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Three Weeks From Idea to Full-Time Founder

The Story

In 2022, Milly Tamati was living on the Isle of Raasay, a remote island in Scotland with a population of approximately 191 (Source 4). She wanted to find 2 or 3 other people who were “Director of Miscellaneous types” (Source 1).

She started by DMing people on LinkedIn (Source 4). After finding about ten people and realizing one-on-one conversations were too time-consuming, she put them all in a Slack workspace (Source 1).

She posted about the idea on LinkedIn and Twitter. The momentum was “undeniable” (Source 1). She quit her full-time job within three weeks of putting the idea out on social media (Source 1, Source 3).

She secured her first paying customer within 12 hours of testing the product (Source 2). Strangers on the internet began to join (Source 4). By September 2022, just a few months after launch, the community had reached 850 members (Source 2).

“Every single person’s eyes lit up and they were all super-passionate” when she described the concept (Source 1).

Lesson for Creators

Three weeks from idea to full-time commitment is unusually fast. But Milly wasn’t testing a product. She was naming a pain that already existed. Every generalist she spoke to recognized the problem immediately. The lesson: if you have to convince people your idea is good, it might not be. If their eyes light up before you finish explaining, you might be onto something. The Slack group wasn’t a minimum viable product. It was a minimum viable community, and the demand was the validation.

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