Hey guys, let's found a startup thread!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Hey guys, let's found a startup thread!

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

Creepy Goat posted:

I don't know whether I should write up a thread for this or not, but figured I should post here first for some advice on the feasability of it.

My dad died a couple years back quite suddenly, and I was being groomed to go into a business area of my choosing under his guidance and experience (worked as a very successful international freight and shipping consultant for 30 years). Amongst other things, it left me adrift with no direction and no backup plan for what I wanted to do or where to start. Had a couple of lucky breaks recently, and I think I am getting back on my feet and ready to take some direction.

Now, I worked in Africa qutie recently for a few months and made a good deal of contacts in law, engineering, construction, and government. I want to register a company, go back to my work area in Africa and work free of charge on various projects that I originally had a hand in starting (under a less than stellar programme that I would like to scrub off my CV). Then use that work experience under my private company name as a starting point to get into very low-level contracted work and progress from there.

I understand that doing free work as a company de-values you, but I would be starting out at pretty much rock bottom anyway. Is this a feasible thing to do? If I have a reasonable number of past contracts, even though they are unpaid or at most extremely low-pay, under a registered company name with the contacts to back me up could I progress (albeit very slowly) to proper paid work?

The work I am looking at is construction management primarily in poor and underdeveloped areas. Specifically basic architectural planning, brokering supply deals, negotiating funding and permissions, and actually managing the sites and workers.
I actually did a drat good job whilst I was out there, and I have a pretty high personal bar for 'good job', but because of the lovely organisation I was employed under it gets dismissed by employers even though they had no hand in, or even knowledge of, most of what I was doing.

I have a very cool project involving super-cheap shipping containers that would be areally great selling point for me, although dependant on funding from the state government. Basically 'I am very good at this thing but how do I prove to the people giving me money that I am very good at this thing'.

(Also I realise it's not a textbook startup, but the idea should follow the same principles)

Ive worked on similar projects in a third world country. If I were you, I would utilize your government contacts extensively because this is where any potential money is going to come from. Particularly, you need to saddle up with a national level politician looking to score points through PR generated from civil projects like the ones you are mentioning. A pilot project is necessary to prove that your solution is helping the people. Then your political contact needs to identify funds that can be channeled into such projects. Usually these funds originate from aid given to the country through programs started from first world countries like the US. Someone knowledgeable of this type of funding, and how the government works is going to be your key to success.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2012 03:50

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 04:45

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

Seems theres a lot of good ideas in this thread, what say we start organizing some entrepreneurial goon meets over coffee or drinks? I for one would love to chat with some of you on a saturday and see what projects people are working on. Maybe even gauge interest in your local area for working on a goon project collectively.

Im in the Chicagoland area if anyone is interested in discussing startups or possible ideas for projects and wants to meet. Send me a PM.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2012 18:11

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

guidoanselmi posted:

Well it's been less than two weeks & the real site is up: http://www.nanaya.co. Just announced it for the first time on facebook to people. Time to not make a fool of myself.

Got a press kit, content calendar, list of media contacts who might run a story on this, and dedicated social marketer as we work on the product and all other things. This'll be interesting.

I think the site looks great so far. Nice work! May I ask where you found developers to get the product off the ground? How much of a product did you have before you spoke to VCs?

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 16:04

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

guidoanselmi posted:

I put up an ad on HackerNews, but there was a lot of noise to filter out. I boiled it down to a firm (partly outsourced) and a person. I wasn't really at ease with either (inconsistent communication with one and the other wanted equity off the bat). I was just going to choose the next day but then managed to run into someone local to make a quick landing page who turned out to be a fullstack dev looking for a real gig after just moving to town. We got along really well and she was enthusiastic to sign up for a few months of work.

I haven't spoken to VC's formally yet (a business school professor does run his own fund and I've been advised a little bit by him). I'm self-funding.

Good stuff. If you don't mind my asking, how much have you put in money wise to get this far? And what are your next steps now that the site is up?

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 16:56

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

Fisticuffs posted:

It's not a revelation in terms of the technology at least. And data streaming is already really popular as you said. Basically the distinction is the delivery model and the businesses that I'd target to get onto the platform. I think I'd be approaching the market in a somewhat novel fashion and probably approaching some vendors that have not been courted or at least in this fashion.

E: tbh if someone could point me towards something where I could learn how to set up something similar to ESPN3 I would appreciate it. I think if I understood well enough how that functioned I could modify it*

*Pay someone else to build it for me most likely

You need to first identify what you yourself are able to accomplish. If you are not technical and cannot build a prototype yourself, begin with writing out the idea and business plan first. If you are really serious about it, writing a 5-10 page plan won't be that hard. Google business plan examples to get an idea. Once you have something written out, show it to people and get their feedback. Ask someone who is in the industry to look at it and see what they think. You need people to poke holes in your idea to make sure it will hold up. If you can convince others the idea is good, then the next step will be to convince a technical cofounder to join you and help build the prototype.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2014 17:06

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

guidoanselmi posted:

Glad to hear you say that. I spent a lot of time going over the pros and cons of this test (via Traitify.com) and applymagicsauce.com. I decided on the former for what could/should be some obvious reasons. An early article covering us reviewed both as New Scientist covered the Cambridge group of ApplyMagicSauce and thought our assessment was more accurate.

The romantic personality test has yet to be built.

The psychometrics & metadata will populate the database that the algorithm uses. Wonky details on how that data is useful are here.

I'm essentially bootstrapping my way to the dataset that online dating sites (eHarmony & Chemistry, at least. OKC's personality assessment is not really psychometrics and more of a "List of Values"). Once the DB is sufficiently populated* I can run the algorithm.

*Dataset density is pretty much what drives a lot of the product & model. There's some fun methodologies and data studies that can let us make generalizations, ironically some using the work of the folks that made ApplyMagicSauce!

One way to get a good chuck of data is develop some facebook app/questionnaire. One of those things you see people constantly linking saying "What personality type are you?" These things are pretty much clickbait, but a lot of people click them apparently.

Are you open to any additional invetstment? You should do a private Goon round of funding. You might find some of us here willing to throw our hats in the ring with you. As a bonus, it is a great learning experience for goons wanting to learn about private investing. Just a thought.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 18:56

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

guidoanselmi posted:

I'm looking for investment and can't really build very much without it at the moment. I'm working on a few potential deals at the moment but nothing really clear yet. I'm not really promoting Nanaya on the forums much because, well, it's SA. I have all equity and wouldn't mind giving some away if there's a well-positioned CEO or talented dev who can help me. I wrote earlier in the thread about doing kickstarter and between responses here and elsewhere I was dissuaded. If you're curious about what my goal is in all of this, feel free to ping me at info at nanaya dot co.

There's a lot I could write about my experiences in STL, maybe one day. Baby Babbeh hit the nail on the head, entirely.

No need to go all the way to Silicon Valley. Chicago has an awesome startup scene. There are quite a few tech incubators that have sprung up in the last 5 years and several big players in the VC arena.

http://www.pritzkergroup.com/venture-capital/

http://www.lightbank.com/

http://www.hydeparkvp.com/

http://www.1871.com/

Some additional reading material

http://technori.com/

http://www.builtinchicago.org/

You should make a trip up here and attend a few startup events. I hope to get more involved in the next year when other aspects of my life have settled a bit. Chicago has a nice balance of East and West startup culture. Not too extreme in either.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 18:45

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

Comrade Flynn posted:

So I finally got off my rear end last March and founded a company with my old boss essentially helping mobile games launch (which is all we did in our normal careers).

http://mobilegamepartners.com/

First 6 months were tough as we got it up and running and scoured for clients but now it is extraordinarily successful. We now represent some of the top independent mobile games, which is nice as we take a revenue share typically.

Actually about to do our first press release next week.

Looks like you guys have hit the ground running! Congrats!

Can you share some tidbits from the early stages of forming the company? Did you guys quit your dayjobs right away, or did you work on it in your spare time while working full time? Did you bootstrap or raise funds? What was your initial budget like before you got your first client?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 21:17

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

Comrade Flynn posted:

Sure.

I'd started two successful mobile publishing arms for mobile game companies, so I always had it in the back of my mind that I could do this on my own. My boss then quit the company we were at, and about a month later I ended up in an argument with the CEO and quit in the heat of the moment. Since we were both trying to decide what we wanted to do, we decided to give it a go as we'd always discussed how a lot of mobile game companies were kind of stuck in a limbo of being too big to work with a traditional publisher (and the 40-50% revenue share that usually comes with them) but too small to keep a full time business development/marketing team around when they only launch 1-2 games per year.

We started talking to a lot of people (including Apple and Google) and the feedback was universally positive, so we decided to make the plunge. We had planned on it taking 18 months to turn cash flow positive, so I had a lot of savings and a very supportive wife. Our first two clients were duds (we fulfilled our part of the bargain but they had grossly misrepresented how well their games performed) so we were actually really on the fence if it was going to work when we had our first huge hit. We ended up turning our first profit after 7 months and it's gone up substantially every month since.

We've been offered funding numerous times now but have always turned it down. The irony of course that people are offering to invest now that it's hugely profitable. I've raised money for a company in the past and hated all the strings that came along with it.

It's a pretty lean operation. Just the two of us. Our main expenses are going to conferences and legal bills from the contracts.

EDIT: The coolest part has been seeing how well our clients have done partially due to what we've done for them. One of them is moving form a 1600 sq ft office into a 12,000 sq ft office.

Awesome stuff. Have the both of you discussed where you want to go with the company? Strings from outside investment can suck, yes, but it can help you scale up really quickly if that is your goal.

Being that you are profitable and investors are coming to you, look at it from another perspective: Investors should interview with you to come on board. You hold the cards, not them, in this situation. Counter their offer with more favorable terms for yourself. Bring someone on as an investor who, in addition to capital, can contribute their own expertise and become a valuable adviser on your board.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 22:15

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 04:45

lunatikfringe: Jan 22, 2003

OmNom posted:

I came on as a non-technical co-founder for a live streaming website, StreamShops and would like to get some feedback on site design, usability, and flow. My background is in operations, business development, and sales - I just closed down my own project, a cookie company, called A couple Smart Cookies.

Taking a cue from Kickstarter,Patreon and Twitch, he started StreamShops as way for online content creators to be supported directly by their followers. The operating costs are going up for "Youtube" and internet stars, while the margins they are working on are thinning. This didn't sit well with him and he wanted to provide an alternate platform for people to monetize their intellectual property.

My friend and I are working hard to drive traffic to the site, are surrounding up with some great technical minds who've done very well with tech startups, online/mobile games, and running large scale business operations. While we are not naive in thinking that we are able to directly compete with Youtube or Twitch, we do want to secure our own robust user base a see whose attention we can get. Right now we want to become another tool for online content creators to use to generate income and grow from there.

Id like to give some constructive criticism so don't take it in a negative way. Your UI design definitely needs work. You may want to bring in a dedicated UI person to really jazz things up. Working in media you need to have really vibrant but fluid design. As a comparison, look at the Ustream and Vimeo sites. They are pretty good examples of a modern website layout and design aesthetic.

http://www.ustream.tv/

http://vimeo.com/

It doesn't take a lot of money or technical resources to design a good UI. Just have to have someone with really good artistic vision and know how. You might even want to explore outsourcing your UI design work if you don't currently have the expertise in house. Your idea is promising but needs better presentation.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 22:53

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Hey guys, let's found a startup thread!