Rob Liu

I spoke to the Founder of a bootstrapped company doing 8-figures in revenue. @RobLiuLiu founded ContactOut in 2015. Since then, they’ve grown to 8-figures and 7-figures of profit—fully bootstrapped. Rob spent the backend of his 20’s travelling around the world while building ContactOut. A refreshing example of a Founder doing it their own way, and succeeding outside the traditional Venture pathway. Here’s what I took from our chat: Takeaway 1: Make something 10x better. Most unicorns are variations of existing ideas. There’s a misnomer that every startup is a completely new idea—as if whispered by a genie. Not true. By studying the industry and understanding what’s on the frontier, you can become an expert and building something 10x better. Rob advocates a three-step process for de-risking new ventures and building 10x better products: 1) Study 100 competitors (product, marketing, branding, etc.). 2) Talk to 100 existing users (likes, improvements, etc.) 3) Talk to 20 industry experts, including former competitors’ employees, venture investors, etc. For risk-averse entrepreneurs, this is a proven viable pathway—the exact path Rob took in building ContactOut. Takeaway 2: Company building has never been more accessible. Building huge companies doesn’t require being in the US, but it does require a top-tier product and distribution advantage (e.g., like the product-led growth Canva and Atlassian have achieved). Content and Capital are abundant everywhere. Wages are cheaper outside the US. And the cost of building companies continues to decrease with more powerful technology. Non-US residents should spend time in the US to understand the Company-building ethos, but building offshore is more feasible than ever. Takeaway 3: The biggest educators of the future will be social-media natives. The world is changing rapidly. In 10 years, jobs will be entirely different, driven by AI, remote work, and content creation. Schools and universities aren’t equipped to keep up with a rapidly changing world and prepare students for a workforce that’s uncertain in 5, let alone 10 years. Future students need current, tacit knowledge from various fields to succeed. The best people to provide this are those leading these fields. In 20 years, most of the world could be creators and the top educators could be individuals at the top of their fields. Takeaway 4: Entrepreneurs need alternative education and funding models. We need alternative education models that empower more people to become ‘builders’ and solve meaningful problems, instead of pursuing traditional careers. Traditional accelerators like Y-Combinator are highly selective, accepting less than 1% of startups. Rob is aiming to solve this through his Venture Studio, Athena.vc, by matching salaries, mentoring, and investing in builders working on hard problems. Check out the top comment for more on Rob's process 👇