Just Launch, Mate. - SHR!MP S01E02

10 October 2025

As a first step, I applied to a startup competition - and nothing less than the Entrepreneurship World Cup would do.

A deadline to pitch is my best motivator to get started and work on putting an idea on paper.

A real project/company name was also required. Days went by, pondering and wasting endless hours on playing through options of potential creative company names (like Desert Shrimp, Shrimpbot, Space Shrimp, Ocean Reactor, Blue Farmer, Deep Current, Tidal Gen Bio Harvest, Deep Sea Foods and other great ideas...).

Ultimately, I gave up and decided just to call it what it is: shrimp - at least for starters. At least everyone will understand what it's about.

Surprisingly, shrimp.com.au was still available for sale (at around $9999). While this looked like a great investment opportunity, it seemed wiser to stick to the startup playbook.

Who needs the "i" anyway -  ShrimpoFarm is a high-tech biotech company, and vowels are so 2020. SHRMP.bio was born for about $99. And innovative SHRMP.bio(tech) is what we aim to do.

As the second step, I joined Startmate's Launchclub.

Launchclub definitely helped provide some structure around the initial steps - it was tough at times to find the motivation and focus to do it "alone." In the first months, SHRMP.bio took shape at home, at Startmate's office, at yacht clubs (providing a workspace away from home!), cafés, airports, and hotels – having the weekly Startmate check-ins with a virtual and occasionally real team proved really helpful.

I met really interesting people and learned something new every day across a broad range of business and technology fields. In short, it was great fun.

But how long would the fun go for?