Startups Here's what I bring to the table as a non-technical guy, how do I find a technical co-founder?

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• Here's what I bring to the table as a non-technical guy, how do I find a technical co-founder?
• LLC vs C corp
• Ageism in 2018
• How to talk about your "no-code" startup with potential investors
• Where to find startups/software companies that are struggling/distressed?

Here's what I bring to the table as a non-technical guy, how do I find a technical co-founder? Posted: 02 Nov 2018 01:49 PM PDT Here's a bit of background of myself. I work as a consultant doing corporate finance and securities at a Biglaw firm. Our group has a focus on technology. The bulk of our clients are startups(primarily but not only, technology ones) doing things in various spaces like robotics, biotech, health, consumer, ai etc. On any given day I'm usually drafting various agreements such as financing agreements, operating agreements, option agreements. I manage cap tables, draft board resolutions, issue equity etc. In short, I do all of the finance and legal work that any startup may have. Working at the firm I've had the opportunity to develop relationships with a lot of individual and institutional investors who would invest in any serious project I was working on at the drop of a hat. On top of the legal, finance I also have a bit of experience in product design from when I was first coming out of college. I did all of the wireframing and product specifications for a mobile app about 5 years ago. After leaving that short project I worked in marketing for for a few years. Early on it was inbound marketing stuff and in the later years, it was paid advertising(primarily e-commerce for CPG). Then I got into the legal/finance. My issue is I don't know how to code and learning how to do so would not be the most efficient use of my time at the moment. How do I go about finding a technical co-founder? submitted by /u/3hybrid [link] [comments]

LLC vs C corp Posted: 03 Nov 2018 01:42 AM PDT Getting ready to start on a new venture. Have the details worked out, co-founders lines up, etc. It's a b2c social market if that makes a difference. However, this is something that we will want/need to raise money for... And even though we all have previously done our own things, this is the first time we are raising money. What is the norm these days? Is there a preferred state? Obviously for Corp, Delaware, but what about for LLC? Further complication is that are not geographically co-located. submitted by /u/DrCam [link] [comments]

Ageism in 2018 Posted: 02 Nov 2018 10:53 PM PDT Hello everybody I'm 18 and I launched my own software company 5 months ago right after graduating high school. In high school I knew college really wasn't for me and committed to not going and rather chase my passion of running my own company. Before making this decision I was able to put together a team of advisors and even get my paying first customer before really committing to the idea of running a company full time out of high school. Some of the biggest hurdles I thought I would run into would be related to my age and my experience. Even with a seasoned team of advisors all supporting my vision it was still hard to get in front of people in senior positions and tell them my product will solve their problems. I've come to learn most people will look at me no differently than a college graduate, as long as I can solve their problems, they will write me a check and not really care about how old I am. Sometimes I still get the occasional "how old are you again" or "why aren't you in college" and I've learned to stand my ground and say I'm happy doing what I love and that college just isn't for me. Just some food for thought! submitted by /u/matthewgillen [link] [comments]

How to talk about your "no-code" startup with potential investors Posted: 02 Nov 2018 01:57 PM PDT Hi everyone, I've helped tens of clients launch their startups in a matter of days at a fraction of the cost because of a no-code programming language called bubble.is I often get asked "what would investors say?" (and investors usually have something to say about it) so I thought to share an article with you on how to approach the topic. I think it's useful for anyone who launched/ is considering to launch their startup on Bubble or other no-code platforms. Here it is: The question of how investors will react to your product being built on Bubble is one that's on a lot of Bubblers' minds. If you're anything like me, you think Bubble is the greatest thing since sliced bread since it's enabled us (people who don't code) to build technology companies on top of it. But most investors are in the business of pattern-recognition (finding companies that look like other companies that have succeeded) and they will not recognize the pattern of building on Bubble instead of code, until that pattern becomes more commonplace. Bubble - why or why not? Before focusing on what to tell investors, let's talk about what Bubble is actually good and not good for. What is Bubble really good for: Launching - you can get the first version of your product out of the door very quickly. Iterating - you can (also very quickly) iterate to find product/market fit based on customer feedback. Self-reliance - you don't have to be dependent on coders because there aren't that many of them and they are expensive. What Bubble is (currently) not good for: Native - you can't build fully native mobile apps (but the Bubble API means that you can plug those in). Scaling development errors - there are no multiple dev environments, staging, merges, etc. (I'm sure that those are on the roadmap). (?) Scaling users - I haven't yet seen Bubble handle hundreds of thousands or millions of daily users (I'm sure that this will no longer a concern in a couple years). The above pros/cons suggest that, at this point, a Fortune 100 corporation probably shouldn't build a major part of their technology on Bubble (although they may want to use it to test out ideas). But they also suggest that Bubble can be very valuable at the early stages of a company, when moving fast is imperative. 📷 What to say to investors You'll move quicker than your competition] The good news is that if you're talking to early-stage professional investors (vs friends/family) you're usually talking to angels and micro-VCs who, on average, are quite risk-tolerant. They have to be in order to be in the seed-stage investing game, where most startups fail and only a few drastically increase in value. Thus, they are able to tolerate technology risk for the ability to "move fast and break things", the idea that you should adapt to the market quicker than others, even at the cost of imperfect tech in the beginning. Thus, I would really emphasize your speed advantage, how you'll be able to listen to your customers and change your product in a few hours/days instead of weeks/months You are not married to Bubble I would be honest about both the benefits and costs of Bubble but would also frame it as "I'm using Bubble to get to the next stage of product-market fit and more money, at which point I'll get more conventional with my development, in order to scale". That usually makes sense to potential investors and you can also talk about how Bubble isn't a closed system to ease their minds: Bubble's API lets you get data out at any time, which means that you can move your data to a different platform when ready The API also lets you plug external services into the core application, so you can extend Bubble's functionality with more conventional services You need the money to sell and grow Investors will inevitably ask what you plan to do with the money you raise and you have to make sure that your answer makes sense to them. So, if you say "I want money to focus on technical/product stuff", they are probably going to expect you to hire a big team of engineers. But if your answer is "I want to focus on sales/growth", you can pitch Bubble as a reason you don't need to invest as much in product. 📷 What actually happens And then, besides the question of what to tell the investors, there is a related but different one of what actually happens in reality, once a company grows and raises money. Here are the scenarios we've seen: Company starts on Bubble, planning to only use it for an MVP but ends up staying on it. In the process they figure out that Bubble gives them a massive speed/cost advantage, which means they can hit profitability quicker, and they don't end up raising money (or end up raising less money). Company starts on Bubble for their early prototype but then migrates away to conventional development once they raise $xM. Reasons are: a) functionality constraints b) wanting to be self-reliant and not dependent on a company like ours for a critical piece of their product (there isn't a mature Bubble developer labor market yet) and c) fear of approaching technology differently than almost every other startup out there. Company starts on Bubble, raises $xM, hires engineers in order to migrate away from Bubble but doesn't end up doing so fully. In the process of migration two things happen: a) it takes a lot more effort to rebuild everything that they thought it would and b) the sales team is used to hearing about a desired feature from a potential customer, having tech implement it in a few days, and then closing that customer. This is no longer feasible with conventional development, which makes both sales and management upset. In that case Bubble can remain an integral part of the stack but other code-based systems get integrated with it, so that the company gets some of the speed advantages of Bubble without the entire tech infrastructure relying on this awesome but still very young startup. 📷 Parting thought It can be appealing to make decisions with investors in mind - what will they care about? Will they understand Bubble? Will I scare them off? Bottom line is - investors want to make money. To make money, they invest in companies that are either growing quickly or have the promise of growing quickly. Focusing on making decisions that will enable you to grow quickly is much more important than focusing on investors, who will ignore all of the technical "flaws" of your platform when faced with a prospect of investing in a rapidly scaling startup. If you have had similar conversations, please share! ​ submitted by /u/nashwa123 [link] [comments]

Where to find startups/software companies that are struggling/distressed? Posted: 02 Nov 2018 12:59 PM PDT Hi reddit, I work for a public entity has had difficulty spending money (ha, what a problem!). Our goal is to support the startup/software community by increasing the success rate of ecosystem and limiting the "90% of startups fail" mantra. We inject essentially free money into mature ($2m-$50 revenue), high cash burn startups and software companies that are on the verge of collapse (and have to rapidly reduce headcount or are at risk of dissolving in the next 6 months). The only catch is that if the company takes off and makes it, we attempt to recover our money back and a small interest payment. The issue is, we have difficulty identifying these companies. It's easy to hear the stories after the fact, but identifying in that 6 month window has been problematic. We look for down rounds, turnover and headcount reductions via Linkedin and Google Alerts - but nothing seems to work very well. Any ideas that we might be overlooking? Maybe some advanced website scraper? Glass Door? Or maybe some other metric we are overlooking? Thanks! submitted by /u/Available_Bicycle [link] [comments]

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