Ordinary people have the most billion-dollar ideas.
Think about it: A billionaire is just a normal person who executed a plan and succeeded on an extreme scale. Don’t believe me? I’ve got proof.
As of mid-2025, only one third of the world’s 3,000 billionaires inherited their money. Meanwhile, around 70% have either founded or co-founded the business that made them wealthy.
What’s more, most billionaires build one billion-dollar business, not seven. Quiet Elon! So even if you already have all the capital in the world, scaling a global business ain’t easy. It takes more than money to make money.
Why does this little fact check matter? Because it shows the playing field is more level than we think. Innovation is not the prerogative of the rich.
My friend Amardeep Parmar understands this. “Humble startups founded by people like you have changed the world,” he begins Startups for Outsiders.
If someone is going to build the next big thing, and you have an idea, faith, and some chops, it might as well be you, Amar believes. The book can be your instruction manual and reference guide. Read it once, then revisit parts later as needed.
But who is Amar to talk about startups? When I first met him in 2020, he was an outsider to the Medium community of readers. Still, I immediately recognized him as an insider in the world of writing. He had clearly put a lot of thought, care, and creativity into his first article — which is also why said article went viral.
According to Amar, founders must do the same: bring humility, patience, and dedication to the table. If you have nothing else to start with, begin with a professional attitude. The rest of your insider credentials will follow. Or, in Amar’s words: “The best way to get funded is to have a startup worth funding.”
Since meeting him, I’ve had the good fortune of calling Amar a friend and witnessing his life seasons firsthand. Those have taken him from consultant to writer to podcaster and, now, community builder. His latest role might be his greatest yet. Because next to his professional mindset, no one can beat Amar at being himself — and never have I seen him play to that strength as clearly as in running the BAE HQ, a community for British-Asian Entrepreneurs in London and around the globe.
Started partially in the memory of his late dad, who died unexpectedly in 2022, Amar has held events for over 9,000 people, done more than 250 interviews, and created so many newsletters and posts, I lost track a long time ago. After three years of meeting thousands of founders and becoming an angel investor himself, his work has now culminated in Startups for Outsiders.
In 12 sections, the book covers everything a founder might need along their journey: preparation, customer research, getting to a prototype, iterating, and pivoting; skills like marketing, networking, financing, and raising funding; even hiring, pitching, and exiting — it’s all there.
How does it feel to read? If you knew the Amar I knew, exactly as you’d expect: The book is as concise as his articles, as unique as his interviews, and as filled with purpose as his heart. The result is a read that wastes none of your time, explains complex business terms in words you’ll understand, and provides you with new perspectives and unheard of examples. You’ll walk away with three things in particular: a feeling of being understood, a clear-cut, no-frills breakdown of the basics, and much tough love, which is what wantrepreneurs and would-be founders need the most.
“Would more experience help you?” Amar isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions. “If the product stopped working for a week, would anyone notice?” His advice cuts through the noise. “Founders go wrong by using words like leading, best, biggest, better, faster, cheaper and so on. These are all relative to other companies. Forget about the competition. They should be irrelevant. You should be the only logical choice.” Yet, he still makes space to remind us we’re all human: “Remember this moment is one of millions in your long life. Your answers will change over time.”
A summary would be an affront to this book which deserves to be read — not least because it already summarizes a topic to near-perfection.
To not overload aspiring founders and help them maintain a bias toward action, Amar limits himself to the essential concepts. He only introduces a handful of his own, sparingly but meaningfully. I can remember the Traction-Team Tilt and RSVP framework off the top of my head without having to re-read anything. Great sign!
Finally, around 60% into the book, Amar’s One Page Startup Script offers a perfectly timed capture of all the lessons you’ll have learned thus far. Everything that follows feels like a bonus. Overall, the book’s structure and writing style make it easy to cruise through in a few sittings.
If you’re one of millions dreaming the startup dream, this book will help you wake and actually start up. It’s a heartfelt but efficient guide, and Amar will give it to you straight. Read it, acknowledge your outsider status, and finally get in the game. And if you’re already a founder? Then you’ll find a plug-and-play resource littered with relevant reminders. Flick, read, move forward. And isn’t the latter what life is all about to begin with?
If startups are your thing, don’t wait. Grab a copy of Startups for Outsiders.
Highlights
Here are my highlights from the book, in order of appearance. Emphasis mine.
I’m sure True Crime fans don’t actually want to commit murder, even if they love the content about it.
Using the right tactics at the right time.
You’re entering a world of reinvention. What gets you to one stage won’t get you to the next.
The fatal mistake I see outsiders make is obsessing over coming up with an idea rather than sharpening their tools.
You have to get used to acting fast without overthinking the small stuff.
Founders who get lost in shiny objects lose to those who stay on track.
Remember this moment is one of millions in your long life. Your answers will change over time.
Would more experience help you?
If you were an investor, would you invest in this cofounder?
Questions to ask:
- What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
- What’s your greatest failure? How did you recover?
- What character traits make you believe you’ll thrive as an entrepreneur?
- What character traits might make you struggle as an entrepreneur?
- How do you deal with high-stress situations?
- What’s a belief you hold firmly that others disagree with?
- What do you consider “working hard”? How many years do you think you could maintain it?
- What in your past has prepared you to be a startup founder?
How would you pick between two investors offering the same terms?
The skills at the start aren’t as critical as what each of you is willing to learn; you want to cover your weaknesses and bits you aren’t interested in.
What tasks do you not enjoy but logically see yourself as the best person to do?
Think about existing leaders whom you respect and have a good relationship with. Ask them who their five smartest friends are who could be open to opportunities.
A warning: I know many founders who publicly seem to love their cofounder, but it’s bitter and toxic behind the scenes.
You can build a test project first, where you don’t even incorporate a company. Ideally, it’s something related to the longer-term plan.
Signing a cofounder feels like a win, but the work has only begun.
A solid relationship needs you to both understand how to break bad news to each other in an effective manner.
Ignoring minor problems early allows them to grow into big ones down the line.
Getting obsessed with your own ideas is a shortcut to failure. You must break this mentality to build anything meaningful.
- Slack started as an online video game company.
- YouTube started as a dating platform.
- Instagram started as a check-in app.
- Shopify was a snowboarding company.
- Samsung was a grocery store.
Why are you building something where you don’t know any potential customers?!
The simplest of MVPs is a way of validating demand without actually delivering anything.
I made our original Bae HQ brand assets in a day.
Founders go wrong by using words like leading, best, biggest, better, faster, cheaper and so on. These are all relative to other companies. Forget about the competition. They should be irrelevant. You should be the only logical choice.
Don’t make the mistake of having an insignificant differentiator.
You need to post where they are, not where you want them to be.
Founders underestimate the work of content creators and content creators underestimate the work of a startup founder.
Getting the basics right for your brand often outperforms trying to be exceptional.
Many startups use just one or two channels ruthlessly until they reach over a million in revenue. You need to understand where your customers are and focus your efforts there.
Before pitching them, understand what kind of story you’re suggesting and align it with what their audience wants:
- Human-centred
This is about your personal story. Have you overcome remarkable circumstances?- Authority-centred
Does your domain expertise mean your opinion is valuable to the public?
Your default path should be building without taking external capital.
Take a look at how long it took these household names to become cashflow positive:
- Facebook = 5 years.
- Amazon = 9 years.
- Uber = 15 years.
- Spotify = 18 years.
Everything you try to do will cost more than you expect.
Full-time employees are more expensive than their salary alone.
A North Star metric for Bae HQ could be for our programme alumni to reach £1 billion in revenue. This won’t happen anytime soon, but it gives me something to focus on beyond the daily fires we put out.
A secondary metric can keep you honest: for example reducing CAC overhand.
You’ll realise I was deluded if you go back to the early podcasts of Bae HQ or my early LinkedIn posts. I had the best of intentions, but I had to adapt when some of my assumptions were wrong.
You’ll be outcompeted easily when your heart isn’t in it.
You might not actively resent the startup you’re building, but you might be finding yourself spending all your time researching other ideas.
If the product stopped working for a week, would anyone notice?
Many highly qualified people are in roles they hate. If you’re hiring and you can’t convince any of these people to join you, then you’ve got a problem. It means they’d rather stay unhappy where they are than join you. Ouch.
It’s all meh. You always seem to be one week away from your big break.
You can’t have unhappy passengers if you want your pivot to work.
Investing your precious time in making a proper document would be a waste of time.
The One Page Startup Script brings everything you’ve learned in this book in one place.
Being self-sufficient is a secret hack.
People like to help people who help themselves.
While no one person will be your saviour, if there’s someone you dream about meeting, you probably can by paying attention to their event schedule.
You have to say who you are, what you want and why the other person should care when asking for other people’s time.
Founders underestimate the positive compounding effect of consistent visibility.
[People with] high power with low visibility. The rules of networking are different for them.
Vulnerability can be another great leveller.
Your first full-time hires will set the culture for everyone who comes after them.
Hire generalists first who can act as extensions of the founders.
A personal pet peeve: don’t ask candidates to do anything which should be paid consulting work during the interview process.
Revenue-based financing
This is an innovative way to fund your startup where you take a loan, but your repayments are based on a % of your revenue rather than fixed amounts. You have less stress in weaker months, and you pay more in stronger months. This flexibility is excellent for many startups, and approval can be fast.
The best way to get funded is to have a startup worth funding.
- Clear: People should know exactly what you’re building and what every slide means. You’ve lost them the moment they get confused.
- Credible: Prove you’re the kind of person who can build a successful company in this specific area.
- Contagious: Your idea should feel exciting, like something that will spread. Investors should catch your enthusiasm and want to tell their team about you!
- Commercial: You’re not pitching for charity donations. Your startup should have a clear path to making the investor a return!
Their lack of response was a response.
The truth is, your startup is worth as much as investors are willing to pay.
Have several term sheet offers, then you can compare.
It should be obvious why your solution works, and it should be 10x better than existing alternatives.
Don’t just put company logos like Google and Deloitte. Millions of people have worked there. Instead, explain what you achieved there. For example: “Led a project at Google worth $1bn.” That proves credibility.
This isn’t about proving you’re “better.” It’s about showing you’re different.
Having competitors is good because it proves demand exists. The key is showing why you’ll win where they can’t.
You may regret turning down silent investors.
