Startups Weekly Feedback and Support Thread |
- Weekly Feedback and Support Thread
- My business just went Freemium and it's a mix of relief, happiness, and glorious amounts of stress
- Is this idea dumb? ATM-Bro!
- As someone who wants to open an online business, what would be the perfect e-commerce platform for you?
- 2 free alternatives to Gmail for Business
- Need advice on opening up an online store?
- Has anybody added Google one-tap / yolo to their app?
- How to convince more users to keep trying a "weird" type of app until they get used to it?
- Developers or those who have been pitched by a founder, how would you want to be approached to join an early startup?
- Is Kickstarter a good place to look for investors?
- Westworld meets aniti-alcoholism
- Hiring for the first time — subcontractors vs employees
- Building a Website without coding a Website
- Looking to translate my app on iOS and Android to Spanish
- How's the video game business?
- Are CTOs typically paid less than CEOs?
- Shipping a 1000 packages to Detroit economically
- Bit of guidance please!
- What made Square stand out of the crowded market?
- Team up? Or push forward solo?
- Is it a good idea to approach a Venture Cap firm to act as broker in a M&A proposal?
- Partnership info??
| Weekly Feedback and Support Thread Posted: 27 Nov 2017 03:07 AM PST Create something? Let's see it! Feedback or Support RequesterPlease use the following format:
Post your site along with your stack and technologies used and receive feedback from the community. Please refrain from just posting a link and instead give us a bit of a background about your creation. Feel free to request general feedback or specific feedback in a certain area like user experience, usability, design, or code review. Feel free to request support with hiring talent, finding a job/clients, recruiting a co-founder, getting your pitch deck made, or anything objective based that is specific to your startup. You can also receive advice and feedback in instant chat using the /r/startups discord. Feedback Providers
Support Providers
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| My business just went Freemium and it's a mix of relief, happiness, and glorious amounts of stress Posted: 27 Nov 2017 12:29 PM PST Just need to get it out of my system. Throwaway account. I built and ran a web platform for free for the first year. Scaled it to a couple millions of pageviews and tens of thousands of MAUs. Business was barely making any money via Ads - couple hundred dollars a month to be rough. But enough for the site to sustain itself - and the user engagement was great so I wasn't worried. Then we went freemium last week and within days our MRR grew to couple thousand dollars and a hundred or so paying subscribers. Now I have a real profitable business! That's the great part. And here I was perpetually concerned about whether people would pay at all. I would wake up and have $200~$300 more in my bank account. What a great progress. But at the same time, it was probably the most miserable week ever. Asking for money really spurred emotions from the community. Got lots of angry customer emails for bugs on the site (which is good! because nobody told me about the bugs when we were free). But every waking hour I'm scrounging to fix problems, so I hardly have any time to enjoy the minor success that I've had so far. In fact the stress level is insane. Getting passive aggressive customer emails and some openly aggressive ones. I used to think that if I worked for myself, I wouldn't have a boss. Turns out that's very wrong. The worst part is a small part of our community turning on the business. They called the brand some really terrible phrases even though we literally just added more features on top and the free content remained free. People on the internet can be really, really rude. The majority of the our community supported the decision to go freemium and drowned out the negativity, but it was still some of the worst comments I've seen. I guess it's Entrepreunership in a nutshell, but it was such a mix of intense emotions that I just had to let it out a little bit here. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2017 08:55 PM PST AtmBro is walking ATM: You need cash, $20, you press a button on app. People near you get notification, someone takes you up on that. He comes to you by following GPS. They give you cash you pay them $22 through app. Both fist bump, and be on their way. I often have credit card and no cash, and then i need cash like very much. I dont know where to find atm and nor i want to go 4 blocks to that atm, i rather not buy whatever i was about to. you get cash, and they make little extra. Things I want to talk about... a) I was wondering if this is something relatable. b) do you think this will overcome chicken and egg problem. c) what do you think of overall idea. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2017 11:53 PM PST http://www.orbitinformatics.com/most-popular-ecommerce-platforms/ These are 3 of the most popular e-commerce platforms today, but which one is best for you? More and more people are deciding to either open a new online business or just expanding their existing business to provide online service. I've seen the statistics on e-commerce platforms, I know what they say. But real input from people is better, at least for me. I would really like to know what e-commerce platform you prefer and why? Also, let me know if what the article says is wrong [link] [comments]  |
| 2 free alternatives to Gmail for Business Posted: 28 Nov 2017 01:57 AM PST I don't usually use email address for my domains. I don't send emails to press or whatever and I can receive customer feedback to my personal mailbox. But for one project of mine I needed a mail address with my domain simply to prove that it's me, the creator of this project, who mails. And it's not like I am a cheapskate, but having to pay $5/month just to send a couple of emails in a week does not resonate with me. If my business will thrive and grow, I am okay to pay money. But for now I am just starting and don't have money to use paid services. I researched and found 2 great options to send and receive mail with my domain for free. Yandex.Mail This is what I use. The user experience is well done, and the design is slick. They provide complete instructions on domain verification and adding MX records. Another thing I like is that you don't need to setup mail client. You can access your mailbox from a web client. I don't know about you, but I use all my emails only from web. Every time I try to setup desktop or mobile client, something breaks. The sending and receiving mails works as expected. I am sure in the service: Yandex is a huge player in Russia. They provide customer mailboxes (like Gmail) for years. Yandex.Mail is free no matter how much domains and mailboxes you use.
Zoho Mail Zoho Mail serves as mail provider as a part of Zoho Workplace. It is free until you have more than 25 employees and one domain. The interface is a bit confusing. The verification process is super fast. Once your domain is verified, you can create a mailbox. Unfortunately, I didn't found way to read and send emails from the web. The only way I found is to export your emails and then read them with a Desktop software. I successfully received the email I send to myself from my personal email address. I couldn't test sending, because as I mentioned above, I didn't find the web interface. Overall, Zoho Mail works okay, but I don't know any reasons to use it instead of Yandex.Mail unless you want to use other Zoho products. [link] [comments]  |
| Need advice on opening up an online store? Posted: 28 Nov 2017 12:34 AM PST Hey, thanks for reading this post. I am interested in opening up an online store where I can sell some products now I have ideas of the products that I am going to sell in my store and have set most things up. However, I have no experience whatsoever when it comes to creating sites and whatnot, I am technologically dumb. Is there anyway I can open my store online with my limited skill set. I am willing to learn but I am going to school at the sametime so it would take me a while and I would like to open up soon. Any advice with opening stores would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Has anybody added Google one-tap / yolo to their app? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 12:27 PM PST I just added googleyolo (the name made me look at a calendar to see if it could be a April fools joke) to my app and it was by far the best experience I've had adding oauth to an app. Has anyone used this for a while? Any got ya's I should look out for? Customers need a Google Account to use my app, so I'm not losing anyone by requiring this form of sign up, so I think I'm just going to remove the current method of signing up (i.e. adding email and password). https://developers.google.com/identity/one-tap/web/ By they way, yolo is for "You Only Login Once" [link] [comments]  |
| How to convince more users to keep trying a "weird" type of app until they get used to it? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 10:43 PM PST Like most apps I'm having trouble with my churning rate. I've been A/B testing and optimizing my onboarding process which has helped quite a bit. People love the idea, it's (mostly) bug free and the UI is pretty good... but the app is very unique and kind of "weird" and I think it takes users a while to get used to it. Most users who keep the app for over a few days tend to keep it for months or longer. My question is: how do I nudge people to use it for more than a couple of days so that they will get used to it and keep it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2017 09:02 PM PST I'm at the point where I need somebody with some technical skill. I do not have any. None. I'm the founder and need to bring somebody else on. To give some context - I have a prototype for the product on a free cloud-based development platform, but it won't scale and it looks like.. well.. a prototype from a free cloud-based development platform. I have a few developer connections at the software startup where I used to work.. Do I poach them? Do I try networking events? Do I outsource to Romania? I need to add some human capital but also need to be smart about it. The good news is I have a market and can start generating CF immediately so I'm turning to you guys for next steps.. Devs, if you were being approached to either partner or work for compensation, how/where would make you most likely to consider the offer? [link] [comments]  |
| Is Kickstarter a good place to look for investors? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 03:21 AM PST I'm starting a water company and I obviously need money to do that. I was wondering is Kickstarter a good place for that because I see a lot of negative comments about Gettting taken as a joke if your Brand is on there or not getting any funding money because of the high risk of scams. My plan is to meet with investors and attend meeting but I was also thinking why not do both. Also a source told me to go on LinkedIn to find investors and I was wondering if there are any other tips on how to find and meet some? [link] [comments]  |
| Westworld meets aniti-alcoholism Posted: 27 Nov 2017 08:35 PM PST Premise: a) Hypnosis can make people forget the next 30 minutes. b) People would feel more free to engage if neither (or maybe one one in a paid forgetting setting) remembers the event. c) People are social animals and setting up 'memory-free' events is bound to have demand. So basically there are two potential business models: a) All participants take part in the meeting and get the momory-losing hypnosis. b) One part is paid to get the memory-losing hypnosis and the other gets to enjoy and remember the experience. The latter would be something kind of like wesworld, only of course, there would totally be limits what could be done (anything illegal obviously is not acceptable in this business model) [link] [comments]  |
| Hiring for the first time — subcontractors vs employees Posted: 27 Nov 2017 07:09 PM PST I'm currently looking at hiring folks for an upcoming software project, and I'm dumbfounded on whether or not to use a subcontractor. I'm a university student and will likely be hiring other students, but going through the process of actually hiring an employee is something I've never done before and seems incredibly intimidating. The project will be working with application development, and I'll likely need to manage/teach a subcontractor or employee to a certain extent to at least get them moving forward, but I'm fine with them setting their own hours, and paying them either hourly/project based. This project specifically just requires more manpower than I can do on my own, and scaling my own contract work is something I've wanted to do for some time. Does anyone have experience in this realm? [link] [comments]  |
| Building a Website without coding a Website Posted: 27 Nov 2017 10:15 AM PST Hey guy (and gals), I wanted to hear your input on an idea I've been playing around for a while and on the feasibility of making said idea come to life. So I want to build a website that initially serves as a marketing platform for small businesses. From a technical perspective, the website wouldn´t be much more than a bunch of flat pages with a working database on the back that allows for search queries AND maybe analytics for each of the web pages. For its MVP, it shouldn´t need to be too complex. That said, if the idea takes off I would want to eventually rebuild the website to include a log-in for the businesses and a system to automatically populate the website with a business´ info through a fillable form available only by the people that log-in. I would also love to automate the whole payment into a subscription model, as to minimize the need for personnel and keep fixed costs low. On a third phase id love to create an app of the website So my question to you guys is the following: considering my MVP is fairly simple from a technical perspective, and considering I have essentially no knowledge of hosting/backend languages/javascript, would you recommend I use one of those website building services available online? If so, which service do you recommend? I read some of the threads where these services were being discussed and while you guys teared them all to shreds it seemed the main criticism was they only allowed for making very simple websites, however I understand the website I'm trying to make isn't too complex so maybe I could use one of these services? Thank you very much for the input [link] [comments]  |
| Looking to translate my app on iOS and Android to Spanish Posted: 27 Nov 2017 01:13 PM PST Hey all! Currently looking into the best and leanest way possible to translate our app to Spanish. We are launching hyper locally in LA County and half of the county speaks primarily Spanish. It is important that our app is accessible for those communities. I've read a little bit about purchasing the translation on Google Play Console. Does anyone have any history or info on this? Seems almost too good to be true. In addition, what is the best way to go about out doing it for iOS? Looking for the most cost effective and most importantly, time effective way of going about doing this. Don't want to push the launch date any further. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| How's the video game business? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 12:49 PM PST Hey y'all :) My friend and I share a deep passion for video games, and that being said we have a sweet and simple idea for a mobile game which has the capacity to become a great potential if everything goes according to the plan. Both of us graduated this year and have full time jobs so we are sound and secure to go start something on our own. The mobile game business is booming in our country, and the last time I checked there aren't many big companies making video games. This might help us get into the market with an ease. I do have a few questions tho - Do we have the chance to partner up with big brands in our game which brings traffic to both of us? Hiring people is another headache of it's own because not many in our country are into this kind of work. How can I go about this? Can we raise funds on Kickstarter? Or any other investors if we show that we can get on the big stage? What do you think about VR/AR? I'm open for any tips/advice!! [link] [comments]  |
| Are CTOs typically paid less than CEOs? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 03:18 PM PST Curious question... My co-founder and I own a startup that's been doing pretty well and we're on an upward trajectory. I'm the CTO, my co-founder is the CEO. We both bring a lot to the table and neither of us could have built this business without the other. In terms of equity, the CEO has one more share than me to avoid "deadlocks". We have recently reworked our financial projections to reflect some recent changes, and I noticed that the CEO's salary in the coming months is higher than mine. To give some context, I was the first one to commit to working on our startup full-time and the CEO has recently finished a gradual transition from a previous day job. That said, my co-founder has 3 degrees (I have 2), and is quite a bit older than me and has years of industry experience in our field that I don't have. I plan to bring this up for discussion, because I feel that we both contribute equally. I just want to make sure that I enter this discussion well-informed, as this is my first rodeo. Is this typical? I imagine it depends. If so, what factors typically go into this? If, after informing myself, I still feel that the pay should be more even, does anyone who has gone through this before have any tips in how to approach this? [link] [comments]  |
| Shipping a 1000 packages to Detroit economically Posted: 27 Nov 2017 01:07 PM PST I am Canadian living across the border from Detroit. I own a small bookstore and will be purchasing a large order of books from many distributors in the USA. They do not ship to Canada, nor would I want this because the astronomical fees. The packages will be coming all across the US and commingled with all couriers. I need to find an economical way to ship all these packages to a location in Detroit so I can come pick them up in my car. Packages vary in size from 1lb - 20lb. There will be 500 - 1000 packages. The total volume of the packages would be a 1/3 - 2/3 the size of a Mr. Bean car. Normally I'd spend a week at a relatives in Michigan and have them all mailed but they moved so I must get creative. I've contacted stores which offer postal box rentals, including: UPS: $6 per package MyDetroitMailbox: $5 per package Hallstarz: Pending call back USPS: Pending call back At this pace, it appears I am better off renting from an AirBNB and staying in Detroit for 2 weeks to wait for all the packages to arrive (which I dont want to do). Are there any creative ways I can economically ship 500-1000 individual packages in Detroit? For example, purchase / rent a properties address which would accept packages for me and hold them. Or maybe have an address or PO box which would force couriers to leave delivery notices and hold the packages at their depot allowing me to circumvent a retail location holding fee and pick up my packages from couriers depots directly. Any ideas? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2017 08:17 AM PST Hi, Thanks for checking out the post..looking for some advice please. I'm going to change the trade and relevance slightly, as my boss is an active reddit user (queue boss commenting without realising)! So here goes...
So, my question.. how would someone go about gaining this sort of money to take over (350k)? I have always been a 'sweet maker' so the knowledge is there in that aspect and I believe I can make the business grow going forwards. I also have lots of friends who are 'sweet makers' and so the project side of making 'sweets' shouldn't ever be too hard. Its just the lack of funding as an early 30 year old that is restricting me. I appreciate I will need help with the business running and money management, but I have friends with businesses who would be more than happy to advise. I just wish to get a feel from people who may have experienced a similar situation or have any groundbreaking ideas. Thanks for the support either way! [link] [comments]  |
| What made Square stand out of the crowded market? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 05:42 AM PST Hello, Square is in a retail POS market which is very saturated (verifone), and many legacy hardware issues. It's very hard to ask the shops to change their existing POS system. Is Square targeting just new companies? How did Square gain the market share? Is payment processor the reason for their success? If it was just pure POS system alone, do they stand a chance? What make Square POS amazing? Do the small retailers okay with trying out a new POS system? It's amazing how far they got here in a short period. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Team up? Or push forward solo? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 11:13 AM PST I have been developing card games with a small team for a few months and on my end I have made some great headway. I'm bursting with ideas and it's almost painful to shelve an idea because I don't have the time or resources, plus focusing on the projects at hand is most important. I create the games, the mechanics, characters, gameplay, lore ect. I have a web developer however she is a college student in the field still. And an illustrator. Currently the plan has been to complete the main game and two side games currently in development, use the side games as marketing and kickstart the main game(lots of other events but only planned for Toledo Ohio currently) So the problem I'm running into is my web developer is not advanced enough nor can she handle the workload were already throwing at her with classes. This not only hinders the timeframe for release, but also the quality of the apps(tools and games) that I want to release. Is my best bet to continue with my team and work slow on one main product until it's where I want it? Or should I look for a partnership with another web based company? They use my IPs for video game versions, and create apps and tools for my physical games? I want to have creative control of my games. However I would like to be able to create the game and give it to another team for final touches. I'm willing to give up profit to move things forward. Instead of being stuck on a project and not being able to expand to new games, It's, and expansions. The pro to staying to myself is 100% creative control, personal deadlines and no sharing content. Cons are the cost of moving slow(100% money out 0 money back in) Pro to teaming up would mean my job would be developing and not finalizing. Con. Having to find a merger and negotiating rights and contracts. [link] [comments]  |
| Is it a good idea to approach a Venture Cap firm to act as broker in a M&A proposal? Posted: 27 Nov 2017 01:57 AM PST Hi everyone, Our business is profitable, but to go to the next level, we have an idea to propose a merger into a bigger firm (in the similar industry) which the venture cap firm has invested and holds 20% equity. Is it better to directly approach the said firm's management team or through the venture cap firm? Who should I approach first? We don't want to sound desperate. We are at the other end of the side. We will be proposing to integrate our businesses into the big firm, and get equity or cash from that firm. It's all early stage so we thought it would be a great idea to have a broker in between for cushion. We are in Asia btw. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Nov 2017 04:20 AM PST Hey all. I was just wondering what kind of documents do i need to keep for a partnership business. For example what documents do my partners and i need to sign to decide equity in the company. What documents should we keep monthly/yearly. Like inventory? Expenses? Sales? Im not very good with the accounting aspect of business so a list of needed records and documents would be very much appreciated Its a tshirt business im starting with two people. Would i have to appoint a general partner? Managing partner? Im not too sure. Any general info on partnerships would be greatly appreciated aswell. Just trying to get my knowledge on them before i start. I dont want to be drowning in paperwork because i didnt do some early on. [link] [comments]  |
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