Startups Share your startup - January 2018 |
- Share your startup - January 2018
- Weekly Feedback and Support Thread
- 5 Questions to Help You Nitpick Your Own Startup Idea
- How can we improve the world via creative, compassionate new ventures?
- I have a question about startup "labs"...
- I have a thought (idea) I've been trying to keep at bay for a long time but it's becoming too strong so I need to talk about it!
- Should you use your real name for a business?
| Share your startup - January 2018 Posted: 01 Jan 2018 03:08 AM PST Tell us about your startup! /r/startups wants to hear what you're working on! Contest mode is on, so remember to select 'Show All' to see all the replies. If you don't see your post, you probably need to load more comments at the bottom. Also, all posts are sorted randomly, so the sort function doesn't seem to work.
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| Weekly Feedback and Support Thread Posted: 01 Jan 2018 03:08 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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| 5 Questions to Help You Nitpick Your Own Startup Idea Posted: 01 Jan 2018 10:42 AM PST I put the introduction to this post in the first comment to keep the post itself (slightly) more succinct. Please read it first if you are unclear as to what this article is or feel like you are being preached at - I can assure you that is not my intent! Question 1: What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?USP Definition: The factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition. The importance of this cannot be overstated. You need to physically write this down (type it out, whatever) and revise and refine it until it's succinct, clear, and complete. You should be able to express it in no more than a few sentences, and describe it to anyone in no more than 60 seconds (without visual aids!!). USP Resources:Fizzle.co Article & free E-Book Ferocious USP Article - Wordstream Question 2: Who Else is Already Doing It?Ahh, I hear you now... "NOBODY!!!" Well, the skeptical optimist in me calls bullshit on that one - but hear me out! :) It's unusual (though not impossible) that you are creating a truly unique thing (whatever that may be). It's extremely likely that your idea is closely related (even if it's well differentiated) to some existing thing people spend money on. You NEED to understand this. 10 minutes of Googling not turning up a result is not enough. Search wide AND deep to find the two or three existing companies you feel are the most similar to what you're offering. Research them, find feedback about them, learn everything you can about their history and current status. Are they growing? Are they pivoting (as in - converting to sell something different)? Doing this well and in an organized way will take days, even weeks. So, do this exercise even though your idea is totally unique; I promise that while doing it you'll learn something useful to you whether it's a feature (like a platform integration) you hadn't considered, a use-case not on your radar, or some other tidbit of information that will help you down the road. Competitor Stalking Resources:inc.com Article (pretty good!) Question 3: How do you Make Money Doing It?Yes, I can see your eyes rolling from here. Duh, right? I'll make money by selling XYZ!! Great, true - but you need to get a little more nitty-gritty than that. You've all heard the cash is king saying but trust me, you are going to learn it on a whole other level once you start your business! It's astounding how many things cost more than you expected and how hard it is to actually get money coming in the door. It does not take long at all for those things to get out of sync and suddenly things get non-fun very quickly! My first business was consulting based. I decided I could charge $75/hour (which was too low, but hey) and so the potential income was $150k/year! Wowsa, great!! My burn rate was about $60k/year (house, car, lights, etc.) so easy peezy - I already started shopping for my private jet. Well, here was the reality:
Cash-strapped is the worst possible way to be when trying to make good business decisions. So, yeah those are not secrets, but I will say I did not consider them fully enough when I started out, and as a consequence I had many months of burning cash faster than I could make it. Turns out that's a bad thing! :) I see lots of people on here talking about eCommerce stores which, sure - makes lots of sense. But if you are not actually MAKING a product, you are selling things that can be got elsewhere. So, you make money on the margin, on inbound traffic, on high conversion rates, etc. Are you a SEO guru? Do you have killer connections and reputation in your niche already? If so - sweet! If not, better really dial in your answer to Question 1 because you are one big vendor price-raise away from being in a tight spot. So, don't assume how you will make money, do the actual math. I'd also recommend that once you go through the numbers, you multiply all your revenue projections by 0.7 and your non-variable expenses by 1.3 and see how it looks then. Call those SkOp constants (yep, skeptical optimist). If that makes the business a loser, then you are starting out from a really tough spot. Cash Flow Resources:Bplan.com Article - you eCommerce folks pay close attention to the Inventory section!! Question 4: What is a User Story of Your Customer?This concept is more prevalent in the software industry, but is also used in product development and in my estimation is a good tool for anyone looking to start a business. Write a simple, plain-language story about your user interacting with your product. Who are they? Why do they interact with your company? What motivates them to do so, what do they hope to get out of doing so? It may sound a little cheesy, but I hope you'll take the time to try it out - it's a really interesting and enlightening way to look at your potential business. For my latest venture, I've written several of them to help me get (and keep) my head around what the User cares about vs. what I, as the product developer am focused on. Once you've written a User Story, go back and look at the previous questions from that User's perspective. This can be jarring but very informative. Would your user do a better job than you did of finding competitors? User Story Resources:10 Tips for Writing Good User Stories Question 5: How do you Make MORE Money Doing It?Some day, this will turn into things like capital expenditures, customer-acquisition-cost, etc. But for now, it's important to understand two constraints that are baked in to your idea:
For your profit constraint, do you control it or do others? If others control it (competitors, suppliers, etc.) what leverage do you have to resist undesirable changes? If your competitor is better funded and decides to drop their prices 25% for the whole summer, will you still exist? If your key supplier has a problem and can't ship anything for 2 months, will you still exist? Can you replace them before your customers give up and leave? For your volume constraint, it could be many things. The goal here is to understand where those pain points will be (outgrow the storage in your garage maybe) and how much time and cash it will take to remove them. Consider all the time, space, energy, etc. it takes to make the business tick day to day and try to plan what happens when any of them are over taxed. One of the most common constraints in reality is the "I need another me" scenario. Chances are if you've got a solid idea, you bring something unique to the table. When it's time to grow, you need more of your own secret sauce - but there is only one you. The right solution is often offloading work you do that is non-secret-sauce (social media, bookkeeping, packaging, whatever) to free up more time but actually making that happen can be tricky and expensive. So, give it some thought early on. Growth Barrier Resources:6 Growth Barriers You Didn't See Coming In Conclusion:I hope this gives someone a little bit more structured way to try to play devil's advocate when evaluating your shiny new idea. It's not comprehensive, not any kind of guarantee of success (or failure for that matter) but had I diligently gone through these steps before I started my first business, I think it would have grown faster and bigger than it did. Any and all constructive feedback is welcome and I will edit this as I receive it to add resources, clarify, change, etc. This is a tool for you guys, not for me so let's make it as useful as possible!! Cheers and best wishes to any and all of you who have or will take the plunge on a Startup!! General Related Resources:Good Discussion of Startup Ideas 20 (Different!) Questions You Can Ask Yourself EDITS: [2] Added General Related Resources Links [1] Add link to Introduction Post [link] [comments]  |
| How can we improve the world via creative, compassionate new ventures? Posted: 01 Jan 2018 07:53 PM PST How can we make the world a better place via creative, compassionate new ventures? How can we... • improve Fair Trade on the consumer or producer side? • strengthen and expand non-profits or charities? • educate or help the working conditions of labor (people who work for wages)? • improve the ecological sustainability and environmental impact of supply chains? • expand access and convenience of healthy foods and diets? • improve democracy at the organization or government level? • educate people through non-traditional means, or expand access to education? If you're already part of an organization focusing on these things, tell us about it! [link] [comments]  |
| I have a question about startup "labs"... Posted: 01 Jan 2018 04:50 PM PST Hello. After working at a startup for about 10 months as a lead mobile engineer, I decided to take the plunge and start my own startup lab. The reason I chose to incorporate a parent company is so that I have the freedom and flexibility to try out different things. I've incorporated with the help of Clerky and I'm just about all set up. I am the only founder for now, so I've issued myself 80% of the shares and left the other 20% for potential investors, future employees, etc. I've been reading up on everything I can in regards to startup finance but I still have some unanswered questions. Figured I'd give this a shot and see if anyone can help me out. Thank you in advance. My question is: If a particular product of mine gets acquired, is the acquisition seen as simple cash profit for my parent company? Or would it be expected that my parent company get acquired as well along with all the authorized stock? This is for the case in which I am still a solo founder and have not received any investments. What would happen in the case that I do issue shares to investors in the parent company? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2018 10:13 AM PST There is a huge opportunity in the specific construction industry that I work in, for software. There is a company that sells "software A" and they have a monopoly on the industry. I've worked for 4 companies in the industry from different parts of the country, big and small. They all use, there's no substitute, and it's now necessary so they pay whatever they need to have it. No "startup" could ever compete with them, or that software. This company is very successful with "software A" and one would assume it generates a very large percentage of their revenue. This company has also pushed their "software B" on all of the companies that use "software A". But this company is smart, they already have the market and they're doing well, so they don't want "software B" to be in as many hands for as cheap as possible. They want it in high paying hands and they charge a lot for that software. [link] [comments]  |
| Should you use your real name for a business? Posted: 01 Jan 2018 02:54 AM PST Hi all, Basically I am currently working on a startup idea and it is in testing and so on and later it should be ready for launch. But I had the idea that if the startup succeeds or fails, I would still try something else. Now this something else would be offering various services for the local community like graphic, web & logo design, some writing & translations, personal training & dieting etc etc. I will not be doing most of the services myself. I will just get the orders, and find a cheap freelancer to do it for me and then i transfer the end result to who ordered. Should I make a business using my real name for this, to show that I am a freelancer (even though I outsource everything) or create a name for an agency? [link] [comments]  |
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