will kill me for describing his product like this, but that alongside the best will creation process on earth - is what Dan and the team at Goodwill have built. And it is fantastic.

But how do you sell that? How do you start? Dive in!

Rachel Carrell joined me to discuss the beginnings of Koru Kids - a new childcare platform solving the biggest problem in childcare, in London. Sound small? This market is huge and Rachel is cracking it.

Shout out to the non technical founders out there. Rachel (formerly of McKinsey) is a sharp and strategic business centric founder who had to get by with bare bones tech in the beginning. What many may see as a hinderance was key to her success as she could focus on the problem and not the product!

Like many before him, Chris and Aerotronic entered a Techstars program and hit a wall.

INSERT EXPLETIVE

The team discovered that:

The market did not want the business they were building

and

Selling drones, unit by unit, was awfully painful.

So what would you do in this situation? Duck and cover? Stick to the vision?

Well, they went back to first principles, built a company that solved a big hairy problem and learned how to navigate large antiquated businesses in the meantime.

This story by the way, I did not know going into this. Thank you again Chris for your candor.

In a time where millennials are delaying having kids in favour of having dogs, and thus doting on their dogs as if they were kids I was determined to get to the bottom of the story behind BorrowMyDoggy.

How can strangers on the internet trust each other enough to lend/borrow their prize possession? What would an on-boarding process be for such an out there idea? How on earth do you identify, target and scale a core customer/user base?

Well, Rikke was kind enough to give up her time, go back to the roots and answer some of these questions for us!

It's 2015. You're looking for a book for your kids. A special type of book. A book that is rich in language and in colour. 

You can't find it. What do you do? 

Well, Sofia decided to make that book herself. 

So now you've made a book. Do you self publish? How do you get to market? Should you try and sell it? How do you know it's any good? Is book publishing a good market? 

Are mums one customer segment or 1000 blended together? Is the parent the customer or the child or the relative? 

This is how the Mrs Wordsmith story plays out in my mind. And what a feat.  

Sofia joined me for a fascinating, deep dive on how Mrs Wordsmith started. What came before, what came after and how they got their first 1000 customers. 

And I'll let you in on a little secret if you're still reading this description - Don't think kids books can be a big company? Mrs Wordsmith raised $11 million in their Series A.

This is the first episode ever of the First1000!

Having spent a good deal of time in the US grappling with slow payment systems and financial tech that is sub-par compared to the UK I was super excited to site down with Lamine @ Joust.

Their journey to date has been crazy. They pulled off an enormous pivot from their original product in the best way possible and are building a banking brand that is changing lives.

Americans in general are cautious with financial products so I dove in to find out how you sell a startup bank to the population. The story was incredible and thanks again to Lamine for joining me!

Warning - this one gets a bit banking nerd heavy

Welcome to the first (and maybe the only - we'll see) season of the first 1000!

In this episode you'll learn a little about the host (me), the story behind starting the podcast and where we want to take it!

If you're in startups, thinking of bring a product to market or growing past your beta. This podcast is for you!