Before starting your own company, master the fundamentals first. Test your knowledge at StackMastery. It’ll save you months of pain fixing basic mistakes later.

There are 5 principles that guide our company building philosophy at Code & Creed:

  1. Idea Validation
  2. Building in Public
  3. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
  4. Distribution
  5. Have a Co-Founder

​
Idea Validation

Never build something that doesn’t solve a REAL problem.

You’ll have all the tools and resources you need to validate your idea, with either a waitlist or pre-launch sale to verify demand.

If you don’t have people willing to pay for your product, then you don’t have a product.

​
Building in Public

We believe in building in public because it forces you to be transparent and accountable.

It also allows you to get feedback from your target audience and iterate on your product quickly.

Build something a small number of users love. Until you have a great product, nothing else matters.

Building in public can also attract potential employers and opportunities. For example:

This student built a tool to help find study spaces on campus, shared it publicly, and immediately attracted attention from tech leaders offering internship opportunities. This demonstrates how showcasing your work can create unexpected career opportunities.

​
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Use SAAS Boilerplates to build products quickly.

Stop integrating with key vendors yourself. Find and use boilerplates from BoilerplateHub that already have the hard parts done (payments, auth, database, etc).

This approach saves time and allows you to focus on your unique value proposition.

Elvis crossed $10k ARR in 5 months, bootstrapped with a family and 2 kids. Boilerplates FTW!

​
Distribution

A perfect product no one knows about will never make a dime.

Marketing and Distribution will always be harder than building the product.

Knowing where your target audience hangs out online/offline and converting those people into customers is crucial to your success.

If you don’t have a clear distribution strategy, you’re leaving money on the table.

If you want to be massive, you need a market that’s going to be big in 10 years.

​
Have a Co-Founder

The benefit of being a part of this community is that you’ll be able to find a lot of like-minded technical and non-technical folks in the Discord Server who you can partner with. Take time to engage, collaborate, and build relationships with fellow members before looking elsewhere.

If you haven’t found the right match within the community, you can also find co-founders on:

  • Solvearn - Platform with 24,000+ action takers to help build and grow your startup idea
  • IndieDex - To find Technical Co-Founders
  • IndieMerger - Smart matching with verified tech and marketing co-founders
  • Want a Co-Founder - To access a list of 30+ potential cofounders with proven marketing and/or sales backgrounds

For the best performance, aim to have 2-3 co-founders. One person should be dedicated solely to marketing and distribution, while the other two focus on development. This ensures that your product is continuously being improved and reaching the right audience.

Having multiple co-founders allows for continuous progress, diverse skill sets, and shared responsibilities, ultimately leading to faster development and a more robust product. It also keeps everyone’s morale high. Doing absolutely everything solo is soul-draining.

The best teams usually have two or three co-founders. You want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small number of employees.

But how do I choose a co-founder?

Aside from track-record, experience, and skills, you should also look for humility.

Don’t go into business with someone too arrogant to ever admit they are wrong.

Arrogance destroys companies.

You need someone humble and level-headed, especially when things go wrong (and they will).

As a rule of thumb, if you’ve never heard them say “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong”, then they’re unlikely to be the right person to be in business with.

Remember what our Creator has mentioned about those who are too proud:

“لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ مَنْ كَانَ فِي قَلْبِهِ مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ مِنْ كِبْرٍ”

“Whoever has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise”

[صحيح مسلم ٩١]