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    Startups Got $25k in funding + $100k Google Cloud credits, but unsure what to use the money on?

    June 29, 2018

    Startups Got $25k in funding + $100k Google Cloud credits, but unsure what to use the money on?

    Got $25k in funding + $100k Google Cloud credits, but unsure what to use the money on?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:45 AM PDT

    A bit of background - we're a group of 4 cofounders who have found a pretty good market with pretty low competition, but decent market size in a tech space. We won the 25k through our university's accelerator program and are going to be working in the accelerator program this upcoming fall. We're a SAAS company and we're almost done our MVP, so our main costs will be server costs, but we have that covered with the 100k we have in GCP credits (if you're unfamiliar with GCP, its like AWS). We have a few pilot companies already working with us, and since its a B2B company, we don't think there's that many ads that we could buy that would benefit us significantly.

    Any ideas/suggestions on what to do with the 25k? It's not quite enough to hire anyone, but its also a decent chunk that we don't wanna blow it on useless shit.

    EDIT: A few things have come up over and over and I'll just address them here to simplify things

    1. The university gives us all of this no strings attached. We own 100% of the company, etc.
    2. We aren't looking to blow through this at all, let alone right now. We'll be receiving this money in the fall - when we'll already have finished the MVP + piloted with a few customers. Of course, we'll be iterating on the MVP, but we should be good to onboard more customers around that time (which is when we'd start marketing - mostly through blogs, conferences, meetups, etc)
    3. At the moment, we are planning to just hold onto it until it is clear what we want to do with it as a few people have already suggested. We were simply looking for some potential ideas on what to do with it in case we were clearly missing something.
    4. I mentioned in the comments that we'd be profitable after 1 customer - what I meant to say was that onboarding 1 customer will not cost us more than we charge. In fact, this is even more true now that we have 100k GCP credits. The point here is that we will have more money to put back into the business so we don't necessarily have to "worry" about burning through our 25k

    I hope that clarifies some misconceptions :)

    submitted by /u/mfwbanana
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    Is launching an MVP when an competitor exists risky?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:27 PM PDT

    I'm almost deciding to launch an MVP using wix because cost would be minimal and would be functional enough. The issue is a competitor is already on the market and I don't know if I should wait and spend more and launch better or equal than him.

    What do you guys think? Wait and spend more to release something fully featured, or just launch an MVP anyway?

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    submitted by /u/sketchadmiration
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    Startup ran out of cash. Can founder start a new company based on the same idea, without the original investor?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 08:18 PM PDT

    Suppose Joe founded a small startup with the help of a small-time angel investor, Peter.

    Though Joe does not take a salary, the startup has other expenses and eventually runs out of cash. Peter is not willing to put in any more money (at reasonable terms i.e. he wants a lot more equity), nor even loan the company money.

    Is Joe allowed to close down the company, and start another based on the same ideas that this one was based on, but with new investors and without Peter? Or does Peter have perpetual rights over anything Joe does related to the idea he was working on?

    submitted by /u/PraiseCanada
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    What does funding and different types of funding mean for a company's health and growth?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 02:29 PM PDT

    Hi, I love doing research on startups that interest me but often don't know how to read certain things.

    For example, I've researched startups that have raised a $7 million Series A and then two years later they raised a $9 million Series B. I've also seen many startups that have raised a $7 million Series A and then raised 5 million more less than a year later or raised 20 million 2 years later. Basically, my question is what do these funding rounds means. How do I judge a company that needed to raise more money in a short time versus a company that raised more in more time. Typically raising less money in a future round would be a down round, but that may not always be the case. So I am wondering how to read these situations even in the absence of all the information.

    1 CommentShare

    submitted by /u/rickbarrysbignuts
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    First Medium post - advice?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 12:45 PM PDT

    I'm about to write my first medium post. I want to write about acquiring bank as a customer. We have been struggling for a long time to get banks to talk to us and finally we have managed to close a deal within 3 months since the first contact with a bank. I thought that might be interesting for other entrepreneurs and can save them a lot of time.

    It is not supposed to promote the startup. More like an excercise and an attempt to start building a personal brand.

    What are your experiences with writing on Medium? I will be grateful for any tools or best practices. Any good advice on promoting such content?

    submitted by /u/podgajny
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    Amazing company and team but awful founder

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 08:32 AM PDT

    I work for a small startup (not my own) that I believe has a ton of opportunity, and has brought together one of the best teams I've ever worked with. The biggest issue with the company is the founder herself who is incredibly abusive to employees, to the extent that she has driven any other senior leadership out of the company due to petty disagreements. She also regularly berates more junior employees and treats everybody as an expendable chess piece, to be moved around or fired whenever she pleases. We have repeatedly delayed launches due to her changing fundamental strategies at the last second and she generally makes impulsive decisions based off little data, then doesn't change her mind despite more information coming into play.

    Despite all of that, the company is still relatively on track to put something in the market that our users should like and I believe the company could do a lot of great things. I've looked around for other opportunities but can't find anything that I think has the same opportunity as our current company.

    I believe the founder has at least halved the value and potential of the company, if not more. Have any of you had similar situations? How did they turn out?

    submitted by /u/BumThing
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    How to find the right team?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 09:45 AM PDT

    I am trying to finally start my startup. I believe I have good,tested, sound ideas. BUT I'm not sure how to find a team or the right people. For example, I need a coder but I have no clue where to look especially for someone that would want to help a startup. Do u guys have any tips? I don't have any friends that could be of assistance and I figured that a lot of people that COULD help me will be too expensive for me or will not want to. It's not like I'm some created business. I still have my product I have to perfect and need help with that but not sure how to get it. Thanks everyone!

    submitted by /u/FishAhoy
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    Is learning to code the best skill a new entrepreneur could learn?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 06:39 AM PDT

    Wanted to gather some opinions on this subject. I get asked the question "what is the most important skill a new entrepreneur could have" - I usually hear "sales" but I have a theory that learning basic coding is one of the most critical skills a new entrepreneur could learn.

    If we are speaking strictly "business", not "doing what you love", learning how to code has allowed me to quickly develop atleast 4 or 5 ideas and test the need, make them cashflow positive quick and then invest more time into automating them when ready - faster than any brick and mortar businesses my friends have started. That being said I know many "entrepreneur" coders who are brilliant coders, but are shitty entrepreneurs and take no action. So I think its a double edged sword.

    My question is - what are some of your thoughts on this? What am I missing? Does anyone disagree that going into web/software is one of the easiest places to start? Why?

    submitted by /u/treyt42
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    Got $100k in seed funding, not sure what to do with it to maximize user growth. What would you do?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 04:52 PM PDT

    Background: We're a team of 5 people and I am in charge of the marketing efforts. Our target market is college students. We're a mobile app that helps students easily buy and sell things on campus. We have currently are only launched in one school (we had a soft launch to test a couple things out). We have 700 users.

    We suddenly came into this investment and we're trying to find out what the best way to spend it it (in terms of marketing efforts. Right now our main goal is to get as many users in Boston as possible this coming Fall semester. I've been a long time lurker on this sub and have always loved the support that is shared within this community. Would love to see what you guys would do in this situation!

    submitted by /u/ReasonableAnalogy
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    Wheres my calling ?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:08 AM PDT

    I constanly feel the need to do something new.

    So i started doing the following,

    1. Full time job as a programmer which pays my bills and pizzas (Ongoing).
    2. Felt bored so took another job and started teaching programming at a local university (Ongoing).
    3. Still felt bored so started doing some IT sales looking at public procurement sites. Fun work when i get to establish connections with various companies and establishing partnerships. (much reccomended!) (Ongoing)
    4. Wanted to create something of my own, so started working on a hobby startup project, my own bitcoin exchange. The development is 70% completed.
    5. Still felt bored, so got hired by a startup who made me their CTO (no salary , only share allocation) and working 20% until they hire me full time. (Ongoing)
    6. Felt bored again, so started looking into making an A.I research institute. Started talking with other professors and phd students who are interested in the venture. (Ongoing)
    7. Still bored, so started investing in my friends IT startups.

    So I have 6 jobs but I cant find my calling.

    Its hard trying to find what you wanna do.. so many things in the world.. so less time and so many distractions..

    I wanna share what Im doing since I feel lost and unsatisfied. My mind is busy with so many things and I feel I should either slow down or just focus on one of the things..

    What to do ? How can one find their true calling ?

    submitted by /u/SufficientMeal
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    Launching a Crypto exchange

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 07:44 AM PDT

    6 months ago I started developing a crypto currency exchange. I loved coding it and the exchange is 70% completed.

    Initially I thought it would be an easy thing to do. Create a product and launch it, but reality bites quickly :)

    So now I need to do some tests, make sure the product is okey, security, law etc etc.. These are not complicated things but they need time.. which I don't have.. (I'm busy with other startups).. So I need to hire some people who can help me with this.

    I have three options, 1. Use my students in this project. I teach programming and my students are willing to work for free.

    But students need constant monitoring.

    1. Raise money through an ICO to hire some staff. It's a bit of sales n marketing work but can be done. However the market is down nowadays and it could be a reputation killer if the ICO fails.

    2. Many people have expressed interest in funding for this project and I could raise money. But I don't want that at this stage.

    I'm confused. It's a strange thing to ask, but what would you advice ?

    submitted by /u/SufficientMeal
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    Guerilla Research Techniques - Getting the most from early user engagement?

    Posted: 28 Jun 2018 04:20 AM PDT

    We're building a weather app as a side project. Just published our first phase of research and I'm looking for new ways to gather user feedback quickly/low cost/low effort.

    How is everyone here managing their research process and developing new user stories? What tools and techniques have you found most useful? Are you spending money on research or is it an investment in time? What are the best hacks to drive insights you've found?

    submitted by /u/WarrenOF
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