Insights
What we’ve learned building companies.
Lessons from the businesses we’ve built with founders, and the ones that taught us the most.
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How one of our founders gained 10,000 sign-ups for her B2C marketplaceOne of our founders is building a marketplace in the travel space. This is what she’s achieved to date, having spent $20,000 of her own money (all while remaining employed full time): Completed user validation exercises Nailed down value proposition Launched website Posted organically in Facebook groups etc.Read the post →
If you build it they might comeSometimes “if you build it they will come” actually works. I spoke with the founder of one of our portfolio companies yesterday. He told me that, with zero time or money spent on sales and marketing, their business is consistently growing at 15% month-on-month. In fact, they’ve grown by between 5 and 35% every month for the past year. How is this possible with no spend?Read the post →
Incubator, accelerator, venture studio, VC fund: what’s the difference?Please… do not use the following terms interchangeably: “incubator”, “accelerator”, “startup studio” and even “VC fund”. There are clear distinctions.Read the post →
Most founders are not building unicorns, even if they say they areFounders are lying to their investors, but there’s an alternative. (I’ve learned this by investing $2m into 100 companies since 2012). If they could be honest with you, most founders would admit they’re not building a unicorn. Even if they had a chance, they’d exit long before they got there.Read the post →
7 reasons your startup costs more than you budgeted“Just give me $500K and a tech guy and I’ll make this idea a success.” Here are 7 reasons your startup costs more than you budgeted… ↓↓ #1. You haven’t understood what the market will pay for. — First-time founders mistake enthusiasm for validation and leap straight to building a product nobody wants. If you do that, you’ll have to start over. #2. You haven’t listened to warning #1.Read the post →
Free, freemium, or pay upfront?Product owners, founders and investors: here’s a question I bet you can’t agree on. (TLDR: there is a nice rule of thumb that can help.) “Should you give your product away for free, or always capture payment details in advance?” ↓ ↓ Here are some common questions we get from our founders: How good to you make your free product? When do you ask users to create a profile?Read the post →
When you’re building a product, seek truth at all costsFounders, be careful whose advice you take. Your friends say your idea is great, but it isn’t. Your peers say “go for it”, but you shouldn’t. Your investors say don’t give up, but you should. Your board says it has your back, then fires you. None of these people are evil.Read the post →
How this finance exec built his own profitable company in 18 monthsThis is Patrick McGonagle a few years ago. Putting in the hours. Earning the big bucks. Cruising. But something was off. Was this… it? In mid-2021, a mutual friend introduced me to Pat. I was relocating from Singapore to Sweden the very next day, but we managed a coffee in Raffles Hotel before I flew. Patrick had a business idea.Read the post →
Why at DQventures we believe in remote workOur family office investor recently confided in me that he was surprised DQ was thriving. In fact, he was impressed we’re still operating at all. When the family invested, right at the beginning, all three founders lived in Singapore. But it was the middle of COVID and, for different reasons, within a matter of months, we’d all left. Arjun moved to Delhi. Oliver moved to Sydney. I moved to Stockholm.Read the post →
Should older founders go all-in on their startup idea?If you’re an older (dare I say ‘especially female’) person, with responsibilities like a mortgage, children to feed and elderly parents to support, it’s rarely a wise decision to go all in on a startup. So is launching your own business simply not feasible? 😶 Quite the contrary.Read the post →
What every startup can learn from gaming company, SupercellSupercell is a gaming company that makes £32M/employee. How is that possible? Well, for starters the team scraps 90% of its games. Wait, what? Yep. Ruthless. If a game doesn’t hit strict 30-day retention benchmarks, it’s toast. This approach is something zero-to-one founders would do well to take note of. ↓↓ Experiment widely.Read the post →
How a founder spend his life savings on an app with no usersHere’s how a founder in Singapore spent $200K of savings building an app with no users, and how to avoid doing the same. This is easier than you may think. A cautionary tale for those starting out.Read the post →