Cesar Kuriyama: Building An Accidental Business

Born in Peru, and raised as a math and science nerd in New Jersey with a passion for movies and storytelling, Cesar worked in advertising before leaving it all behind to pursue his own personal creative endeavours; among them a personal project – 1SecondEveryday.

It took time and a co-founder, Schoneck Shoaf, to turn it into a business, but now the App has been downloaded over 2 million times.

In this talk from BoS USA 2019, Cesar will share the story of how he accidentally turned his idea for a tool that would encourage him to be more adventurous into 1SecondEveryday. This became a thriving, bootstrapped, remote only, business that became the number one paid app in Apple’s App Store in 2018. Cesar shares the decision-making process that ultimately led to a change in business model, a rewrite of the platform and to taking outside capital.

Find out how 1Second Everyday:

make remote working work
changed the business model as it grew up
discovered the ever-growing number of alternative sources of funding available to software entrepreneurs.

Slides

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Cesar Kuriyama

Cesar was born in Peru, but raised as a maths and science nerd in New Jersey with a passion for movies and storytelling.

For many years he worked in advertising for clients like BMW, Verizon & the NFL but left it behind so he could pursue his own personal creative endeavours, among them a personal project – 1SecondEveryday – the idea was unveiled at TED 2012. It took time and a co-founder, Schoneck Shoaf, to turn it into a business. Today, the App has been downloaded almost 2 million times. In his spare time he attends lectures, seeks out unique adventures and helps friends and strangers with their ideas.