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Cool idea for a thread. I've worked at a bunch of startups over the years, I'm a big believer in self funding and don't buy into the cofounder meme. I love the essays of Paul Graham and for some practical advice this is a great little book http://www.startupbook.net/
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Sep 22, 2011 23:52
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Vladimir Putin posted:Where do startups usually get funding in the early stages? Is it usually just friends and family? I have a friend who is trying to do an engineering startup which needs almost a million dollars in the first year to get it off the ground. Where would he even get access to this kind of money so early in the game (I guess designing computer hardware is expensive?)? He has a bunch of patents filed so is IP is protected, but I can't dream of any investors that would put so much money in so early. Go to SF and start sucking cocks. There is a boom on right now driving by walls of money looking for a home thanks to zero interest rates. There's a bunch of VC events or just try and set up meetings with whoever will listen. One mil isn't really that much, if anything you want to aim high, a guy with 100 mil would probably rather give 10 mil to 10 people than 1 mil to 100 people.
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Sep 24, 2011 00:05
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Vladimir Putin posted:So basically he's got to get a powerpoint deck together and pitch to whoever will listen? I'm sure his CEO is trying to ring people up and set up meetings right now for them, if he's a decent CEO. I'm just curious as to the funding environment because he seems to be nervous about the availability due to the ongoing economic crisis. He should definitely have all that stuff but also look on meetup there's a bunch of entrepreneur meets always happening and they're a good place to meet people/trade notes etc. Yeah theres an economic crisis tech has been largely insulated from it. I couldn't really say on this specific case but in general if its a good idea and they know what they are doing there is definitely the money out there, they just gotta find the right people.
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Sep 24, 2011 15:16
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2nd Rate Poster posted:It's real loving lovely and there is a dark sides to startups. I know a lot of people who have been burnt so badly at startups. I know one guy who made a bit of cash but nothing you couldnt make at a corporate gig for a few years (which would be a lot less/work stress). Thats a lot of burnt people for one guy that did kinda ok (and he is at a pretty high profile place). Unless you're a founder and don't need external funding the odds are very much against you in my experience. There's exceptions for sure but they are exceptions. Wildly successful startups where even the cooks get rich are so very rare they make headlines across the world and are talked about for years after. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Dec 14, 2011 |
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Dec 14, 2011 00:29
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Yeah I have done it myself, but now I'm too old/grumpy to kill myself for someone else's half baked idea. I worked at a startup in London once, it was a great business and I came on at a late stage and left after a year anyway. Some of the people had been there from the start (like 5+ years), the owners eventually sold for 110 million GBP (not sure what they got out of it) but the regular staff got absolutely nothing. There's just a gagillion stories like that out there. It can be cool working on new/innovative stuff too (which you typically dont get in a corporate), but just make sure you're actually getting paid along the way and not working for some equity riches dream.
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Dec 14, 2011 01:19
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Gnack posted:Working on a fairly basic startup project myself, so I was pretty pleased to find this thread. You could have a read of this http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741756906 see if a library has it. To get funding you tell anyone who listens about the insane amounts of money they will make if they give you some. From what I have seen VC is not really a "thing" in Australia, by the time your business gets to a state where they will give you money, you no longer really need funding from them ...
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Jul 9, 2012 09:36
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Who is your market and how are you reaching them?
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Jul 12, 2012 01:07
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hello dog posted:This came out longer than I expected. Thanks in advance for any guidance. Since you don't need that much money could you hit up friends or family? Or get a personal loan? If $6k is going to let you work on it full time for 6 months, it's not that much money. Or just try and save it up if your current income lets you. Seems like it would save a lot of hassle regarding lawyers and contracts etc. Have you tried any industry forums or groups (like trade shows or whatever) to network and find a mentor type deal? For my stuff I am a member of one paid forum and have a paid mentor who offers it as a service, some people balk at the idea of these but in terms of ROI it is easily the best money I have ever spent. I think a lot of people operate in a fairly cowboy like way wrt legality and stuff. In your case I would definitely make sure you are complying with age related laws, but for the other stuff what is going to happen? If you get sued it doesn't really sound like you have any assets anyway. I'm not recommending this, but you wouldn't be the first person operating in such a manner. You have enough on your plate and limited funds so be very careful about what you do with your capital, make sure whatever you spend it on is really worth it. Later if/when you get more income you can address outstanding items.
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Jul 21, 2012 05:54
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That looks really cool, you should post it in the "Stuff you're working on" thread in CoC you might get additional feedback there. How did you decide on the pricing? I think it is good because it is so clear, but I wonder how many accounts you would need registered to make it worth your while, you dont want to sell yourself short. Even just a one off $10 signup/registration is still really cheap, and there will always be support stuff that needs to be covered.
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Jul 22, 2012 10:24
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Yeah that is cool, pricing can be really tricky. I remember listening to some podcast that was interviewing this guy who had done research on how successful startups take on incumbents. He basically said successful ones started off by being worse and cheaper, using salesforce as an example. It lacked a lot of features of all the big CRMs but was cheap and filled a niche, until eventually it ended up eclipsing a lot of the more entrenched ones.
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Jul 22, 2012 11:27
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Here are 2 podcasts I thought I had posted http://techzinglive.com/page/257/techzing-56-rob-walling-the-micropreneur-academy quote:Justin and Jason speak with Rob Walling, founder of the Micropreneur Academy, author of Start Small, Stay Small and co-host of the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us, about how to dramatically increase your odds of success when bootstrapping a microISV. Some of the topics discussed include the love of making things and the drive to create, how to pick a product niche and why not to create a horizontal offering, why the freemium model doesn’t work for bootstrapping startups and whether Justin should discontinue free accounts for Pluggio, the difficulty of competing against venture backed startups, how to create a landing page and build an email list, possible marketing and pricing strategies for AppIgnite, Google’s SEO guidelines, why software as a service is a better business than software as a product, how to buy websites and build a portfolio of web investments, outliers and why it’s better not to try to emulate them, the time, effort and talent required to create a personal platform (ala 37 signals and Joel Spolsky) and why email lists are so valuable. http://techzinglive.com/page/463/76-techzing-interview-thomas-thurston-modeling-disruption this is the guy who talks about salesforce quote:Justin and Jason interview Thomas Thurston of Growth Science International, LLC about his “disruptive innovation” model for predicting whether a startup will succeed or fail.
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Jul 23, 2012 07:34
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Getting Real from 37signals appears to be free now (or at least only costs an email address) http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ I haven't read it yet
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Jul 30, 2012 16:46
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Maluco Marinero posted:I want to be quite open about the fact that this is a single owner start up, rather than a big company, they're gonna figure it out anyway in dealing with me. If being open about that sounds unprofessional then ah well, but I guess I could think of a better way to word things when I write the about page. Most companies wont care if you're one man or not, and the ones that do you wont be working with anyway, so I'd leave it out. You should disassociate "you" from "a company that provides a useful service" because they are different things. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but people who will use your service want to deal with the latter, so you should try to present it as such.
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Aug 17, 2012 11:58
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Yeah, its not a big thing. Overall your idea sounds good but i dont know anything about the industry you are in so my opinion is not worth much there. I also wouldn't worry about the design too much, a) i think it looks at least not-horrible, maybe even good, and b) id be willing to bet any existing software in the field probably was birthed in the 90s and looks like rear end so the bar is pretty low. Keep us up to date with how it goes.
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Aug 19, 2012 15:13
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swyys, I think you should provide the option to create an account for your site. Many people are stuck behind corporate firewalls that block things like facebook and g+.
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Dec 18, 2012 09:31
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Smeef posted:I do think there's a lot of irrational exuberance in the startup industry worldwide. Startup entrepreneurs are no longer interested in creating sustainable, profitable businesses. They just want to show explosive growth (often times by faking it), expect some sucker to buy, and then take the money and run. It's more or less always been this way, and yeah it rarely works out.
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Jan 26, 2013 01:15
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Take a read of this, and be cognisant its nearly 15 years old http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html
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Jan 26, 2013 16:35
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Definitely talk to the bank first. Also consider financing it through the owner.
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Aug 29, 2013 02:39
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Konstantin posted:In general selling to government entities as a startup is usually a bad idea. The money may be good, but the amount of babysitting and specialist knowledge needed isn't worth it when you need to grow quickly. What do you think of this situation if you have an ally on the inside, who maybe won't agitate for you but can at least give solid guidance, about process, timelines, what to expect, what to do next that sort of stuff?
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Sep 24, 2013 09:59
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Hey guido, congrats on the launch. I know an investor who's not afraid of 'weird' & just generally a good guy, worth having a chat with. Shoot me a mail unixbeard@gmail.com and I'll give you an intro.
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May 7, 2016 08:03
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