- If my salary is 2700 a month and I agree to reduce to 2000 because we are short of money, then decide I wanna help by only getting stock for a few months, should I get stock worth 2000 a month?
- Co founder moves to another city in the middle of Series A round
- My startup is on the edge and I am struggling.
- Do most startups nowadays require some sort of technical knowledge?
- Making too much money that we can not receive.
- How to intrest seed money in a good way?
- Dev here - how to find your co-founders?
- Who here has started their business because they coudn't get hired for one?
- Tech Startups: NYC vs Bay Area
- Freemium: How do you decide what's free and what's not?
- It's said that product manager is a very entrepreneurial role-- what else?
- What Startups Companies Can Learn From The Wine Industry
- How do you stay patient at your startup?
- Growth strategies for test preparation startup.
- Tips on connecting with potential corporate partners
- is SEO the next step for my recommendation engine for musicians?
| Posted: 02 Feb 2019 06:40 PM PST So, I'm 3 months in and my boss asked us if he could temporarily reduce our salaries from 2700 gross (2000 net) to 2000 under the table to save those 700. We agreed, and I decided to give an extra hand + get more stock options by saying that for 6 months I could get just shares. I thought I'd get my salary (2700) in stock, but my boss says that I'd get only what I save the company, which would be 2000. I don't know much about startups or finance, so I thought I could maybe ask here. What do you think? EDIT: I should clarify that we haven't received our first investment yet. we are running on relatives' loans for now. [link] [comments]  |
| Co founder moves to another city in the middle of Series A round Posted: 02 Feb 2019 01:00 PM PST Successfully started a AI tech startup. We are now raising more capital in a Series A round and the investor interest is great. They fomo a bit... A week ago my cofounder and CTO told us that his wife accepted a job in another country and that he will go with her. He thinks his work can be done remotely. I don't know what he thinks, but we are in process of hiring 4 developers which he will have to lead. Am I right that this is unacceptable? He argues that modern companies do remote work. What do you guys think? What should I do? I m the CEO. (I m extremely upset) [link] [comments]  |
| My startup is on the edge and I am struggling. Posted: 02 Feb 2019 03:21 PM PST TL;DR. I have a startup. Its currently producing revenue, however its deeply precarious. I am losing my mental health and don't know what to do. Some background - I am being really cautious about the basic details because even this last week we had a handful of press articles come out about what we are doing. This is a throwaway account and I have changed a few details. Let me know if this is still too revealing. Three years ago I was working in sales for a tech company and I crushed my quota. I had enough of the 9-5 lifestyle. Bill Gates is also my entrepreneur hero mostly for his post career actions and I wanted that. Basically I saw the entrepreneur dream that a lot of people want. I started a niche location concept from the commissions. While it didn't met any of the sales projections it quickly went to 12,000 a month. We got a bunch of news and tech press coverage. Reviews were great, but our location was poor. I made my first few critical mistakes. I had spectacular credit and I was a high earner (into the six figures) put about half the costs on credit cards (about 60k). I decided to quit my job after about 6 months in and took out more debt in the form of a business loan from a micro enterprise group (another 70k). They loved our application and funded us out of a big group, but did require that I personally guarantee it as well as find a cosigner because I had no regular income. My mom, bless her heart went ahead and cosigned. We opened up another location. That one was doing twice the sales per square foot. Within 6 months after opening a competitor saw what we were doing and they copied our concept down to the branding and prices. Retail landlords are also desperate right now (I have heard some in the industry describe them as sharks) and while we were temporary, our lease was supposed to go much further than that. The other group was willing to pay 4 times as much in rent and put it in their contract that we be kicked out of the mall as a condition of their opening their. Really scummy of everyone involved, but lesson learned. In a twist of karma fate, that other company just closed their doors early a few months ago probably due to the ludicrous rent they were paying. After that happened I put together a small team with a few engineers and we got into a prestigious accelerator which saved the company. I converted the business from an LLC to a Delware C corp, but I still owned like 80% of the stock since I was the only one to put funds in and have done most of the work. About two weeks after we got funding we got another shock: our first location was also forced to move by a much larger retail tenant. Luckily we were able to stay in the same complex this time, but had to move exact locations which burned through a lot of what we got from the accelerator. Lesson learned, we signed a longer lease to prevent it from happening again because this was twice already. However by this time I was thoroughly sick of retail and wanted to focus more on the global aspect and so we started a pivot to a global business. Additionally, a lot of the time I would have liked to spend talking to VC's or angels instead I was doing painting or other things just to save money. We ran out of funds, but I was super determined to keep it going, so I laid of my staff and essentially moved into the location and kept it going through sheer will. I was one step above homeless, but I told myself it was the entrepreneur grind. I kept my living situation from most of the team. In the midst of the pivot I talked to our accelerator and while sympathetic, they told me to "just get out there and fucking sell". I wish they would have helped with funds, but I understand accelerators don't really act like that. The pivot we started took a bit longer than expected but out of desperation and need we crushed it and ended up getting a bunch of marketing contracts and our revenue tripled along with making global press. I emailed out our update to all of the VC groups and angels everyone we had been talking to, but by this time we got barely a peep back. According to the data, VC dollars in this niche space plunged by 90%. Much larger companies than mine are flaming out left and right. Its like an apocalypse. There are exceptions people point to, but in reality its pretty bleak. The industry could come back and I think it will, but market conditions are not good right now. Meanwhile doing this for three years my personal life has been a mess. I don't see my family - for example I didn't see my own brother who lives out of state for a couple of years. In the midst of the pivot my girlfriend was diagnosed with cancer. Initially the doctors thought it was really bad, but after chemo it went into partial remission. I have been working 70-80 a week for almost the past three years, and I gained a lot of weight due to the stress. I still haven't missed a credit payment, but my car is on the verge of breaking down and I have totally skipped things like health insurance. I had to go without a medication I need for a chronic physical condition I had, and after 4 months without it I developed worse symptoms. Meanwhile the long grind really took a toll on the team. A crucial cofounder quit who we got along really well with (ironically to the same industry and he is now struggling more than when he was on the team). The two engineers, obviously seeing the signs of the industry and having much better opportunities both resigned. The IP is not salvagble without a lot more work on it. Between all of that and the industry I took a look at what I was doing and my state and decided to go back to work. I was able to get a job in sales again and my base is higher but I had worked so hard to get where I was at in terms of commissions, so I am making about half of what I was. Its enough to get me out of my business and I finally got a place of my own again and medication for my physical condition. However my business is now crazy. I had an assistant but that is no more. I am missing things like tax deadlines and we have a legal bill that is 2000 - hardly a deal, but when there is about 10k in the business bank account its hard to pay anything. I feel so much guilt. I am in the middle of training for new job and answering emails to who is left on my team and trying desperately to keep our marketing contracts afloat. During lunches and my commute I am taking meetings and trying to keep things normal and like everything is okay. Ironically due to our success we keep on getting more inbound interest and just landed the largest marketing contract we have so far and more profitable. My mental health is really taking a toll. About 8 years ago I went through a suicidal phase and through good therapy and learning good routines (exercise, etc) I was able to pull out of it. However, now all of those dark thoughts are returning again. I am having lots of insomnia, and due to my debt (I also owe a much smaller amount to family as well) I am terrified of what happens if my startup fails. At my age, I am beyond things like parental support, but my parents divorced long ago and my dad was homeless this last year. My mom is in a bad situation too financially and I don't want to make it worse. Every day is a constant struggle to even get out bed, and my anxiety is through the roof. I personally don't have any money. I would like to go to therapy, but there is nothing left over in my budget till I make sales at my new job. I am having tremendous guilt over the marketing contracts we have - I know we could be doing a much better job, but there is physically no time left for me in the day. I work, then come home and work in the evenings. My work performance is also not great, and I am continually exhausted and worn out at my new job. I am not married and have no one else to rely on. I have run the numbers - the retail part seems steady and kindof takes care of itself with some occasionally stressful involvement on my end. Its paying all the debt. Now that my other co founder left, all of the business development falls to me. If even the retail space stays open (we have had some bad months in the past so I am nervous with such low cash reserves) it will cover all of my debt. With my income I can pay off most of the debt if I survive this year and things look much rosier with no debt and things will pay me as a lifestyle business. The marketing contract we just landed was with a major company in the space. But it's a whole year of this and my mental health is among the worst its ever been - I am having breakdowns a few times a week. More than anything I just want a vacation. I do have some good days and moments here and there. I would like just some general advice and help. Venting too I guess. A couple of other questions - has anyone survived a similar business situation? I know on the flipside that my business is already close to the edge. Shutting it down sometimes seems appealing, but then that debt would still fall on me. I am not familiar with the bankruptcy process, but from a few google searches it seems viable. I just can't find anything on how it would impact our business (a Delaware C corp and I am own by far the largest stake). The debt too also falls all to me and to the old LLC or my personal credit cards. Knowing what I know now, I would never take this much risk again or do a startup this way. I wish I had started with stronger co founders for instance and with less debt). I beat myself up for all of my mistakes everyday and I know I have fucked things up and my life, but I have poured my heart and soul into the startup. [link] [comments]  |
| Do most startups nowadays require some sort of technical knowledge? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 07:20 AM PST Hi, so I've been thinking about this for quite some time. I'm a newbie and will start my entrepreneurship journey soon after uni. Correct if I'm wrong, but I find that every startup nowadays requires some sort of technical knowledge relating to computer science, no? It's hard for me to think of a business that I would like to start to after undergrad, that wouldn't be completely non-tech related. When asking people about which skills I should try to gain, they always talk about sales and a basic background in accounting/finance. But if you want to decrease the initial startups costs for your business, wouldn't it be greatly helpful if you didn't need to always hire developers and can do some work yourself? Wouldn't it be great to not have to spend more money on new mvp's? Especially for someone who does not have access to a lot of capital? I've heard of people spending 30k on MVP's...but thats crazy. And it turns they were a non-tech founder. That kind of scares me. I feel like I should try to gain as much technical knowledge as I can from here on out, so that when the time comes and business does involve tech, at least I have some skills that would make the business easier to manage. Any thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Making too much money that we can not receive. Posted: 03 Feb 2019 02:49 AM PST Hi. I am western, my partner is from Vietnam. We manufacture and sell online a fashion product. Lately, we have a lot of sales, where each transaction is around $500-1000. It seems that in the online payments industry there is a strong racism towards Asians, especially if they make money (= they most cheat someone). Our only method as being outside the US (no Stripe) is Paypal. We used to work with my partner's Paypal, till one morning they decided that she make too much money, and they do not trust us (as they do to many others). Because we first accept money and only a month later ship ( handmade products), we can not provide tracking numbers right away, so they don't like to wait and hold the money, then block the account for 180 days. (180 ! ! !) We already provided all tracking numbers, but obviously for such an awful company the responds always starts with - "unfortunately we can not.. " , calls, emails, nothing. They have no heart, lazy to go deep to realize they are loosing a good business. Ok, we moved to my Paypal, a western Paypal ( obviously their AI / humans are racist for Asians). I start to accept high payments volumes, no "hold on funds" yet, but now I would like to share revenue with her (!) The moment I link her bank account to my Paypal, obviously, their system will see its the same account they blocked, and will block me too. (because she is a bad person- an Asian that makes money online and provide proofs and good customer reviews). Yea.. fraud detection and all that.. their AI must be pretty ancient. Right now, orders comes faster than we can handle, and every new amount coming into my Paypal makes me worried more instead of happier. We are honest, good, hard working people, that simply can't accept money and move it freely between our accounts. Feels we have to hide, like criminals, where our customers are HAPPY.
What would you do to accept money ? (on Etsy, and our brand's website) How would I move money from my Paypal to her bank account (linking her account to my paypal will awake the bear) Sad, isn't it ? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| How to intrest seed money in a good way? Posted: 03 Feb 2019 01:50 AM PST Hi guys, English is not my primary language so sorry if i misspell or something doesnt make sense. I am a part of an early startup that now needs seed money and im intrested in some strategy of getting them. The thing we have right now is following: - A small team that has big experience with sales and front/backend programming. - 7 customers (B2B) including a well known brand in my country - An early MVP (we got the customers before we had the app out) - A solid business model So now to the thing.. We have to get seed money to get the snowball rolling. The app is kind of unique of it self with some other "competitors" being close to what we do but not to close if you know what i mean. I listen alot to a business podd and in it alot of succesful startup founders and investors are interviewd and my plan is to mail them. But what do i put in the mail to get them intrested? Alot of them get bombarded with people asking for money and i need to stand out. How did you get your seed money? [link] [comments]  |
| Dev here - how to find your co-founders? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 02:20 PM PST I ran a startup for a few years, it was kinda stressful to be honest but I also really liked the challenge of it. And the pride I felt about it, never got that pride from work. Joined a startup in an expanding stage afterwards but didn't really enjoy it. The bigger questions are for someone else to think about and my role is mostly to execute. Which is fine but not that interesting. Naturally I started working on my own ideas on the side but the experience from the first startup holds me back a bit. I know how many nights and mornings before work I put in to get it started. Now the first parts of both the ideas I am working on are out and I am trying to restrict my scope but I am a bit frustrated. I know that the best way to maximise would be to find others but I have never really been to find the right people. Usually someone is interested in the beginning a bit but their interests wanes early on. Tried to find people in the startup community as well but they have mostly been interested in areas I have no knowledge or interest off. Production wise I can do most of it myself but it's always more fun to work with someone else, and especially someone more talented than me to learn from. Business wise it's harder, even though I have learned a lot, it's still tough. How do you find your team? Or your co-founder to balance out yourself? I am not saying I am searching for the ideas I am working on now, I mostly want to learn more so not to repeat the mistakes of before. [link] [comments]  |
| Who here has started their business because they coudn't get hired for one? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 04:16 PM PST Aside from various MLM based businesses and similar commission-based jobs, or desperate businesses looking to fill low-skill jobs, most places don't let anyone walk in and let them start working just because they're interested. They invariably require an interview process to get hired. I'd like to see which people struggling for getting job offers as the primary reason they took matters into their own hands and establishing a startup to make money for themselves. I sometimes see the counter point of "if you can't sell yourself for a job, how will you be good at selling your own product/service?", but I think that's a matter of being more confident in presenting a product you created compared to presenting yourself as the product. There's a different mindset I take that makes it harder for me to undersell a creation of my own vs. selling myself. So who here took the chance to build a startup after thinking, enough is enough, I don't want to be at the mercy of job interviews? [link] [comments]  |
| Tech Startups: NYC vs Bay Area Posted: 02 Feb 2019 11:39 PM PST I'm a programmer/current student looking to get into startups. I plan on joining an early-stage (around series-A) startup to start off, with the goal being to eventually build my own. Right now, I'm trying to figure out where I want to land after graduation (geographically). I know that NYC is a disadvantage compared to the Bay Area when it comes to the tech startup environment. The number of Unicorns that have come out of the Bay Area is almost 4x the number that have come out of NYC in recent years. The reason why I'm considering NYC is because I dislike the bay area. I've been there every summer for internships, and I prefer not to live there (but am willing to sacrifice living preferences if thats what it takes to succeed). What I want to know is how much of a disadvantage I would be at if I went to New York instead of the Bay Area in order to weigh my choices. I'm currently in Chicago, it seems close to impossible to start a successful tech startup here because the pool of talented software engineers is so small, and there are an extremely small number of influential founders and mentors. What is the talent pool like in New York? Are there good mentors and serial founders that will offer me guidance and opportunities? How easy/hard is it to get connected with influential entrepreneurs in NY as opposed to the Bay Area? I consider myself to be a very good software engineer, would it be easier for me to get opportunities in NY due to the comparatively lower amount of talent there? Perhaps the most important question: will the NY ecosystem be a limiting factor in my ability to be successful in this space? Edit: a word [link] [comments]  |
| Freemium: How do you decide what's free and what's not? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 12:47 PM PST I've just released a first free version of my product (a suite of tools for software developers) with a very minimal feature set, and I'm starting to build out the paid feature set & checkout infrastructure etc as the next bit step. There's a big hard question here though, which I'm quickly coming up against: how do you decide which features should be free, and what should be paid only? For tools like mine, the free version is a major marketing channel, so the free version does need to be useful enough that it's interesting. Obviously though, on the other hand you clearly need there to be a strong incentive to buy your paid product. Do any of you have any heuristics for where the line should be? Or does anybody have any stories where this decisions has gone especially well or badly for them? [link] [comments]  |
| It's said that product manager is a very entrepreneurial role-- what else? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 11:24 AM PST I'm exploring career options as a previous founder (built up a media brand to 2M followers across social) and I've learned that product management is a very entrepreneurial multidisciplinary role. Obviously product management has different definitions across companies, but any other roles you can think of that might be a fit a fit for an entrepreneur, even if additional skills have to be learned? Excerpt that inspired this (it's very over the top but gets the point across): "There's no better way to explain product management than entrepreneurship. Product Managers are salaried entrepreneurs that need to do anything and everything to make their product successful. If we look at what made products like Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla successful, it wasn't a business strategy, it wasn't even a preconceived strategy; it was really a belief — a deep conviction, combined with experimentation, hustle, and patience. The next Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla won't be any different." [link] [comments]  |
| What Startups Companies Can Learn From The Wine Industry Posted: 02 Feb 2019 08:35 AM PST A lot of people have coffee every day. They prefer having it in a mug. Having it in a glass would feel… weird? Different? It wouldn't be a proper fit. We, as humans, have advanced. We've developed a lot of glasses. Glasses for water, wine glasses, champagne glasses and so on. For wine, they're even different given red or white wine. Connoisseurs will note that there are glasses for full-bodied red, light-bodied red, rose, sparkling (not champagne! got to be careful not to discriminate) and light-bodied white wine. I'm not one but even for me, I can slightly tell the difference between the red, white and sparkling wine glass. And then there's tea. There are full tea sets with all their cups and plates and so on. You won't pour tea into a wine glass. You could, for utilitarian value but hey, once we're past that point, we can be choosy. We can get so choosy to the point where we won't actually have that drink if it's not in the right recipient — at least people do. We can skip a beverage because of the square peg in a round hole problem. Personal StoryI've had it once. I was liking my energy drink and as much as it sounds very weird, I only did so because of the packaging. Why? Once I poured it into a mulled wine glass (just for the sake of it), it "tasted" like some cough syrup I was probably having in my childhood. Did it taste different? Science and common sense say no. Something inside of me said yes. The experience was different. Ever since then, I've never had energy drinks. I didn't cast a spell upon me that I would never ever touch them but I simply didn't feel like. Just because it was poured into a glass and I haven't had it out of the can. What's your point OP?My point is this: after a certain threshold of utilitarian value, people can get picky. That's not the case if there's no competition — they can choose what you do or nothing at all. And if you're in that position, you better start widening the gap between your company and the next contender, whenever they might emerge. My other point is this: the internet reduced the costs of entry for a lot of things. Social media's cost of entry versus TV or radio. An online shop vs a brick and mortar. Thousands of examples. Because of that, we're heading towards a society that will have more and more niches for more and more refined audiences. If before we had "solutions for cars", we'll eventually have "solutions for 1962 to 1970 Jaguar E-Type female owners" — so there's a community that's filtered by: gender, car make and model and year of production. My idea is that it's pretty filtered. Before, there was not enough "space" for this kind of filtering to happen. Now, there is. Solution can be a blog or a car parts shop. As a consequence, and here's my idea in a sentence),
As voice becomes more and more integrated into our society, yes, companies will have voices — and then it will be easier for us to grasp the concept of personality. Shopify is providing e-commerce solutions for business people. It's a "what you see is what you get" solution. Bigcartel is making it clear from the first second that it's for the "artists and makers". Their most expensive e-commerce solution is capped at 300 items — does that mean that you have to prove you're one of the two to use it? No. And not all Bigcartel clients are artists. That's Bigcartel's personality and they do that in order to connect to the personality of the artist. And by speaking so strongly to these people, somehow it happens that non-artists use Bigcartel as well. Are you still serving "everyone"? Is your product "for everyone"? Chances are, if you're reading this, then no. You've gone past the hurdle of "I want my product to be bought/utilised by everyone". Let's double down on that — personality. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you stay patient at your startup? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 11:44 AM PST Startups are about having macro patience and micro speed. Often there is a lot of logistical walls you need to climb over, and long periods of limbo especially in industries like health care and insurance where there are a lot of regulations. I'm going through one of those periods. How do you stay patient? And if you can share your stories of limbo and how you overcame them? Also, what do you do about your employees who you can't find work for during this limbo period? We have some great contractors and employees but I can't seem to find work for all of them that is meaningful. A lot of them seem unmotivated when the work and goals are unclear. [link] [comments]  |
| Growth strategies for test preparation startup. Posted: 02 Feb 2019 10:28 AM PST Hello all ! I have startup in test preparation space in India. It is a AI based personal guide for students that helps them to increase their test marks in less time. It analyses student current and past test performances and gives them a personalised study plan that is most efficient for them.( It's like a chatbot that brings most suitable tests or videos) We have just launched. I was looking for ideas on how I can growth hack this product. What things have helped other test prep apps in their growth. Any innovative ways to market this product. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Tips on connecting with potential corporate partners Posted: 02 Feb 2019 09:02 AM PST I'm working on a B2C app which has a lot of pretty obvious synergy with ecom retailers for a specific sector, so thought I'd do some early outreach ahead of the beta launch. I've been very surprised how difficult it has been to get any responses. 2x retailers who were my 'prime target' have innovation departments, I managed to connect with them on Linkedin but then it goes completely silent. There have been a number of other unsuccessful approaches too. This silence is happening before I even provide details on the app... any advice / thoughts on how best to build relationships with corporates? I've been on the other side (although working for smaller companies) and was always fairly open to new ideas / approaches myself, hence my surprise. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| is SEO the next step for my recommendation engine for musicians? Posted: 02 Feb 2019 02:59 AM PST I'm the creator of a recommendation engine for guitar gear which already has ~200 registered users and great reaction from the community. This is my first time doing something like this. The current monetization model is using store affiliates for buying the recommended gear. For now I keep adding features and launching, and this results in more users (doubled the user base in the last launch). I started thinking that to truly test the monetization model I need to bring larger amounts of traffic - starting with SEO pages (for example: Top 10 Guitar Gear in 2019) leveraging the site data, to lure more traffic in. Of course this goes hand in hand with some ads to these pages, and I try to get featured in newsletters and blogs by cold emails, no success so far. Happy to hear your thoughts, what would you do in my shoes? [link] [comments]  |
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