Startups Share your startup - November 2018 |
- Share your startup - November 2018
- Ambition or delusion? A reflection about humility
- I do computer repair and I am having a tough time pricing house calls.
- Diving into Entrepreneurship vs Taking It Slow
- Tips on cold mails/messages?
- How do you thank your users for feedback?
- When should I start charging users?
- Creating a website or page where people can learn about the Start Up---Early Stage
- I've created an app that pays anyone when they play pickup sports like Basketball Football and Soccer. What is the best way to go about finding an accelerator or incubator
- Showing up in Google Maps without address?
- Can a private company raise money by issuing new stock to regular people (not VCs/Angels) who want to invest in it?
- Mobile App Startup
- Help with Data Management project
| Share your startup - November 2018 Posted: 01 Nov 2018 04:07 AM PDT Tell us about your startup! /r/startups wants to hear what you're working on! Contest mode is on, so remember to select 'Show All' to see all the replies. If you don't see your post, you probably need to load more comments at the bottom. Also, all posts are sorted randomly, so the sort function doesn't seem to work.
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| Ambition or delusion? A reflection about humility Posted: 01 Nov 2018 07:45 PM PDT Hi fellow entrepreneurs, I was hoping to share a brief reflection, and read from your own experiences. In my entrepreneurial journey, many times I have had to take a hard look at myself in the mirror, to keep me in check. I remember having had a meeting with a potential customer a couple of years back, where I almost said something down the lines of having a 100% guaranteed solution to their problem. Yes. I was delusional. I went back home, and asked myself: "did you really say that?". I realised "fake it until you make it" wasn't quite a viable strategy. I let my ambition take over and get in the driving seat. No wonder I was failing at very basic business development. So I had to pivot. Now, sometimes we need to hear these things from others, because some of us entrepreneurs can be stubborn. We get this vision and idea, and everyone else can be wrong but us. I looked at how my grandfather succeeded in life. He had a lot of humility and worked hard, very hard. So I started to let go of my arrogant self confidence, and pretended to be him. When you say that you don't know, when you tell a customer that you are starting out, when you tell them you are not the best but promise to work the hardest... and mean it, doors do open. I have learned that true humility is a key that can open any door. It's good to have an ambition, but best to replace it with a vision that's accompained by humility. Why? Ambition will make you delusional. And nobody likes someone who's claiming to have invented the next Facebook. So, whatever you are working on now, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you are being overly ambitious to the point of being delusional. And if you do, take a step back, breathe deep, and pivot. [link] [comments]  |
| I do computer repair and I am having a tough time pricing house calls. Posted: 02 Nov 2018 12:58 AM PDT I do computer repair, diagnostics, etc. as a hobby. Never had an issue with pricing my repairs cause I would just do parts + time. Recently got a request from an older couple 70~ who need me to come in and set up a new laptop and wireless printer. Now being honest here this will take a few minutes of my time and doesn't require any hardware or anything. How do I price this out? I need it to be enough where its not just a waste of gas, but wouldnt feel right charging a lot for a task like that. So again, how do I price something that takes neither time or parts? [link] [comments]  |
| Diving into Entrepreneurship vs Taking It Slow Posted: 01 Nov 2018 02:41 PM PDT Guys, I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the following situation: I'm a senior in college at the moment and am running a niche supplement business that is currently small but does have potential. I've been running it for about a year now and just got invited to a startup accelerator program. This will take place next semester so by the time I graduate, I'll have had a little bit of experience in the startup world. I am trying to decide between taking a full-time job (and working after-hours on startups) or becoming a bartender after school so that I can spend far more hours (+ energy) focused on my current business or new startups. For argument's sake, we'll say that my current business won't be able to sustain me full time for another 5 years. I am leaning towards becoming a bartender because I would rather have little $ but experience in entrepreneurship at 30 years old as opposed to $ but little experience. I had an internship at a bank for the past 2 summers and realized that I don't have much energy after work because I'm not really engaged nor motivated. I am not worried about what others think and my parents support my decision so that is not the issue. I am just wondering if, in the long run, I would be better off taking a job now. For context: my eventual goal is to be able to work on startups full-time as it provides me with motivation and fulfillment. I love the process. I'm at my best when I'm able to work 8-14 hours per day doing what I love. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Nov 2018 12:10 AM PDT I am an aspiring entrepreneur from Bangalore, India. I worked with a law firm till July this year, and have been focusing on my startup since. I have built a simple clickable prototype (to get feedback of potential clients) and have been messaging potential clients on LinkedIn and emailing them as well, when possible. I have also put up a LinkedIn post about this. It has been 3 weeks since I started messaging people and the response hasn't been too great as yet. Any suggestions on alternate means of contacting people/getting people to respond? My idea is a B2B aggregation app. Any subreddit I can post about my startup to gain some traction? [link] [comments]  |
| How do you thank your users for feedback? Posted: 01 Nov 2018 11:27 AM PDT I launched a web app a few months ago and from all of our users there are about 2 dozen users who have consistently sent me long and detailed feedback, type of feedback that has proven to be far more valuable than anything else I've received. For example, one lady sent me a 4 page document with feedback, screenshots and links - I would have paid big money for this. This wasn't your typical 'we need x feature' feedback, it was strategic with proof the kind that only an expert in the field can come up with. When I thanked her and asked what I can give in exchange she just said "It's all good!" - after a quick Google search I found out that she's a CMO in a fairly large and successful SaaS company. I keep thanking them via email and chat but am wondering how do you thank your users? Do you offer them money or free credits? I'm surprised how much time and effort they put into helping me that I'm genuinely grateful but can't think of a nice way to thank them. Any tips? [link] [comments]  |
| When should I start charging users? Posted: 01 Nov 2018 09:57 AM PDT I've recently launched a new product as a beta version. It's ready to be used and registration is open. I showed it to a few people, and some of them said that I should start charging users from the beginning instead of doing that after the complete version release. I'm not sure if I should do this because, on one hand, I heard some successful entrepreneurs regret not charging from the beginning (because they missed good opportunities), and on the other hand, I don't want to spend much time adjusting pricing/plans and implementing payment stuff. So instead of doing that, I want to spend more time validating the idea of the app at a larger scale. I'm saying at a larger scale because I kind of validated the idea by doing a few calls with potential customers. The good thing is that most of the people I showed it to liked it so much and some described it as "an awesome product!". But I'm still not sure if it's something that lots of people would use. So my question is, should I keep it for free until I see lots of signups and see the real value of it, or should I do that from the beginning (to avoid regrets)? I can't wait to read your answers. Thanks, Taha [link] [comments]  |
| Creating a website or page where people can learn about the Start Up---Early Stage Posted: 01 Nov 2018 09:20 AM PDT I'm still in the early stages of my start up and currently developing the application myself. But I am getting asked by accelerators and incubators about a site where they can learn more about the Start Up. Could I create a Shopify page detailing about the startup and the founder and have an email subscription field for users to receive updates when they sign up? Or is that not the best for it? Are there any recommendations on where/how I can get a page or site that accomplished this? Am I still too early to create a LinkedIn Page regarding the startup? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2018 12:22 PM PDT Hey, I created an app that pays people to play pickup sports. However in the comments I left out a lot of details fearing people wouldn't want to read all that. I was wrong because a lot of users picked apart holes in the project so I'm going to clarify a few things here. There are TWO ways to earn I. Quickplay (Alone) - Head to your usual spot. (Park or La. Fitness) Activate the app and tell us what sport you're playing and how many people are on the court. PLAY After the game is finished come back to the app and tell us how many shots you made . Each shot you make is worth 1/2 a credit! You record the score you control your points! You have 5 quickplay games a day total. You can add another game by watching 5 video ads. Basketball games are usually played First and Last game to 15 every other game first to 11 or 12. Those are basically the universal street ball rules from state to state in the U.S. You have variations like "win by 2" but those are the basic rules. II. Challenge Mode - Take the credits you earn in quickplay and challenge any user in your city 1 on 1. Put up your credits against his winner takes all. Winner takes the pot loser gets 0! So I can challenge any user in my city 1 on 1 in basketball and football. All you do is find a user > Select a location > Pick your sport > Select how much the wager will be (5 credits) then play. Winner gets the pot! So basically whatever you earn you can "bet" against another user and take his earnings. Me vs Shark Tank Hoop Maps Similar Y/N = N The app on Shark Tank allowed you to find and locate pickup games. My app pays users to play basketball, football, & soccer AND challenge people 1 on 1 and take what they earned. I wouldn't classify our apps as similar to be honest. Think Pokemon Go' for athletes, or NBA 2K in real life Traction Beta Y/N = Y I have a beta of the app that I worked on for 9 months on my phone currently Investor Y/N = Y I nailed my first investor about 2 months ago from REDDIT! Due to the constant ripping apart of my business model, financials, and presentation, I revised it enough that I impressed an investor so much that he actually signed the check! Sports Basketball Only? Y/N = N We support basketball, football, and soccer while hoping to add volleyball and ultimate frisbee soon! Business Plan & Pitch Deck Y/N = Y I have a full business plan and pitch deck that I have submitted to a few different investors. One of which gave me my first investment Free or Paid = Free There are 3 versions of the app. Free, paid, and subscription. The three different versions of the app differ in various ways. The benefit of the paid version vs free is the ability to add more challenges and the ability to earn credits 2x as fast along with access to amazon using our app. Meaning your credits can be spent on just about anything! Assuming nobody buys the app and 0 people subscribe we will still be profitable CHEATING = BOTS Bots and cheating was the first thing we took into account. I am not claiming to have thought of everything but some things we just won't know until we mass launch and see how users are going to try and cheat the system. However that being said......I have implemented some unique ideas with the help of developers who were more then happy to give me advice. Captcha - No need to explain this you know what it is Verify by picture- To use Coast 2 Coast there will be a picture shown. You must match the description of this picture and take a picture just like it to have your profile confirmed for cash out. I have an example of this in my kickstarter but how it works is there will be a generic picture shown (A man with his thumb down tongue sticking up) you will have to take a picture that matches (this will never be shown and only used for authentication purposes Honey pot - The honey pot method is something that I LOVE. What it does is create a hidden field when signing up that only a spam bot can see. For you the user it is a hidden field that you can't see but a spam bot will be able to find it fill it out. Therefore.....bot. A human wouldn't fill it out or touch it because they can't see it, they can't navigate to it with the "TAB" key, it's not detectable to anyone but a bot Facebook - This one is common sense you must link your Facebook, or Instagram to the account CHEATING = PEOPLE Spectator Mode Spectator mode allows users that are waiting to play the opportunity to keep the game honest and fair. They can take out their phones and run "Spectator Mode" which allows them to track each other shots and make sure nobody is cheating. WHY WOULD SOMEBODY SPECTATE? BECAUSE YOU EARN CREDITS WHILE YOU DO. Users take out their phones and they ref the game recording points as they see them. Once they do this this allows me to run banner ads at the bottom of the screen 24/7. Business wise I noticed that gaming apps make the most amount of money while staying free. Spectator mode allows for this to happen. Add into the fact that you will soon be able to go live on Spectator mode on both Instagram and Facebook. Common Sense There is another way. Basketball games are played first game to 15 next game 11 or 12. You cant make 40 shots. To the average player makes 2 or 3 the elites make 8-10 that's it. You get 5 quickplay games a day 2 challenges. So the max max max you could enter is 15. 5x a day. If you tell me you score 15 out of 15 every single day for 3 weeks (Which is our limit btw.) After 3 weeks our logic reviews your point total vs hrs played vs location) then you're lying. Nobody makes 15 out of 15 I've played ball my entire life. Challenge Record Third way is your challenge record. Challenge a user is when you play someone 1 on 1 for credits. You get two a day. Unlock a third by watching 5 video ads. You can not challenge the same person twice. But on to the cheating.... if your challenge record is 10-24 why are you so raw that you are recording 14 shots out of a possible 15...but when somebody challenges you ya get your butt whooped....no your lying We will not ding you because we think that you are cheating. That would make millions of users frustrated and mad. What our logic looks for are patterns. The app is popular now in Florida but not a lot of people are spectating as they are warming up. so 1 out of 10 spectates.
This will continue for 3 weeks then our logic dictates a spectator. So I will send a warning email telling them that 3 DIFFERENT spectators had him in conflict with their results. I'll explain that you are expected to keep a 90% non conflict rate which is a mix of: Your challenge record Your spectator conflict percentage Your common sense record (That's just a joke) But you see the point. It's not just one thing we are looking at. It helps that I have extensive knowledge in the sports world and I know a lot of rules and how the game is played. These are a few of the ways that we developed. Tell me what you think! Revenue Model = Apparel sales, Ads, In app purchases, One time purchase of the app, Subscription to the app, Affiliate Marketing Even if nobody buys the app and everyone uses the free version we will still be profitable with 85% of people cheating. That is the way I set the app up to work. Quickplay Model So in the paid version of the app you earn credits at 1/2 shots made = 1 credit. So when a users makes 400 shots then he would have 200 credits which is equal to a 5$ reward. So i'll break down how that works and what that mean. When you start a quickplay match you hold your name, a drop down menu appears, then you select your sport > then you select 4x4 or 5x5. That's it. After you come back a full screen ad appears Ad 1. Let's assume a user plays one more game and repeats the process Ad 2. So at the end of the day a player would look at his app and confirm all the points that he scored Ad 3. That is three ads within a reasonable time frame that is not to annoying (I'm leaving out any mention of other ads to be conservative) So let's say a users does this and has enough for his 5$ cash out. The only way he can cash out is to click our Affiliate link which will bring him to Nike etc...Or Amazon (Now whatever they buy we get a %. Some of the people in my ear want me to charge .50 or .25 cent per transaction but I don't want to do that to be honest. However each purchase a user makes we will earn a small percentage back Challenge Mode So that would be the quickplay model. Now lets talk limits. Users get 5 quickplay games a day and 2 challenges per day. Challenge mode lets a users challenge any other user in the app 1 on 1 putting up credits that they already earned. So I could challenge you in basketball for 3 credits. First to 15 wins. You get two of those a day and can't challenge the same person (this is to prevent cheating and users going around to challenge their friends and just rack up credits) Users can earn 1 additional challenge a day by watching a few video ads. This is another way users can rack up challenges. If you want another challenge you can actually buy a pack of two challenges for .50c micro transaction. In app Purchases When you challenge someone and lose. You will want your revenge! Currently you are not allowed to challenge the same person 2x in one day. This prevents a group of friends from challenging each other and rewarded the same dude the winner just to build up credits. However i sell challenge for .50c if you buy a pack of 2 challenges you are allowed to challenge the same person another time in that 24 hour time span. This is just one of the in app purchases that I plan to monetize with the app Affiliate Link Users can only check out using our in app browser. When they go to check out they will click on our Affiliate link which will bring them to (Ex.) Amazon. Now anything they purchases we get a percentage back. That in addition to the amount of ads that they would have to watch while earning credits. Hoodies Our official hoodies let you rep your city on the front and back and are highly customizable. I make a profit of about 28$ per hoodie sold. Currently sold out. One Time Purchase The app is free but a lot of features such as earning twice as fast, and unlocking amazon rewards are exclusive to the paid version. Spectator Mode Millions of users hit the streets and play basketball. We'll go with Florida, Texas, and New York So these users play sports they all activate Coast 2 Coast and let app know they're playing a game (Ad 1) Skip to the nighttime they have to confirm all of their points (Ad 2) but back to the present. People watching the game spectate the game which allows them to earn credits: Using this system the app keeps the users to keep the app open and running similar to a gaming app. So that whole time their recording steals, blocks, and points, Going live on Facebook and Instagram from the app...I'm running ads sometimes banner sometimes relevant interstellar, that's revenue (Ad 3) A user goes to spend 20$ he made using the app on Amazon. He can only check out through our in app browser through our affiliate link (Revenue stream 3) So on and so forth. Traction: Beta app available 6000+ On Instagram 10K group in Facebook 3500+ likes on Facebook 12k raised on kickstarter (Cancelled after raising 12k out of 10k to re launch in two weeks) [link] [comments]  |
| Showing up in Google Maps without address? Posted: 01 Nov 2018 11:59 AM PDT Hi, I know this is kinda weird but basically I have a Youtube channel (with my real name) which I use to get traffic for my website (I do video production work). Now when I look for local video production companies Google naturally leads me to Google maps and shows all my local competitors on there. I want to be in that list - problem is: I don't want to publish my address on there because I know people will send stupid shit or even show up eventually due to my Youtube channel. Is there any way to get into the Google Maps ranking without publishing my address? I'm fine with the city, I just don't want my street name and house number on there. Cheers! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2018 03:08 PM PDT As per the title I'd like to ask if anyone in here knows whether a private company is able to issue new shares to normal people opposed to VCs , Angel investors and accredited investors. I am asking because I tried to search the answer on the web but the only informations which I found pertained Rounds of founding by Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors, as well as accredited investors, there is no mention of the procedure when a company decides to issue shares to a regular person/multiple persons and raise equity that way [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2018 09:11 AM PDT Hey guys, so over the past couple months I've been working hard on a mobile app startup idea that I have. I'm currently in third year university, taking all my classes online this semester with a light coursework. I've developed a very strong discipline routine over the past couple months as well (taking care of my body, working out, waking up extremely early to work, constantly learning, etc.). I'm a pretty introverted guy so I'm very comfortable working alone for long periods of time and am always thinking of new ideas, but I do sometimes have a hard time getting people to understand me. I haven't really told anyone about the idea except for my family, and don't plan on telling any friends until I have at least a fully functional digital prototype which should be in the next couple weeks I was just wondering what steps I should be taking and what timeline I should be following for the startup. I'm new to computer programming but have always been very interested in technology for as long as I can remember. I've been learning Swift recently and I'm really enjoying the process. So far in terms of the app idea I've been working on the following: - business plan - functional prototype - social media accounts - logo design - market research I think I'm on the right track so far and I know its going to be a long journey before I will be able to actually build the application. Would anyone suggest hiring an outside app developer or should I continue to learn Swift until I feel comfortable building the app myself which may take a long time. I would appreciate any advice from anyone who has experience with startups or the mobile app industry. As well as any critical steps I should be taking now to help with future growth. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Help with Data Management project Posted: 01 Nov 2018 06:33 AM PDT Hey guys, My team and I are masters students pursuing a degree in Business Analytics. As part of a course in Data Management, we are looking to create a data model for a business, and I figured plenty of startups would hopefully be willing to help out some students by having a FREE data model developed for their business. We're looking to do this project between now and Thanksgiving, so I know this is a bit time-constraining, but if any startups or businesses out there have data that they want organized into their own data model, please comment below! [link] [comments]  |
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