Building Fueler with $0 in savings

Our journey of building and growing Fueler to 6000+ members worldwide fully bootstrapped

Hello everyone, here is yet another issue of The Hustle Book. In this issue, I share about out my honest learnings, reflection, and everything in between about building a startup from remote India.

You might think the title is clickbait. But friends trust me, it’s not. I’m very honest about it. This issue is going to be about gratitude more than anything.

I literally had no savings with me to fund Fueler. You see bootstrapping is not easy. Further not easy when you are a first-time founder.

Most founders I know bootstrapping their startup only after having decent savings to fund their runways. Bootstrapping is also relatively easy when you have spent a decade of experience working with startups and established companies. All of these are super useful when you yourself start building a startup.

But Riten, what’s bootstrapping?

Yes, I will come to that for sure. So, Bootstrapping is the process of building a business from scratch without any external capital i.e Angel Investment, Venture Capital, and Private Equity Firms. You build it through your personal savings, side hustle and or burning midnight oil.

We bootstrapped through side hustles, taking up projects, and helping small businesses with different services, and basically anything that could make us extra money to pay our bills.

I know all this sounds stupid now considering we could take up jobs but the situation back then was quite different for us.

How team Fueler came up together

I had no money to build our team. I knew I have to find alternative ways to make it up for it. The only way I could find was knowledge. My strategy was simple: learn as much as I can, I was ready to go extra mile to learn things and build knowledge. If not through money but at least through ideas and knowledge I could help my team grow in career.

I’m sure it’s nowhere enough for the kind of efforts and trust the team has shown in me. I was living with Chandan after college, he was my batchmate and roomie from my college days. We were literally surviving on the meager amount we use to make through freelancing. Something to cover over expenses: Shelter, Internet and Food. I feel that was a hard phase of our journey, the hardest was when we both had no place to live (story for another day)

Meet Aquib

He was helping us with the development-related work, he was there with us. Thanks to the internet. We could take up projects and get them done together. He was in his 3rd year of engineering. We started taking more projects, usually it was all due to referrals or inbound leads (power of proof of work 😉 but guess what we were not building Fueler at that point of time —story for another day).

Say Hi to Anshu

He joined us working on an android development project. I was taking care of the design and project management and Anshu was helping us with the building the app ground up. That was the time we were working together, understanding each other strength and building a strong equation. Btw Anshu and Aquib are batchmates. So they were still in college. And I was with Chandan living in our PG far away. We were working remotely without even remote ready.

This is Abhishek

So, it was the same with Abhishek too. After his diploma from a design institute, he was working with a company as a designer and front-end developer. I remember how he use to explain the pressure of office work back then. We started working on small projects and that's how we started working together, understanding each other and building a solid foundation 🤝

In the present day, Aquib, Anshu, Abhishek, and me are working together to build Fueler.

Did you notice the power of proof of work? Every successful startup out there in the world started because of individuals coming together to collaborate and it all started with their respective proof of work.

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What they say about Fueler

We received kind words last week from our members on Fueler. If you are not on Fueler—you too can join us in showcasing your work on the internet. Start here

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Role of our parents

I guess we have to give due credit to our parents for understanding us and supporting us throughout our journey. Not sure what all of our team still say to their parents but this cannot go long, as one day we have to take responsibility. It’s not easy friends, you are at times speechless because you have nothing tangible to show your parents. You are putting 12-16 hours everyday super busy with something you are not getting any significant monetary return. It’s definitely hard to face the world this way.

We had our fair share of making mistakes, learning, pivoting, and hustling our way to the point where we now have products that are being used by thousands of people across the world. But there is still a long way to go. The journey is supposed to be long for you if you are someone building a startup from a remote part of the country that too with no college tag or professional credibility to back you.

I was discussing with the team, why we have to work hard. Why our journey is long compared to those startups operating in tier 1 cities. Every situation has its pros and cons.

The market doesn’t really care, where you come from. It has a standard benchmark and being a startup you have to match the benchmark to cope up with the ever-evolving taste of the users. No excuse. Period.

The other day, I was having words with my Maa about my stay in Delhi. I lived in Delhi three years back for more than 6 months and she wasn’t aware of it all. I was so occupied with work and deliveries.

We want to build a startup that cares about its members and help them in their difficult time. The best part: support them with a regular source of income with the help of their proof of work.

Conclusion

If you are still looking for the answer to the title: In simple words, it was because of our Proof of Work. Whatever the situation was, we have always created and delivered quality work on the internet and to our clients respectively. Every brand we have worked with has referred us to their network. Always indebted to their kindness.

That stream of income through freelancing and consultation with brands has helped us build Fueler as we see it today. We still do it but with our partner brands.

We did it all by dividing our focus and effort between maintaining the cash flow and building Fueler — by never compromising on either of that. Even until today. Cashflow is ensuring that our team can pay their bills. We are bootstrapping because we have no other choice tbh. We want to solve a problem we ourselves faced and this is the way we could pursue it and just find ways to survive for one extra month.

I’m waiting for the day when we get to focus on Fueler with our full-time, energy, and focus. It would be quite something for us because we have some crazy things to bring to the world and build the best company at the intersection of education and the future of work.

Just know that the “F” on Fueler stands for Fun. We want to change the way we work, associate, and make our living with the help of our proof of work. It’s a beautiful feeling when we find our members to be confident when they have their work to display instead of just resumes and degrees.

Until next time. Thank for reading

Your friend
Riten

P.S - You can now join my community on WhatsApp. It’s going to be fun, trust me ✊