#35 Angelinvesting.it - From idea to Series A - Weekly Newsletter
400k in 2 months! How!?!?!?!
3 Minutes to reflect
This is the true story of two friends, Federico and Luca, talented developers who built a startup that earned 400k euros in just two months.
I first met them at an event in 2017, shortly after they had moved to London. They were ambitious but inexperienced, and their startup pitch left me thinking, "Smart guys, but they're not ready yet."
Their initial project, unsurprisingly, struggled. They launched several ideas but gained little traction. In 2021, they got accepted into an esteemed accelerator and secured a small seed funding of around £100k. The money didn't last long.
Those were challenging times. Living costs in London are high, and the opportunity cost weighed heavily on them. They knew the lucrative salaries they could command as developers at Google or Facebook. Their partners, now wives, were not exactly overjoyed, but they supported their choice. To pay the bills, they took on some coding jobs on the side, but they remained focused on their dream.
Their persistence eventually paid off, albeit not from their original idea. Their passion for Fantacalcio, a fantasy football game that uses real player data and Sunday match ratings to create a strategy game, sparked an inspiration.
Fantacalcio is wildly popular in Italy with six million users. There's a whole subculture of YouTubers discussing Fantasy Football, with videos garnering millions of views.
While watching these videos, they noticed the tools being used to provide advice and analyze players were inadequate. They knew they could build a better solution than the pen-and-paper or spreadsheet methods currently being relied upon. So, they put everything else on hold and, as experienced developers, they crafted a beta product in less than a month, launching it in the summer of 2022.
They also recognized that these YouTubers were their gateway to the market. If they could leverage the visibility of these YouTubers, their product would be exposed to a massive, targeted audience.
So, they divided the labor—one founder selling to YouTubers, and the other coding. By the 2023-2024 summer season, they had partnered with practically all Fantasy Football YouTubers, reached 300,000 users, and made an impressive 37,000 sales (a 12% conversion rate!) for a revenue nearing 400,000 euros.
What makes this story beautiful is its simplicity—no investors, no employees. Just them, their perseverance and an hefty bank account.
This tale encapsulates the essence of entrepreneurship in the digital world:
Build a better solution to a vivid problem.
Find an effective go to market to get customers
Build a community that helps refine the product with feedback and suggestions.
Never, ever give up.
Simple, not easy.
Have a great weekend,
Simone
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