Startups Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products |
- Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products
- What was your best marketing hack?
- Do you think that a startup is always a Tech Startup?
- Startup Accelerators
- Healthcare AI startup
- Looking for validation on my idea, before I write a single line of code...
- What are the biggest issues you have encountered as a non-technical founder in finding your way into tech?
- Have your tried nearshoring? What's your oppinion?
- Having a hard time getting people to download the app at all.
- Co-founder before seed hunting or seed hunting before co-founder?
- What questions to ask to evaluate an offer from start up?
- Expecting a shady move from my partner?
- Startup CEO refusing to pay back deferred wages as stated in signed contract amendment.
- Advice on handing over pre-launch MVP to a new team
- Question about Name Trademark
- What’s a good resource to identify common practices and avoid pitfalls for a software startup?
| Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products Posted: 09 Aug 2019 06:08 AM PDT Welcome to this week's Feedback Thread. This is the place to request feedback on your ideas and products. Be sure to give feedback if you are requesting feedback. Equivalent exchange goes a long way towards reaching your own goals and it makes for a stronger community. Please use the following format:URL: Purpose of Startup: Technologies Used: Feedback Requested: Additional Comments: 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. You can also find more support using instant chat on the /r/startups discord. [link] [comments]  |
| What was your best marketing hack? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 11:51 AM PDT I'm curious, what marketing hack has brought you the most result? By this, I mean
Marketing hack could be anything from free marketing to some smart viral campaign. My most funny and profitable hack was on Black Friday. It happened unintentionally: we posted that we'll be increasing price twice (which we did) and people thought that it's a 50% discount. Back then we had a huge spike of sales without any promotion. Super interested to know your stories and maybe to use something for my startup. [link] [comments]  |
| Do you think that a startup is always a Tech Startup? Posted: 10 Aug 2019 01:00 AM PDT Entrepreneurs were misfits, risk-takers, market leaders and many other things- more than the number of startups out there. This was an ecosystem of businesspersons and entrepreneurs providing employment to people otherwise. But, then the number of people graduating from universities increased. Especially engineers. The advent of web 2.0 acted as fertilizer for the growth of entrepreneurial ventures. With new technologies coming up, there were more and more opportunities for techpreneurs to grab them. Due to the sudden success of so many startups, it also gained media attention. After gaining all this media attention, tech startups became ubiquitous. Everyone wanted to be a part of Silicon Valley and the startup culture to become overnight millionaires. After the dot com bubble crash, this was the next bubble that was blowing up. Today, companies across every industry- from finance to fashion are adopting the tech label. Shakespeare once said, What's in a name? In that case, why do branding studios give out naming service? Today, every company is at least a little bit of a tech company but the real question is, is tech a substantial part of your startup? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Aug 2019 04:17 PM PDT What exactly do startup accelerators do? I just finished my second interview with a startup accelerator and I still don't really understand how they help. I applied because someone recommended it but when I ask all they tell me is they you meet people and build connections, and have weekly coaching sessions. Im not confident that it will help me grow my startup. Are they worth it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Aug 2019 02:57 PM PDT I am a physician with an idea for a AI startup, what is the best way to find a CTO co founder to do the tech as I do the healthcare logic and business development? I don't want to hire out as I have had bad experiences in hiring programmers who just didn't deliver on another project. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for validation on my idea, before I write a single line of code... Posted: 10 Aug 2019 01:25 AM PDT Hi, I'm thinking of starting a side project, but wanted to get some feedback / validation before I started. I'd like to build a webapp that allows people to turn APIs into dashboards in a simple way, and share them across their organization. Some for example, you enter an API, retrieve the data, which can then be easily drag / dropped into different charts / graph widgets. These can then be shared into a collective 'bucket' of organizational data. Each user can then select which KPIs they want to see on their feed, that are relevant to them. This reduced the need for ad hoc reporting / spreadsheets etc, that seem to take up a lot of middle management time in the organizations I have worked. The key for me here in simplicity. There are a lot of advanced Dashboard apps around, that seem to be aimed at data scientists / heavy BI work. I'm looking to plug the gap for relatively simple KPI tracking in a shared, fun, way. The idea would be that organizations can build simple APIs, (taking advantage on the current Lambda trend) rather than entire web apps / internal dashboards / BI stacks, and plug them into my App, where all KPIs reside centrally. ... So what do people think? Any room for this in the marketplace? Thank you in advance my friends. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Aug 2019 03:15 PM PDT Were you still able to get your product created? Or what were the things that made you give up? Did you waste money or feel like you were taken advantage of by someone? Did you waste time on things that turned out to not be important? Did you receive advice that turned out to be terrible? Did you learn to design, market, code on your own? Is there one thing you would strongly encourage new founders to avoid at all costs? [link] [comments]  |
| Have your tried nearshoring? What's your oppinion? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 03:34 PM PDT Hey guys. I was checking my options for reducing cost on my development for an MVP creation and after deciding offshore was not an option for me (time delta) I started looking for nearshoring, but I would like to hear your experience first. Would you recommend nearshoring? [link] [comments]  |
| Having a hard time getting people to download the app at all. Posted: 09 Aug 2019 07:16 PM PDT We have our consumer product (An app/website that shows you the best restaurants in town) as a website and as an app. Ultimately we want people to use the app and not the website bc we think the app will have better retention. To just test the MVP, we've done Facebook ads for the website and for the app. For the website ads, we get good engagement. People spend a lot of time on the website. For the app ads, people never actually download the app so they never know what it's like. Any ideas on how to get people to download your app in the first place? I got my friends to download it but that's it. [link] [comments]  |
| Co-founder before seed hunting or seed hunting before co-founder? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 01:15 PM PDT Ok I have a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma going on. I have this new venture idea which I can't necessarily push to market on my own without a technical co-founder. I do know enough swift and python to make stupid hangman games, but not enough to launch a minimum VIABLE product so I figure I'd find one. I also have no real job experience so my credibility among investors and technical co-founders is low which is why I don't know who to approach first. I'm in no way stupid...I've had internships, went to a reputable university, and have been raised around entrepreneurs my whole life, but it's been a year since I graduated and I've only been working at my dad's company. So to reiterate, I'm a "new" grad who is technically non-technical with low credibility. I have access to many software engineers and startup advisors within my personal network BUT I know I'll have a better chance at convincing a friend to be a co-founder if I have proof of investing and vice versa I know I'll have a better chance at talking to investors if I have a technical co-founder. Who do I talk to first? Any advice will help! [link] [comments]  |
| What questions to ask to evaluate an offer from start up? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 01:09 PM PDT Hello! The company was started by two people, both working full time on it. I would be the third person on the team. The startup aims to introduce AI in a field which has lagged behind in the introduction of technology by at least 2 decades. The big players in this field are conservative, but now they are opening up towards embracing new technology. Personally I have confidence in their idea, and feel this will be a sustainable and profitable company. The offered salary is about 60% of what I make right now. The equity offered is 2%. I do not know the details of the funding they have received so far or the equity split. Any pointers in helping me frame my questions for the evaluation of the offer would be very helpful! Thank you [link] [comments]  |
| Expecting a shady move from my partner? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 04:16 PM PDT I am a young graduate and this is my first stint at entrepreneurship although i have developed hardware products/projects in university and got govt grants to developed but never generated revenue... I started a mobility startup with a co founder for equity free pre seed funding in Oct 2018 and began product development. We ran out of money and had a touch time finding serious investment due to low credibility and due to due to investors anticipating that startups like us were to banned temporarily(which was true) and also my co founder left leaving me high and dry. Now i was about to quit and as a matter of last push to find reached out to a founder of a startup who was in a very similar space for advice and mentorship. he heard my pitch and offer me to make him a co founder and in exchanged he promised me connections/invesment/resources and his staff to finish product development and for any help i need for a minority stake, but later he sense my position and asked me for 90% and majority votes in the board. since i was about to quit i though its still a better option rather than jobs hunting or doing an internship. We signed a weakly worded 4 pages co founders agreement (which might not be legally enforceable) Its been 4 months now i havent got the salary, nor is the product development initiated, we havent gotten any investment yet and we met a couple of high level regulators in lobbying efforts. and one of his ex employee called me out of the blue and asked me to be very carefull of him as he is shady Af and will use and throw you. I always get a shady vibe from him and cant take him seriously now but he is always nice to me and hastn done anything vindictive yet. it is very difficult to meet him also as he is busy with his own company Should i call it quits and leave this? or cancel the contract or find a job somewhere else or work on some other ideas i have on the side as i am running out of money and have to take care of my family as both my parents are about to retired and cant work legally. [link] [comments]  |
| Startup CEO refusing to pay back deferred wages as stated in signed contract amendment. Posted: 09 Aug 2019 11:51 AM PDT So I'll provide a short version of my backstory below, but if you're curious, I posted in detail about this situation as of a few months ago in the following post: https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/bnq4u8/at_a_startup_moneys_tight_is_my_boss_asking_too/ BACKSTORY: I'm working at a startup, which is a public micro-cap company with a market cap of roughly $4 million. They became public through a reverse merger. This past October the company ran into some financial troubles, and I was told that the officers had stopped paying themselves a few months prior to this, and that things had gotten to a point where they needed me to sign a contract amendment allowing them to defer part or all of my wages until the company had raised $300k (negotiated down from 500k) from the date the amendment was signed. There also was an option to be paid in pure equity. I felt pretty pressured as the contract was already laying on the table with a pen ready to be signed. I signed the contract, and from that point until now, I've deferred over $46,000. There is no interest or any sort of equity based risk compensation, and no collateral. TODAY: I had lunch with the CEO recently, where he accused me of not having empathy for the other officers who haven't been getting paid for longer than me, where some haven't seen a cent over the past year, and that I was looking out for myself as opposed to what's best for the company by constantly asking for fundraising updates, and at one point, asking for some equity-based risk compensation (which pissed him off a lot). This really pissed me off as I've stuck around through thick and thin as an employee without much equity (0.5%), working without pay and allowing the company to rack up a $46k tab. I even had them at one point start deferring my pay earlier so they can pay the interns as they're more financially vulnerable and we really need them. I have plenty of empathy on a personal level for the officers and everybody at the company, however on a professional level there is a clear distinction between employees and officers/co-founders who have a lot of equity, who hold a lot of power, and who I think most importantly have the responsibility of raising money, getting clients, and making sure their employees are paid. On a professional level, I feel that it's completely reasonable to be looking out for myself based on my working my ass off and essentially holding onto $46k+ of the company's debt in the form of deferred payments. It's completely reasonable that I'm concerned about this and want constant updates, and don't hold back in asking for this, and I think it's reasonable for me to ask for some sort of equity based risk compensation. I would and do treat my fellow employees (not officers) with just as much concern as I do for myself. The other employees came on after me, haven't deferred nearly as much money, and their deferred payment isn't due until later on seeing as they started deferring after me and signed different contracts. If all of us had our "tab" of deferred payment due at the same time, I would be looking out for all of us employees. Anyways, here's the big deal and what I need advice on. The company has raised $275k at this point, including 2 25k payments in Sept and Oct pledged by our lead investor who doesn't want to see the company shut down. They're very close to the $300k mark at which point they have to pay me back as stated in our signed contract amendment from last October. The CEO flat out told me that all of the money they raised so far, and any small amounts coming in to keep things afloat is already spoken for. That they will be paying accountants and auditors because if they stop submitting SEC filings, the company is as good as dead. I'm currently not working for them but I haven't quit or been fires/layed off - I'm basically furloughed since I told them I've deferred so much money I don't want to defer more. He said he needs me to come in a few times just to essentially show up for meetings with potential clients and with potential investors who are coming by for "due diligence". I am the only employee who does what I do for this company, it is our core offering, and what provides value for customers, and there's nobody who can fill in for me, not even founders/executives. He said they would continue to pay for my health insurance and defer my pay for doing this at an hourly rate. I agreed, and the company is actually making a lot of progress towards either going dark, going back to being private, or being acquired. Then this happened: He then went on to tell me that he doesn't plan on paying back employees until they raise $2 million, at which point they will begin to pay employees using a payment plan as opposed to a lump sum. He said this in a manner where he obviously assumed that he had the right to disregard the contract amendment previously signed by the two of us, which stated when he had to pay me back upon raising 300k, and as if this is a matter over which he has complete discretion. When I reacted poorly, where I didn't say anything b/c I was shocked and didn't know what to say (I certainly had a shocked and troubled look on my face) he accused me of looking out for myself and not the company. I'm at a point now where I'm debating with myself as to how far I should go to get the money back and how cooperative I should be to help out by showing up at meetings with potential customers, and being present when investors come by for due diligence. I'd like to tell him that I plan on collecting my $46k as a lump sum upon them hitting the $300k mark as agreed upon in the contract amendment signed by both of us, and that I need him to confirm in an email that he fully intends to comply with the terms of the contract and pay me back on time if he wants me to come in for the reasons described above. I understand that he's in a tough situation and the company is dead if they stop paying auditors and accountants, however at the end of the day I've been very accommodating for months and months, the company is getting some money coming in. and it's his responsibility to figure out how to comply with the contract amendment that we both signed, and I don't really want to hear about how he doesn't have enough money. If he needs to go get on his knees and beg our investors or open his and/or the founders own damn wallets to keep things moving, so be it (He's somewhat rich himself). It's up to him to figure out how to deal with this, this is why he was hired and given a lot of equity. I have 2 very strong actions I could take if he refuses to play ball, which most likely have consequences that would damage the company in a very serious way. It's also important to mention that I'm not going to go broke or anything without that 46k, although it will take me a lot longer to save up for a down payment on a house, which is something I've been trying to do for a long time. I'd strongly prefer to not have to do either of the following, but they are certainly options. 1.) Upon them raising 300k, contact an employment attorney and go after them, possibly receiving triple damages. 2.) Call my state's department of labor. They tend to side with employees, and have harsh penalties (big fines the company definitely can't afford) for companies who break employment laws. If I did this it would likely put the company out of business. I could tell the dept. of labor that I signed this contract amendment under pressure (which I did), and that the company is stating that they refuse to pay me back as described in this amendment upon raising 300k. I could go further and tell them that I'm being treated as a 1099-based contractor (which is true) while according to state regulations I'm technically an employee. The contractor-employee thing does really bother me and I was told upon joining a year ago that they were bringing everybody to full-time status within a month or 2. Nobody at the company is full-time, everybody is technically a contractor/consultant. What are your thoughts??? I've heard everything from go nuclear immediately, to accept the loss and learn from it. I do think it's the right move to refuse to show up and do any more work until he clearly states in writing/email that he intends to put aside money and pay me back in full upon raising 300k. Keep in mind that this is the CEO talking to me, not my boss. I'm especially curious about what Founders/CEO's of startups think. This is a very rough situation and I really don't know what to do. I have a big problem with his not following the terms of our amendment, which already demanded a shit ton of flexibility, risk, and sacrifice from me. I know start-ups are risky and people do lose money, but I feel like this has gone way past what is normal for a non-founder/executive even for a startup, and he needs to hold up his end of the bargain and make good on his responsibilities as the CEO. I don't want to be the reason they crash and burn, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to figure out how to keep up his end of the deal. TL:DR: I can't really do a TLDR but if you just read that whole wall of text I really appreciate it. EDIT: I spoke to a lawyer a month or so ago and he said it sounded sketchy but he suggested not paying him a bunch of money unless I knew that the company had money that could actually be recovered. 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| Advice on handing over pre-launch MVP to a new team Posted: 09 Aug 2019 09:34 AM PDT Long time lurker here, posting for the first time so please be gentle... TL;DR - I built a polished MVP (pre-launch), but unfortunately, I'll need to give it up due to family illness. Does anyone have any advice/experience on how to hand over the project to someone else? I'm based in NYC, but will be moving to Asia at the end of the year to take care of my ailing mother. I know it's extremely rare for a solo founder to hand over a project pre-launch, but it seems like a waste not to try. Off the top of my head, the only successful example I can think of was Uber. Garrett Camp self-funded/built the alpha product when he was CEO of StumbleUpon, but he wasn't ready to leave his position. Kalanick, who was unemployed at that time, loved the concept so he took over and ran with it. I'd been dreaming for years about building a Reddit-like community for product recommendations. Having spent a few years researching it and the last year building the MVP, I would love to see it launch and hopefully, thrive. I haven't raised any external capital (which complicates things), and I might even be able to provide some funding because I expect to save a lot of money when I leave the VHCOL NYC. What's the best way to find an entrepreneur who's willing to take over? (Yes, I know I will give up most of the equity to the new team). And if I find the right person, what are some things to consider when I hand over? Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Aug 2019 01:56 PM PDT So a name idea I came up with happens to be shared with a company in Germany but their company has the name followed by AG. I don't seem to see anything of the same name in the US (where I am) so should I presumably be safe with regards to copyright law (in the US or international if that's even a thing) in using that name (minus the AG part ofc)? Thanks in advance for the help! [link] [comments]  |
| What’s a good resource to identify common practices and avoid pitfalls for a software startup? Posted: 09 Aug 2019 01:31 PM PDT I'm doing a lot of networking to build my founding team and meet potential investors for my SaaS startup. How can I calibrate my awareness to avoid common traps? Example: I talk to an angel that's from the phone this week and he wants to review my pitch deck and "investor documents" (his phrase). I don't have any documents so what should I give him? [link] [comments]  |
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