How we launched our startup in 3 months

Photo credit: Sonja Langford

Food and technology, without a doubt, are the two things that Filipinos love to have. Putting these two together made great sense to solve the logistic challenges of the Philippine food industry.

It is a business model that has proven itself successful not only in the Philippine capital of Manila, but also in different countries around the world. So Ralph Quito, founder of Yuu Innovations, ventured to apply the same model with the food capital of the Philippines, Pampanga. He wanted to make food ordering and delivery easy, convenient, fast, and most importantly, fun. Will it be as successful?

On January 2016, Instaburp was conceived. But Ralph, like many entrepreneurs with great ideas, did not have thousands of dollars to develop, let alone launch the platform. Fast forward to the second quarter of 2016. Instaburp has since launched, and we now have a growing list of restaurant partners and roster of employees.

Here is how we did it, and how you can too.

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel

This is the first and most important lesson for not just tech startups, but all other kinds of startups. Ralph resisted the urge to develop the platform from scratch. There were existing scripts, frameworks and entire business models that were available.

Instead of starting from the ground up, Ralph built from existing foundations by tweaking and personalising the script to match what he desired of the startup. This saved us hundreds of dollars and weeks of time that we did not have to begin with.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, customize an existing wheel and roll with it.

2. Don’t fall in love with your idea

Sure, you have a great and revolutionary idea, but when other people poke holes and find cracks, the feedback falls on deaf ears. For the first few weeks, Ralph clung to the idea and the business model he developed. While it was not perfect, he did not believe the critics then were right either.

When the system, the partner restaurants and the trends were pointing him in the right direction, Ralph found reason to modify his idea. Your relationship with your idea, much like with your customers, partners and team, must have an allowance for compromise, mistakes and failures.

Don’t fall in your love with your idea. Instead, be a constructive critic.

3. Don’t do it all by yourself

You are responsible for fulfilling your startup dream, but not necessarily executing it all by yourself. As with many startups, the idea and the execution usually begins with one person, but eventually, you will need more than just yourself.

4. Don’t be cheap

5. Don’t underestimate the day job