STARTUPS FORMIDDLE SCHOOLERSRicardo Leon • Nov 2015

I was born in a little tiny village called Mexico City.

Traveled the world from East to West.

Big artsy, techie, foodie and startup guy.

ABOUT ME

WHAT’S A TECH STARTUP?

THE NEWEST COMPANIES THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD!

-- Techcrunch

DO YOU RECOGNIZE ANY OF THESE COMPANIES?

HOCKEY STICK

Most of these startups experience an extraordinary growth in the first years

YEAR 0 YEAR 4

100M

200M

300M

400M

500M

YEAR 2

THE REALITY IS THAT

90%OF TECH STARTUPS FAIL

No market need

Ran out of cash

Not the

right team

Poor product

GAME TIME

We are a group of middle school students.We think it would be cool to start a tech startup. We are wondering where to start.

WHERE CAN WE FIND A NOVEL IDEA?

Google began in 1996 as a research project by two Ph.D. students at Stanford University.

SCHOOL PROJECT

The founders of Airbnb could not afford the rent for their loft in San Francisco. They made their living room into a bed and breakfast.

SOLVING A PROBLEM

The founders of Supercell, the creator of Clash of Clans, were big fans of games like Angry Birds. They wanted to create a new kind of gaming company.

FOR THE FUN

WHAT’S OUR COOL IDEA?

What about if we build a product that allows us to create avatars of our teachers?

WHO IS GOING TO USE OUR PRODUCT?

OUR PEERS

OURPERSONA

WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE BUILDING?

NOT SURE. WE WILL FIGURE IT OUT.

IDEATION

IDEATION

DOCUMENT

HOW TO BUILD A PRODUCT?

START SMALL

MAKE

TEST

LEARN

ITERATE

SKETCH

WIREFRAME

MOCKUP

PROTOTYPEPROTOTYPE

WHAT TYPE OF SKILLS WE NEED TO SUCCEED?

ILLUSTRATING

CODING

WRITING

LISTENING

PRESENTING

HUSTLE

SELLINGSPEAKING

NETWORKING

ORGANIZING

PROBLEMSOLVING

ANALYZINGPATIENCE

MATH

CREATIVITY

HOW MANY PEOPLE?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 99

HACKER HUSTLER DESIGNER

THE MAGIC TRIO

HUSTLER

This is the team leader. The hustler builds the team, ignites their passion, and manages projects. The hustler gets out, talks to people and build partnerships. Most important, the hustler helps guide the team to success.

HACKER

The hacker eats, sleeps and breathes code. It’s important the hacker knows or can learn the coding environment you will use to build the product. The best hackers have knowledge of product development and visual aesthetics.

DESIGNER

The designer develops concepts and specifications of the product. Ideally, the designer wears many hats: builds layouts, branding assets, copywriter, marketing collateral... As an added bonus, the designer must be both technical, artist, and social.

Matt Hall was a struggling video games developer living on a sheep farm owned by his parents. For many years he earned absolutely nothing even after releasing top titles in the app store. Matt partnered with Andy Sum and founded a new studio they called Hipster Whale. Together they published Crossy Road with the help of designer Ben Weatherall.

WHERE CAN WE WORK?

HOUSE SCHOOL LIBRARY

EVERYWHERE

MY FAVORITE SPOTS

Northside

Kaldi’s

Colony ClubThe Coupe

Canvas

CHARTBOOST NEW CREATIVE HEADQUARTERS

Source: eoffice

SUCCESS FAILING MANY TIMES= x

Ricardo Leonricardo@pactica.com