Startups Manic Mondays: Support To Get You Through The Week: Share What You Need Help With, Job Postings, For Hire Offers, or Resources |
- Manic Mondays: Support To Get You Through The Week: Share What You Need Help With, Job Postings, For Hire Offers, or Resources
- Difficulty selling high-demand "essential" product currently in low supply
- Buying a .studio worth it?
- What’s an example of a customer asking for X but actually wanting Y?
- How do you start selling a service once you have a business idea?
- What unique tech or industry insight do you have?
- What does a Customer Success Manager at a startup actually do?
- {SaaS Founders} Whats your approach towards perfecting your launch?
- Preorder/Prelaunch Sales? What type of disclosure is needed?
- How do you know if offer is fair?
- What is the cheapest way to create a tech startup?
- Closed beta then open beta? Or open beta right from th start?
- Advice for someone getting back in the game?
- What startups had their CEOs replaced when they got an investment from a VC?
- How do you finance your idea, MVP or startup ?
- Can someone help me identify the hidden cost I may encounter when building my tech startup?
- Question on lawsuit risk for early stage startup re: stock compensation
- Delaware Franchise TAX on LLC Funded in 2020
- How-to + donations VS investors + manufacturing
- Your Clothing Brand
| Posted: 08 Jun 2020 06:07 AM PDT Welcome to this week's Support Thread. Please refer to the below suggested formats to get the most out of this thread. Need Support?Please use the following format to seek support: SUPPORT REQUESTWhat I am working on: What I need support with: Why I need support with this: My questions to the community: Requested Resources: Relevant URL: [if applicable] Additional Comments: Please add any additional comments that may provide more context around what you need support with so others can provide the most relevant support or guidance to you. Job Provider?Please use the following format to post a job listing: HIRING Company Name and URL: Job Title/Role: Employment Type: [Intern] [Contract] [Part Time] [Full Time] [Remote] Job Description/Responsibilities: Necessary Skills and Experience: Requested, but not necessary Skills and Experience: Job Compensation: Willing to Relocate New Hire: [yes] [no] Job Listing URL: Additional Comments: Please add any additional comments that may provide more context around the job listing to make it easier for the right people to apply.Job Seeker?Please use the following format to post an offer to work : FOR HIRE Title/Role: Desired Location: Willing to Relocate: [yes] [no] Remote Availability: [yes] [no] Relevant Skills and Experience: Requested Salary/Hourly Rate: Resume/Portfolio URL: Additional Comments: Please add any additional comments that may provide more context around the job listing to make it easier for the right people to apply.Resource Provider?Please use the following format to post an offer to work : RESOURCE Organization Name and URL: Location Served: Resource Name: Resource Description: Resource URL: Resource Cost: Do not forget to explore the /r/startups discord. We have many relevant channels to seek support, post job listings, share for hire offers, and share resources. You can also find more support using instant chat on the /r/startups discord. [link] [comments]  |
| Difficulty selling high-demand "essential" product currently in low supply Posted: 08 Jun 2020 02:38 PM PDT A friend of my family is a chemical engineer and was asked by several businesses if he could start producing a product that is in low supply by almost all traditional manufacturers. He decided to help and manufactured some for the few people who asked for it, then became inundated with hundreds of request by some large corporations too. I haven't mentioned the product by name because I fear it could be removed from here as well, but it's quite handy at keeping things sanitized. He reached out to me to ask if I wanted to try selling locally or to rebrand online and he'd allow drop-shipping. However, marketing the product and posting the product on certain online platforms has been extremely frustrating to say the least. eBay won't allow this product to be sold for fear of price gouging (our product is priced $10 cheaper than ones on the site currently that is selling dozens per day, and is in the middle of the pack of a couple pages of similar products- yes there are products on eBay despite them not allowing ours). Google ads reject the ads, Facebook approves some ads and rejects most, Craiglist rejects posting. Cold-calling has seemingly been the only option, but thought I'd reach out to see if you all had any ideas or similar problems. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jun 2020 12:57 AM PDT We are building a startup based on platform business model which is related to filmmaking, I have few company names in mind but .com TDLs are not available (but not being used by anyone actively) so thinking to buy .studio version(related to my business) Is it worth or shall I come up with new words to get the .com domain? Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| What’s an example of a customer asking for X but actually wanting Y? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 09:29 PM PDT I occasionally see advice that says to listen critically and figure out what your customers actually want, as opposed to what they're asking for. Oftentimes, the customer apparently doesn't even know what they want, so it's on us to read their mind and confidently assert what that is. I agree with the concept since giving in to all feature requests can cause scope creep with little to no value in reality. I can think of certain times I've encountered this conflict in my own startup too (which can sometimes be solved by educating customers on the reasoning behind your product decisions). But to broaden our minds, can you share a specific example of what this may look like in practice? Can be for a tech or non-tech business. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you start selling a service once you have a business idea? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 11:53 PM PDT I have a business idea but don't quiet know how to proceed. Should I do market research, then found brand create a website and then. try to sell the service. Or should I start trying to sell the service and build the rest as demand rises? I am also confused as building a business the traditional way would require yo spend a lot of time planning how the business would operate without knowing whether there is enough demand for my product. [link] [comments]  |
| What unique tech or industry insight do you have? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 03:00 AM PDT The keyword here is unique, what's a dirty secret of your industry? e.g. Storing data in the cloud is very risky. Storing your data in the cloud is convenient, but that convenience may come at a high price: the loss of your data in a totally unrelated legal snafu. In edtech Government-funded schools tend to invest into edtech tools at the last minute before they send in their financials for review. e.g. School A gets 500K in funding and they've used 460k this year, what the government would do is say "well, we gave you 500k and you used 460k therefore next time we won't give you that extra 40k since you don't need it" Schools are already underfunded therefore they'd invest that money in edtech tools so that's why sometimes you see terrible edtech tools because they knew when to approach them. What unique insights do you've? [link] [comments]  |
| What does a Customer Success Manager at a startup actually do? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 04:41 PM PDT Hey guys, I work for a startup in the Bay Area as a Customer Success Manager. A lot of startup founders forget about this role when hiring but I think it is super crucial as it implies putting the customer first. I recently did an interview where I spoke about my role as a CSM. Thought some of you might find it useful, so here it is. I'll be in the comments section if anyone has any questions :) What do you do & where do you work? My name is Shikhar and I work as a Customer Success Manager at a Series B startup in the Bay Area. I recently graduated from university in 2019 and am an international student. My company is a mobile ad tech company. Mobile ad tech is a relatively new industry - at its very core, the industry is comprised of different networks where advertisers can bid on different publishers. My company is a demand side platform, so focused on acquiring high quality users and hitting the right metrics for our clients. The Customer Success team is focused on growing revenue and making our customers happy. We are client facing and are basically in the "trenches" everyday - anytime a client has a question, problem, or need, we are in charge of advocating for them internally. The Customer Success role at a startup like mine, in particular, requires a lot of cross-functional collaboration. I'm speaking with the Data Science team, the Sales team, and of course our clients. For the right person who has strong communication skills, it can be a very rewarding job. Tell us what an average day looks like. Try to be as detailed as possible.
Sidenote: The way that one goes about attending to a client request is going to be very dependent on the personality of the Customer Success Manager. In my case, I happen to be pretty technically oriented - I know how to use SQL and enjoy looking at dashboards. So, I'll likely work pretty closely with the data science team to see what's going on. This might take anywhere from a few minutes to more than a day. If it's an ongoing issue, it will likely take weeks to resolve.
Sometimes, the client is asking for Y but what they really want is X. It is my job to steer the conversation towards X. Whilst doing this, it is important to be confident and sure of yourself - no one trusts anyone who sounds nervous. I've also been a good public speaker so this came pretty naturally to me, but if you're the sort of person that really hates having to speak for extended periods of time with different people, you probably don't want to be a CSM.
What is a sign someone will not enjoy being a CSM? If you don't enjoy speaking with different teams extensively and occasionally having to do grunt work, you will not enjoy being a CSM. Let me give you an example: Say a client wants me to set up tracking for a specific piece of data within their dashboard. Such a feature would help them out and allow them to derive more value out of the solution that we offer them. This is a feature that we don't generally implement for our clients, but it seems to me like that it won't take too long to do so. So I tell the client that okay, let me see if I can make it work. Internally, then, I go to our data science team and tell them what the client is asking for. Keep in mind that since I work at a startup, resources are limited and we really need to prioritize effectively. Teammate A on my team tells me the feature is not possible, but Teammate B tells me it is possible. Then 20min later I get an email from the same client saying that the feature is now very important - in other words, they'll be unhappy if we can't implement it. How do I handle this situation? How do I work with my team to find a solution? And if I have to finally tell the client that it can't be done, am I ready to have that uncomfortable conversation? Things may get awkward and it is my job to be confident in my communication. The above is something that not a lot of people would enjoy doing - it requires organization and effective collaboration across teams. If you'd prefer to just focus on analyzing data or solely pitching things to clients without having to worry about other parts of the client cycle, then data science and traditional sales roles may be a better fit, respectively. Since most of your work involves collaboration, is it hard to do deep, focused work? You have to be extremely aggressive about carving out time during the day to focus on your accounts and do focused work. Since as you mentioned the majority of my day is either talking with clients or other team members, I find putting blocks of time labelled as DNS (Do Not Schedule) on my calendar to be helpful. During this period of time, I allow no interruptions and am just doing a higher level overview of my accounts and how they're going. I'm asking myself questions like: "Where do I see the biggest revenue opportunity?" and "Which of my accounts is trending in the wrong direction?" I find the distinction between Category A tasks and Category B tasks to be extremely useful. A Category A task is one that moves the needle forward and has the potential to really take your account to the next level. This could be upselling a new feature or even just improving account performance and unlocking more budget. A Category B task is one that is more "maintenance" related - so for me that might be just doing some manual work or sending a routine update email to one of my clients. If I can't fit enough time for the Category A tasks, even though I'll get all my work done, I won't be able to deliver great results. This is something that's really important no matter what type of career you're in. -------------- The full interview (with some pretty drawings) is available on my own website here. I'll be in the comments section if anyone has any questions :) [link] [comments]  |
| {SaaS Founders} Whats your approach towards perfecting your launch? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 01:14 PM PDT Hello Everyone, Apologies for the vague headline, I am preparing a Product for launch on which I have been working on for 2+ months. It's a SaaS web app which lets people start a Podcast without recording anything in 30+ languages. We've had early registration open for 2+ weeks now and managed to get our Email List from 0 to 100+ So far, I have :
Although, my sole focus has been on building a solid scalable product. Stats thus far with no marketing efforts:
Does anyone here who has successfully nailed a launch of their SaaS app have any recommendations or a checklist? [link] [comments]  |
| Preorder/Prelaunch Sales? What type of disclosure is needed? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 06:35 PM PDT Im adding an option for users to pre order my product. There is a basic free signup CTA, then i also have a CTA for customers willing to preorder before launch. It's a 10$+ cost, gives guaranteed access to alpha, beta, free 6 month premium sub once fully op. It will explain that this is more like a donation, because well nothing is for certain and i dont want to be in court for the next 5 years. So besides explaining this around my cta and on the payment page, what are the legal terms and condition one might embed to protect myself? Yes i will confirm with legal, but need to do some of my own diligence first, so i can get a clearer grasp moving forward. ANyone have any experience/articles/keyword terms i can research? TY [link] [comments]  |
| How do you know if offer is fair? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 12:46 PM PDT Hey peeps, I recently received an offer for 18K stock options at a hot stealth mode startup that's raised $25M at a $250M Valuation (post series A). I would be joining as employee #25 and work in a mid level software role (I have 5 years experience). I'm very happy with the salary (it's just below market rate which is very high for my profession/geography) but I'm not sure how to determine if equity is fair or not. I know that ownership percentage of the company is important but strike price is extremely important. The strike price is about $2 and the current value of the shares are $7.50. This means I'd own roughly .054% (or .054/100) or $99K in shares. It goes without saying that I'm very excited about the role, the team and the company. While I understand startups have very small chance of extreme success, I'm bullish on them and know this will be an awesome opportunity to grow. I just want to make sure I'm being valued fairly. [link] [comments]  |
| What is the cheapest way to create a tech startup? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 09:43 AM PDT I was wondering what the cheapest way would be to create a for-profit technology company. Inspiration for this stems from the fact that Travis CI (continuous integration tool) costs $69/month for commercial purposes. Gitlab (version control) can cost up to $99/user/month. I was wondering what the cheapest (but also reliable) way would be to develop a company which cannot take advantage of any student / non-profit licenses. For example, this could be a simple setup:
Also want to get some idea of the cost at each stage of the journey (best value for tiny, small, medium, large companies). Is there a useful website for finding out about this? [link] [comments]  |
| Closed beta then open beta? Or open beta right from th start? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 11:21 PM PDT Hi guys! have an Android app built and waiting on launch but I'm debating between a closed beta or an open beta at beginning. My app requires multiple people for it to work, which is why I'm more inclined to do an open beta. However, know that a closed beta gives a feeling of "exclusivity" to users (right?) and that would be able to have a tighter knit group of people to give me feedback. Ido not think know nearly enough people to properly test this app on a scale. If did a closed beta would essentially be giving a key to anybody who asked. Any feedback on which route to go is greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Advice for someone getting back in the game? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 01:14 PM PDT Evening all. I'm a software engineer getting back in to the startup game after spending a few years at larger companies, one 150 employees post series C funding, The second a 10,000+ part publicly funded corporation. Its going to be a bit of a culture shock I'm sure. To be quite honest, for the most part, I'm bricking it. I swing from a state of "Fuck yeah lets do this" confidence, to "what the fuck am I doing, I'm not good enough for this". I'm trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can from as many people as I can. There's a brilliant mentor on board with the business with a computer science background like myself, and the founder himself has 30+ experience in business, management, project management and engineering (albeit a different field). I'm incredibly excited to be learning new things, putting my previous experiences in to practice, and feeling like I'm really making an impact. Does anyone have any advice for someone getting back in to things. Resources or similar experiences? Due to geography, I envision we'll be recruiting remotely. I have years of remote working experience, but I'll admit I'm a little nervous about managing a remote team. [link] [comments]  |
| What startups had their CEOs replaced when they got an investment from a VC? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 02:06 PM PDT What startups had their CEOs replaced when they got an investment from a VC? I started analysing different cases when the CEO of a startup was replaced, the outcomes of such a decision: whether the company grew fast or not; whether it became a unicorn, etc. From recent ones: CEO of Magic Leap [link] [comments]  |
| How do you finance your idea, MVP or startup ? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 07:15 AM PDT I am having some unclear issues with learning the basics of financing an idea, MVP or startup, I know a little bit about the subject and I have read a few short guidebooks before, but its not clear to me, for example what is considered to be an attractive deal, what an investor can ask for, how do you structure a deal, is pitch always required So basically I want to know the basics of raising funds for idea, MVP and startup (From the investors perspective what is the difference between idea, MVP and a startup ? ) Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Can someone help me identify the hidden cost I may encounter when building my tech startup? Posted: 08 Jun 2020 05:00 PM PDT Hey all, I am in the planning phase of designing a social media site. I've got a fairly comprehensive wire-frame built, along with the current DB design. Here is an idea what i'm working with. Its not really meant to be read, just showing the complexity so far and that I'm not just a guy with an idea... I actually have a plan. EDIT: I have bolded what I am after in this post as many of the answers so far have missed the point of this post. I am trying to prepare the expense portion of my business plan and, secondarily, identify tech needs so I can hire appropriately. I appreciate the responses, but they are not answering the question. The rest of the content is to explain where I am at, and my requirements so you can help me figure out what I may need. I would most specifically be helped with TECH PEOPLE who have experience with cloud services that can help me understand the differences, or Tech Startups who have built successful apps that can help me identify hidden expenses I may not have thought of. [Wireframe](https://i.imgur.com/DcKMBii.png) [Database](https://i.imgur.com/X7p0VRG.png) Anyway, I think I'm good at the planning and showcasing what I need to build, but I don't yet have the knowledge to actually build it. I'm doing as much as I can myself, but I will probably have to try and hire someone at some point. I've also created what I believe would be a realistic expected revenue, but I'm not really sure what all I would have to expect as far as Expenses. Which is what I would like you guys for, if you don't mind. I am thinking of hosting on a cloud platform, at least to start out. I've been eyeing google cloud services, mostly because it is cheaper in the long run. I also have not been that impressed with some of Amazons other applications, so I'm not fully confident AWS will be much different. But I do know that AWS has more options and more people using it, though likely only because they were first to the ball game. But my problem is, I don't really understand what most of those options are, and if I need them or how to properly estimate how much I may be spending with those options. So If you all have experience in this area, if you could ask me the questions I don't know to ask to help make my choice and determine the cost, it would be helpful. Here is what I can provide as far as my requirements.
Like I said, I'm really at a beginner level with the programming aspect, but currently I am trying to build with PHP 7. and the Laravel 7 framework, using MySQL. I've read once that PostgreSQL may be better for partitioning, but I don't really know much about that. At this point, I'm just trying to understand Laravel's Eloquent ORM and I figure if i can get that right, it will be able to switch over to Postgres if i need it as Laravel supports both. I know some of these things I can address later as I need them, but I also think if i can plan for it ahead of time, it would save me having to redo it later on. But regardless, I still don't know how to go about pricing these things other than development cost. I'm limited in money, so I'm doing as much as I can myself, but if I can secure funding, I need to know how much to ask for so I don't go broke before I even get started. Any help and guidance would be appreciated. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Question on lawsuit risk for early stage startup re: stock compensation Posted: 08 Jun 2020 04:26 PM PDT Long story short, started a company about a year ago now. Each of the two founders (myself and my partner) have 35% of committed shares. We have an advisor who has 1%, and two other stakeholders, a VP of Engineering who has 2% and a part-time programmer who also has 2%. Was talking to a friend who also has a startup when she metnioned that we might be at risk for the Eng VP claiming a lawsuit due to the 2% being on-par for the part-time programmers 2%. The VP works 20-30 hrs per week on this, and the part-timer is really part-time as in 2-4 hrs a week as needed (she has specialized in one area and we need her expertise). Anyone have exp with this kind of scenario? What is the exact policy (federal?) that covers our risk, or is there any? Is it state-by-state? Can't find much on the net. Any help apprecitated. [link] [comments]  |
| Delaware Franchise TAX on LLC Funded in 2020 Posted: 08 Jun 2020 02:27 PM PDT SITUATION I have founded a Delaware LLC in early May 2020. I thought I need to wait for m EIN to pay that in (Jun 1 DEADLINE) https://www.delawareregisteredagent.com/how-to/file-delaware-llc-annual-reports-online But I could log in here: https://corp.delaware.gov/paytaxes/ with my "Please enter a 7 digit Business Entity File Number" But here it says "Amount Due Total $0.00 " QUESTION This means that I don't have to pay for last years so 2019 year Franchise tax and I only have to pay my franchise tax until 2021 Jun 1? [link] [comments]  |
| How-to + donations VS investors + manufacturing Posted: 08 Jun 2020 02:21 PM PDT I have an idea about the home improvement. It cost about 100$, it gives about a 100$ of profit per year. It take just a few hours to implement even by simply following the how-to with almost no skill on this topic. About 10% of population can find this useful. I see two main routes for this idea to be implemented. First one is the donations and how-to video explaining step by step how to make it, where to buy parts, how to maintain it. And second one is more traditional, where a factory is built or outsourced to make this product, investors are needed to pay for this activity, money for advertising and marketing are needed too. And lots of paperwork with the patent. With donations or pay-what-you-want i expect that about 99.9% people will decide to pay nothing, and the rest will pay a few bucks. So the total income is barely enough to pay for the materials and time spent on the experiments. With investor + manufacturing option possible income is much larger since every customer will pay. But it will take years just to set this up. And years more to make it profitable. So what route would you suggest, or what details can you add about both of this routes, or what other options would you suggest to maximize the profit? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jun 2020 06:41 AM PDT Hello.. There's probably +100k brands out there marketing, selling and designing clothes that they want other to use, and so, since you often hear about the ups of a clothing brand you never seem to get the backstory - as from what I've read and understood is that creating a clothing brand is very hard and competitive so I was wondering if there's any clothing brands in this subreddit that wouldn't mind share their story on how they became a brand from scratch? How did you start out? Did you face any problems? How did you overcome those problems, etc. [link] [comments]  |
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