Startups Weekly Feedback and Support Thread |
- Weekly Feedback and Support Thread
- Don't add new customers to a leaky bucket
- Co-founder left and says he "retains ownership of his code"
- Which is best for me? S, C, LLC?
- Question: Choosing between accelerators?
- Being offered marketing and sales for equity
- Hardware+software consumer product:is this a solid business case for beginning?
- When do I execute options?
- Big opportunity - Should I advertise free product or paid one?
| Weekly Feedback and Support Thread Posted: 08 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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| Don't add new customers to a leaky bucket Posted: 08 Jan 2018 04:04 PM PST I listened to a good podcast from Y Combinator today. TLDR - Don't worry about growth until you've nailed retention (aka the "leaky bucket" problem). There were some other takeaways, but this one stood out to me because I've been so focused on getting new customers that I haven't been closely watching retention. After listening to the podcast and doing some analysis I realized I had a better opportunity to increase revenue by focusing on retention first. I know this should be obvious, but my company is new. Not long ago I had zero customers and you can't measure retention on a base of zero. The key is to shift focus from new customer acquisition to retention once you have enough customers that you can meaningfully measure retention. What are some metrics you use to measure retention? [link] [comments]  |
| Co-founder left and says he "retains ownership of his code" Posted: 08 Jan 2018 11:07 PM PST We were working on an MVP and he got too overwhelmed with a new job. We left on good terms and he said that I could use the code he's worked on but that he "retained the rights to it." We didn't have any contract going into it at this point. What should I do? Wipe out all his code and rewrite it? Does he have any legal grounds to claim some ownership should my company succeed? This is filler text because I apparently need more characters to post? Why do I need to do this, it's quite ridiculous.. you don't want to read this filler text, and I'm not sure why I'm writing it. [link] [comments]  |
| Which is best for me? S, C, LLC? Posted: 08 Jan 2018 02:44 PM PST Sorry if this question has been asked a million times. I have received different advice from numerous articles, my tax advisor, and fellow startup friends. I'm a bit overwhelmed. Here's my situation: - Solo founder based in CA, creating a web app. (Open to co-founder, have yet to find one) - Hoping to bootstrap as much as possible, currently paying from savings when I need help with certain things - Hope to sell one day - About to launch MVP, unsure if it will be profitable at this point but feedback has been positive - Willing to give some equity to those who may join me in the future - Plan on working from home for the time being, not sure an office is necessary Based on what I've read, an LLC seems like the way to go, but I wanted to get all of your informed opinions. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Question: Choosing between accelerators? Posted: 08 Jan 2018 11:24 PM PST For entrepreneurs here that have gone through accelerator programs/seed funding rounds, how did you choose between VCs? Did you try for multiple and just take whichever one offered? I'm thinking of building a startup on my own (no suitable alternative cofounders yet) and am currently in a dilemma to choose between two VCs in Australia. ——— 1One VC company supports sole entrepreneurs that has a good business plan with a team of in-house software engineers and hand-picks a long term startup team for you. However, this VC targets some different category/industry to my startup. ——— 2The other VC targets the exact type of startup category as my idea (creating marketplaces for buyers/sellers), but this VC is aimed at ready-built teams of 2-3. Additionally, I have also just missed their 2018 cohort intake as I thought #1 was a better match for me as a sole entrepreneur before looking at their specialisations. ——— Funding sizes are similar, and I am more interested in their expertise and network to scale up my businesses and bring bigger sellers onto my platform. A bit about myself: My background is in accounting and finance and am a self taught programmer (built MVP). Currently on a stable unrelated job but considering venturing out into the startups world. The MVP is built and I am in the process of testing it on a friend's customer base (an online store), but this is a much smaller group and not the final market I aim to target. What have your experiences been? Have you gone with a VC where some traits don't perfectly match? Which would you recommend in this scenario and how should I go about the differences? Is it worth cold calling/emailing even though my startup doesn't match their target profile in one way or another? Any advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Being offered marketing and sales for equity Posted: 08 Jan 2018 10:30 PM PST Quick background: for two years I have been bootstrapping in a niche market with a beta customer. I have consulted other potential customers in the industry during development, but still only have one (now) paying customer. In the last year, my beta customer has built their whole business process around my product, and has stopped asking for features, just tweaks now. I am an engineer with no sales and marketing background. My goal was always to sell the he'll out of the product after I built it, but I keep finding things to build. I have two students being paid on gov't research grants, and a part time partner, and keeping them busy, dealing with admin, a family and a day job is about all the capacity I have. I have read b2b sales books, built out my SPIN/Challenger models, etc yet still have not kicked off a sales campaign. People have often told me I would be good at selling, yet here I sit... with a new found application for sales people. When I was looking for a partner I wanted design chops, and sales/marketing chops. Only ended up finding design. I have had lukewarm interest from investors, on the condition of showing a little traction... thought think that is standard fair. Ok so here is the issue. I was recently approached by a local management strategy company about my product. They are partners with a digital marketing company. They have been in business for 5 years, and are multi-province, but I wouldn't say national. I really like their senior partner, what he thinks is a plan for the next year's sounds great. He gets the product and has a clear passion for the industry. Some of the decisions that I have guessed at or been unsure about such as pricing, he immediately noted they would need resisting. Much as I like him, he is a salesman and good at making people feel that way. The firm are interested in acquiring equity in exchange for their services. Basically they put a sales force on the ground, put a digital marketing strategy into play, in exchange for a large chunk of equity. Likely close to half. I have always heard and thought that pay for sales with commission. But I have seen that strategy have mixed results, as sales people take it on, as a part time gig and then lose interest before they even perfect the pitch. My thinking is that my company is really worth not much until I show some traction. I seem unable to make that happen. If a sale/marketing cofounder had come along a year or so ago and offered to bootstrap with me, I would have give up a big chunk to them anyway, now for a big chunk I am getting a team. I suspect if this was my second time through starting something up, or if I was fully funded, I would just pay for this service, rather than giving up equity. But I am cash poor right now, have not been through this, and without more traction taking out a loan scares even me (I am somewhat risk averse). So I actually like the deal. I get giddy at the thought of more people using my product. And I actually like the fact that they want equity, as I find people/teams with skin in the game do better work. So I may be giving up a big chunk, but the reality is that my company is on the verge of being worth nothing if I don't sell. So I have an offer coming, in the next couple days. I have asked for first right of refusal on their shares, and said their the shares they get would be gaited based on their performance. I'll play with the equity level based on how aggressive the gaits are setup. I am thinking 3 gaits with 10, 40, and 100 customers. Any sort of feedback is appreciated. Negotiating tactics, etc. Please keep in mind that I am not in Seattle, the valley, NY, Austin, or any other startup mecca, so seed money and and valuations are more evidence based (I know because I do some consulting for us startups). [link] [comments]  |
| Hardware+software consumer product:is this a solid business case for beginning? Posted: 08 Jan 2018 09:09 PM PST So I finished the design and preliminary testing of my product. It is a consumer product, with hopes for direct web sales, but reseller option may come in sooner or later. Extensive customer research and preparation is done a long ago-I do know who my customer is, how do I benefit him, what is he willing to pay, etc. That is not the question. Currently, if I pay off the cost of my bill of materials and labor, I left with approximately 35-40% gross profit margin for small batches of ~100 units. All that is with standard components, purchased from McMaster and Digikey, and without any tooling or manufacturer optimization (couple of local machine shops, CNC machining, no molding or casting, which I am planning to switch to later on). I expect to sell ~4-5k units annually in the developed stage of my venture. Do I have a solid business case here? Any opinions, experiences? My worry is the profit margin: it seems to be on the lower side. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2018 09:25 AM PST Hi all, received varying answers and wanted to turn to you all. (Although I have a great team, I don't want to ask my cofounders and come off as unknowledgeable..) I recently joined a startup, 4 year vested equity with a 1 year cliff as I understand that's a standard for most startups. I recently crossed the 1 year mark - do I need to purchase/execute on my options right now? Or is this something I can do if/when we gets acquired/IPO? Also, following with that, do I need to continually act on my options every month following? [link] [comments]  |
| Big opportunity - Should I advertise free product or paid one? Posted: 08 Jan 2018 12:40 PM PST So I started a website with content for 3D Artists. To start, I have a video tutorial for sale for $29, and I have a free Lighting Pack that people can download. Downloading any of these adds them to a MailChimp email list, so that I can send out newsletters in the future. Next week I'm going to be advertising on one of the biggest websites in the 3D industry. It's going to go on their front page, be emailed out to their 170k site subscribers, posted on their twitter with 40k followers, and their Facebook with 350k followers. My question is, should advertise the free product mostly so that I can gather their email addresses and send out newsletters to them pitching my paid product? Or should I try to promote my paid product instead? I'm assuming way more people would download the free product. Or should I try to promote both? Also should I link them right to the product pages? Or to the main website homepage? Or to the gumroad purchase links? I heard that the more clicks people have to do the less likely they are to buy something. I'm completely new to all this so any help would be appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
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