Livebytes Live: How to Build Your Startup with Rešad and Faris Začina

This Livebytes Live session features Rešad and Faris Začina, the founders of the Ministry of Programming (https://ministryofprogramming.com/). With their company they have helped out startups with launching more than 40 products. Some of the topics we discuss in this edition of Livebytes Live are noted below.

Where do you start when you want to start a startup?

From marketing to a business plan and the problem you are solving for your potential customers. These are all things that are super important for when you want to start your startup.

We also discuss the Bosnian market for startups (because MoP is based in Bosnia & Herzegovina) and how hard it is to build your startup in comparison to 5 years ago. Is it more difficult or is it easier?

Bootstrapped or VC?

Funding is the hardest thing for startups to get right. Which route do you go? Do you fund the startup yourself and grow it organically through bootstrapping, or do you go for venture capital to accelerate your growth?

Faris & Rešad note very good points about either solution, as they have worked with startups with both ways of funding.

How do you make your startup resilient?

Getting through a crisis is hard for established companies, but even harder for startups. One thing things mentioned is to be of course critical of your spending habits as a company. Don't go for hiring as many people as possible. Hire when it hurts.

Technology & Development

There were a lot of audience questions so we decided to add this topic. Some of the questions are "How do you pick your technology stack" to which I answered for everyone that it's really up to what problem you are going to solve. Every technical challenge can have multiple options, and there is no good answer to this question.

Another question went into how to get developers on board with your idea, to which Faris & Rešad mentioned to give them a piece of the pie (shares or stocks).

There were some very good questions in terms of Technology and Development which made it a very cool discussion.

What makes startups successful?

There is no right answer to this question, but there are some factors that can give you greater chance of succeeding. Things like product-market-fit and product-market-founder-fit are some of these things. Does your product fit within what the market needs to have? Do you fit in as a founder in filling in this need with your company? All questions that if answered with 'yes' will give you a greater chance of succeeding.

Lightning round of questions

It was great to see a lot of questions this Livebytes Live session. We took some time to quickly go through some of the questions that were asked by the audience.

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