Startups I have an amazing idea, but my 100-hour workweek employer frowns upon any outside business activities. Openly pursuing this idea could jeopardize my career. What should I do? |
- I have an amazing idea, but my 100-hour workweek employer frowns upon any outside business activities. Openly pursuing this idea could jeopardize my career. What should I do?
- Pitching journalists
- Fast-forward 5 years: What are the 3 reasons why your startup failed?
- Startup in small town and fibre optics
- Does Startup Programs/Digital Launch Pads create any sort of value for startups?
- How to raise funds from family?
- Help with an investment opportunity
- The role of CEO in a Start-Up company.
- Co-Founder Equity split question
- [Tech startups] Overseas contracting to start in order to rapid develop?
- What website chat service do you use?
- Weekly Feedback and Support Thread
| Posted: 05 Feb 2018 12:11 PM PST I just came up with an amazing SaaS product idea last week. I've since shared my business plan with several people, and they're all very excited. However, I work for one of the top private equity mega funds. My fund has a restrictive contract that forces me to report any and all outside business activities. Safe to say my colleagues would be pissed if I told them I was starting a side business with the ultimate intention to exit. My company has a 100-hour workweek culture; I would probably be fired if I were found to have any outside business aspirations. My idea is just an idea. I have not tested the idea, but it is the best idea I have ever had. Furthermore, nothing about my idea was derived from any proprietary information belonging to my current employer. Have any of you been in a similar situation? What did you do? What would you recommend? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2018 05:30 PM PST We are about to make pitches regarding a very unique feature we are about to launch. Is it a good idea to pitch 2 different journalists at the same news station? How will a journalist feel if she finds out her co-worker received the same pitch? How effective are exclusives really? This graph shows that exclusives seem not to be the most important factor. Apart from the common advice (research your journalist, interact with them if possible, keep the pitch simple and relevant), do you have any tips for a young startup going for PR? [link] [comments]  |
| Fast-forward 5 years: What are the 3 reasons why your startup failed? Posted: 05 Feb 2018 06:21 AM PST I stumbled upon this question in a casual discussion with friends few days back. While it sent a chill down my spine, it also made me think more about what important things I might be ignoring in my startup journey and what can be the real reason why my startup could fail. My top 3 reasons: [link] [comments]  |
| Startup in small town and fibre optics Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:21 AM PST Hi folks, any advice here is greatly appreciated. :) I am in IT generalist (master of some) with 20 years' experience. I have operated several small businesses in my home city as side hustles, and although I have made friends and gained valuable lessons from each, none have really gotten off the ground. Due to converging events, it's now looking more likely that I am moving in 2019/20 to a small town in the very region I have been wanting to for years. There is not much tech work there at all, but this region happens to be receiving a rollout of gigabit fibre at the same time that I would move. What sort of business and marketing strategies would you employ in a small town atmosphere that is about to receive this type of connectivity for the first time? [link] [comments]  |
| Does Startup Programs/Digital Launch Pads create any sort of value for startups? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:11 AM PST As a startup community enthusiast I hunt for resources and tools available on web for startups and I try to analyze to which extent a particular tool or resource can create value for startups. Recently I have been analyzing all the digital programs for startups, like of HubSpotl and OVH (I have list of more than 10 programs like these). I want to know, do startup founders or their employees opt to signup for these startup programs or No? and what are the reasons of signing up or ignoring? [link] [comments]  |
| How to raise funds from family? Posted: 05 Feb 2018 10:03 PM PST I started an agency providing services to businesses last year in September 2017. We had revenue from the first month and have been trading as a sole trader. I'd like to grow the business and incorporate to organise the finances as well as have the possibility to have more clients. I'm confident one of my family members will be willing to invest some money to grow the agency but I'm unsure of what is the best way to approach this? I was considering giving him the option to buy equity but I don't think I've been trading long enough to have a decent amount of cash flows to create DCF valuation. Another option was to offer loans? Has anyone had any experience with a similar situation? [link] [comments]  |
| Help with an investment opportunity Posted: 05 Feb 2018 01:03 PM PST I am trying to advise a family member who is evaluating an opportunity to invest in a medical device start up, and wanted to get some advice on the transaction. Everyone involved here is what I would call a novice to VC type investments, so it's very much the blind leading the blind. I don' think there is even a cap table floating around so I'm trying to build one to help in the discussions... Here are the basics: Current shares authorized = 500,000. The founders currently hold 300,000 shares. The employee option pool is 10%, so 50,000 shares. They are offering 25,000 shares (5% of the company), and a board seat for $300,000. Pre-money value = $5.7M Post-money value = $6.0M We're being told the remaining 25% (125,000 shares) are earmarked for a 2nd stage investor at $3M. Pre-money = $9M Post-money = $12M Obviously, this is total speculation, but their claim is that no additional capital raising would be needed, and if so, my family member's ownership % will not be diluted, because they will issue additional shares to him at "no cost" in order to maintain his 5%. How is that even possible? Let's say they burn through more cash than anticipated and need an additional investor and my family member is not willing to participate. Wouldn't he get diluted just based on math, unless the shares are coming from the founders? [link] [comments]  |
| The role of CEO in a Start-Up company. Posted: 05 Feb 2018 12:50 PM PST In my class, all student have started their own company. One thing my teacher told us to do first, was to divide work roles between each other in the company (Product manager, Finance manager, Marketing manager, etc). So I had a conversation with my teacher where we discussed the role of a CEO in a start-up company. He told me that CEO, the leader of the company, should focus mostly on, giving tasks to his/her employers and overlook their progress. While I can understand that when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, a big corporation, his not exactly counting how many quantities Apple has on iPhone X (Doing logistic task). However, I would think that in a start-up company, the CEO is more involved in all the different work environments, for multiple reasons, but to give some examples, 1: You don't have the labor (Not enough employees to do those task alone), therefore you involve yourself, 2: To get things faster done, so you can complete more work 3: You don't know, what you don't know. The CEO, should maybe not go on Facebook business manager and create an ad (Advertising), however, I think him/her should be involved as much as possible, if he/her have the time, to learn about advertising, and help the marketing manager and come up with a good ad (advertising), instead of give the task to the marketing manager, and expect him/her to come up with an idea all alone, and present it for the CEO. If you image a start-up company with only 5 people, and you have only 1, who have the responsibility for marketing and advertising, I think the 4 remaining employers, included the CEO, should involve themselves to also work with marketing and advertising when they have the times. I will like to know what you people think? What should the role of a CEO of start-up company be? Best regards [link] [comments]  |
| Co-Founder Equity split question Posted: 05 Feb 2018 11:09 AM PST Simple question....when initially forming a C-Corp with the standard 10,000,000 shares issued, do you need to set aside between 10-20% for an employee pool(we have no employees currently but obviously would hire some in the future if/when we scale) before you allocate founders equity stock/percentage? e.g. 100% - 15% Employee Stock Pool = 85% left to split between the # of cofounders involved. fyi, we are in pre-seed stage & are bootstrapping, no money raised. am I missing something? the whole founder's stock vs employee options vs preferred stock has me confused now! thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| [Tech startups] Overseas contracting to start in order to rapid develop? Posted: 05 Feb 2018 10:55 AM PST Howdy. I'm the tech-partner of a new startup (actually signing the LLC papers today, YAY!) and we've got a 90/180/365 plan. Here's the thing, both me and my co-founder have day jobs. Because we're American, we need the health insurance. I can put in only 20-30 hours a week of dev time right now - maybe a little more if I like working myself to death. We're willing to put in $15k each to have a startup seed. What I'd like to spend that money on is developer man-hours. We were thinking about using overseas contractors to help us develop out and test our application; possibly using a service like UpWork. My day job has used Upwork before, and here's what my experience has been so far:
I was wondering what people thought about hiring overseas devs on contract? And whether or not the devs from countries such as Egypt and Russia who charge $20-30/hr were more effective than devs from countries like India/Romania who charge $10-15 an hour. Rapid development is important because while we're working on an idea which hasn't been done, we're not the only one, and while we think our competitors might be ahead on features, we're pretty sure their solution won't scale, while ours will. Still, I'd like to be first to market AND better, if that's at all possible. Your thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| What website chat service do you use? Posted: 05 Feb 2018 04:19 AM PST Hey to the community! What is the best option for support chat on the website? Maybe there are some apps & services with modest pricing and which are easy to use. Our marketing and customer support comes down to chatting, so it's critical to have something with the simple interface. I know Intercome has a chat service, but not sure if it's a good fit for an early-stage startup. Read many negative reviews about their pricing too. So, I'm curious to know what other startup founders use. Thanks for your recommendations! [link] [comments]  |
| Weekly Feedback and Support Thread Posted: 05 Feb 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
[link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Startups - Finding problems and solving them!. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment