The Nugget Startup Academy

Your Startup Incubator

Stop launching failed products. Learn how to discover, validate, build and launch a profitable side project.

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Experience
A startup incubator experience. Work from any location at any pace.
Learning
Inquiry-based instructional model to validate and launch a profitable startup.
Camaraderie
A batch of 10 founders to work along side as you move toward your common goal.
Guidance
1-on-1 mentoring from SaaS bootstrappers with combined revenue $1m+/year

Founders love us at the Nugget Startup Academy

"For the first time in many years of trying to figure out how to monetize my development skills, Justin and this course have cracked it open for me. Honestly, I have not found this level of interaction and substance in any other course or community I have been involved with."
Tom M.
"The course is like a bright light in a dark cave. I went from trying lots of different random ideas as a regular Nugget member to my first $50 sale. This was made possible by following the exact steps laid out in the Academy."
Chris F.
"I was struggling to balance a full-time job and a side project. I don't know how the Academy managed to fix that, but it has. I would pay $297/month knowing what I know now, and seeing how it's playing out. It's worth every penny."
Habib A.
"I didn't realize it wasn't $250/month already. I was willing to pay that for 6 months, especially given how much I've been learning so far, so yeah, $100/month would've been a no brainer."
John G.
"The value I have received from the Academy has exceeded my expectations. I’m in a drastically better position, and succeeding in ways I never have before. I would never have known what I was doing and have the confidence to do it if it weren’t for the Academy."
Cody R.
"I've been stuck on coming up with ideas but following the process I was able to generate 50+ ideas and narrow the list down to one to focus on. The course is well-structured, Justin is always there to help, I don't see how you wouldn't end up with a successful side-project if you do the work."
Paulius J.
"The batch approach is very cool. The course helped me understand which of my 36 ideas was the right one to follow. I've already had external validation which has given me confidence to move forward."
Jean-Paul D.
"I’ve tried turning side projects into businesses in every way but the right way. The Academy is giving me the blueprint that I've missed on my own and fits in perfectly with a full-time job. Having access to Justin and a group of members keep me accountable and provides answers that weren’t available before. The Academy is worth every penny and then some!"
Charles B.

Listen to founders talk about their experience at the Academy.



A Startup Incubator
For Your Side Project

There are many reasons it's difficult to attend a traditional incubator, from low acceptance rates (3%) to lifestyle considerations. At the Academy, you'll be accepted as long as you're a good fit. Also, you can work from any location, at any pace.

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A Proven Process to Discover & Validate Your Side Project

We use cutting edge instructional techniques to help you discover, validate, build and launch a profitable side project. Over 25% of our founders have acquired seed customers for their side project.

Check out the Academy process

A Batch of 10 Founders to Keep You Sane

Seeing 9 other founders making progress, doing the same course as you, is the best existence proof there is. Your batch keeps you centered, is your mastermind group, is a place to share knowledge and a way to be held accountable.

Each batch has its own private Slack group. Members' progress and course work are posted to the Slack. In this way, batch members develop deep insight about each other's journey, and true camaraderie builds over time.

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A Mentor to Help You Overcome Road Blocks

Our mentors earn a living as solo founders and bootstrappers (combined revenue of $1m+/year). They've done this for a long time. We go well beyond the usual forum based Q&A's. We offer office hours style mentoring in Slack any time you need.

Right now we have 3 full time mentors. The next milestone on our roadmap is to scale mentoring at the Academy. We're adding an integrated mentoring platform and will be inviting 100's of proven mentors to come and join us. You will be grandfathered in.

A Way to Prove You're Not Wasting Time

Track your project stats even before it exists. What worked? What didn't? Measure everything. Make key decisions based on data, not guesswork.

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A Way to Celebrate Wins and Inspire Others

Celebrate your wins, log your journey and track your momentum. Your updates are posted to the community and to your batch.

A Course of Bite-Sized Simple Logical Lessons

Our lessons are built on first principles, mental models, logic and facts. Each lesson builds on the next and teaches actionable skills.

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A Plan to Shoot for Your Lifestyle AND For The Moon

Yes, we'll show you how to start a micro business and focus on bootstrapping your first $100. Then, we'll shoot for $1,000/month, then $10,000/month and so on. Everything about the Academy is focused on executing in the short term, with an eye on the long game.

It's worth noting, over 10 Unicorns started out as microprenure bootstrapped side projects. This is discussed on our page The Why.

A Lifetime Alumni Membership with Lifetime Benefits

We may be new and small, but we are strong and our vision is big. Next up we're building a mentoring platform. Then an investor platform. As a Lifetime Alumni, you will get access to all of these enhancements and more.

See Our Full Roadmap

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Meet Your Instructor

Hey there! I am Justin V. founder, builder and author of The Nugget Startup Academy.

Originally from the UK, I live in Los Angeles with my lovely wife Georgie and son Jack. In my day job I am CTO and founding team member of an EdTech startup. We've raised over $10m and have 40 employees. Our product impacts hundreds of thousands of kids.

As a side project I bootstrapped and sold Pluggio a SaaS social media dashboard. I also co-host well known tech startup podcast called TechZing where we have interviewed many founders such as Patrick Collison (Stripe), Rob Walling (Drip), Derek Sivers (CD Baby).

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