This week marked my 2nd week of the 8 week programme as part of the accelerator Dorm.
Similar to last week, a lot has happened over the week:
- I attended a briefing session on this week’s mission: Creating traction for my turnkey business.
- I attended an interview with one of Dorm’s co-founders who talked about his other business.
- I attended a mindset masterclass where we talked with a serial entrepreneur and investor.
Having completed my first week at Dorm last week, my expectations had already been set, so I knew that I was also in for a treat this week.
I gained a lot of value this week: I learnt new marketing techniques that I had not encountered before, and got to hear from experienced entrepreneurs on how they grew their businesses.
Similar to last week, there is so much that I would like to share however I will summarise my key takeaways, thoughts, and progress that I think will interest you the most!
Traction Sprint 1
Last week, the mission was to build a landing page/MVP for my ecommerce business Reflex.
This week, the mission was to start running growth experiments using this MVP and test various traction channels to generate interest in order to eventually make my first sale.
I already have some ecommerce experience having run an online store a few years ago therefore I already have experience bringing traffic to my webpage through Facebook ads.
However, for some reason, my FB ads account is not working so I couldn’t use it this week!
Therefore, I had to figure out another marketing tactic to use to draw traffic to my website.
Thankfully, Dorm suggest a few traction channels that work well with ecommerce. These are:
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Existing Platforms: eBay & Etsy
- Existing platforms: Buy & Sell groups
- Non-SEM Online Ads: Micro-influencers
- Sales: Friends and family
The idea is to choose one of these recommended traction channels and start using it.
The traction channel I started using is Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This is basically running ads on Google as opposed to Facebook.
After running ads on Google for a few days, I haven’t generated any sales yet, but it’s a start!
1 Million App Users
Our second session of the week was a Dorm founder AMA/Fireside Chat.
AMA stands for ‘Ask Me Anything’.
Every week they invite an experienced entrepreneur to share their entrepreneurial journey as well as answer any questions that we have related to this week’s mission.
This week’s session was with Ranbir Arora, the other co-founder of Dorm.
He talked about his experience founding Sweatcoin, a multi-million pound health company.
During the 1 hour session, he talked about the challenges of developing the app, getting initial traction and user feedback from users, trying all sorts of traction channels to get customers and business partners, and finally getting thousands of users through influencer referrals.
Having heard his story, I was very impressed, by his success and experience.
Similar to what I mentioned last week, I knew nothing about the founders of Dorm and what made them qualified to teach us. Having heard from both founders now, I now know that there is a lot I can learn from them.
Once again, after that AMA session, I was excited to put everything I was learning into action.
Is Age Detrimental to Entrepreneurial Success?
The last session of the week was a Mindset Masterclass.
These sessions are usually more holistic, training our minds/habits to be set up for success.
However, this week was a bit different.
This week we were joined by serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Ramesh Haridas.
Up until this point we had only heard from Ranbir and Taras, two young entrepreneurs.
However, Ramesh is a much more experienced American entrepreneur and investor.
Therefore hearing about all his companies that he set up was very fascinating and inspiring!
For example, Ramesh and his friends set up a software company in Silicon Valley at age 24.
By the age of 26, he and his friends had sold that company for $25 million dollars!
He then talked about how he didn’t need to work for money ever again.
As a result he spent a few years travelling and playing squash, two of his other passions.
This is exactly the same position I would love to be in: to create and build a company, help out a lot of people, sell the company for £25 million, and never have to work for money again.
One of phrases that I have taken away from Ramesh is:
“if he can do it, then so can I”
Key Takeaways
I have really enjoyed week two of Dorm:
- I learnt a new traction channel and started driving traffic to my website within just a week.
- I feel inspired and motivated having heard how Sweatcoin generated so much customers.
- I have set my goals much higher having heard how Ramesh was successful at a young age.
If the last two weeks are anything to go by, I am looking forward to week three at Dorm!
As far as I know, next week’s mission will be to continue to drive traffic to my website and see if I can start making any sales. This is also to determine whether is a demand for my business.
I have no idea who the speaker will be for the fireside chat or what the mindset masterclass will be about next week. Either way, I am looking forward getting a lot of value next week.
Over these 8 weeks, I hope to keep you updated and share my progress with you every week, so if you are enjoying reading about my start-up journey, keep a look out for next week’s blog!
Have you enjoyed reading about my start-up journey this week? Let me know what you think!
Are you on your own entrepreneurial journey? If so let me know, would love to hear about it!
