Zero To One School 2016 = Y Combinator + Make School + Asia

Zero To One School

Summer Incubator to launch 50 mobile first startups

12 weeks May 30 - August 19, 2016

Almaty, Kazakhstan

50 best teams from Central Asia and SEA (out of ~1,000

applications)

The teams learn 3 things: iOS development, mobile design

and getting users.

June 2016: basics of iOS development, mobile design July, August 2016: building the app, talking to users, App Store launch, marketing & growth

The teams work at the same workspace and each get a

monthly stipend.

The budget: • Monthly stipends: 300 USD/

month * 3 months * 150 people = 135,000 USD

• Team salary: 1,000 USD/month * 3 months * 10 people = 30,000 USD

• Operational costs: 35,000 USD • Total: 200K USD

Last year, as a proof of concept, we primarily focused

on apps for the Russian speaking CIS market.

The main lesson is super obvious in retrospect: it’s easy to win, but hard to pay the bills

with.

This year our focus will be highest-revenue countries: US,

Japan, China, UK, Australia, South Korea, Germany, etc.

As a result, given our location, we’re bounded by the apps

solely focused on the world of bits, not atoms.

Categories of apps we’re planning to build:

• Enterprise apps with Slack integration • Nutrition (food combining, mucusless diet,

intermittent fasting) • Personal development  • Productivity • Guided meditation • Behavioral change • Communication • Niche news aggregators (e.g. Watchville) • Health & Fitness • Career Advice

They should pass the ‘the toothbrush test’, meaning

it’s something that a person can use at least

once a day.

Building apps which land on the home screen of millions of people around the world.

Phil Libin’s iPhone home screen

Y Combinator + Make School + Asia ≈ Zero To One School

In the summer 2015, we built 37 iPhone apps.

TheSummerStartupSchool.com: from idea to an original iPhone application

in the App Store in 8 weeks

• We announced the program on May 4 • 352 applications in 3 weeks • The youngest applicant was 10 years old • The oldest one was 58 years old

• We admitted 45 students • Age range: 14-28 y.o.

Curriculum

1. Programming (iOS development): Objective C, Xcode, git, Parse, etc.

2. Mobile design: UI/UX. Building products people fall in love with.

3. Traction / growth: getting to the first 1,000 users, 19 marketing channels used by the most popular iPhone applications.

Team

Almas Tuyakbayev, 28 UI/UX Design

• HCI, Carnegie Mellon University. • Head of the Media Lab at IITU. • Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals

2008.

Bakytzhan Baizhikenov, 26 iOS development

• Education: London School of Economics, University of London.

• International Olympiad in Informatics: Gold 2007, Silver 2008, Bronze 2005, 2006.

• Software Engineer, imo.im (2012-2013). • Founder, Intellection & Crozdesk.com.

Zhanserik Kenes, 21 iOS development

• BSc, International IT University. • Built 8 apps: Being Beethoven,

Persimmon, SafeCity, National Bank of Kazakhstan, Springfruit, Shopster, etc.

Daulet Kenzhetayev, 21 • iOS/Android development • CS, Nazarbayev University ‘2017 (on leave) • Built LonelyKeanu, Kelin (Android)

Nurdaulet Bolatov, 17 • iOS development • Built Syntle.com, Zero Willpower • 1st place at IV Eurasian Informatics Olympiad • 3rd place at 13th All-Russian Team Informatics

Olympiad • Kazakh-British Technical University ‘2018

Ayan Yenbekbay iOS development

• BSc, University of Minnesota Twin Cities • Built 6 apps: Seansy.kz, Kogershin,

Metio, Galileo, Instamaniac, Never Drink Alone

• Created popular time lapse videos: vimeo.com/yenbekbay

Arman Suleimenov

• CEO, ZeroToOneLabs.com • MSE, Computer Science, Princeton University • Past: founding team, Collections (YC S12) • ACM ICPC World Finals 2009, 2011 • “The Art of Startup” (Nazarbayev University),

PrincetonStartupTV.com, TheSiliconValleyIntern.com, ZeroToOneTour.com, TheSummerStartupSchool.com

Some of the apps we built before/outside of the school.

Being Beethoven: the to-do list of effective daily habits from the world’s top performers: Audrey Hepburn, Tim Ferriss, Tony

Robbins, etc.. http://bit.ly/being-beethoven

Persimmon: reach your medium-term goals in 7 areas of your life through the power of

visualization / affirmations and small daily steps.

Seansy - movie theaters and showtimes in KZ. 

http://bit.ly/seansy

Instamaniac - find out how early you joined Instagram

http://bit.ly/instamaniac

• 5-6 products a year • The multiplication effect • The best ideas coming from the students

On the Demo Day we received personal video addresses from [0]:

• Vinod Khosla, founder, Sun Microsystems, Khosla Ventures • David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, co-

founder / CTO of Basecamp, author of “Rework” • Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos, ‘Delivering Happiness’ • Wendy Kopp, founder of 'Teach for America’ • Brian Kernighan, author of "The C Programming Language";

Unix, AWK, AMPL • Qi Lu, Executive Vice President, Microsoft, leads the

development of Bing, Skype & Microsoft Office • Gregory Olsen, 3rd space tourist in history; founder, Sensors

Unlimited Inc • Frank Chen, venture capitalist, Andreessen Horowitz • Etc.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4kqRdM3orQ Чи Лю,вице-президент Microsoft, возглавляющий Bing, Skype & Microsoft Office.

I’m Arman.

In the summer 2015 at TheSummerStartupSchool.com we created 37 applications sent to the App Store.

Kelin - the mobile only anonymous social network for women. 145,000 users, 115,000 ‘secrets’ in 4 months since launch. #1 app in the KZ App Store. http://bit.ly/Kelin

BulBul - the encyclopedia of Kazakh music: lyrics, news, ‘guess the song’ game, etc.

Never Drink Alone - one meeting a day with the most talented people in your hometown.

http://www.neverdrinkaloneapp.com

Kairosh - Shazam for 160 songs by Kairat Nurtas. http://bit.ly/getKairosh

KanjiNinja - Fruit Ninja style game to learn 2,000 Japanese characters.

Kinza - recipes from what you have in the fridge.

http://bit.ly/getkinza

LonelyKeanu - express your emotions with the relevant celebrity reactions via WhatsApp.

http://bit.ly/getlonelykeanu

StartCode.it - the easiest way to learn web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). Treehouse for the Russian speaking audience.

http://bit.ly/getStartCode

Camellia - Uber for flowers in Almaty and Astana

http://bit.ly/getCamellia

Dilemma - answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to interesting questions and see the public reaction.

http://bit.ly/getdilemma

Syntle - the easiest way to learn programming language syntax (Objective-C, Swift, Shell, git, Python, JavaScript) with flashcards.

http://bit.ly/getsyntle

Finchler - one movie recommendation a day based on the result of your personality test.

http://bit.ly/getFinchler

"NAN" - delightfully simple shopping list app

http://bit.ly/HAHiOS

Kitapp - buy and sell used books from your phone.

http://bit.ly/kitappkz

Toybastar - the best wedding photographers and MCs.

http://bit.ly/getTamada

Critics: But all you’re doing is building fun apps? Us: “What the hackers do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years”. -Chris Dixon

The stages of the tech startup: idea -> mockup -> prototype -> program -> product -> business -> profits. 

Critics: “Why can’t you learn this online?” Our reply: “Online education (Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, edX, iTunes U) doesn’t

solve all the problems: 7% completion rate. Students lack self-discipline, peer pressure and creative energy from the like-minded people around” [0].

[0] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mooc-completion-rates-below-7/2003710.article

A few things we believe in.

Unlimited enthusiasm towards what you’re building.

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies”. -Walt Disney

Startups fail for only 2 reasons: a) they run out of money; b) they give up. If you don't give up, if you

avoid death by all means, you will win.

“It's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy”. -Paul Buchheit

Don’t follow your passion, follow your strengths.

‘If you can't see yourself working with someone for life, don't work with them for a day’. -Naval Ravikant

“Bill is wrong, but Bill works harder than the rest of us, so even if it’s the wrong solution it’s likely to

succeed”. 

connect

facebook.com/suleimenov