“Hi, my name’s Robert, did you know the average Filipino family only manages to save 48,000 pesos (US$2903) a year?”
The whole room fell silent and one of our mentors could only remark,
“Wow, seriously?”
That entrance was the height of our experience at the inaugural 1337 Ventures Alpha Startups Bootcamp in the Philippines… and it was barely 20 minutes into the first day.
28 of the best startups in the region were handpicked to participate in a program that included product development, marketing and mentoring.
It was a week unlike any I’ve ever experienced, a rollercoaster where it felt like all the emotions a startup founder could experience… on speed.
One moment you felt indomitable, like you had just unearthed the next unicorn, and 3 seconds later you would be banging your face on the table from sheer desperate frustration.
But through all the highs and very low lows, these were five lessons I picked up in the five days where I had the privilege of sharing and learning with some very cool mentors and people.
Don’t be the first. Be the last.
Do you remember a website called W3Catalog? No? Altavista, maybe?
Well, I bet all of you remember this website though … Google.
Prior to 2000, search engines were the darlings of the dot-com boom. Since W3Catalog, over 70 search engines were launched with varying means of indexing and searching the internet’s websites.
Your idea is sh*t
Hypothesise. Validate. Repeat.
That money ain’t yours
The Grind
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