Startups Tuesday Operational Roundtable - A Forum to Ask About Legal, Accounting, Project Management, or How to Get Started |
- Tuesday Operational Roundtable - A Forum to Ask About Legal, Accounting, Project Management, or How to Get Started
- Big Company wants to buy my startup
- Step-by-step process to find your next business idea!
- Dealing with an overwhelming amount of tasks - steps & tips from personal experience
- Is is possible to build a following without social media in 2020?
- What's the best way to handle paying users of my platform, for items they sold on it?
- Seeking Content Dropbox Software / Tool
- Getting traction for a college oriented startup?
- What to include in a business plan?
- What is the first role you should hire upon reaching the revenue stage for a freemium app? It's just me CEO) and my developer and we are making enough after the first month to pay ourselves small salaries. Should we be focusing on getting a business developer/marketer for the first hiree?
- I recently left a company I co-founded to start a new company, I have a funding question...
- Delaware LLC to C Corp Conversion Taxes?
- Ask Reddit: We made a successful algo trader. How to split the equity?
- How Do I "Build a Great Culture?"
- Using an alias name as a founder?
- Information on e-commerce startups
- How to convert more users when their trial expires
| Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:05 AM PDT Welcome to this week's Operational Roundtable Thread. Ask about anything related to legal, accounting, project management, or how to get started. 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. [link] [comments]  |
| Big Company wants to buy my startup Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:20 AM PDT My startup is doing great, it's growing fast, however a big player sent me an offer to buy my startup and I have a few problems with that. Firstly I have 100% of the company so that's good, the problem is I don't really want to sell because I really believe that my startup will continue to grow as it's growing now, the thing is I'm afraid that if I don't sell they'll do to me what Instagram did to Snapchat. The cash is very good, but this startup is my baby (lol), should I just give up sell it, enjoy the money and try to make another one in another field? Edit: Thank you guys for all the input, you opened my eyes for things I didn't even think about, I decided to sell and I'll be scheduling a more detailed conversation with them. I like the base term so I'll be trying to just up the cash. [link] [comments]  |
| Step-by-step process to find your next business idea! Posted: 29 Sep 2020 10:56 AM PDT Hey there! I started the entrepreneurship game a few years ago with my business partner Vladwulf. My main fear was to not find a good business idea at the beginning of that journey. I say "good" because we all thought that our first business idea would be the one that would make us successful. And it's not. Actually, it's not that much the business idea that matters. But the execution. And we had a lot of ideas [spoiler alert: shitty for most of them]. Our process was:
But I was supposed to know that. I've done a checklist [500 checks] of everything that needs to be done to find a "good" [profitable] bootstrapped business. It is not the recipe for success. Take it as a way to derisk your next project. Here are the key takeaways: General principles
5 Steps process: 1. Find your business Idea Formulate hypotheses that will be confirmed in steps 2, 3, and 4. If at some point you realize that the idea is not that good, cut the loss. Come back to step one. A. Start with the problem - How to find it? Identify flaws in your workflow at work, inefficiencies in a market, or simply get inspired by other businesses. Are people talking a lot about the problem? Is the problem expensive to solve? Are people really annoyed by the problem? Is it something that prevents them from sleeping? B. What do you aim at? A solution that helps you to be better in social, security, physical, economic, recognition, achievement (i.e: be more productive), growth. C. How sizable is the problem? Is it a problem encountered by many people, or are you focussing on a niche? If you're focussing on a niche, is the niche "accessible" and open to innovation? D. KISS [keep it simple, stupid]: Is your idea explainable in 15 seconds? Can you explain it without describing the features? E. Avoid: businesses that require high capital, volumes (in terms of users), and legal challenges. (i.e.: fintech, social networks, gambling companies]. Avoid the "I created this because I would personally use it" approach. You're not your customer. As such, nobody cares about your opinion. What counts is the feedback of the market on your idea. 2. Embrace the competition A. Find your competitors - Limit yourself to 5-10 competitors. Research of G2, Capterra, Alternativeto, etc. Talk to industry experts and hear their opinion about the problem you're solving and understand how they solve it without your solution (they most probably use a manual approach or a competitor). If you don't have any direct or indirect competitor, go back to step 1. B. What are the killer features of your competitors? - List the top 10 features of each of your competitors. Keep the top 3 features. Focus on how to achieve them in a better way. C. How do they communicate their Value-Proposition? One of the most difficult tasks is conveying the right message to the customer. They must understand directly what your product is about and how you can help them to solve their problem. Get inspired by the competition, and aggregate everything in word clusters. D. Identify the flaws of your competitors - Try their product. Check customer reviews (g2, capterra, etc). Talk with their sales team and customer support. Understand why their customers are choosing them over other competitors. Discover inefficiencies in their product. 3. Innovate - Talk with customers A. Contact the right people - Experts in the industry, key stakeholders at companies. Pretend you're making a press article or a blog contribution about them. They will be more likely to talk with you. B. Ask them the right questions - Try to be as neutral as possible. Don't talk too much while interviewing them (you must talk at most during 20% of the conversation). Don't ask questions for the sole goal of having the confirmation you're right about a topic. Show them a path, and let them talk about their frustrations. C. Understand how they currently solve the problem - How do they deal with the problem that would potentially be solved by your solution? Do they use one of your future competitors? Why did they choose that solution over another? What they like about the solution they're currently using, and what they don't like? 4. Your buyer persona Who will, in the end, use your product? Who is the key stakeholder that will validate the purchase of your solution and who will actually use it? (i.e: a CFO is not the buyer persona of a marketing solution). What is their budget allocated to solve the problem they are encountering? What kind of companies are you targeting (Startups, SMEs, Corporate)? 5. Put your idea into words This one is a difficult one. Fill this famous sentence: We help {target audience} to {problem you're solving} by {your solution}. -- Don't hesitate to share your experience and we can talk about it! Good luck to all of you, Franz. [link] [comments]  |
| Dealing with an overwhelming amount of tasks - steps & tips from personal experience Posted: 29 Sep 2020 04:29 AM PDT I bet everyone here had that overwhelming experience having too many things to do. So many that only the thought about it makes you anxious. And instead of doing something, you procrastinate and watch videos on YouTube. I was that person. It's so hard to get yourself out of this state and start working. That's why I wanted to share my experience on how you can deal with an overwhelming amount of tasks. And hopefully, helping someone. First, you need a place where you can write down every task and thought/idea. Paper notes and note apps don't work - you'll see why. I highly recommend using Trello for a number of reasons (described below). The questionThe question is how to cheat your brain in the first place. He's the main reason why you're overwhelmed and why you're procrastinating. You need to realize that your brain LOVES it when something it's easy to do. The less power to use, the better. Once you fool him and you start some action (like writing tasks down) then it becomes easier because you're in charge, not your brain. When you start writing TODOs and your brain sees that it's not that hard to use Trello (and it's actually enjoyable) he will let you go instead of procrastinating. Steps for your brainStep 1:To your brain: I'm just gonna download that Trello app and create an account. It's an easy thing to do. Step 2:Create just one board and name it: My Company TODOs and then create 4 lists
Step 3:Trello is great cuz you have labels with colors (our brain loves it when it's colorful cuz it's easy). Use the labels and create the main categories that you will use later. For me they were: Marketing, Finance, Sales & BD, Dev Step 4:Start writing everything that comes to your mind in different cards in the Backlog list. Just let it out - everything. Use each card to add more info if needed - links, description, checklist, comments, etc. When you're done start adding labels to each card. Step 4.1At some point (as it was for me) you might have too many tasks for one board and it becomes overwhelming again. In this case, it's time to create boards based on your main categories (labels) and move each task. Because each category had a color, you can use the same color (or image with that color) as a background for your new board. Again, it's colorful - something your brain likes. Step 5Once you have all tasks you need goals. I repeat: Once you have all tasks you need goals! But why? Well, if you have four goals:
...and you need money - which one of the four tasks is the most important? Of course, it's number 1. You're starting prioritizing tasks. Now, instead of 35 tasks (total), your brain needs to focus only on 10. You guessed it - he loves that. A side noteWhen you start working and closing tasks you'll start feeling better. It's because you're seeing progress and results. It motivates you which will probably boost your productivity and clear your mind instead of being stressed and anxious. [link] [comments]  |
| Is is possible to build a following without social media in 2020? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:35 PM PDT Asking as a 100% legitimate question. I realize that social media captures the attention of so many people, and that 90% of the apps we use are social media, etc. But I feel that most popular social media platforms (FB, Instagram, Twitter) are shit shows, especially right now with the noise surrounding the upcoming election. Personally, I'm just curious if there is a "better" approach for building an audience without (or limited) use of such platforms since the common advice is to continually test/validate ideas before actually investing a lot of time in them. My gut tells me that "yes" it probably is possible (email marketing/other direct methods), but I'm also guessing that it's the slower route and even more work would be involved. What do you think, is there a better way? [link] [comments]  |
| What's the best way to handle paying users of my platform, for items they sold on it? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 08:09 PM PDT Hello r/startups, I'm currently working on platform where users can sell items of a certain niche. Without going into more detail, any user can create an item, and put it up for sale on the platform. Now, for other users to buy it, I'm considering using the Stripe SDK, but I would love to hear if there's a better way to do it. However, on the other hand, I'm confused as to how I would pay the sellers back, since anyone can be a seller. I was thinking direct bank transfer at the end of every month or so, but I can only think of manually doing it, by sending money from my business account to their personal accounts. Is there a better way to do this? What legalities should I be aware of? [link] [comments]  |
| Seeking Content Dropbox Software / Tool Posted: 29 Sep 2020 07:07 PM PDT Hi I'm looking for a software / tool that our brand's partners can use to submit videos of them using our product. We would like our brand partners to submit their videos with their names and be able to access / comment on it at a later date. We would then approve or reject the videos. We don't want to want to organize the videos and rename them, we want the brand partners to submit their own labeled videos and a tool that keeps them organized. Something like Dropbox or Google Drive + combined with typeform that will allow them to tittle their videos. If you have any software suggestions that are $50/month or less that would be great. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Getting traction for a college oriented startup? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:05 PM PDT Its a site hosting HW answers to college courses. So far, we're focusing on one college. Once we are successful with this college, we will expand to the other universities. We have posted in the college's subreddit, but the post was deleted, because it violated school honor code :( How do we get more users on to the site? Good approaches? [link] [comments]  |
| What to include in a business plan? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:22 PM PDT Hi guys, A while ago I had an idea and it has been in the back of my head since then, I think it is a great idea with huge potential. It's a mobile app. (not sure if startups are only apps!) However, It is not a great time for me financially, as, I spent all my savings on my house just before Covid hit and I haven't been able to recover as expected when things were normal. So, I thought I would write a business plan and look for a private investor/ venture capital/ angel investor, as I don't need a huge amount of money. I would like to know if you have any tips for writing a business plan, I have been reading on the web, however, nothing is really focused towards a digital startup and I do not want to make the business plan too long, as, I want to keep the potential investor, interested. I want him to grasp the idea and see it's potential. At the moment, I have these points. Presentation Problem Solution Business model SWOT analysis Market Competition Actual state Team Marketing strategy Financial summary Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance. R. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:26 PM PDT I need to ease the burden of the work I do because I think I need to be more focused on strategy and getting investment. Even the legal stuff is taking up a lot of time too. One obvious role to start considering is business development/marketing director, as I have no expertise in this field and it seems like they could provide a pretty decent ROI assuming they are good. Is this the same as a "growth hacker"? We also need to start looking for another developer, likely just frontend. But I'm interested to hear what other tech startups tend to start looking for at this stage. I realise every company is different, especially when my skills as a CEO might be different from someone else's. But it would still be good to get a general idea of what people see as absolutely critical hires at this stage. [link] [comments]  |
| I recently left a company I co-founded to start a new company, I have a funding question... Posted: 29 Sep 2020 10:41 AM PDT Hello all, I recently left a business that I co-founded so that I could create a new company. The company I left is very successful, I can proudly use that company as a reference to potential lenders / investors. Unfortunately I didn't have a big cash out, so I don't sit with much cash to start my new venture. I am estimating that I will need $75,000 year 1, $50,000 year 2 and potentially $50,000 in year 3. That $$ would go towards R&D, materials, marketing, trade show attendance, production and a staff of two employees. I would not be taking pay from the company until it is profitable. Here are some details about my new venture :
So far here are the 5 methods of startup funding I have seen :
Would the SBA be a good fit for me? If not what would you recommend and why? Thank you in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Delaware LLC to C Corp Conversion Taxes? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:39 PM PDT I am trying to figure out the potential tax requirements when converting from a Delaware LLC to C corp. I have an existing LLC which was formed a few months ago and plan on filing a Certificate of Conversion and Certificate of Incorporation with Delaware. I am the only LLC member and there are no assets or liabilities. I see there's no requirement to file an annual report as an LLC but a requirement to pay $300 a year in taxes? Should I pay that prior to converting? I'm going to call the state but wanted to check in here first because maybe someone has been through the process. Also for a conversion from LLC to C, I believe I need to apply for a new EIN issued according to what I'm reading on the IRS website does anyone know if this is accurate? I applied but didn't use the EIN for anything so I'm sure this is fine. Anything else I might be missing? Thanks! Edit: Spoke to Delaware you must pay the $300 LLC tax first prior to conversion. [link] [comments]  |
| Ask Reddit: We made a successful algo trader. How to split the equity? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:56 AM PDT Two years ago I started a crypto trader based on machine learning (working fulltime since june 2018 on it). By the end of 2019, I had a decent prototype with good live results. In march of 2020, a guy (B) I met on reddit algotrading joined me. He was convinced to come flatshare with me and work on this together fulltime. He dropped out of school for this. At the time, he was doing his own algotrading project, but his project wasn't as promising, and he didn't like school, so he joined my project. In April of 2020, another friend (C) started working part time on the project, doing mostly data engineering for taxes, and working with accountants to handle taxes. He doesn't have as much ML expertise as the rest of the team, but he still is a good coder. In July of 2020, another friend (D) joined the project full time to work on ML algos and data engineering. Everyone put in about 10k of his own money when he joined. Our activity has grown a lot and is now making around 2% of one of the biggest crypo-exchange's volume. We are now incorporating a company. We plan to do a 4 year vesting schedule. What do you think the equity split should be between myself (A) and (B), (C), (D) ? [link] [comments]  |
| How Do I "Build a Great Culture?" Posted: 29 Sep 2020 01:02 PM PDT I've seen on Sam Altman's blog, PG, and elsewhere, this pretty frequent reminder about 'building a great culture'. Stuff like: I have to say, after reading a bit more, I'm more confused than ever. I know we see a lot of posts about 'culture' in the more annoying sense - mandatory hoo-rahs on Friday at 4pm, mail order pre-printed birthday cards, etc. I don't think, when Sam is praising Greg Brockman at OpenAI for defining company culture, that Greg is doing that. OpenAI has a couple of sections on their site that might relate, here and here, but beyond that I don't see a whole lot. I think there's also the 'vision, mission, values' piece, and I think that probably plays a part here - but only if you actually act on them. When I think culture, I think rituals, language, social norms, etc. (like an anthropologist). So I'm not sure I'm on the same page as these folks. It seems like such an important piece of the puzzle, and at the same time something that probably gets overlooked by many of us who are a bit more friendly with machines than people to begin with. So how do we build great cultures? [link] [comments]  |
| Using an alias name as a founder? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 03:57 AM PDT My actual name can be a little bit tricky to pronounce. I'm tired of teaching every new person I speak to how to pronounce my name. Maybe I should start using an alias name instead? Does anyone think this could be a bad idea in the startup scene - especially when dealing with investors? For example, say my real name is Maximillian Wisniewski (not my name), and I go by Max Weski on all my social media, emails, calls etc. Thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Information on e-commerce startups Posted: 29 Sep 2020 05:59 AM PDT I'm in college and I should be doing my last year of my degree next year. I like what I'm doing but I don't think I'll want to do it past 30. My two friends and I had an idea for an e-commerce startup but I want to go back and get another undergrad degree. I could work part-time by using the skill I'll have from my current degree. I might want to start a business instead. How much time is spent on an e-commerce startup? And would it be possible for me to work on one as the technical founder while at school? [link] [comments]  |
| How to convert more users when their trial expires Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:47 AM PDT Your product offers a free trial but your users aren't converting when it expires? Most of the time the worst part is that you don't have any data to figure out why users stopped using your product. Even if you reach out, feedback is usually sparse and often doesn't reveal any useful patterns you can look into. In response to that, a lot of time and energy is usually spent tweaking the onboarding flow or marketing funnel. But there's a simpler, better way to increase your conversion rates. Let's see how it works. Why a free trial is a hard sellThere's a lot of debate whether having a free trial is the best way to acquire new customers. The clear upside of offering a free trial is that the barrier of entry is extremely low. An E-Mail address and a password is usually enough to get new users into the door. The more users you have onboarded, the more likely it is that they talk about your product in their peer groups and network (assuming it solves a real pain). Even better if your product has built-in functionalities which incentivize your users to invite others. This mix of Word-of-Mouth and network effects kick-starts the growth flywheel which will attract even more users. Rinse and repeat. Eventually a small percentage of your overall user base converts and upgrades to a paid plan. Hundreds of large-scale companies followed this exact playbook. Given their success it should be a no-brainer to follow this strategy as well, correct? Despite the aforementioned upsides there are also clear downsides to this approach. Having more users usually translates into more customer support requests your support staff needs to handle. In addition to that it's tricky to get the math right such that you can use the revenue you generate via your paid plans to finance the resources and infrastructure necessary for your free trials. There isn't a clear, definite answer whether you should offer a free trial or avoid it at all costs. At the end of the day it all comes down to the type of product you sell and the audience you're serving. Regardless of the way you acquire new customers there's one metric you should monitor closely when onboarding new users: User engagement. The core problem with free trialsLow user engagement is at the very core of problems related to free trials. Given that one only needs an E-Mail address and a password to sign up for your product it's an easy decision to take the leap and give it a try. Testing it is free after all and who doesn't like getting something for free? The issue is that finding the time to sit down and "work with it in the next couple of days" usually never materializes. Life gets in the way and sooner rather than later the trial expires and your users are locked-out, never to be seen again. Sure, this isn't always the case but more often than not people just don't get around testing your product enough to uncover the benefits they'll experience when using it in their day-to-day to solve their problems. Free plans and "asking for the credit card upfront"One solution to mitigate this problem is to offer a limited, "always free" plan. This way users will have enough time to tinker around and assess whether your product is worth its money. But this only kicks the can down the road as you'll likely face the same issue of low user engagement as before. In addition to that you open up a can of worms because now you have to deal with all the other challenges a free plan entails:
Another common strategy to solve the free trial dilemma is to "ask for the credit card upfront", meaning that users have to put in their credit card information when they sign up but they won't be charged after their trial expired. While asking for credit card information is a good way to filter out users who might never convert into paid customers it comes with the sames problems we just discussed. Offering an "always free" plan or asking for the credit card upfront still doesn't solve the issue of low user engagement. How to solve the user engagement debacleNow that we know why free trials and free plans are a tough sell it's time to tackle the underlying issue: Low user engagement. Basic human psychology tells us that human beings value items more if they've spent money to acquire them. Think about the last time you got something for free vs. the time you spent money on a similar item. Chances are that you've used and valued the item you paid money for more. This discovery can be used to inform the way how you can design your trial version to eventually convert more users into paying customers. Rather than offering a free trial which expires in 30 days offer a paid version of that exact same trial. Yes, you read that right. Turn your free trial into a paid trial. The benefits of a paid trialOffering a paid trial comes with a couple of major advantages:
In fact I learned about the power a paid plan can have from a personal experience. Given my growing interest in SEM, SEO and marketing in general I did some research to figure out what tools the market has to offer in that space. In particular I was looking for a tool which would help me conducting Keyword Research, Backlink analysis and SEO monitoring. What I stumbled upon was the well-known tool Ahrefs. However what struck me was that compared to their competitors their pricing structure was different. There was no "Free trial". I had to pay 7 USD to get access to the tool for 7 days. After some hesitation I decided to give it a shot and try it for the next 7 days. Needless to say that I used Ahrefs every single day during that week. The felt "pressure" to get the most out of the 7 days in combination with their excellent, educational E-Mail sequence helped me to explore all the values their tool has to offer. I'm absolutely certain that their conversion rates from paid trial to paying customer aren't too shabby. Your challengeDo you have a free plan, free trial or are thinking about introducing such a plan in the near future? I'd challenge you to take a step back and think about offering a paid trial instead. Your paid trial shouldn't be too expensive but it should be enough that your users are incentivized to explore your product in more depth. Combine your paid trial with a helpful, educational E-Mail onboarding sequence and check-in with your users every now and then to understand what their problems are and to help them succeed. I'm certain that this will help you tackle any conversion-related problems you might be facing! ConclusionConverting users you've attracted via a free trial or a free plan to become paying customers is hard. There are a couple of issues one has to be aware of. It's tough to get the math right and take the profits you made from your paid plans to offset the costs you'll introduce by offering a free plan / free trial. While it's highly likely that you'll get new users using your product you'll also experience an increase in customer support requests and an almost guaranteed low conversion rate. One of the underlying core problem with all this is a lack of user engagement. Paid products are valued more than free ones. You can use this fact and offer a paid trial which incentivizes your users to take action and explore the values your product has to offer. Having a more engaged user base helps you tackle the conversion-related problems you might be facing. [link] [comments]  |
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