Startups Investor Updates from s Startup |
- Investor Updates from s Startup
- My 7 figure brick-and-mortar business has almost no legitimate ecommerce competition in a $25 Billion industry. What is should my next step be?
- Advice on finding the right dropshipper.
- Should I leave this startup?
- What are you waiting for to start living the life you think about every day?
- Hiring my first salesperson
- Stuck at where to go
- Our Startup Tried Working With Outsourced Developers and It Went Pretty Poorly. Looking for Advice.
| Investor Updates from s Startup Posted: 07 Feb 2018 09:10 PM PST I worked for a startup for about a year in NY and recieved RSU's as payment for working there. Only half my stock vested and I sold back the unvested amount back to the company when I quit, about 11 months ago. I filed a 83-B form when I bought the stock. Am I obligated to receive some sort of update on this investment from the company at periodic intervals? I have been trying to reach the CEO for the last couple months but I can't get a response. I have no idea what to do with this investment I have, especially for tax purposes. Edit: I have not heard anything from anyone at the company since I left, 11 months ago. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2018 07:09 AM PST My store does low 7 figures in revenue in a town of around 50,000 people. My industry is currently valued at around $25B, but is project to hit $30B in the next 4-5 years. I sell one of the best quality products in the industry, and there is 1 other competitor selling my brand of products online. Their website is terrible, and they do basically no marketing from what I can see. Obviously, I would like to capitalize on this opportunity. However, I'm spinning my wheel right from the beginning. My store's name is pretty localized, so it wouldn't translate well to the internet. I'm struggling with branding. I've also been messing around with building a shopify site, but have discovered I'm not creative enough to make something that looks good. I have all of the infrastructure set up already, meaning supply of my products from vendors all the way through ready-to-ship packaging. What are logical next steps? Hire someone for branding and webdev? Thanks! EDIT: Am I being paranoid by not revealing my product and industry? To give an idea of the scale I'm looking at, I would say 90% of the people posting here have dealt with my product at some point in their lives. If you google "buy (industry name) online", there is only 1 company/website to do so in the first 5 pages of results. If you google "buy (my brand/product) online", the first competitor appears on page 4. Some more info: This is a family business, and so I'm getting a little more involved. My parents have no problem doing exactly what we're doing for the next few years and sell it or close then move to the beach. I'm young, so I'd like to move and experience other areas of the country. I could expand to neighboring towns, but don't have any interest in that right now. If I determine there is true potential in getting this product online, I have no problem throwing several thousand dollars towards it to get things moving. The only reason I opened a shopify account is because I'm kind of familiar with HTML and CSS, so I was just experimenting and satisfying my curiosity. I have no problem hiring out any or all parts of this process, but I consider myself an entrepreneur, so I like to learn and try things myself. My industry is also extremely supportive of the DIY type people, so blogs and how-to videos would create huge traffic, no doubt. The major reason that nobody is selling this product online: My product has been sold exactly the same way for 70+ years. It's one of those things that anyone 50+ years old is convinced will never be sold online. I would bet that 90% of store owners in my industry are in the 45+ year old bracket. Also, my product is kind of heavy, so everyone (including my parents and friends) instantly assumes it will be too expensive to ship. I've already worked with UPS and Fedex, and I think shipping is perfectly reasonable. This is basically the equivalent of only being able to order a Rolex on 1 or 2 websites, but having thousands of retailers around the world that sell them every day. [link] [comments]  |
| Advice on finding the right dropshipper. Posted: 07 Feb 2018 07:09 PM PST So I'm very new to this game but i'm keen to set up an online store, selling products within my specific niche. I have a small but growing online following through a blog and social media. I feel like i can use this to generate some traffic to my store. I don't want to jam it down peoples throats, but just need somewhere to start getting it out to people My main concern is finding a good wholesaler / drop shipper to use. I've been told to be careful when trying to find a new wholesaler / dropshipper as some people can rip you off, only acting as a middle man. What are the best steps to go about finding a good reputable dropshipper? I would generally look into setting up an online store through shopify or squarespace. Again, would this be an ok option? Any advice is welcome. Cheers, [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2018 06:52 PM PST I work in a startup company that provides design/branding/marketing solutions to people and companies. Our company houses around 10-30 people across SEA region. It's my fifth month working here now but my employer has been consistently delaying my salary since the second month I started working. As I type here now I am still not getting paid and I find it really difficult to meet end's need, since I am also living alone in a rented place outside. Bills always end up paid with my savings and it's running dry now. What annoys me more is that there are no slips whatsoever given after salary is issued. Though I have asked him since my first paycheck, he has never produced any to this day after promising he will ask his HR. My salary deduction amount is also ridiculously high (EPF/SOCSO/Income tax), but when I approached him and ask about this, he gave me the same answer "Don't worry I'll inform HR", "Our HR is checking." From what I've heard, our HR is outsourced to employer's brother. Should I leave immediately? EDIT 1: Is the work contract void when your employer fails to pay you on said date in your country's labor law? Do share me your thoughts on this. This is written in Malaysia's Employment Act under 'Contract of Service': When contract is deemed to be broken by employer if he fails to pay wages on or before the 7th day. The only reason I am staying is that this may reflect poorly on my resume as a designer. But again, I have a family business I can take over soon. [link] [comments]  |
| What are you waiting for to start living the life you think about every day? Posted: 07 Feb 2018 06:43 PM PST The big risk is not leaving a comfortable life with a quasi-secure job for that idea you have or the skill you want to use in a startup. The risk is waking up in your forties to realize that you never gave yourself a chance and now your kid's tuition is due. I've offered the opportunity to live a life worth living to several individuals at basically no risk but I can now see that the reason people do not have what they want in life could be that it is safer to daydream, they know what it feels like. Success is the unknown. You built your resume, you have the education. You got the job you have now and you are praised for your work. Your loans can be adjusted based on your income. What makes you think that by taking a year off to live on a budget or on someone's couch in order to potentially make something of your own means you will never be employed or save enough for retirement? You have one life. You will regret not taking this step now and as more time passes you will hate yourself for never overcoming the fear of being truly broke. Trust me. No money to pay the gas bill in winter is not painful, it will bring the best out of you and you will find a way to sell. A baby due and no money for insurance doesn't kill you, it helps you remember about that long-time acquaintance who will turn into your first client. We need creative technical resources and systematic marketing engineers. Tell me about the life you dream about, I will tell you how to get there. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2018 12:28 PM PST Hi guys! I run a bootstrapping startup in the nordics and we currently have 8 people on the payroll including myself. We're doing fairly well with a nice and steady (but not spectacular) growth. Right now when it comes to sales, I'm all we got and I'm looking to hire my sales director, preferably someone who I can see growing into a partner and growing our sales organization from 1 to many. We're very reliant on face to face and online sales for our growth which makes this recruitment critical. I have already met and interviewed several candidates but I figured maybe some of you have already successfully navigated this path - so what should I look for? The good and the bad. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2018 01:37 PM PST Hey All:
As I have dug deeper into trying to validate my product (live streaming platform in a particular niche), I find myself coming up very short on answers, and actually validating that people want this, not because of a lack of interest, but a lack of responses. I find myself coming up short on ideas on how to reach out to people and try to gather a good grasp on if people want this or not.
After talking with several people who do this for a living (VCs, Investors, Tech Guys), they like the idea, and will get behind it, but want to see some kind of market validation. They talked about getting a guy getting onboard (large in the industry) or a extensive validation report.
Because this is something that I would like to go through with, I am wondering all I can do to try to get this validation done, mainly also to prove to myself that I can do it.
Any help is appreciated, thank you!
TLDR: struggling with market validation because not reaching out to certain people, what should I do? [link] [comments]  |
| Our Startup Tried Working With Outsourced Developers and It Went Pretty Poorly. Looking for Advice. Posted: 07 Feb 2018 12:58 PM PST For past the two years our team has been working on a physical business that has a software component. Eventually we plan to make the software component our core focus. We've invested capital into about 6 months of outsourced development, which has been slow and hasn't produced the results we know can be realistically expected of a competent partner acting in good faith. At this point I am of the opinion that we should essentially just scrap what has been inexpertly done for us by this third party and begin building an in-house team. The problem is that, while our founders have enough technical familiarity to design a spec with psuedo-code and some wire frames, we're not well versed enough in the more technical details to be 100% confident in personnel while finding and vetting potential hires. My thought is that if we could find an excellent, well-rounded Team Lead / Full Stack Senior Developer then that person would make hiring the rest of the team quite a bit easier and more reliable... but I have absolutely no idea how to find such a person and be confident about it, and I know these people don't grow on trees. I've looked through a few similar threads on this subreddit and a lot of the focus seems to be on compensation, CTO's, and equity, but I don't think an equity arrangement is on the table right now, and I'm more concerned with actually FINDING the person in the first place. If anyone here has any experience, advice, or suggestions to lend I would be very grateful. [link] [comments]  |
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