Startups A friend of a friend of mine who exited his company told me last night he wants to invest $200k into our seed round. |
- A friend of a friend of mine who exited his company told me last night he wants to invest $200k into our seed round.
- Non-technical cofounder is making Power Moves?
- Digital Marketing & Data science Or Digital Marketing & web development. which combination for online startups ?
- Have you guys have reviews on third-party platforms like Google Reviews, G2crowd, SaaSGenius, Yelp, etc.? What has been your experience with these platforms?
- Are co-founders entitled to be rebated on their initial investments in startups if other co-founders want him/her kicked?
- Should I do a software presale?
- Looking for the best solution to guide users after registration in SaaS
- Approaching investors
- Startup Offer Letter - Request for Interpretation
- Advice for pivoting when you already have 10,000 users?
- My idea, his money. What's my stake?
- Lost my "confirmation" of 83b from the IRS. What should I do?
- How much money before quitting job to work on my idea?
- Fantastic business model and strategy, but no investment cash?
- Is there a market for advising startups?
- Will my startup fail?
| Posted: 08 Apr 2019 12:40 AM PDT I am in town NYC visiting my buddy and I got to meet his friend also who was the 4th engineer at a startup that got acquired. I was telling him about my startup since I have been here for 5 days and was telling him we just opened a $1M seed round to raise capital. Last night he asked for more information and after giving him the pitch, he said he wants to join our seed round and invest $200k. Want to make sure I dont screw it up because I believe he is a smart money fit, his experience as an exit founder is invaluable. Also a very smart engineer and would provide great feedback/resources to speed up our technical development. Entrepreneurs who have been in my position how do I set up a syndicate and how do I accept his money? I have launched a convertible note round in the past and raised some capital so not new to accepting capital. But that was in the 10k range and this is 20x that. Should I collect the $200k as the convertible note round or make him the 1st member of a syndicate for the Seed Round? Anyone who has done this from friends and family, any tips to consider? I am meeting him again tomorrow, how do I bring it back up and ask the right questions? Thanks in advance guys. [link] [comments]  |
| Non-technical cofounder is making Power Moves? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 10:13 AM PDT A couple of friends and I had this idea and we've had some recent success with winning capital at both pitch and technology competitions. We have a prototype for our project however it is a social good idea that requires a lot of legal and economic research. (I am a technical founder) I was talking to the other two technical founders and we discovered the nontechnical founder is trying to keep us from making decisions equally. He justifies this by the fact that he came up with the project concept, however, we as the technical founders built on top of that idea and made it what it is today. When talking about how to split the prize money, he did not want to talk about it and when we tried to talk about equity he wanted to take 50% of the equity because he came up with the idea initially, however, he has not done any of the programming work. He does research for the social and business side of the project and when we give him research that we did in our free time to find flaws in our idea he usually dismisses them and tries to bring up another point. All three of us understand there are many red flags, however, we are all passionate about the idea and we have had success with it. We are wondering if we should create contracts, force him to give us more power in making these decisions, or simply split from him? TLDR: The non-technical cofounder is making power moves and trying to seize full control over the project because he came up with the idea initially. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2019 09:56 PM PDT Hello I am currently studying for a Masters degree in MIS I'd like to ask which tech skills are more valuable for an aspiring online entrepreneur I did some research and I found data science very powerful , but confused if it's more valuable and suitable for my entrepreneurship aspirations or is it more corporate focused and needs a lot of data and therefore not that useful for small online businesses . Is there some intersection between digital marketing , data science & web development as a powerful combination for online business success . What technical skills should I focus more on , is it the route of digital marketing while adding web development , or data science skills ? Thank you in advance [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2019 11:58 PM PDT The power of such reviews is significant in all types of market sectors and industries, from booking travel destinations to purchasing retail products and also in B2B and SaaS solutions. Have you guys have reviews on third-party platforms like Google Reviews, G2crowd, SaaSGenius, Yelp, etc.? What has been your experience with these platforms? There have been several discussions around on the cautionary notes for anyone collecting reviews for their business on third-party platforms (a case in point is - https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/b71jes/how_google_deleted_almost_400_fivestar_reviews/) Anybody had a similar or any other challenge there? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2019 03:22 AM PDT Hey everyone, I posted some months back about a problem in my logistics startup and everyone was genuinely helpful, and I thank you all! This is more of a hypothetical question, and I would simply just like to learn about things like this. If a co-founder does not meet the expected work contributions in building a startup, and the other co-founders decide to kick him out, is he/she entitled to be returned any amount of his original investment? Notes: -Say he/she is not an investor, but a co-founder who is supposed to build and grow the startup along with other co-founders And to be more specific (although still just a hypothetical situation): -Say all legal papers are signed, effective, and valid (including scope of work, operation agreements, equity share, etc.) -Operational for 6 months -4 founders Looking forward in the discussion! EDIT: Guys please remember, my startup is nowhere headed towards this situation, but I would like to learn what would happen if such a thing occurs. I've read all the feedback and I fully appreciate the on-going discussion. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I do a software presale? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:32 PM PDT A bit of background:About a year ago, I started developing a piece of marketing software for Instagram influencers. I posted a very rough around the edges version of the software in a demonstration video on YouTube, offering it to viewers for free, so long as they became an early beta-tester. Within a couple months, the video had racked up a couple thousand views, and my inbox was flooded with requests to join the beta test. Some viewers literally wanted to buy this horrible early prototype version of the software immediately. Long story short, I was overwhelmed, and took on several dozen beta testers, buckled in for the long run, and dedicated my work to building a product I was happy with selling, which could be integrated as monthly subscription. Now:Over the course of a year, I've gotten this software to a point where I am comfortable selling it. The beta testers love it, and I've integrated tons of requested features, as well as my initial vision for the software. In the past two months, I've built my online platform to sell monthly subscriptions and onboard (and hopefully retain) new users via my website. I should be ready to fully release this software by mid-May, and based on the initial response to my terrible prototype 1 year ago, I don't think it should be too hard to get users in my market interested in the polished, upgraded version. At this point, I am considering starting a Pre-Sale of the software about a month ahead of launch (so within the next week or so), offering a lifetime or long-duration subscription to early purchasers, rather than the usual monthly plan. The reason that I plan on doing this is for a couple of reasons:
So, giving the pros that I've thought of, are there any cons I should be aware of in doing this? Any advice you could offer in this realm would be greatly appreciated!! [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for the best solution to guide users after registration in SaaS Posted: 07 Apr 2019 06:53 AM PDT Hello guys! So we had a release of our platform a week ago, we got some test users, but the problem is - when users complete registration they simply don't understand what to do and how to do. So I want to show them guide and I am . looking for some completed modules which allows that. Do you know if there are some platforms for writing guides to users, by connecting them right to the platform's buttons? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2019 01:56 PM PDT Hello community, I had a great idea lately, which I build in a detailed business plan. It is for a large platform which involves not only a software product but also around 6 pros from other fields on full time. The project will need up to a year in order to start returning money, but it has the opportunity to be first of a kind idea with great success. I have spoke with a concrete company for building and maintaining the platform, so i have complete calculation of the pilot cost and approximate calculation for the month to month costs. My question is how to start searching for an investor. I live in a European capital with good start up climate and have contacts of some people that might be interested but don't know how to contact and negotiate with them. Maybe I'm primarily afraid that one of them can just take the idea and create it without me. Do you have any prepositions of which is the best way to contact them? What should i expect. Is there a real possibility to lose my idea? [link] [comments]  |
| Startup Offer Letter - Request for Interpretation Posted: 07 Apr 2019 03:02 PM PDT Hi all, Just received an exciting offer letter from a tech startup. I'm in the process of researching the proposed compensation package and am looking for guidance from those well versed in this area. Specific benefits/terms and questions are below:
Question: How does this 6% cash compensation program work for health insurance and company savings program (e.g. 401k)? Where does this 6% pull from? Is this fair/standard fringe benefit offer for startup?
Note: the above shares are approximately 5% of the total company ownership Question: Is this a standard stock option plan for a startup? Are there any further questions I should ask regarding this stock option plan? [link] [comments]  |
| Advice for pivoting when you already have 10,000 users? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 08:17 PM PDT In November, I released a social network to the Apple and Google Play store. It's been going very well, the app has a very passionate following and shows signs of massive potential. The users are so incredibly attached to the app, and they really feel connected to the community. The problem is it is very difficult to scale the way the app is structured now. In fact, I've purposefully had to sabotage our own growth in an effort to keep it small while the app is unable to scale. I'm going to be introducing some big changes. Make or break changes, in other words, this update could make the app incredibly popular, or cause it to fail, but it's necessary as it's not possible to scale as we are now. This update would make it very possible to scale. So what I've done is create a Google Doc, and wrote down everything that will be added/removed in the new update, and I've handed it off to our top 10 users. They seem to be very excited, with some reservations here and there, but I think it's mostly things I didn't explain well enough. My intention is to create a second draft with more clear points, and then hand it off to all our users, and try to get some feedback that way. So I guess I have a few questions:
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| My idea, his money. What's my stake? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 03:58 PM PDT I presented my business idea (product related to health) to a friend. He liked it and will most likely provide 100% of the capital for it. What I bring to the business: idea, free/discounted ads on celebs' social media accounts through family connections What he brings to the business: capital, physical place to sell product (gyms his family owns <- not as important as we expect the bulk of the product to sell online) How do we split the company's stake between us, given that he will provide 100% of the capital? [link] [comments]  |
| Lost my "confirmation" of 83b from the IRS. What should I do? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:26 AM PDT Hey guys, I have an 83b I filed last year for a startup I am still working with. I sent it in within 30 days and had them send back confirmation that they received it. I also did file my taxes accordingly taking the 83b into account. But I've seemed to have misplaced the confirmation from the IRS that they received it. Is this a big deal since they have confirmed they have it already? Or is this one of those things that will become a problem? Thanks in advance, really has my anxiety out the roof right now. [link] [comments]  |
| How much money before quitting job to work on my idea? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 05:09 PM PDT Canadian, 32, single, software developer without a lot of financial obligations. Currently in a comfortable job with a good salary but want to quit and work on my own idea. Have saved up CAD 130,000/USD 100,000. I'm wondering if this is sufficient or I need to save up more before quitting my job. This is all the cash I have, no retirement or other savings, also $0 debt. I expect a minimum marketable product to be ready in 3-4 months. I don't have 100% expertise in all of the technologies I'm planning to use but I'm a fast learner. But at some point, I'll need to engage friends or a freelance developer. Primary audience for the product will be in the US so expecting some travel for initial and continuing marketing/sales. Planning to move to an extremely low cost location after quitting the job (will be renting, don't own a home) and work from there until my idea takes shape. Estimating a monthly budget of CAD 2,000/USD 1,500 for all personal expenditures. Planning to use GSuite for domains/basic setup and Google Cloud or Azure for deployment. My idea is in fintech and expect to give away a lot of initial service in exchange for feature/improvement suggestions for early clients (so need to absorb initial cloud costs myself). Also since this is not an entirely new idea and need to compete with existing providers, I need to rapidly work on additional features while also selling the initial versions. I'd appreciate any input to help me decide about my job and also anything relevant in any way. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Fantastic business model and strategy, but no investment cash? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:35 AM PDT Hey there I normally don't see problems, but a solution, in one way or another. I've figured out a interesting business model and strategy with a french guy, that will rely on dropshipping and low marketing expenses. However, the initial start-up cost and MOQ with a supplier in Hong Kong is unfortunately out of our budget. $30k. Bank loans, sure that is awesome and can get your business going. I'm however afraid of loans and hence the reason i've spent much time into researching this market and figured out the strategy to offer something new and exclusive, the market haven't seen yet. I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask you guys at r/startups for ideas. I'm open for any help and guidelines. [link] [comments]  |
| Is there a market for advising startups? Posted: 07 Apr 2019 02:22 PM PDT I recently joined a startup and my role is to build on the strategy, come up with business solutions to problems (i.e., business work not necessarily development of technical work), and monitor how well the startup is doing and provide feedback to the CEO on changes that will improve the business. It's an interesting role, much different than what I am accustomed to as I have worked in business planning and project management for the government and a private corporation, not for startups. In fact, I wrote a post about this about a week ago. Anyhow, I got to thinking....the aspect of advising startups SHOULD be a big market because all startups need advice and at least working with this startup, I am seeing some gaps in business acumen (sorry guys if you are reading this....:)). I see even strategy being important as the startup I am with is so focused on the customer and getting customer feedback and use cases that they have no idea how to actually execute the business stuff that is important.....i.e, marketing, building a pricing strategy, finding additional distribution channels, cutting costs, negotiating with suppliers, and partnerships. Is there a REAL market for advising startups in business stuff or is that only for the major startups that have C-Suite level access and funding? Thoughts? Opinions? Comments? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Apr 2019 08:40 AM PDT Most of the startups I have read about are SW or service based businesses. This dramatically reduces the costs of development and creation of the startup. A single person or a minimum team could be able to make a MVP quickly and with a low cost but, what if the product means a high cost and a long development term? The idea I have in mind means a lot of effort from a really specialized team, I am pretty sure it will take around a year to have the MVP. And I am just talking about a single product that in case of selling will mean some more months until having the next one. Because of this, the time of learning become too slow. Another problem I see here is, as always, the money. I would probably not get any investor until having the MVP so I do not know how to pay the team and the material needed. A single MVP can cost around 100k€ just on materials. Last but not least, I know I have a great idea, I also have the knowledge as I am an engineer with experience on the field I want to create my startup. But even all the books I have read, I do not have any experience on startups and as far as I know, the first one you create usually fails. Do I have any chance of success? How do I get investors without an MVP? Many thanks beforehand for all the help! [link] [comments]  |
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