How to Start a Startup

All the steps make sense to be in their place, except for the co-founder one. While co-founders for companies like Facebook came along or after the prototype, it would always be better if the idea you came up with was brainstormed with a group of other people whom you will then start the company with. Rendering Bullets’ USB was the result of a group of people brainstorming an idea on the first night of a hackathon, having some aspirations for it, then prototyping it with whatever material we had available for the features we could implement. Seeing everyone’s involvement in the beginning ensures more success and commitment longtime for the project.

Our idea for a gun-shaped controller already exists, has been implemented - but none of them were cheap, had many issues technical and logistical - and failed. We wrote our idea, actually made a rough sketch on a whiteboard. The prototype ended up looking better. We had a functioning prototype by the end of the third day, and are currently in the iteration process, sourcing parts and looking for more funding to iterate. We are yet to show the prototype to a hundred people, but a hundred people have probably heard the idea from us. We aren’t yet an actual business, although registering ourselves would add a finer touch of authenticity which would make obtaining funding easier. Being under ASU’s Venture Devils program allows us to compete for funding available to us through the program. This is where we are up to currently and we have also applied for funding via a “KEEN mini-grant”.