Startups Weekly Feedback and Support Thread |
- Weekly Feedback and Support Thread
- Funny way to find tech co-founder for a startup
- Why is it a bad idea to give a contractor some equity?
- Becoming a B-Corp startup?
- How to best design a reporting table for SaaS analytics?
- Potential Partner or a Dangerous Shark?
- My business partner doesn’t want to work.
- What makes a good 'discovery' phase (or 'scoping out') for early-stage tech startups?
- Getting "startup fees" reimbursed to founders
- Is using an existing but obscure word as a brand name a problem?
- Co-founder is needed for an immediate start
| Weekly Feedback and Support Thread Posted: 05 Nov 2018 03:07 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
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| Funny way to find tech co-founder for a startup Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:08 AM PST I'm working on my startup graphqleditor.com It's a side project and I do part-time growth consulting. I wanted to automate my daily work and do some scraping, So I hired python developer on upwork, He was very good at his task and helped me a lot, More than expected and I liked the guy, We worked together for 5 or 6 weeks from sept '18 I've added him on fb to improve communication, Few days later he asked me: - Can I have off-work question? I said yes c'mon. He replied: - Can u send a bottle of vodka (Krupnik)? I laughed and thought: Russian people = vodka than asked: - Why? He said: - my girlfriend's father has a surname Krupnik and I want it as a gift! I said: let's do it! I don't know if it's legal but let's try. One week later the box was in transit. (pic from post office - https://ibb.co/fTx08V) A week later I got a message on chat: - I do wanna talk about the work. How about work together. So free for you. - I think we could to make something amazing. Let's do some startup together! I laughed, now we might be starting something together ;] Few days later the box arrived: https://ibb.co/hPBcoV I'm from Poland. He's is from Russia. (2000km diff) [link] [comments]  |
| Why is it a bad idea to give a contractor some equity? Posted: 05 Nov 2018 10:19 AM PST Most of the advice I've solicited on this topic says you should never give a contractor equity. I have a contractor who is building a mobile app for my startup (we have the backend built ourselves) and he's open to accepting 50% in equity for his project. I would do this through the form of writing a SAFE note for the dollar amount worth of work he'd be putting in (his hourly rate, half of it paid in cash, half paid in the form of a promise for future equity). Most people have told me "never give equity to someone who you can't imagine working on the startup for 5 years or so" and I do understand that. But on the flip side, giving equity to a developer also means he will be more invested in the success of the startup and deliver higher quality work. My reasoning for wanting to do this is that I'm short on cash. I've raised $20k angel investment for the startup so far and this development cost is $8k, so giving some equity could reduce that to $4k. Thoughts? I'm just generally curious why people are so against this. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:49 AM PST Are there any startups here that are considering becoming a B-Corp? Or that already are? What are your thoughts on the model? For anyone that doesn't know, B-Corp is an independent certification that businesses can apply for that assesses their impact on the environment and society. Getting the certification basically proves that you're an ethical company. It's caught on in the US and is starting to spread across the globe which is interesting in itself. I personally really hope this is part of a movement whereby it will be insane to not continually consider ethics, society and the environment as higher than growing fast and making loads of money... For UK-based startups there's a really insightful interview here from Katie Hill, the Exec Director of B-Labs - the company rolling out the B-Corp certification in the UK. She basically explains how she almost hopes B-Corps will make themselves go out of business eventually because it will become the norm (perhaps even a legal requirement) to deeply consider the ethics and impact of your business right from the very start - from how you treat employees to how your product effects society and the environment. Worth a read! [link] [comments]  |
| How to best design a reporting table for SaaS analytics? Posted: 05 Nov 2018 07:37 PM PST Most of my marketing and insights is pretty basic and standard - I really want to upgrade that and track more usage within my SaaS, gather better insights for company value, and have better customer insights for some marketing automation and general customer knowledge. This is a B2B SaaS, so most of my insights are done at the company level and then working down to the users of the company. Do I build out the table to keep it all together in one? (Event Name, User, Company, Date) Do I split it out into multiple tables for more specific tracking? Hopefully others have done something like that and can provide some insights on what has worked and what has not worked! [link] [comments]  |
| Potential Partner or a Dangerous Shark? Posted: 05 Nov 2018 03:21 AM PST A few months ago I attended a local startup event where I was discussing with someone an idea of a tech startup I was working on and the struggles to find the right product-market fit. This person eventually decided to partner with me to help me validate the idea to the market since he specialises in this market and is a good influencer. Someone else (a friend of this new partner) was listening to the conversation and joined in as well. He turned out to be a very experienced and successful founder, and one of the hosts of this event that I attended. He was very interested in my idea and gave me some pointers. Following this 'chat' we had a meeting at his office and discussed the strategy of this project. I made it clear that I want to be the CEO of the project but I am open to discuss partnerships and be open for mentorship / direction. I made this clear as apparently they had the impression that I was 'just a tech-head' with no entrepreneurial experience. He also showed interest in joining the project however I cannot really materialise how the partnership can look like since I am the one who built the product and validated it with the market. A few months later I launched the prototype and validated it with the market together with my partner. I am now at the final stages of presenting this project to a very big stakeholder, but my partner tells me to first consult with his friend (this experienced entrepreneur) first. I am afraid that this 'experienced' entrepreneur may be just a shark, using me and my product to get validation before trying to repeat the formula. On the other hand, he could be a valid investor. I trust my partner, and he trusts his friend. Given that I have another meeting lined up with him, what are the questions I should ask or perhaps what is the position I should take? A mentor of mine suggested to suggest him a co-branding partnership given that we both operate in the same industry. This entrepreneur has, in the past, tried to buy out a number of small startups to make them bigger himself. I believe that my product can really hit a jackpot if marketed correctly. I don't have his network though, and that's where I see potential. Context:
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| My business partner doesn’t want to work. Posted: 05 Nov 2018 08:38 PM PST We started a company nine months ago with an investor. Initially we didn't request salaries because we were freelancing on the side. Eventually the company required more of our time (we are now back to just a couple hours of work a day though) so our investor graciously gave us (just) livable salaries no strings attached. For the last couple of months our investor has been unable to pay these salaries, and I expect it will be a few more months until he can again. I am fine with this situation but my business partner is not. I already have a huge list of tasks that he has not completed over the past few months so I can't really empathize with him either. After a final come to Jesus talk about this he said that he won't do them, or any other work, if he's not getting paid. So, he wants to drop everything and not do any work, but also keep his 30% of the company. Our contract clearly states that our shares are based on our labor contributions. If I have to take over all of his responsibilities and he no longer has anything to do with the company does that forfeit his claim to his shares? We're not profitable yet if that matters. I can take everything over but this doesn't seem right since I'd need to complete months of his work by myself, then continue on without him. Our company lawyer is one of his friends so I don't want to email him, and I'm currently out of the country we operate in. These are questions I do plan to ask a new lawyer when I'm back next week. In the meantime I'm just looking for feedback on this situation. Edit: Maybe I wasn't clear but my partner and I chose not to take salaries from the beginning and when we did get them (for a specific purpose) we knew it was temporary. Neither of us are being screwed. We have four full-time salaried staff but only work 5-10 hours a week ourselves. We both have other sources of income but he wants a full-time salary for less than a part-time position, while also being way behind on his work. We are all still on good terms and just want to work things out amicably. [link] [comments]  |
| What makes a good 'discovery' phase (or 'scoping out') for early-stage tech startups? Posted: 05 Nov 2018 08:36 AM PST Tech startups! When you're at the 'discovery' phase, as in the bit where you're scoping out exactly what it is you're going to build, is arguably more important than the build itself right? For early-stage startups this often means doing a detailed deep-dive into what it really is you're trying to achieve and how the tech and its features can help you get there - and then scaling it right back to your current level of funding/ resources so that you can test your ideas/market (I suppose we're mostly talking MVPs here). I have my own ideas on what makes a good discovery phase (and indeed a bad one too)... but I'd love to know what other founders/investors/startups/incubators/agencies thoughts too. Mostly out of interest in new/better ways of doing things. :) So, when you've gone through your 'discovery' or 'scoping' phase (either with an agency, on your own as a startup or founder, or working as a consultant with startups), what has made it feel hugely successful/useful/insightful and, in contrast, what lessons have you learned that you would highlight to other startups? [link] [comments]  |
| Getting "startup fees" reimbursed to founders Posted: 05 Nov 2018 08:44 AM PST Greetings everyone. A few months ago, I founded a C corporation and incorporated it in Delaware (and registered to do business in CA). I spent about $2,000 to get it off the ground. This included paperwork, fees, stock plan set up, support, etc... This was paid out of my personal pocket prior to the C corp's existence, for obvious reasons. Is there a mechanism for the startup to reimburse the founder(s) for the money they put in to create it? Do founders typically try to recoup all or part of the $ somehow? Thanks in advance [link] [comments]  |
| Is using an existing but obscure word as a brand name a problem? Posted: 05 Nov 2018 11:58 AM PST I have a name for my startup that has been well received so far but it's an existing word that already has around 150k google results mostly in dictionaries, obscure academic papers, old digitized books, and misspellings of other words. Is it realistic to make a brand with this name? I know Amazon was able to do it with a much more common word but they started when the internet was younger. When I search for the word with my industry name I still get results but none of them are remotely significant at all, most being references to a single book. Is it possible to do something like this with the internet being mature or were brands like Amazon and Twitch only possible to launch in earlier times in the internet? I have a few other brand names I am testing but the only ones with no google results were the very poorly preforming ones that people didn't easily memorize, I think that memorable brand names will usually have at least a few references since someone will have said them before if they are natural to say. [link] [comments]  |
| Co-founder is needed for an immediate start Posted: 05 Nov 2018 02:50 PM PST Hi everyone, I am looking for a co-founder for an immediate project start. The project is about building a credit based platform with user login and dashboard. Users should be able to post projects to the platform. Requirements:
I am not adding any further details to keep it as simple as possible. However, any questions are welcome. So, feel free to ask. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
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