What does it take to transform a simple idea into a compelling digital product that propels a startup?
Embarking on a self-learning quest while building a music discovery startup, Dhruv Tiwari unearthed vital skills that aren't taught elsewhere. This book chronicles his entrepreneurial journey, sharing invaluable insights, tools, and techniques learned from mentors at Amazon and other startups. Join Dhruv as he unveils the transformative steps of turning an idea into successful products and startups.
Ended
I'm Dhruv Tiwari, founder and CEO of Audion Tech. Our Product, Glimpz, discovers music that matches your taste and mood by curating handpicked tracks from new releases, local and global trends, hot charts, and your social communities.
The book, Zero Cost Startup, chronicles Glimpz's journey from concept to launch, capturing valuable techniques, including Amazon's renowned working-backwards approach, crystallizing product ideas in a PR/FAQ format. The book explores crucial aspects about product definition, tech stack decisions, leveraging the gig economy for experts, forming a team, securing funding, and navigating product development with minimal financial resources. It also offers a broader perspective on technology and architecture choices for early-stage startups. The technical sections are co-authored by Jay Michael and Devender Gupta, seasoned technologists with 40+ years of combined experience in tech startups.
The motivation to publish this book arose from my personal experience and challenges in launching my startup, as aptly summarized by the following quote from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2022/2023 Report:
"Year after year, entrepreneurial education at school is consistently rated the worst of all Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions…The costs of this failure will reverberate through decades of new starts that never happened, simply because many people were just not aware." - by Stephen Hill, DSc, Lead Author of the GEM report.
During the pandemic, I developed the Glimpz App as a simple prototype to help explore new music. Encouraged by positive feedback from friends who tried the prototype, I decided to take a leap and turn it into a fully-fledged startup. Like a novice venturing into a new sport, I didn't yet know what I couldn't do.
Despite thorough research within the startup landscape, I couldn't find the practical footsteps, trail markers, and insider knowledge I needed to pursue my startup. To fill this gap, I reached out to specialists in my network and was fortunate to receive invaluable mentorship from experienced product and technology experts at Amazon and others who guided me at every step and corner in this pursuit.
While I had the privilege of accessing a network of experienced professionals, most readers lack such resources. With our book as their companion, aspiring entrepreneurs can acquire the necessary tools, techniques, and understanding to launch successful digital product startups.
Young professionals: 18-34, Technologists and Startup enthusiasts
Many of us come across ideas that we believe could become valuable products, but we often hesitate due to the "fear of the unknown." This book aims to eliminate that fear by providing practical guidance and strategies to validate your product market fit while conserving resources.
(Sanjeev Kumar, Investor, Mentor)
Dhruv Tiwari is a student entrepreneur driven by a passion for leveraging software to develop practical applications that improve people's daily lives.
Presently, Dhruv is actively engaged in the development of Glimpz, a music discovery app scheduled for launch in July 2023. For a glimpse into the app's progress, you can visit the developmental version at https://www.glimpz-it.com.
With over 20 years of experience, Devender is a seasoned expert in developing user interface components for mobile and web applications. His extensive hands-on experience spans various domains, including consumer internet, gaming, and enterprise applications, making him a valuable authority on modern UI development. As an advisor/mentor, he brings invaluable guidance to the Glimpz team.
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Jay Michael is a 25-year technology industry veteran, having worked as an engineer, architect, and executive across both startups and enterprises alike. As a Principal Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services, Jay has advised hundreds of the world's fastest-growing startups on cloud architecture and strategies for achieving success at scale and is the primary author of the AWS Startup Security Baseline. Jay is based out of Seattle, WA, USA where he enjoys working on his 5-acre hobby farm alongside his wife and ever-growing pack of Corgis.
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In addition to print and digital books, Radius Book Group has in-house audio production capabilities that can help you create, produce, and distribute premium audiobooks or podcasts. Radius can integrate the distribution and marketing of your audio projects with the book publication.
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(Sample from Chapter 3)
"Most Entrepreneurs travel down the startup path without a roadmap and believe no model or template
could apply to their new venture" - Steve Blank, Four Steps to Epiphany
To my surprise, Charles' response to our prototype app was less enthusiastic than I had anticipated. It became apparent that when I mentioned the product launch in a few weeks, it sparked his skepticism. He inquired about our "product roadmap" and the features targeted for the first launch. We hadn't taken the effort to define a product roadmap because we seriously believed we had it all in our heads.
Realizing I was ill-prepared for his probing questions, he generously spent the next hour enlightening me on the significance of a product roadmap—a practical tool that helps guide the development of a product. Think of it as a step-by-step plan for building our app! It outlines the specific features and functionalities we want to create, and the order in which we'll tackle them. Having a product roadmap keeps us focused, organized, and ensures we're making progress towards our end goal. It helps us prioritize tasks, make informed decisions, and stay on track with the development timeline.
Charles emphasized that a product roadmap is not just about building the product but also considering what happens after launching it. It involves thinking about post-launch considerations such as user feedback, updates, and future enhancements. Additionally, he stressed the importance of incorporating user acquisition and engagement features on our roadmap and walked us through a few practical examples, such as incorporating viral sharing mechanisms and gamifying fandom to make the app more enjoyable and addictive.
During that captivating hour, Charles shared a wealth of insightful anecdotes. One particular story had a profound impact on our decision-making process, leading us to reconsider our choice of using Swift for UI development. The story sparked intense debates in my team, to the point where we questioned the viability of pursuing this startup altogether.
Our decision to use Swift for UI development was initially influenced by the positive experiences of my co-founders Anirudh and Vinamr, who had learned greatly from the vibrant Swift Developer Community. While this decision meant potentially excluding Android users, we believed that this approach would allow us to refine and improve our product based on user feedback and market response from iOS users before expanding to the Android platform. Our approach aimed to maximize our chances of success while minimizing risks associated with launching on multiple platforms simultaneously.
Charles presented a compelling argument that challenged our initial decision to focus solely on the iOS platform. He emphasized the staggering number of new app releases in 2021, reaching approximately 2 million. Additionally, he shared an intriguing statistic that the average user typically installs only one new app on their mobile device per month. Drawing from his experience with a consumer internet startup, he also highlighted another challenging issue of users dropping-off during the app installation and signup processes.
Given these insights, we were forced to re-evaluate whether iOS was the optimal platform for launching a bootstrapped consumer startup like ours. Charles recommended an alternative approach that would allow users to experience our app without the need for cumbersome app installation and sign-up processes. This approach would reduce friction and induce users to easily try the app in a hassle-free experience.
Charles' perspective forced us to reconsider our assumptions and weigh the potential benefits of a platform-agnostic strategy. During this discussion, he introduced us to some pretty dope concepts like one-way doors, minimum viable product (MVP), pivoting, burn rates, and startup runways during that hour-long chat. It was kind of a wake-up call, you know? We realized that building a product and a business around it wasn't just about geeking out over tech and coding our way through it. Every decision we made during this phase of product and roadmap definition would straight-up affect our chances of making it big and not crashing and burning.
(To learn more about our journey, pre-order your copy now).
The author hasn't added any updates, yet.
Many congratulations dhruv.
You got this Bro!!!
Super excited for the book! Can’t wait. Good luck!
So proud of you xx
Exciting stuff, and very excited to track your future successes!
Congratulations on your wonderful attempt and to share your experiences through this book which we are looking forward eagerly to read. Best wishes, yours , Sudhir P
Well done Dhruv !
Good luck!
Best of luck Dhruv, nice going! Rakshit
Good Luck Dhruv…Shoot for the stars 👍🏼
Way to go Dhruv! Can’t wait to get the book. :)
Keep it up...
Excited to read about this!
Rohan
Congratulations and all the very best, Dhruv.
All the best bro 😎. Kill it
Dear Dhruv,
Awesome work! Eager to give it a read. Wishing you luck, keep going!
- Prudhvi
Congratulations and all the very best in your entrepreneurial ventures
Cheers
Chitra - mom’s friend !
I can't wait!
Good Luck Dhruv! We are so excited and wish you the best!
Congrats Dhruv!! Best of luck to you.
Hi Dhruv, I am very excited to get my copy, all the best for your future endeavours.
This looks amazing. Good luck with the book.
All the best!
Congratulations Dhruv & wish you the best 🌹🌹
I am editorial director of Radius Book Group, a hybrid publisher dedicated to helping authors publish their books independently. Your book looks like it would be a good fit for our list. Contact me at mark@rdiusbookgroup.com if you'd like to learn more about how we could work together.
Mark
$12
48 readers
Be among the very first to receive a digital copy of Zero Cost Startup.
Includes:
$22
17 readers
Pre-order the paperback version now and get a free digital download! The first 50 preorders will receive a signed copy with a thank you note from the author and Glimpz founder. Don't miss out on this limited offer!
Includes:
$38
4 readers
Receive one signed copy +1 more to share as a gift.
Includes:
$40
0 readers
Receive insights and guidance from our mentors via email to refine and develop your startup idea.
You will also receive a signed copy and an exclusive invite to our virtual launch alongside team members, supporters and guests.
Includes:
$45
0 readers
The most challenging aspect of our startup journey was mastering client-side code and optimizing it for faster iteration. With this offer, you'll receive a digital copy of the book and the Ionic React source code for the Glimpz App, developed for iOS, Android, and Web platforms.
Includes:
$50
1 reader
Your name is printed in the "list of sponsors" page at the end of the book, and also in the "about/sponsors" page in Glimpz Music Discovery app. Alongside your name, your favorite song/artist will also be printed.
You will also receive a signed copy and an exclusive invite to our virtual launch alongside team members, supporters and guests.
Includes:
$55
0 readers
The most challenging aspect of our startup journey was mastering client-side code and optimizing it for faster iteration. With this offer, you'll receive a physical copy of the book and the Ionic React source code for the Glimpz App, developed for iOS, Android, and Web platforms.
Includes:
$80
0 readers
Receive one signed copy + four more to share as a gift.
Includes:
$100
1 reader
Be featured as one of our user personas. Your name and a brief biography will be included in one of the chapters.
You will also receive an exclusive invite to our virtual launch alongside team members, supporters and guests.
Includes:
$150
1 reader
The book will feature App images with fan profile adjacent to music track and artist. Have your profile image presented alongside your favorite artist/track.
You will also receive an exclusive invite to our virtual launch alongside team members, supporters and guests.
Includes:
on June 15, 2023, 3:23 a.m.
Wishing you the best. Looking forward to the book.