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    Startups Fundraising Thursdays - A Forum to Ask About Fundraising, Investors, Accelerators, and Other Sources of Capital

    Startups Fundraising Thursdays - A Forum to Ask About Fundraising, Investors, Accelerators, and Other Sources of Capital


    Fundraising Thursdays - A Forum to Ask About Fundraising, Investors, Accelerators, and Other Sources of Capital

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 06:06 AM PDT

    Welcome to this week's Fundraising Thursdays Thread.

    Ask about anything related to fundraising, investors, accelerators, grants, and other sources of capital.

    That includes how to find these sources, how to work with them, and how to negotiate with them.

    Don't be shy. The purpose of this is to learn and share ideas and methodologies with one another.

    Any question is a good question!

    If you are answering questions, remember to be kind and supportive. Many are just starting out and have no idea what they are doing. That's okay! We all knew nothing before we knew something.

    You can also find more support using instant chat on the /r/startups discord.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    I found 18 growth hacking examples to inspire you for your next campaign. (Not only popular ones like Airbnb and Dropbox, even one from Tiger King).

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:37 AM PDT

    Hey guys,

    I was looking for an inspiration for myself and compiled this list. I was coming across to popular examples like Uber and Airbnb, so I dived deeper into the growth hacking ocean to put something different on the table.

    I included both popular and unpopular hacks to the list to inspire you, so here I go.

    1. Puma

    Puma asked Pele to tie his shoes before the kickoff and Pele did it. As expected, the cameras focused on Pele and his Puma's and made people realize the world's best footballer wore a Puma.

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pele+tie+shoes

    According to the book "Three Stripes Versus Puma", Pele was paid $120,000 to crouch and lace his shoes. This might be the best case of influencer marketing until this day.

    Takeaway: Ask yourself who, when, where.

    Who can introduce your product to your target audience best? When is the right time and which online or offline platform can you use to get maximum exposure?

    2. Unsplash

    Unsplash has a corner named "Collections". They ask influencers (mostly micro-influencers) and invite them to pick their favorite photos and create a collection.

    Then Unsplash promotes the collection on the website, newsletter and social media platforms. Flattering right? Yes, at least that's what the influencers think.

    The chosen influencers will often share their collections with their followers. And Unsplash gets free exposure + tons of user-generated content.

    Takeaway: People like to be praised and be the center of attention. You can benefit from other people's audiences.

    3. Vitaly Uncensored

    This is quite unconventional and it's dangerous.

    Vitaly Uncensored is a strange adult jokes platform. And people barely knew they existed until the Champions League final in 2019.

    Until Kinsey Wolanski (co-founder and girlfriend of Vitaly) caused an international stir after running on to the pitch with a swimsuit written "Vitaly Uncensored" all over.

    Naturally, people searched for the term and social media platforms like twitter flooded with reactions.

    Vitaly Uncensored now has more than 32 million registered users and has raked in up to £3m in advertising as a result. And she was fined just £13,000.

    Takeaway: A Growth hacker doesn't always follow the rules. You can sometimes break them as long as it is bringing you growth.

    4. Ahrefs

    Ahrefs can win the gold medal in the growth hacking Olympics.

    They're the most popular SEO tool and don't use Google Analytics. Neither do they use the Facebook Pixel. Instead, they hacked the most prominent SEO conference (Brighton SEO) with a 10 cent coffee cup.

    https://imgur.com/a/VvlP1Xo

    Imagine how much attraction they had at the conference. Everybody was instantly aware of the existence of Ahrefs; those cups worked as an ice-breaker to open new conversations and possibilities.

    Takeaway: Make a list of conferences and offline events that you can join. And think of how you can direct the conversation to your brand.

    5. Gmail

    If you were an early adopter of Gmail, you'd remember this one. You could only create a Gmail account if a friend invited you.

    And every referrer had a limited amount of invites, which made it more exclusive and triggered the fear of missing out (FOMO) marketing technique.

    It was simultaneously so exclusive and so viral, some people auctioned Gmail invites on eBay. It worked well because Gmail was offering better features and quality of service compared to the alternatives in the market.

    Takeaway: Knowing behavioral psychology is a great asset for a growth hacker. Even a little psychological trick can be the foundation of a new growth hacking strategy.

    6. Please don't tell

    Gmail used exclusivity and FOMO triggers in their digital marketing strategy. What if you want to do it offline?

    Crif Dogs is a hip place known for its innovative hot dogs. There is a strange vintage phone booth corner in the restaurant.

    One day, a person walked in and used the rotary dial phone and CLICK, a secret passage door opened to a cozy bar. And the bartender treated him with a tasty cocktail and gave a card to this lucky person on the card written: "Please Don't Tell".

    As you may relate, that person has felt like he discovered the most astounding secret in the world. He then talked about this experience to all of his friends and it caused a social chain reaction.

    This word-of-mouth marketing strategy transformed this place into the busiest bar in New York City. So busy it's almost impossible to make a reservation.

    Takeaway: If you can make someone feel special with a big secret, you can create a community of privileged brand advocates.

    7. Zynga

    You must remember the era of FarmVille, MafiaWars or Zynga poker. These were the Facebook games that made addicts out of our friends, parents and loved ones.

    How?

    You know the classic pricing decoy: Small $3, medium $ 6.50 and large $7.

    Zynga re-engineered this by offering three choices to the user: grind, spam or pay. Well, since people didn't want to pay to continue playing games, they started to terrorize their friends by spamming them with invitations.

    This had a huge viral effect but after a while, Facebook put an end to this spamstorm.

    Takeaway: Try to approach popular marketing tactics from a different angle to create your own growth strategies.

    8. CD Baby

    "Your order is on the way" you probably have received an email similar to this one. But I don't think you ever received something like what Derek Sivers wrote:

    Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

    A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

    Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

    We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

    I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

    Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

    Thank you once again,

    Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

    He spent 20 minutes writing this masterpiece and it exploded on the internet. This content got forwarded thousands of times, CD Baby got gazillions backlinks and new customers.

    Takeaway: Differentiate your e-mail marketing strategy or copywriting efforts. Sometimes it is as easy as to put a smile on your customers' faces.

    1. Tiger King

    The Tiger King docuseries on Netflix have reached super-hyped status. One of the protagonists is called Joe Exotic, he is a sympathetic asshole. But I was not aware that he's a badass growth hacker too.

    Joe Exotic intimidated his archenemy and biggest competitor by renaming his tiger show.

    Just to add context if you don't know the show.

    Joe Exotic keeps more than 200 tigers in his wildlife park. On the other hand, there is that lady (Carole Baskin) who is catter than cats and trying to save tigers under the banner of Big Cat Rescue. And they're trying to sabotage each other, all the time.

    So to get more visibility to his tiger show and steal Carole's audience, Joe Exotic started a new show under the name"Big Cat Rescue Entertainment".

    In the end, Carole sued Joe in a $1M lawsuit.

    Now, this obviously is not ethical and can hurt your reputation, I'm not suggesting you do the same. But this case can inspire you to be creative with your brand name. It could be interesting to include terms that people are already searching for.

    1. Fortnite

    Fortnite's growth hacking strategy has changed the way of marketing around games forever.

    Here is the default strategy of every game until the Fornite era.

    1. Make the game.
    2. Spend millions of dollars to promote it like crazy in conferences and ads of all sorts.
    3. Launch the game, do the grand slam, collect the money and sail for the next game.

    That's why we see a new Call of Duty, Battlefield, Fifa and similar games each year.

    Well, Fortnite was not even popular in its first year but they found ways to retain their existing customer base with three tactics.

    1. The game was completely free.
    2. Huge in-game updates, which they called "Seasons".

    Every ten weeks, developers brought new mechanics, weapons, maps, characters and so on into the game. They announce these seasons with trailers and encourage gamers to create hype.

    So if you're a Fortnite player, you'll know, every ten weeks you'll have a new game to play.

    1. Limited-time game mods

    They regularly launched new game modes for a limited time to create FOMO. And gamers kept coming back to not to miss this one-time experience.

    Meanwhile, they monetized the game by selling in-game items like character and weapon skins or dance moves.

    In a very short time, they acquired a huge fan base and created their own celebrity streamers. The rest is history.

    Takeaway: Acquisition is often an overrated aspect of marketing. In growth marketing, it's equally important to keep your current customers happy and transform them into your fans. (Focus on retention)

    1. Crimibox

    Crimibox is an online interactive detective game that lets you become a Sherlock of your case. We prepared a FB chatbot quiz themed "Which detective is hidden inside".

    The assumption: If they are interested in knowing which kind of detective they are, they are potentially also interested in solving a murder case.

    Crimibox asked several questions in a chatbot and helped them find out their inner detective. At the end of the quiz, they offer them to solve a murder case and direct them to the crime scene. This scene was Kickstarter.

    Crimibox increased its subscriber number from 2K to 10K in 15 days and successfully launched on Kickstarter!

    Why did it work?

    1. It was super targeted.
    2. People always fall for personality quizzes

    11. Shazam

    What do you do when you Shazam a song?

    You try to suck up all sound from the music and Shazam does something quite ingenious at that moment. It encourages you to hold your phone up to speakers.

    And this move gets everyone curious like "Why the hell is she lifting her phone to the speakers?". So yes, this is nothing but a word-of-mouth marketing strategy at its best.

    It's not possible to measure the analytics or conversion rate but over 1 billion downloads say something.

    1. Uber

    How could a brand single-handedly take down the traditional taxi business? By knowing the enemy and the customer.

    Hailing a cab after a night out is a pain in the ass, likewise in bad weather conditions. Uber knew that, and at the beginning, they focused on these key events.

    They also picked a subtle fight with yellow cabs by highlighting the areas where Uber excels like; easy payment, lower prices and no more taxi-hailing.

    People that were using the service were coming back, so they offered a $20 free ride to the new users to lure them in. After that, things went very fast, now we look at taxis like they're an endangered animal.

    Takeaway: There is always room to fit in with your product and outsmart the competition. Understand your competitors, customers and the environment to come up with smart tactics.

    13. Hotmail

    Hotmail's growth hacking strategy is super simple and many companies like Apple copy-pasted it.

    Hotmail placed a default signature line to every outgoing email and invited receivers to create a free account. Afterward, Apple and others used the same e-mail marketing strategy to spread awareness and grow their customer base.

    15. Hubspot

    Hubspot created a free tool that measures your site's performance by grading key factors like SEO, mobile performance and so on. Then it gives you tips to optimize your site.

    People shared this tool with each other, it got many backlinks and quite a lot of attention on social media platforms as well.

    No surprise, Hubspot grew its email list and grew to 15.000 users with the help of this one tool.

    Takeaway: Many brands create little add-ons, apps and tools that solve a problem for their target audience. Afterward, they launch it on platforms like Product Hunt to get free exposure.

    16. Airbnb

    Airbnb leeched its competitor Craigslist's blood and used them as a distribution channel for a long time.

    Their growth hacking strategy consisted of two parts.

    One

    They encourage their audience to cross-post their listing on Craigslist with a link back to their Airbnb profile. This way, hosts increased their chance to get rented and Airbnb got new users.

    Eventually, it got tons of free traffic and generated thousands of users.

    Two

    Next, they contacted existing Craigslist hosts and asked them to sign up on Airbnb.

    These two strategies helped them to grow their customer base and traffic without spending a dime.

    It worked because it was a win-win.

    Another one from Airbnb

    You know how important the pictures are when it comes to renting or buying a house. The founders of Airbnb knew this too.

    To grow bigger, they started to photograph their hosts' apartments. After the platform grew big enough, they hired an army of pro photographers to make their customers happy. And make some more $.

    Takeaways:

    Your target audience is already hanging out somewhere on the internet, find them and think of new ways to transform them into your customers. Don't expect value if you don't provide value.

    17. Dollar Shave Club

    Picking a fight with a strong argument is a deadly growth hacking strategy. Dollar Shave Club used video marketing to declare war to razor industry giants by asking these simple questions:

    - Do you like spending $20 a month on a brand named razor?

    - Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle and flashlight?

    And Mike, the founder, gives the solution to his audience in this witty video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI&t=1s

    The video went viral and got 26M views. Please watch if you're not one of the 26M people.

    Takeaway: Think of a problem in your industry and, use content marketing, show how your product could solve this issue. Especially video marketing is an effective way to show your brand personality and deliver your message.

    You can learn everything you need to start with video marketing by reading this eBook:

    18. Dropbox

    Dropbox is known for its creative onboarding process and referral program.

    The marketing strategy is quite simple. The product itself offers storage space in the cloud and they reward people with more space by gamifying the onboarding process.

    Just like in the story Hansel & Gretel, they embellish this hard process by offering little treats. And the main course was their referral program where they offered 500MB free extra storage.

    It works like this. You refer Dropbox to a friend, she signs up and you both get 500MB extra storage. 1 stone, 2 birds.

    So the cost of customer acquisition for Dropbox is 500MB. This is definitely one of the nastiest growth hacking techniques.

    Takeaway: One, If you can give extra value, you can make the onboarding process fun and rewarding for your users. Two, design a double-sided referral program. Offer something to the referrer and the referee.

    That's all folks!

    If you like it let me know in the comments. And if you want to read it on a blog with pictures and videos you can go here: https://www.grow-force.com/growth-hacking-examples/

    submitted by /u/SpicyCopy
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    I pay my CTO a salary but he wants equity to vest in a year instead of 3

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 12:43 PM PDT

    Let me preface: I have just hired the guy and although I haven't worked with him yet, I really have good feelings about him. He loves the project and I love his down to earth attitude.

    It took me months to find someone with the right skills, attitude, experience and interest towards the product.

    We are at a very early stage, no customers and we need to build the product. But I'm a well seasoned professional and have contacts lined up, also at an investment level.

    I pay him a salary about 50% below market rate, however I will give him equity to pay him back (in the range of 10-20%).

    I have proposed that his equity will vest within 3 years with a 1 year cliff, or immediately when we raise / hit specific revenue targets.

    He said he'd like to vest monthly in 1.5 years instead.

    Considering though I pay him a salary, do you think his request is a bit demanding?

    My intentions are pure, I really want him to be my CTO and my gut feeling says: whatever, make him happy and let's get to work.

    But I want to make things right from the start without having to regret later.

    Thanks for your help!

    submitted by /u/maschera84
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    How much equity is fair?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:01 AM PDT

    Hello Everybody, I was recently offered a position as the only developer on a 3 person team. So I am responsible for building an MVP iOS application from start to end with 8 feature sprints.

    To give you my background - I am a recent grad with a B.S. Computer Science and have iOS developer experience for over a year.

    Considering the fact that this is a 3 person team, the startup is in it's early stage where all members are working without pay. The compensation although is 7% equity in the company(3.5% on signing the contract and 3.5% on delivering the deliverables) Like I said, I am a new grad and I haven't really worked in the startup industry, Do you think this is fair? how much should I expect and negotiate.

    Any advice/tips in this matter would be appreciated.

    <TL:DR>

    2 partners are interested in bringing me on as the only developer and third team member to build their entire MVP, offering 7% stake. What do you think about the compensation?

    submitted by /u/myaank
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    Startup converting ISO to NSO

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:27 AM PDT

    Hello

    A startup I am about to quit is extending the exercise window of their ISO grants past the 90 days termination, to 1 year. My understanding by reading online is that, in order to do this, they need to convert the options from ISO to NSO.

    My question is: can they actually convert those options without me having to sign anything? I have in my hands the original grant that lists them as ISO and is signed by both me and the company CFO, and it seems crazy that they can just change terms like that without my approval.

    I don't particularly value this window extension because, if it comes with the NSO price tag, it would cause me to pay way more taxes when I exercise, since my tax situation is such that exercising ISO wouldn't bring me to AMT territory (I basically have large earned income so the AMT never kicks in).

    I am then worried that if I exercise today and then I leave, the accounting department will "surprise" me next year and emit a W2 that lists the bargain element as compensation income…

    Note: the 100k ISO limitation doesn't apply to this situation

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/bubuset92
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    Slack-like Email Tool

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:25 AM PDT

    I've been hoping a company would build this for a long time. There have been strong improvements but I really haven't seen anything that really meets the mark of the product that I've been waiting for.

    I'm really interested in an email client that looks runs and feels very much like an instant messaging client like slack for instance but works on the existing email infrastructure. Threading from Google was an amazing step but I haven't seen anything taking it to the next level.

    Does anyone know of any products exist that are doing this?

    Is there any particular reason why this isn't being done? Or why it can't be?

    If after evaluating that it can be done and should be done is anyone interested in working on this?

    Interested to hear what you all think.

    submitted by /u/DelKygras
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    I got an offer to be a co-founder. How do I proceed?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:46 AM PDT

    Hi all.

    I have a friend who just approached me about a business idea, and asked me to be a technical co-founder. He has little knowledge about how to build stuff hence why he wants me as a co-founder.

    The issue now is I have zero knowledge about running a business and the legal issues involved to know what this co-founder relationship should look like.

    If I am accepting a job offer from an employer, I know how the employment contract should look like: salary, duration of work, benefits, etc. But with this co-founding offer, I do not know what form it should take.

    My main concern is how to ensure I do not get screwed over and I am not exposing myself to any risk.

    Basically off the top of my head, what I think I like to know are:

    • I am offering my skills and my time. How do I ensure I do not have any financial liability. For example if the business goes south and there is loan to be paid, that should not be part of my liability
    • I am also going to be reducing my income, as I will probably switch to part-time job and the startup idea won't be paying any salary now. How do I quantify all these investment, and in what form would it be paid back? Shares? Future Salary?
    • Related to previous question: how does equity work? How do I ensure I have the correct "share" of the business and I am not cheated? How do I convert these future equity into actual finances?

    I hope this community might be able to help with some of these questions. Also if there are any books or blog-posts that deals with these questions, I will also appreciate a referral.

    submitted by /u/finlaydotweber
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    How Does One Realistically Grow A Startup If You Don't Live In A Startup Hub/Ecosystem?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:44 AM PDT

    Seriously lol. It seems that if you don't live in an already thriving startup hub/ecosystem, say goodbye to your hopes of building startups. This is because there is a lack of human capital and financial capital. You will not have access to the talent (people with skills, mentors, connections, etc) needed to get the initial product up and running. And I already know what people will suggest. They'll tell me to go to some "freelance" website to find people with skills. But the problem with this is that 1.) it's usually only software-centered and 2.) this is simply not what you should be doing when starting a startup. What i'm talking about is COFOUNDERS, not workers. This is because they're willing to take a paycut inexchange for equity and help you build the company together. If you stop paying someone on upwork, goodluck with them caring about your startup. ON top of that, they usually have loads of projects they're given (so they obviously will be far too busy to single out yours). Why should they care about yours? It seems no one really talks about this for first time entrepreneurs (i'm actually not one but am asking this question playing devil's advocate).

    submitted by /u/ExistentialLiberty
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    How much time are you spending on thinking up new ideas?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 05:31 AM PDT

    I have an online media consulting business that I've been running for the last 3 years. Living outside of NY my life has been somewhat cloistered for going on 3 weeks now, maybe longer. In the last few days, I've been dedicating about 20% of my time to thinking up new business ideas for when this crap is behind us.

    Anyone else doing the same? {I don't want specific ideas, I'm curious as to how much time you're all dedicating to thinking about this.} I know a lot of startups are really thinking about survival and keeping as much cash as possible, but personally, i've always had a piece of my brain thinking forward.

    Thank you in advance.

    submitted by /u/kurtteej
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    Running paid ads against a list of emails. I could need some suggestions.

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:05 AM PDT

    Hi,

    I have a list of around 1000 newsletter subscribers. The list is rather new (from 2018 and 2019) and cleaned. Should work well.

    I would like to upload the list to Google AdWords's Customer Match, Facebook's Custom Audiences and Twitter's Tailored Audiences to target exactly these 1000 people.

    As far as I understand, Facebook and Twitter targeted and tailored audiences are just shown my ad. No need to provide keywords.

    How does this work with Google AdWords's Customer Match? Is my ad shown to all people from my email list as long as they use Google Search, Goolge Mail etc? Or do I have to provide keywords first?

    The audience is from different industry backgrounds and I would prefer to run ads without the need form keywords..

    submitted by /u/JasonK32
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    I am looking for startup database.

    Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:49 AM PDT

    Hi guys,

    I have found ' https://angel.co/' and 'crunchbase' websites for potential sources.

    Are there any other websites you could suggest to find startups?

    I know crunchbase is not for free for specific searches, whereas angle is for free.

    I hope this is the correct Reddit channel to post this.

    Regards

    submitted by /u/jamesftf
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    Do you think London can ever rival Silicon Valley/Bay Area as a startup hub?

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:38 PM PDT

    Hi All

    This is completely not pertinent given the current circumstances and I appreciate the main focus at present is people not moving around and stopping the spread of the coronavirus. However, as a founder based in London, a thought which has crossed my mind in the past and will become more pertinent in the future once current circumstances change, is whether I should (all things permitting) move to the US in favour of making Silicon Valley home for my startup.

    Again, at present, this is completely hypothetical and I'm still just a solo founder in very early stages so not wanting to jump the gun, but would appreciate people's opinions and experiences if any in the comparison of London & Silicon Valley as hubs to create a startup.

    To me it seems like of course, you can build a successful startup in many places around the world, however, SV seems to have the best overall confluence of conditions in order for startups to reach maximum potential.

    Interested to hear your thoughts.

    submitted by /u/2020visionh
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    Remote git/VCS set up

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 12:18 PM PDT

    What set ups are you using for remote repositories? I'm part of a hardware/software start up and the current sole developer and am about to have some of the none software team moving to software so ideally I'd like a system that's intuitive for someone without much/any experience but also is still secure enough to store our code on.

    submitted by /u/WilliamBewitched
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    Ideas to boost revenue for a skin care diary app (with real numbers)

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:12 PM PDT

    I have a skin care diary app that allows users to log their daily activity, what skin care products they used, and take dated progress pics. Users can view their entries in an organized calendar, or view isolated albums of their progress pics. They can also share product reviews in an Instagram-like feed.

    I've been monetizing in 3 ways:

    1. Amazon affiliate links that I add to each review on the product review feed ($5-10 per month)
    2. Rewarded video ads that the users must go through each time they create or update their entries (~$90 per month)
    3. $5 monthly subscriptions to remove ads and more upcoming features (because of technical limitations it must be done through the website not the mobile app, so conversion is low and only ~$10 per month so far)

    The ads were added recently and I've gotten 3 1 star reviews in the last month because of them, so it's a short term solution but it's also my biggest, easiest, and most consistent revenue source. I do agree that they take away from the user experience since they have to wait 30 seconds each time, but I am burning $160 per month to keep the application running and with ads it allows me to more comfortably keep the application alive while I ponder about other forms of monetization.

    I have a very passionate audience who loves spending on skin care and taking care of their skin but I'm not sure how to make more money from the app. I've already sacrificed a lot of engagement and bad reviews from the video ads, but it has moved the needle the most in terms of revenue.

    Does anyone have any good ideas for how to monetize? Perhaps B2B? I'm a one man team so ideally it's something I can implement by myself.

    submitted by /u/Iscratchmybutt
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    How do you verify email ids of your customers

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:41 PM PDT

    Hi Hustlers,

    Im having a saas based web application where users can signup using their email and mobile number. I dont make the email verification mandatory in the platform to avoid drop offs. But lately what happened was, I started getting more bounces on the email because its not verified. I was looking for email verification check apis which is costly but could see many people using it.

    My question is

    1. Should I make email verification mandatory as in, only if the email verification is complete, I should allow users to login?

    2. Or should I use a third party email verification services in the backend which saves the users an extra step of verification. But are there any less costly ones? And is there any reason why people use this verification services? They could have gone ahead with email verification by the user itself?

    Let me know your thoughts

    Thanks,

    submitted by /u/techinme
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    Best time to try to raise money?

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:18 PM PDT

    Hello,

    Without going into detail, I'm working on an exciting community app. Especially in this times it would be very helpful, but also after that. So the prototype is underway.

    When is the best time to try to raise Money? Here are somethings I would do with it - Marketing - hire some professionals who use my app - maybe going international (not sure about that, Im based in Germany)

    My Game plan so far (no help no money) 1) mvp - working on it good progress 2) beta testing with friends and finding a name 3) marketing trying to push it. Get attention and do ok. Maybe s newspaper. (Unexperienced)

    I think the 3) point is the most difficult one. Getting users! So regarding to this.

    Thanks for any hint!!!!

    submitted by /u/MarcusSpanier
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    How to get response to interviewing users?

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 11:01 AM PDT

    I'm trying to validate an idea for software for niche livestreamers (think cooking). I've been emailing them asking to have a call to understand what issues they are facing and offering a gift card for their time. So far there's been no response after emailing 6-7 different parties.

    Email is brief and looks something like (paraphrased): Hi, I'm building livestreaming software. You are a top streamer, and your insight would be helpful. I want to ask you about your process for creating content and any issues you are facing. I would like to set up a call and want to give you an Amazon gift card for your time.

    I know coldcalling is tough, but is there something I'm missing that could get a response?

    submitted by /u/hemanursawarrior
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    Finding a tech partner

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 02:42 PM PDT

    My tech co-founder recently pulled out for personal reasons and I need a developer to come on as a partner. Can anyone offer any advice on how to find someone?

    I've exhausted almost every avenue I can think of, and nothing seems to be producing any leads. Normally, I'd go to a few tech/business events and see who I meet, but that's not really an option right now. I've considered using freelancers, and I would consider hiring someone, but I'm starting up as a student, so I'm sure you can imagine my budget isn't up to either of those options.

    submitted by /u/Ben_26121
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    Wednesday Social Club - Share What Events You Are Attending This Coming Week

    Posted: 08 Apr 2020 06:06 AM PDT

    Welcome to this week's Social Club thread.

    Share what events and meetups you are going to so we can discover new ways to be social together offline and help grow your local community.

    Focus on sharing events that are happening within the next 7 days of this date of this submission. Anything that falls outside of 10 days will be removed, no exceptions.

    No duplicate posts. If you happen to be attending an event that is already posted, leave a comment to inform the community that you will also be there.

    If you are hoping to organize something on your own, outside of an existing event, feel free to use this thread to rally some people together to meet up.

    Please use the following format to share an event:

    Event Name and URL: Location: Event Date: Event Time: Event Description: Event Cost: Discount Code: [if applicable]

    Please use the following format to organize people to meet up together:

    Location: Purpose of getting together: Suggested Places to meet up:

    You can also find more support using instant chat on the /r/startups discord.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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