A one night journey
What does it take ?
I took an “entrepreneurial” course this year at my University.
I’ve heard about the top 10 techniques that every entrepreneur must know. I’ve heard about how I should talk to an audience to convince them. I’ve heard about the relentless mindset I should have, and never fear failure. I’ve heard about how I should have diversified skills among my team. I’ve heard about how important networking is. I’ve heard about the fall and the rise of dozens of people I don’t even know. I’ve heard about all the mistakes I should avoid, and everything I should do in order to succeed. Days, weeks, months have passed and I kept hearing those things.
Quarantined
Few weeks back from now, an evening, I was at my friend’s house, we were 3 having some pizzas after a skateboard session. We opened up the TV, we were awaiting for the French president to announce new measures related to COVID-19. That’s when the quarantine was announced. We were so happy.
Hysteria
While eating our pizzas, we started to imagine apps that we could create for the weird period ahead of us. Ideas were coming from all sides, we kind of went hysterical at that moment, but eventually we settled down.
The agreement
We thought that, during this period, it would probably be hard for some students to keep up with the work, especially if exams were coming. We were mostly thinking of teenagers, but really this can be true for anyone. That’s when we agreed on making a website that will connect students to anyone who’s willing to spend a bit of his time to teach a specific subject.
Most important part of all
We wanted to call this website covaide. You get the play on words (aide means aid, obviously) right? So, first thing we did? Buy a domain name! Of course. covaide.fr was born. Well… there was no website behind it yet, but still, it was born, for 5€. Finally ready to start coding.
The right tools
We used Firebase to host and deploy our not-ready-yet ReactJS website, which took about 10 minutes, no jokes. Firebase is a free(mium) tool made by Google, which gives you access to all the basic stuff you need to get started: Hosting, Database, Authentication, Storage, etc.
The End
We spent the night coding. One of us didn’t code, but we were all so excited that he stayed up all night watching us typing… Great guy. The day after, we had a prototype. It was super ugly, really. The whole site would break if you went on mobile. But it was working. We made a post online, it was shared about 200 times on Facebook and LinkedIn. We had a lot of feedbacks from friends but also complete strangers. People started to sign up on the website… Wow!
Then the government canceled all important exams for teenagers. lol.
Conclusion
I took an “entrepreneurial” course this year at my University, but truth is, that one little experience was worth a thousand words. So, the next time you’re feeling wings growing, remember that the worst case scenario is a sleepless pizza-night hackathon with your friends, 5€ for a stupid domain name, and a good story to share. Cheers!
