I have an idea and I am looking to take it to the next step by developing a MVP. What do you recommend I do? Hire a freelance web developer, find a co-founder, find a mentor?
I started as a 16-year-old entrepreneur myself. Back then, I built my first websites by hand-coding HTML before web design was even taught in universities. Within a couple of years, I was charging between $5,000 and $20,000 for SEO work and ranking clients for terms like “international mortgages” above institutional giants among others. And today, over a decade later, some of those businesses are still on the first page of Google.
But here's what that journey taught me:
👉 Ideas don’t build businesses. People do.
👉 Products don’t build brands. Purpose, vision, and culture do.
One of the most important things I’ve learned after starting multiple businesses, raising capital in my 20s and again in my 30s, and even going from the highs of six-figure deals to the humility of going back to a 9-to-5, is this:
Entrepreneurship is not about one big idea. It’s about your ability to evolve, build the right team, and stay grounded in your mission. Your idea may "attract" but it may pivot into something else. More than the idea is really the people and empowering them to find their unique unfair advantages to the market.
Some of the biggest companies didn’t begin how they ended up:
• Nintendo started with playing cards and even ran a love hotel.
• Wrigley’s gave away chewing gum to promote baking powder.
• Shopify began as a snowboarding store.
The idea is just the seed. The entrepreneur is the soil, the water, the climate, and the gardener.
💡 Here’s what I’d recommend to you, from one founder to another:
1. Validate before you build.
Don’t fall in love with your product—fall in love with the problem. Prove that your solution matters (solving an impactful issue and understanding why people care and what its worth) before investing in code or hires.
2. Don’t chase a developer—build momentum.
An MVP doesn’t need to be a perfect app. Use tools like Notion, Figma, or Glide to show proof of concept. Visualizing your concept has HUGE value and will help you further refine and clarify your vision and ultimately your delivery and GTM strategy. Make people care, show traction made on your own.
3. Find your mission.
Ask: “What movement do I want to spark?” The stronger your purpose, the clearer your brand, culture, and direction become.
4. Investors don’t fund ideas—they fund people.
They’re betting on you. Your uniqueness. Your ability to gather a team, shift gears, solve problems, and keep showing up.
5. Think long-term—this is a journey, not a sprint.
If your idea solves a real problem, that’s 20% of the equation. The rest? It’s about your story, your skills, your team, and the timing. Nail that, and your idea becomes a movement.
So here’s my honest advice:
Don’t obsess about whether to hire a dev, find a mentor, or look for a co-founder just yet. Start by asking yourself:
“What makes me uniquely positioned to solve this problem?”
“What mission am I willing to spend the next 10 years of my life building?”
You don’t need to have all the answers today. But you do need to keep moving forward—learning, testing, failing fast, getting back up, gather your learnings and staying grounded in purpose.
You’ve got something powerful already: a vision.
Now bring it to life. What is the ultimate purpose and ultimate value your idea brings to people and to you?
Let me know if you’d like a roadmap template I use with founders—it’ll help you break this down into milestones.
You’re not too young. You’re right on time. Let’s go. 💼🔥
