Startups How to answer the "What's stopping Google or a larger company from just doing your idea?" question. |
- How to answer the "What's stopping Google or a larger company from just doing your idea?" question.
- Separation Agreement and Mutual Release
- London Startup ForwardHealth's Growth to a Scaleup
- Interviewing with a startup as a recent grad software engineer.
- Trademark or Register?
- Where does someone find a mentor...
- Landing page sign-up interpretation help required
- On being a "good engineer"
- Google Pay and Apple Pay
- Asking for one-time high fee to early customers in exchange for unlimited/life access to your SaaS platform to generate revenue early
- Could use some perspective about initial traction and where we are
- Moving forward with MVP
- I hate people who call themselves "CTO". My coming out as a failed saas platform owner
- Google has the domain I want... but they haven't shipped a product for it and don't have a trademark.
| How to answer the "What's stopping Google or a larger company from just doing your idea?" question. Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:16 PM PDT As of late, this is the #1 question that gets asked of me when discussing my startup among friends and family: "But won't a bigger company just see your idea and then go build it themselves?" Is there a silver bullet or genuine reason for why technology startups are allowed to exist without getting swallowed up or imitated immediately after unveiling their product? Do you simply stay in stealth as long as possible until you have the users and the $$$? Obviously a patent would help solve this issue, but even then it can take years for applications to get reviewed and approved. I think it's safe to say one of the top fears of entrepreneurs is the threat of competition and getting their idea stolen. I'm curious - are there any good case studies or white papers that explains this? Would love to be more educated on the subject. As always, thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Separation Agreement and Mutual Release Posted: 20 Oct 2019 12:41 PM PDT We have decided to split ways with my co-founder. I will continue to develop the business on my own. My co-founder drafted a Separation Agreement and Mutual Release agreement. Everything in the agreement makes sense, but I have a question about the section describing equity. It reads:
How will a phrasing such as this affect my ability to raise funds in the future? Even though it doesn't say that, this sounds to me like non-dilutable equity, as it effectively allows to buy fixed amount of equity at any future date at a fixed cost. [link] [comments]  |
| London Startup ForwardHealth's Growth to a Scaleup Posted: 21 Oct 2019 03:05 AM PDT Watch the mini documentary & office visit. A collaboration platform for healthcare professionalsAfter featuring Joblab, Seedlegals and WeGift; in the fourth episode of Startups of London, we are at a HealthTech startup: ForwardHealth. The core founding team is made up of Philip Mundy (whom we have interviewed) and two other co-founders Barney and Lydia, who are doctors. Philip has a truly impressive track record with high growth startups. Before beginning his work on ForwardHealth, he founded Goodlord. After being warmly welcomed into their bright and airy office in central London we've began chatting with the people who have been working there for a while. Our sincere observation was that, this is a group of people who are dedicated to the core problem. Maybe even more important than that was to witness their flexibility in coming up with new products/solutions around the core problem which they care about: Bettering communication and collaboration for healthcare professionals. In the founder interview with Philip we had an engaging conversation about their growth journey, culture, investment, tech tools and more. We also had a chance to interview two Software Engineers from the team working on the Android and the iOS. Pagers to SaaS: The value to usersThe core value proposition of ForwardHealth can be symbolised as an attempt to bring the healthcare communication up to date from the world of pagers, to the world of software-as-a-service solutions. They provide a communications platform for healthcare professionals to use that can offer much more than B2C solutions like WhatsApp or the likes, since they have the advantage of being laser focused on their users' needs and specific cases. They are a team which thinks very visually. They do not rely on long projections that go up to 12 months. Rather, they have a more agile approach. "We understand the problem, that's the only thing we know for sure. Doctors and nurses spend well over an hour a day trying to communicate." says Philip. Their product development process starts with spending time in the hospitals and getting a feel of the core value areas for users. History of fundingForward was founded with their own resources in the beginning. Their first angel round was for £400K in total. Phillip says at the end of last year (2018) they have closed one of the largest HealthTech seeds in the UK. The Venture Capital was Stride.vc. A key point of discussion was the role the VC in almost becoming a co-founder like member of the team. He describes the relationship as very intimate and dialogue-rich. It seems "smart money" is gaining more and more importance in the London tech scene. What is best & worst about being a London startup?The world is becoming a smaller place. From San Francisco to Berlin, the abundance of contacts naturally leads to conversations of comparison between different cities. Philip believes London is a fantastic place to build a startup. Among his reasons are that the city has the critical mass of talent; it is well-connected; in some sectors it just seems to do better (especially in FinTech). London is quite adventageous in HealthTech as well, mainly due to the unique effect of NHS (National Health Service). It might just be one of the best places in the world to take on a healthcare challenge. On the other hand; late night or very early morning conversations with global partners can be a difficulty. One area of challenge that is particular to London is around funding, since the type of VC conversations have their differences. When moving into some of the big challenges of humanity (food, healthcare etc.) and you need bigger economies of scale to reach great numbers. It is not as easy to show mid-term profitability in numbers, as is the case with FinTech startups. So the risk appetite seems to be smaller in Europe compared to the US. People side of growth"You can't invest in the people and talent function of the business soon enough" says Philip. When you get to a point of scale, and start thinking about the people dynamics of the organisation, you are already too late. The dilemma here is that focusing on the people matters (and culture) can feel like a luxury but it isn't. Emma Carroll is the Head of People & Talent at Forward. Her valued role at the company speaks to Forward's sincerity in caring about the people side of their growth. Their ability to deal with complexity, build products, solve problems, they all absolutely being and end with the quality of the team. It is a team of 23 currently (going up to 26 soon), and what people who are potentially thinking about joining in the team should know is that; Forward values people giving their best work, focusing on solutions and seeing disagreements as areas of potential improvement. Philip says, almost all companies are defined by their failures. It's the mistakes, the experiments that teach. He defines ForwardHealth as a "fail-safe" organisation and we absolutely love this approach. The tech solutions (SaaS library) they depend onThey use slack because it's very flexible. They also use Atlassian, but Philip's suggestion is to focus on what has been transformational. So what has been the most transformation work they have done in terms of adopting software? Enter Data Studio by Google. It's a flexible dashboard and reporting tool with a lot of customisation and sharing options.
Knowing where you started, laying out the hypothesis, having a clear grasp on what you are measuring… These are key to making sure you are not just labeling guesswork as experiments, but actually on a structured path towards discovering new areas of growth. Data Studio allows them to think visually, separate the signal from the noise. They have managed to tie the platform with their OKRs / KPIs and now can use it almost as a compass for the business. They look at metrics like: Is the software used every shift, how sticky is it, what's the user acquisition rate – all of these are up on the wall in the office and everybody can look at these and see if they are headed in the right direction. Philip cites two more benefits. One, for the decision people are making on a daily basis, they are able to subtly take that information and shape the work they do to align well with the company's overall goals. Second, VC reporting is much easier, you take a screenshot and you are done! Future goals & milestonesAs an ambitiously growing company, Forward already has 10% of the doctors in the UK using the network. Their goal is to have 50% of the doctors in the UK on the network soon. They also see a responsibility to remain a sustainable organisation, although Philip has not gone into a lot of detail on how, it is good to hear that this is on their radar. Forward Health looks like it's on a great trajectory of growth. With talented people who do not just pay lip service but truly understand what makes a startup successful, I believe they have a good shot at modernising how communication & collaboration takes place in the healthcare sector. [link] [comments]  |
| Interviewing with a startup as a recent grad software engineer. Posted: 20 Oct 2019 06:34 PM PDT Hi all, I recently graduated from college and I'm in the process of interviewing with a startup. I really like what they're doing and they seem like a great place to learn. I had a small opening call where they asked me for my salary range but I was hesitant to throw out a number before even interviewing so I them that I was hesitant and I was looking in the ballpark of new grads in sf/ny. I just received a follow-up email by another person if I could give them a salary range before moving on. I'm looking for 90k-110k. However, I'm not sure how to word that; if that's a decent range for the location(sf) and they've raised 5-9mil; should I say 90k+ instead; should I apologize for being to hesitant to give out a number; etc? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 03:26 PM PDT I'm looking to develop a landing page and a MVP for an app/website I'm looking to start up, would it be better to register a company or set up a trademark, I have been looking at trademarks and reads classes and it would cost a lot more to set up a trademark than register in a company what should I do? I am currently based in the UK. If I set up a company I assume that would include company trademarks? [link] [comments]  |
| Where does someone find a mentor... Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:21 PM PDT I have been filled with entrepreneurial spirit and ideas for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I have started a couple of my ideas here and there and nothing too serious. Recently, I have finished school and have been really starting to devote all of my time to a startup I have an MVP for and have users etc. so it's actually becoming more of a real thing than an idea at this point. The startup is one within the music industry so if anyone knows who is looking to get involved with a music startup, someone with music buzz, an artist, or just someone wanting to connect in general please let me know (feel free to message me privately over Reddit if you would like). My problem: Don't have a mentor of any sort. -Yes, I know there are websites to try and connect you to one -Yes, I know you can learn a lot online by yourself (I have taught myself everything I know) -Yes, I know that you can reach out to individuals over DM or email ( I have been trying to do so for a very long time, not much success) I have tried to find someone to really show me the way, help me learn from their mistakes, assist me in building connections with others, but I can't seem to find someone thats available or to be quite honest, willing to help. If anyone knows someone who is interested at all please let me know it would be greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Landing page sign-up interpretation help required Posted: 20 Oct 2019 06:24 PM PDT Hi everyone, today I will ask for help from some of the more experienced people here regarding starting up side projects. Long story short, I have a validated SaaS idea in an existing market with some major competitors. I have created a detailed landing page with a sign up option and released it here, at indie hackers and recently on product hunt. I waited a month in total and so far I have around 55 sign-ups. A couple of days ago I created and sent out to the signed users a newsletter about which core feature to focus on the initial release of the service hoping to get some responses that would give me enough motivation to start building the whole thing. I am a little bit lost on how I should interpret everything. First of all how does the 55 sign-ups in a month without any advertising sound? Is it a good or a bad thing? Are they enough or should have been more? What about the newsletter? So far I didn't have any responses. I wasn't expecting everyone to reply but I made it to be a one click submit within the email to be as less effort as possible but I still didn't have any responses. Should I worry about that and get back to the drawing board? Or start building the service and start selling an MVP the soonest possible? Please give me some guidance I am lost. Thank you all [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 09:36 AM PDT Hey guys! I wanted to share a shift that is happening in my thinking and maybe get some critics about it. As a software engineer I have been, I'd say naturally, interested in solving complicated problems, crafting elegant and performant solutions and using some X software or language or whatever... But the more I look at it the more I realize that I'm actually a sales person. It's kind of like, you, the business owner have a money making machine, the business, and I have certain skills that allow that machine to keep running, and can fix it (or certain parts of it) if it breaks. Thus at the end of the day, all the things that I considered important (X technology or programming language, solving the problem using Y architecture, and all blockchain, AI, Micro Services, is pretty much irrelevant if I'm not making you considerably more money than what you are paying me, say, if I'm a liability instead of an asset. What that means for me is that, if a simple PHP app that takes me just 4 hours to make (and that I feel nasty because is not the piece of art that I would like it to be because PHP sucks...) is making you money, you don't care at all about PHP or how the code looks or anything of the sort, I'm an asset to your business and you want to keep me because I make you money! This might be very obvious for you guys but it is just dawning on me after about 8 years as an engineer! So I think I'll start moving my technically complicated projects to the hobby realm and start looking to write simple stupid CRUD applications that make money! So dear entrepreneurs and business owners, does this sounds agreeable? if somebody shares this philosophy with during a job interview, how would you react? * some of this reflections come from reading this post and reading "You Can't Teach a Kid How to Ride a Bike at a Seminar" [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 10:30 AM PDT Is there anyone using Google Pay or Apple Pay as online payment method for their products/services/subscription etc. ? I couldn't find useful information in google pay docs because it was all about India and China but my startup is based in Turkey. I know there is a big e-commerce site using google pay in Turkey, so google pay operates here. But I couldn't find any information about fees, limitations etc. Can anyone help? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 09:58 AM PDT We are building a B2C platform and we wanted to learn more from this community on the best way to ask a limited number of early customers for a one time fee in exchange for a lifetime access to our platform with unlimited access to all of our features to fund the development of the platform. Please share your experience and feedback [link] [comments]  |
| Could use some perspective about initial traction and where we are Posted: 20 Oct 2019 09:36 AM PDT We're a SaaS B2B start-up (currently mobile-only). Co-founders started building full-time about 18 months ago but then hired two more developers about 8 months in. I can say we are past the MVP stage, we've validated that people will pay for it (we have subscriptions), and are building out more features under the App Store beta flag. We are working on removing the beta restrictions right now but ran into some issues with our current tech build and IAP so it's adding on even more development time to open availability. I held off on pushing marketing because TestFlight + the beta program isn't conducive to helping people sign up easier. I'd say we reached MVP when it was just my co-founder and I. We waited a bit too long to validate whether people would buy for it at 12 months in but we got a yes on that, selling 14 stranger annual subscriptions on our first announcement even with TestFlight. We have about 2000+ people on our mailing list from a waiting list sign-up page. How long did it take your start-up to get to 'initial traction'? And what is your definition of initial traction? I feel like it's taking a long time but I am unsure if I am being impatient. It looks like positive signals but I'm not convinced until I see more money. My goal is to get to profitability in one year past open availability (about 2400 customers). Other important note: we don't work round-the-clock hours. We work full-time but no more and no less. Edited: trying to shorten, I know y'all are busy [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:05 AM PDT I am working with a product manager trying to outline a product requirement doc. I wanted to know, while it's an mvp how soon should I file for a business, tm, etc,,? The mvp will be used inhouse for a solid 3-6 months possibly, maybe more before trying to bring on clients. Furthermore, would you all recommend getting a lawyer to draw up contracts for clients to sign ahead of time. I'm trying to figure out a few things: 1) introduce client to a trial 2) client decides to move forward 3) provide contracts to client 4) take payment 5) setup client in backend of saas Anyone have any advice on logistics of doing this? [link] [comments]  |
| I hate people who call themselves "CTO". My coming out as a failed saas platform owner Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:59 AM PDT Hello. My name is Nikita and for 2 years I can't launch the mvp of a saas platform. A little background: when the cryptocurrency boom began in 2014, I began to work hard to develop custdev software for funds that wanted to accept cryptocurrency investments. These were boxed platforms that were installed on customers' servers. Somehow, I managed to complete 12 projects for $ 20- $ 40k per platform. The scheme was simple: I found the customer, made up the technical specifications, found the development team, pushed the developers and checked the software, passed it to the customer. So I didn't have to have much experience. All what I had to do is to test the platform and create a user stories for developers. After that, I decided that I should try to hire a CTO/ technical lead because my experience is not enough to manage the internal development team. First, I hired one, he quit after 2 months because he was a cofounder on another platform and their business started to grow faster, then I hired the second - he quit after 3 months because he was offered $ 8k in another company (which I can not afford to beat). I realized that I had a problem with my character: I always try to agree on a part-time payment for tasks, but as a result - most top-management employees that I hired - just do not want to be responsible for the deadlines and quality of the product. The only thing that bothered them was to get more money for less work. And as a result, they quit, because they understand that I will not pay for that. I believe that this is all entirely my fault. I still have not learned how to interview people. I can't determine who is sitting in front of me and whether he will stay with me in a year, in two and so on. Will I be able to start a business with this person? I don't know what to do and I don't know why I wrote this post. I don't know if I will continue to look for that same person or will I return to my previous work, creating cust-dev solutions. Probably, I will start looking for a full-stack developer who can work with both node.js and vue.js, as I have tried 2 years ago. I don't know. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Oct 2019 10:51 AM PDT ... they have the domain I want but it doesn't redirect anywhere. I think they might have just bought it as it sounds cool. They don't have a trademark for it applied. What I'm thinking of doing is applying for the trademark and then using the domain/trademark policy to get it... Any thoughts here? I mean I could play nicely at first. It's the PERFECT name for my app and I'm about to raise a pre-seed so paying money isn't out of the question either. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Startups - Finding problems and solving them!. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment