Alright. Honestly, I love these newsletters, man. And the feedback I get from you guys is that you actually find them genuinely interesting.

And I am so fucking curious what you think about all of this. So do me a favor and reply to these emails. Even if it's just a sentence, you make me so happy. The response rate is usually around 5%, maybe 10%. Let's get it up to maybe 20%.

A few asks first, in bold so that you see them.

Ask 1: A MacBook. My laptop is about to die. If you have a MacBook lying around that you don't use anymore (ideally a MacBook Air, M1 or newer) and you don't mind lending it to me, or even selling it to me used: hit me up. I'm a broke ass motherfucker.

Ask 2: A bicycle in Aachen. Otherwise I spend too much money on these electric scooters, or I walk 45 minutes to my workplace. Give it away for free or sell it for a few bucks, hit me up.

Ask 3: Antalya, October 8 to 19, and Munich, end of October. Hit me up if you're around. Flights inside of Turkey are usually super cheap.

Ask 4: My birthday party. Friday, November 13, Aachen. All of you are invited.

For all of you who travel a little bit longer: come on November 11 already. That's the super famous Cologne Carnival. Imagine Munich Oktoberfest, pretty much the same, but different. More than a million people partying on the streets. Probably. I'll try to sort out accommodation, and if you can work remotely, the coworking space I'm in can put you up for free. I'll be there for you, but I'll probably have split attention. So team up with two, three people I'll invite as well, so you feel comfortable even if I'm not around all the time. Join the WhatsApp group: [LINK]. I think it'll be a banger, actually.

Okay, September. It's been mostly just work, work, work, work, work. Usually I start after lunch and work until 10 p.m. But a few things have happened still.

01 Offers, and one big blocker

The first client I offered the innovation program to, for €5,400, said: well, generally we think this offer is interesting and attractive. However, we need specific data in the software.

The data I mean is laws. I thought those would be free and without copyright, but actually the landscape is much more messed up. Either there's no proper APIs, or private companies make them machine readable and then there's a copyright on that. Thousands of documents, federal level, state level. Data availability is much more shit than I thought. I could build it myself, but it's at least a bachelor thesis, and even then it's me hacking my way together. So instead I called a company I could potentially license the data from. We'll probably talk again next week.

Meanwhile, I made a second offer, for €4,200 I think, and we're now having further talks. Tomorrow I'm making a third one, probably also around €5,000 for half a year. And I have one or two more companies up the line.

My gate was always: at least three companies, ideally five, who want to pay me an interesting amount of money. Not fully crossed yet. But I'm slowly less questioning the business idea, more trying to remove the data blocker.

If the licensing doesn't work out, I might have to find another supplier or build it myself. Worst case, I pivot or close it fully down. This is a realistic chance, by the way. Right now, though, I'm carefully optimistic. My goal is to have the first customers on the product in January. Real customers using it, and paying me. My first revenues.

02 Not doing it alone

In the first few days at the coworking space I noticed it's a bit quiet, people don't really talk to each other that much. And I was like: why, bro, come on. So I just started talking to people.

Now I have a cool group of people I see every day, and next week we'll grab a beer. Founders, also pre-revenue, who also work till 10 p.m. Product-wise and funding-wise they're a bit more advanced than me, revenue-wise I'm more advanced. Most of them are engineers, so I can help them quite a bit with the business side, and I assume they'll help me as well.

It's such a good vibe doing it together, not doing it alone. Especially as a solo founder. If people around you are hustling, you're hustling even more. Probably what added the most value this month.

03 Money, a company, and a loan question

I got money. The €2,400 for September and October came in the first week of September, and that hit different. Then I immediately paid off my credit card, and now I'm left with like €300 for all of October. But living with my parents really, really helps: for a whole month here I spent less than just my rent in Hamburg. Game changer.

Last week I registered the company. So I'm officially a company now.

Assuming the data licensing is gonna be fine, I'm slowly thinking about hiring one or two people. And I'm thinking of taking up a loan. So tell me: what's a good amount I could risk on the business without having to worry too much about it? I think €15,000, and even if the business is not gonna work out, make it up again within a year or two working as an engineer. I've never worked full-time, so from you working people: €1,000, €10,000, €100,000? You name it.

And if you know any good full-stack developers, students or full-time (especially also from outside of Germany or Europe - @my friends in Asia) who have already built systems with a large number of real users and real stakes: connect me. I will not hire soon soon, but my goal in the end is to hand over the entire product responsibility to someone.

04 Turning 28

A friend of mine had his 30th birthday. When my university friends saw me, they were like: what the fuck? What are you doing here? I thought you were forever gone. In their minds: Alper loves China so much, he wants to move there permanently. So to all of you: I had a really good time in China, but it was never a plan to move there permanently.

I'm turning 28 on the 28th of October, which is a good pun. And it's the first time I'm actually thinking: okay, I'm slowly getting towards 30. My parents are getting a little bit older. I lived in five different places in the last five years. So I think it's about time for me to slow down a little bit, at least build a bit more sustainable base. No pressure here. Even if you're 30 or 40 or 50 or 60, you can always find yourself again. It's always fine.

Random

• Guest lecture: I held a one hour guest lecture for a summer school: the step by step process from "man, I wanna build a business, but I have no idea what" to a validated business idea. People were elated.
• Gym: Signed up again, the plan is every single day. I also got a little fatter again. It's been like that for like 15 years: gaining weight and losing weight, gaining and losing. So this time I coded my own calorie tracking app and log everything through Claude.

What's next + how to find me

• My birthday is October 28. Send me some birthday wishes and some money, especially money. I'll send feet pics in return.
• Reply to this email. I'm so curious.
• Unsubscribe at the bottom, no guilt. We stay friends either way.

I love you guys, take care.

Alper

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