EasyA

i just turned 28. and i’m now officially one of cambridge’s leading alumni. i’ve got to admit. i’m kinda speechless. only 5 other people in history have ever received this award.

the other alumna in the photo with me is prof. denny levett.

she literally invented a new way to cure cancer. yep, CURE CANCER.

the guy with me is lord chris smith, former secretary of state. master of my college. who presented the award to me.

wild.

when my co-founder dom and i first started EasyA, nothing was certain. i said goodbye to a career at one of the world’s leading law firms. and dom left millions on the table when he handed in his resignation.

all to work on a totally new idea. totally unproven. with no backup plan.

we moved back in with our parents. and wrote the first lines of code in our childhood bedrooms.

i could talk about the sleepless nights, the countless times the code didn’t work, the moments where nothing seemed to go our way. but none of that really matters.

looking back, what truly matters is that every single day, dom and i showed up. we wrote more code. fixed more bugs. we sent more emails and got on more calls.

and at some point, things started to go our way. users started to stick around. they started loving the app. and they started coming to our events in the thousands.

so today, we have over a million users. who’ve created the most world-changing startups. valued at over $3 billion.

and we’re still just getting started.

even though it’s me physically getting this award, in reality it’s everyone around me that helped make this happen.

my brother and co-founder, with whom i’ve shed sweat and blood (sometimes literally, but that’s a story for another time).

my parents, who allowed us to move back in when our salaries dropped to precisely $0.

my team, who’ve shown the most commitment i’ve ever seen at any startup.

and of course all the other incredible people around me.

there’s so much more i could share about how we got to this moment. but it’ll have to wait. i have another set of back to back meetings to get to rn. and i’m already running late.

time waits for nobody. and there’s still so much more to build.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

1 month ago | [YT] | 9

EasyA

Hey Everyone! I couldn't be more excited to share our second video in this series! This guest designed rocket launch pads for NASA, Elon Musk's Hyperloop, and graduated with the highest honours from one of the world's top universities (Columbia University) 👩‍🎓

But it wasn't always plain sailing. In fact, she actually had to repeat a year of maths at school. And what surprised me even more is that is she doesn't consider herself a maths genius 🧠

This is the story of the person behind ‪@pinkpencilmath‬, how she came to be, and the struggles she overcame to get to where she is today.

I was honoured to hear Tanya's story, and today I couldn't be more excited to share it with you 🤗

My mission with these videos is to inspire you, and show you that anything is possible. Even the most famous people started off sitting in a chair no different to the one you're sitting in right now. Remember - if you can dream it, you can do it! I'll be sharing the stories of many more of your favourite creators soon, so follow along! 🙌

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

EasyA

Aloha friends! 👋 I just dropped a brand new video you're going to love! If you're looking to level up in 2024, this is an absolute must-watch! I had the opportunity to ask the world's most famous real estate broker to share the inside story on his success. 👇

This is the story of how it all began for ‪@RyanSerhant‬. From Ryan's humble beginnings as a kid knocking on doors, through to his meteoric rise all the way to the top of New York. This was an absolutely fascinating conversation, where I personally learnt a huge amount. There's a piece of advice for everyone in this video. Go check it out and let me know what you'd want me to ask next! 😄

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

EasyA

What is a hackathon? What happens? Do people actually hack into things, and is it like in the movies?

I’ve made videos explaining hackathons in theory. But there’s nothing like going to a hackathon in-person. At the world’s best university: Harvard.

This is the story of how a handful of students came together and started building the future in one weekend. Their story will inspire you to do the same.

Narrated by yours truly. Hope you enjoy it! 🙌

- Phil :)

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

EasyA

I was midway through lunch when my co-founder told me we'd just been featured as one of the top 100 startups 🍽️

I was like: "NO FRIGGIN WAY" 🤯

Then he sent me the website. And I checked. And no - it wasn't April Fools.

Literally the best year ever. And it's barely even begun...

1 year ago | [YT] | 5

EasyA

2023. What a year. When I was an undergrad at Cambridge, I poured my heart out pitching at the annual college startup prize. The brightest minds came together from the university that gave birth to household names like Newton, Turing, Hawking, and billion-dollar companies like Arm.

The prize? £2,000.

For one winner. For a whole year.

I could never have imagined that just a few years later, in 2023, I would give away 500x that.

$1,000,000. In a single year. Equity-free. No strings attached.

All because of one thing which Dom and I did: we co-founded EasyA, building it into one of the world’s fastest-growing startups today.

Wild. YouTube legend ‪@alementary‬ calls us the MrBeast of Web3. I love the name, but there’s so much more to it…

Where does the story begin? Why did we do it? What’s the lesson to be learnt?

This is a picture of me in my college’s library as I was graduating. I was looking at the books whose spines I had broken in from reading them over and over again. It was the last time I would open those books again. It was time to start a new chapter in my life.

I didn’t quite know it at the time, but my life was about to change forever. I would no longer be reading chapters. Instead, I would be writing my own.

They say you must be the change you wish to see in the world.

If you see something that should be different, you have the power to make it different.

Just £2,000 in funding. To one winner. In one whole year. It’s obvious founders need more than that to succeed. So with the resources we’ve amassed through EasyA, we created the change we wanted to see. That’s why we upped it to an unparalleled $1,000,000.

In school, they teach you to follow the path well-trodden. To do as you’re told. 

If you’re reading this and wondering what 2024 holds for you, stop. It’s not a chapter to be predicted or read to you. 2024 is yours to be written by none other than you, yourself. 

To everyone looking ahead to next year, let’s write this next chapter together. Whether you’re pitching your startup idea, fighting your own battles, or anything in between, I’ll see you in 2024!

1 year ago | [YT] | 5

EasyA

Today, I was invited by the BBC to share how Dom and I grew EasyA from just two guys coding in our bedrooms to one of the fastest-growing startups in the world, about to hit 1M developers in our community. I couldn’t have been more honoured to be the first ever Web3 founder to join for this special hour-long episode alongside billion-dollar founder Brent Hoberman. For those of you who don’t know, Brent’s startup Lastminute was acquired for $1.1Bn.

But how did we get here?

Dom and I were never forced to launch EasyA. Dom had just graduated from Wharton and was working at the world's largest Private Equity firm (Blackstone) in New York. I had just come first at Cambridge University and was one of the youngest people ever to qualify as an attorney in New York.

The road ahead was plain and simple. Stick at it, and rise to the top of our firms.

But something wasn’t quite right. The road ahead was clear as day, but what would we find at the end? Where would we be aged 30, 40, or even 50? Looking back, what would we have achieved?

We couldn’t get these questions out of our heads.

So in 2019, Dom and I founded EasyA. Flash forward to today, we have a team with some of the most brilliant minds in the world. It feels like we’ve somehow managed to create a company filled with the tech equivalents of Bruce Lee: any single one of them could face off against 10 people on the opposite team and win. Every time.

We’ve brought thousands upon thousands of people into Web3, and they’ve gone onto achieve incredible things. Every few weeks some of them band together and decide to build a million-dollar startup, and they’ve been backed by the best of the best. From a16z to Y Combinator, few in the world would turn down the opportunity to bet on the EasyA community.

Looking back, it feels like a one in a billion chance we’d make it. How did the stars manage to align so perfectly that I would be born the brother of a quantitative genius in Dom, that we’d find our calling so early on in life or that we’d be able to assemble a team of the finest talent we’ve ever seen come together in one place.

Sometimes I sit by myself and ask: If I were starting again, and there were only that one in a billion chance that the stars would align as they have done, would I do it? Would I have risked the 99.9999999% chance we’d fail?

The answer has always been the same: I’d do it every time.

To everyone who’s supported us along the way, I am eternally grateful for your support. You know who you are.

And if by the end of this you want to listen to the BBC episode, check it out on Wake Up to Money on BBC iPlayer!

Skip the Carousel

1 2

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 7

EasyA

There's a reason lectures make us fall asleep. And the solution's so simple it's crazy nobody's doing anything about it...

If you want to teach something, you've got to make it so easy that someone could understand it with their brain turned off 🧠📵

It's easy to fall into the trap of overcomplicating things just because it feels smart. But at the end of the day, what good is feeling smart? Nobody will learn what you're trying to teach... 👨‍🏫

Creating content is an absolute trial by fire. Overcomplicate it, and you'll lose your audience instantly. They're free to leave at any point. Nobody's held captive in a lecture hall or forced to attend 🏫

If you want to learn how to teach, make a video on it and watch your analytics. It's a literal cheat code to becoming 10x better at teaching. It's insane more people don't do it 💯

You may not realise it, but every successful YouTube creator has mastered this. Just watch any of the people below and you'll see what I mean. ‪@Karl‬, ‪@hafu‬, ‪@TDBRICKS‬, ‪@ColbyMartel‬, ‪@SoupTimmy‬...

Together, we've got billions of monthly views 📺

Which is all a long way of saying... It was brilliant catching up with old friends and new friends in Dallas, and sharing what we've learnt along the way. See y'all again soon! Yee-haw! 🤠

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

EasyA

3 years ago I was just a guy with a dream, coding in my bed. Somewhere along the way, that bed turned into an office, and a dream team. It wasn’t always clear we’d make it, but somehow EasyA (the app we created) became THE app people use to get a leg up in life. Today, I finally shared that story with the world’s greatest minds, from founders of billion-dollar startups to world-famous leaders, including the incredible ‪@idriselba163‬.

Growing up in London the son of immigrant parents, Idris is a man who has spent his life giving back to his community. I still have a long way to go ahead, but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to pay it forward every chance I get.

This profile is just one of the ways I pour my heart out every day to share what I’ve learnt on my journey so far. And I’m truly grateful for your support. Here’s to making the world a better place! Keep spreading the love, and keep supporting each other! ❤️

1 year ago | [YT] | 3

EasyA

I don’t post much about what we work on outside of YouTube, but we just reached a massive milestone we had to share! I know lots of you are working on side-hustles and startups, so here are the lessons I had to learn the hard way!

What are you working on? Let me know if I should make more of these posts!

#startupstories #startups #howibuiltthis

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5

1 year ago | [YT] | 3