Startups Thinking of leaving startup, how to best proceed in this situation |
- Thinking of leaving startup, how to best proceed in this situation
- First Time Advertising: How Much Did You Spend?
- Help with gaining clients online
- UK tech start up: personal finance query
- Self-Guided Pub Crawl Business. How to get first customers?
- Labor laws question: Exempt status for early-stage employee?
- When It Comes To Business, Sometimes It's Better To Not Keep The Tab
- Need advice to get customers
| Thinking of leaving startup, how to best proceed in this situation Posted: 06 Feb 2019 10:20 PM PST Hi, my cofounder and I have been working on our startup for 3 years. We are just now getting some traction, we got into an accelerator that pays us 100k to attend, we received no other funding and little traction before this. Thus far our effort has been spent on building a prototype that works, which we recently achieved. For the past year we have been traveling a lot all over the country, and as a result my relationship with my wife has suffered. I'm not going to go into more detail here, but essentially I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to put any more strain our our relationship and want to exit the startup. The problem is that there are only two of us working on it, we don't have a team or a third cofounder so if I was to leave, he would be left alone. Now I'm not saying I want to completely drop everything, I'm willing to work remotely as much as I can, my point is that I don't want to relocate or travel a significant amount, which I foresee will be required in the very near future. My dilemma is how to best go about this so as not to jeopardize the chances of the company's success, as much as possible considering I would be leaving. We've already talked about this briefly so it wouldn't be out of the blue, and I do feel bad leaving at the most critical time, but I'm not sure if I can dedicate a year or two more to this pursuit. My question is what's the best course of action here, is it extremely unreasonable, unfair, and stupid for me to consider leaving? Am I entitled to keeping any equity or would I have to give it a big majority of it back for the company to seem attractive to a future investor? [link] [comments]  |
| First Time Advertising: How Much Did You Spend? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 10:02 AM PST The past month, I have been practically sending out emails or messages to potential clients. That of course, is just not sufficient. As such, I began considering advertising via AdWords or Facebook. For context, what my team does is basically to "convert" web applications/websites into downloadable mobile apps for iOS and Android using WebView, an affordable alternative to building natively from scratch (with several benefits compared to other hybrid solutions like live-syncing). I have validated it and know there's some demand. What did you all spend on advertising your start-up on social media, AdWords etc. the first time? Any thoughts on how much would be a good figure to start off with? I assume few would have just went all in, and most would have placed a small amount (but how much?) just to see if advertising produces results (conversion rates etc.). And of course, feel free to share your experiences advertising on various platforms. [link] [comments]  |
| Help with gaining clients online Posted: 06 Feb 2019 07:41 AM PST Hello everyone, I have recently started a Web hosting business and I'm looking to get my first clients. I have successfully ran two beta programs to gain feedback and that has gained me a few users(although they don't pay as the beta was free). I have also ran a very small twitter advertising campaign but had no luck. I have done some research but the majority of information seems useless and nothing I have tried has worked out so far. Basically what I'm looking for is some methods to gain clients online. Any help would be much appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| UK tech start up: personal finance query Posted: 06 Feb 2019 01:41 PM PST Hi guys, Two friends and I have designed and released an app marketplace. We have 2 major partners signed up and I am going full time in April. I will initially be working out of my flat as the business is essentially a 3rd party marketing and sales team that takes a commission on every order won through our app. I win business face-to-face (I have been in sales for 7 years) so the running costs are minimal. We have £10k currently in the bank and have spent £2k on marketing (corporate gifts, professional explainer video animations etc.) I have £7k saved with no overdraft or credit cards. Our only real outgoings are the car which costs us £300.00 a month. We have other ancillary costs which equal £200.00 a month (server costs, insurance etc). We have an agreement with one of our partners that every pallet of goods' value comes to our business (£1600) until we get off the ground (they are one of the founders of our business). My question is this: how much money have those who have taken the plunge saved up before they've gone at it with their new business? Were there any unexpected costs you came across? Did you claim for any working benefits and just claim a small wage? I am confident we can make a good go of this but I am just curious to see how others have gotten on. It's nerve-racking but really exciting too. (Unsure if relevant but I currently have a job in sales with a new company car and bonus scheme so just looking for Reddit advice or comments). Thanks TL;DR I done a business and wondering how much other people saved before going full fucks. [link] [comments]  |
| Self-Guided Pub Crawl Business. How to get first customers? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 03:39 PM PST Hi Reddit, I have recently started a self-guided pub crawl business and am trying to grow my initial customer base. Basically, the way it works is you download my app, buy the tour, and use your phone to navigate to all of the included locations, redeeming items like pints and tasting flights with your phone. I have negotiated deals with my vendors to include items such as pints and tasting flights at a 50-60% discount, so I can pass on some of the savings to my customers while still making a profit. The cool thing about the business is that it is scalable, but I am having trouble attracting users. I have been using Instagram ads so far, and have spent a few hundred dollars on that with a little success. Thanks a lot! [link] [comments]  |
| Labor laws question: Exempt status for early-stage employee? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 07:31 PM PST For those of you that have scaled up a SaaS team, would the following employee fit the Exempt (Administrative) status?:
This employee has generally been given significant responsibility and discretion in matter pertaining to customer success, customer support and sales, such as coming up with their own sales system, determining if a refund or credit should be issued, determining what priority a bug or feature request should be assigned, determining which conferences are worth attending, planning logistics for the conferences, and generally representing the voice of our customers in product planning. This employee wondered about overtime compensation recently after a long weekend conference. While we frequently give raises and bonuses, we're under the impression this role falls under Administrative Exempt status and overtime isn't applicable. Thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| When It Comes To Business, Sometimes It's Better To Not Keep The Tab Posted: 06 Feb 2019 03:34 PM PST It's a story you might have heard. I want to go deeper than that, see how that translates to the professional world. I was in a gelato shop the other day. No need to name it. We had our waffles with ice-cream in silence, looking at the street from the warmer side of the window. You know you can feel tension sometimes, right? In the sense that you might not pay attention to the words that are spoken somewhere around you but at least through the tone, you feel there's something wrong. A client dropped her macaron. She was asking for a new one — didn't specifically "blame it" on the salesperson (which I think is good so as to not place blame) by phrasing it somewhere along the lines of: "The way it was placed on the tray was making it likely to fall" Not so much language verbose but she said it in a non-personal way. "Sorry, you have to buy a new one, we can't help you otherwise." So and my party and I ruled out the following: a macaron costs £1.90. Production cost? Say £0.5, though that's a lot — let's just say they buy it themselves for that amount. How much would that person spend with the shop yearly? A waffle is somewhere around £7. Say £50 yearly at least. For an extra 50p cost, they've lost not only her but also her friends (she was with a group of 5 I think). Surely the sale cost included situations like these so that it can be covered. And most of the time, they're not dropped on the floor. Yes, we've heard this story before — what's new?Let's see what that means in the professional space. First of all, I don't think anyone is to blame. Not the employee, not the customer, not the employee's superior. If I'd really have to pick one, it'd be the owner because when you're CEO, everything is on you. If anything, it was up to her to transmit that into the company's culture — especially since more than sure the sale cost covered situations like these. Second of all, it's easy for us to judge from the outside. That was an instant decision. Here's what I think we can take from thisYou're not the one responsible for the bill. Pay for that inconvenience. Pay it forward, how they say it in common culture. We might get very close to a discussion about religion but if you at least believe in a governing force (not necessarily God but it could be God), then that force will keep the bill for you. And if you trust it, you won't mind keeping the tab for that good thing you've done some time ago or the bad one that happens to you today. Easy to say, a bit harder in practice. But you can go a long way uninterrupted (and that's the highlight), should you not stop every now and then to keep the tab. And, as you might have seen, when you go a long way without interrupting, you can also get far. Another thing is this:Skin in the game. Sure, easy for me to say:
Easy for me to say, I've built businesses all my life. So the existential businessperson problem is this (surely you've encountered it before): How do you have people put their skin in the game? If I'm a surgeon, I have skin in the game. A lawyer in court has it as well. As a mere employee that doesn't care, I can say who gives a damn about these £2 or the customer lifetime value. And as much as I'd want to have an answer to the question, I don't. The closest I got to was to show passion and that somehow inspired people (sometimes, not always) when I talked about what I believe. It's a bit of a high cost that I'm ready to pay all the time when this belief is not matching anyone else's — but this is not meant to be a motivational written piece. You know it, stand for what you believe. The "don't keep the tab" and "skin in the game" concepts somehow get together. If both you and I pay it forward, surely soon enough we'll have enough good around us. In the professional spaceGet on the one on one talk with your user — 5 times a day, if it seems too much. In the same way, get 1 on 1 with your employee. Get their skin in the game by inspiring. Don't keep the tab with your clients. At least not all the time. And if you find that hard, it just means you need to charge more to cover for that. If you're afraid of being good because of abuse from the other side, ask yourself how many can possibly abuse it — and remember you can say no when it's too much. __ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 05:59 AM PST Hi Everyone, I just want to say this is my first time posting so if I am repeating a thread please let me know. I have no experience as an entrepreneur nor do I have anyone in my family who does. Earlier this month I launched my start up to sell waterless shaving lotion for women. I did my research to find competitors and they was only one but it catered to men. I narrowed down my niche to women in mid twenties to early thirties who are busy professionals and mothers. Before the big launch we had beta test groups across USA try the product and we only got positive feedback from them. I did a soft launch and set up social media accounts. I have been actively posting on it and even buying Facebook/Instagram ads. I searched keywords on google key word planner before buying the ads and then made the ads accordingly. I have only had 3 clicks out of all of that. After the big launch I had sales order from friends and family but now it's stopped. I don't know what to do. This is an e-commerce store. Please help! [link] [comments]  |
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