The experiment

Bikram Sutar Bikram Sutar

Table of Contents

 

I am going to run a few experiments for the next 2 months. I have a hypothesis

This is the greatest time to build (fact), the software building complexity and cost both have gone down drastically (fact), this means small lean teams are possible, and there are enough revenue-generating, profitable b2c, b2b opportunities that can be executed by one person. In the current world, there can be more bootstrapped companies than ever.

 

Resources

I have a budget of 15L. 5L is the backup for finding out a VC-backed company's traction if bootstraping doesn't work. 6L is my budget for staying and accommodation for the next 12 months with zero income. I have 4 lakhs at my disposal to run bootstrap experiments.

I have 2 months to pick signals, 2 months to double down, and have clarity if this path is going to work.

April 30th is the checkpoint for deciding where and whether I double down.

June 30th is the deadline for bootstraping. 

It is April 1st and I have started thinking more VC, I need to see signals before I can commit. But if I see signals it is going to be huge and VC.

Strategy

Build useful things, figure out useful things by talking to people, releasing, and distributing. Show the value quickly to the user, and get them to pay as soon as possible. I can't give unlimited freemium, or I will go broke 🤐

I am going to focus mostly on B2C niche apps and ideas. On the side, I will also try to find a big B2B idea. Talk to people - cofounders, vcs, early employees - to find the big idea. 

Plan

The plan is to run several independent experiments in b2c initially. Work on 3 things in parallel

  1. Build and ship - Staying on top of the fast-moving tech
  2. Distribute - Marketing and organic leveraging AI
    • Content creation 
  3. Solve problem for people - POCs, brainstorming, so I get more ideas around the newly evolving build and distribution model. 

If things work, I shall have 

  1. A few apps - generating revenue
  2. A few stores, selling products
  3. A few content labs, generating AI content - initially, short marketing content. Later can be creative content
  4. A new combined distribution model that is proven and can be replicated. 

Making content, marketing - generating leads - top of the funnel, and converting that to purchases, I believe there is a big value. Starting with content gives me space to iterate on this loop faster. 

Week 1 - Feb last week

  • Matrum POC. - Not much progress. 👷
  • Create Apple Developer account - My number starts with 91, Apple strips off the first part, thinking it is the country code. 😞 
  • Warm up Reddit, x - post at least 3 content - Didn't do this. 
  • Use Claude extensively at work, and figure out whether to buy a cursor or Claude for personal purchase on Sunday. I can always have access to others. - Got cursor & usage-based setup for Claude. 
  • Settle in - ✅, just a few rituals to be added. 
  • Set up task/project tracking - linear. ✅ Did this, not using much, maybe would be needed later. 
  • Cleanup and set up my personal calendar - use a new email id? - Cleaned up calender no new email yet. Wasn't needed. ❎
  • Name the experiment 😅 - Overthinker, I don't think it is needed right now ❎

Outcome

  1. None

Week 2 - March 1st week 

  • Matrum POC. ✅
  • Get iPad note taker ready to release - I don't have a lot of expectations from this, but it is in the pipeline and closest to release. 
    • If apple dev account isn't unblocked, release the prayers app on playstore - again, need developer account approval. 
    • Didn't do a lot of work as my Apple dev account was blocked 🚫
  • Learn AI content generation, make a few character videos. 🚫 
    • Goes to the 2nd week of March

From the previous week

  • Set up the Apple Developer account - currently blocked by a bug. Goes to the 2nd week

Outcome

  1. Hindu prayers app in internal testing
  2. Matrum POC first iteration done
  3. Gorkha community website live - Need work in seo - hit 50 visitors

Week 3 - March 2nd week

  • Release iPad note-taker
  • Set up a team to generate niche content - a team of 2 people and a partner 🚫
    • Kids content - hook for kidli, and other kids' products
    • Assam, Nepali regional content - hook to sell regional products. 
  • Talk to companies that do print on demand and shipping. Will be used to sell regional trendy clothing. ✔️
  • Company registration? Most likely not needed at this point ❎
  • Research kids' products, find themes that can be sold ✅
    • Made some progress on this. Thinking of a parenting app + ai powered parental control 

From the previous week

  • Setup apple developer account
  • Experiment with video content creation ✅

Outcome

  • Kidli research, thinking of a new age parenting apps
  • Found print on demand companies, but not sure if I am gonna run that
  • Experimented with video/content generation tools
  • Landed on AI powered social networking platform idea. Experimenting on that

Week 4 - March 3rd week

  • Start posting kids' content ❎
  • Start posting regional content ❎
  • Marketing iPad note taker ❎
  • Talk to kids product distributors. ❎
  • Set up a store for kids' products, regional products ❎

The plan needs an update

  • Made the AI powered social network live - https://gethoply.com/
    • Doing this with Priyanshu right now as an experiment for next 2 weeks. If he can help with GTM - we make a big company and he can be ceo full time. If not I walk out. if I have to fight on GTM, and have to do major tech why would I not do this alone. 
  • I shall double down on the parental control app. Test on a live phone & release next week

Week 5 - March 4th week

1st of April

End of the month 1of running the experiment. I have a lot of learnings. I built a lot of tech. Still distribution failed. And this is going to be my biggest factor of failure if I fail. I must crack distribution. I have built following apps in the month, but didn't release or put the efforts into the release

  • Hindu prayers
  • Ipad note taker
  • 6d/hoply - An AI powered social network of people
  • A video generation tool, that can generate videos given a script
  • A landing page builder
  • AI sales demo agent
  • Numen.team - A Product and Engineering inteligence layer. 
  • I have also built - https://hamigorkhali.com/
  • And a new age Parental control software
  • I have become a really pro user of claude, finishing credits almost every session
  • I have went to Sales event, engineering events, founders meet.

This is a long list, and a long list for 5 weeks. Surely a few things have changed. I have started thinking more VC ideas now. Maybe that is one of the reasons I haven't done many releases. But even then being able to give access, solving one problem - always unlocks conversations. Neverthless, in terms of building, This is the kind of execution that I mean when I say speed !⚡ Let's hit the April running 🚀

April - Another iteration

2nd week of March

This month I shall focus on getting actual signups, users, usage. I feel I have built enough in March. Learnt and iterated enough to take things to the next phase. I will define exactly how it will look like by 5th week. 

1st of April

This is probably going to be the most important iteration of the experiment. I need to speed run this. I need to get real users and strive to get some real usage this month. This is when I start talking about actual business metrics. I want to build an LLM too this month.