Insights from another student entrepreneur…

Published: Monday, 23 February 2009

Kieran O’Neill started up holylemon.com, a sight that shows funny videos, funny movies and funny videoclips when he was 14, and sold it for US$1.25 million while studying at the University of Bath, during his exam period. He was 19 at the time. Now 21, he’s working on PlayFire and PlayStation Universe, while finishing off his degree. He spoke at Imperial College recently, and dispensed the following advice:

 

(1) If you’re starting a technical company, have at least one technical co-founder. Have someone great.

(2) Raising capital from equity is the most expensive source of funding. It’s way better to bootstrap or borrow.

(3) Finding the right co-founders is essential to the business.

(4) Figure out what your key business metrics are, and measure obsessively.

(5) Get onto the feedback loop as soon as possible. I.e., launch as soon as possible.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Don't career plan

    No one knows what will happen in the future.  Just do your best at what you're doing now.  Then consider your options at the end of this project....

  • Nail painting robot

    A robot friend suggested we go and get our nails painted by a robot!  So we went and did that!  The first time I saw a nail painting robot was at CES...

  • Hundreds of decisions everyday

    Answer the phone. Reply to the email. Follow up with the guy you met last week. Go to the meeting. Don't go to the meeting. Don't become a board...

  • Aipolyglot

    My cofounder in Aipoly is Italian, so we went to Italy to promote, due to popular demand, Aipoly’s availability in 7 languages - English, French,...

  • Plates

    "If you have too much on your plate, get a bigger plate." I first heard this when I was doing a leadership course in London in 2009.  Everyone in the...

  • City of Darwin Robotics Workshop

    I was invited to Darwin for National Science Week on 19 August where I ran a robotics workshop for the kids.  The next day, I gave a speech to 400...

  • Dividing time - most time spent on highest priority item

    If you're not spending most of your time working on your highest priority, then it's time to reevaluate what you're doing. My mum worked as a hotel room...

  • Losing focus

    From an organisational point of view, it's better to focus on doing a small number of things right, than a large number of things wrong. In...

  • EmTech Singapore

    Spoke at MIT's conference in Singapore, EmTech.  Other speakers in my session spoke about autonomous robotic cargo ships, advances in drones and...

  • The Year of a Young Australian of the Year

    In 2008, I founded Robogals as a response to there being hardly any other women in my engineering classes. Our organisation is run by university...