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

  • Piano lessons

    When I was younger, we couldn't afford a piano at home, so my mum would take me to my piano teacher's house each day to practise for an hour. I...

  • Sole founder or co-founders?

    I was starting up my new start-up and I was finding it hard to get my desired co-founder to commit.  So I thought back over my experiences of the...

  • Teleport In Action Video

    After months of careful, hard work by the team, we have launched a new Aubot website!  Have a look at our new website here! In addition to that -...

  • Virtual gigs

    I’ve been giving a lot of virtual speaking gigs recently, so I created this short video to give a glimpse at what my virtual speeches are like.

  • Ogilvy

    A lot of successful entrepreneurs dropped out of school (Richard Branson) or university (Bill Gates).  But Ogilvy, who went on to become a famous ad...

  • The Bubble

    I used to think the bubble was a bad thing.  The huge number of people who called themselves an entrepreneur.  The over-inflation of entrepreneurs in...

  • Remembering my piano teacher Mrs Langtree

    When people ask me abut my influences growing up, I tell them about my piano teacher, Mrs Langtree. I went to my first piano lesson when I was 7...

  • Writing my memoirs

    Today I asked myself, what do I want to have achieved in life by the time I’m 50? I wrote down all the major things I would be proud to have...

  • create magazine cover

    I spent the summer working out of the Engineers Australia Victoria office with 20 university students.  As a result they put me on the front cover of...

  • Austrade San Francisco Landing Pad

    In late 2018, Aubot participated in the Australian Trade and Investment Commission’s (Austrade’s), Landing Pad program, which helps successful...