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
- What is the Worst Trait to have as an Entrepreneur?
- Remote-only startups: How do you foster a company culture?
- How to legally work on a side project while being employed?
- What are your sources when it comes to lead generation?
- Does it sound like a buyout is coming?
- How do you find startups to work for?
- What have you been struggling with when building and growing your startup?
- HI
- Revenue Model of Startup Forced to Change Due to COVID - How to Proceed?
- Phone interview preparation for a marketing job?
- I'm trying to write a job post for a co-founder and CEO. Here's what I have so far. What else?
- How to deal with difficult investor?
- How to liquidate assets?
- Equity question in well-funded startup
- Sidekick Browser on PH?
- Customer attraction for an online English school.
- Creating a Landing Page for a two-sided platform..?
- Equity Split Troubles
- Register as a new company?
- Determining the Quality of an App
- How to be an authorized distributor?
- How to advertise a dating website?
- Where do I get resources and help?
- Validating a new concept: what crowdfunding platform suits us best?
- Employee stock option (ISO) question from a startup newbie
| Posted: 03 Dec 2020 05:05 AM PST 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. [link] [comments]  |
| What is the Worst Trait to have as an Entrepreneur? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 01:40 PM PST This is gonna be really subjective but for me it's caring what other people think. I've been thinking that my inability to get over what other people think of me and my ideas is causing me a lot of problems. It seems to me that it makes almost everything harder. Marketing, business partnership outreach, testing features, surveying people, seeking investors, pitching, even writing copy. I get so drained trying to do these things and I think the major root of that energy drain is an underlying fear about other people's opinions... Maybe it's just my own challenge and other people have their own unique problems? [link] [comments]  |
| Remote-only startups: How do you foster a company culture? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 02:17 AM PST For those of you who are running a start-up with employees from all over the world, working remote — how do you create and maintain a company culture? Is that even possible, or is is a company culture something that is simply not feasible for a remote-only start-up? [link] [comments]  |
| How to legally work on a side project while being employed? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 11:59 PM PST A lot of people here talk about building their side hustles while working full-time at tech companies. My question is how do I arrange this so I don't get sued by the employer for working on my side hustle (or leaving the job when it takes off)? My situation is the following: I used to work for a tech startup in California for many years, then quit and started my gig so I didn't violate any NDAs and didn't use any of the IP I generated while working for that company, so I'm currently "clean". Now I'm working on a project and generated some IP. I'm working bootstrap style and haven't decided to raise just yet. It would be ideal to keep it bootstrapped but I'm starting to get money anxiety and think it might be a better idea to start looking for a job to continue working on this project in my spare time. How do I communicate this and legally arrange this with the potential employers. It seems to me that FAANG type of companies would see this as conflict of interest and wouldn't like me working on something on the side and they would want me to work only for them. One of the startups I consulted in the last couple years made me sign a contract which implied that ALL of the IP I generate during the time of the contract (regardless if I worked on my projects on the weekends) belongs to them. It was a short project and I didn't generate any IP during this period but still, I'm afraid of situations like this. So I'm trying to figure out how to protect myself and my projects while seeking employment. [link] [comments]  |
| What are your sources when it comes to lead generation? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 02:24 AM PST Social Media, Word Of Mouth, Referrals works very well. Let's talk about different channels, ROI, sales funnels etc. and case studies so that we can learn from each other. Most of the time we struggle a lot to generate revenue due to which most of the businesses close after sometime. There is no one to help or guide. So why don't we discuss on growing business to 10X or 100X, setting higher targets and learn how to achieve everything. [link] [comments]  |
| Does it sound like a buyout is coming? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 07:39 AM PST I work for a small startup - about 35 employees. We have raised about $30mil. There have been rumors of an impending merger/partnership for a few months now. Recently, our leadership team converted all of our NQSO (non-qualified stock options) to RSUs (restricted stock units.) There was a smaller subset of employees that they issued additional RSUs to (not everyone, probably 10-12 people.) My best guess is that the people they gave additional units to are the ones that are intending on keeping around.... is that something that happens? It's such a weird time right now. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you find startups to work for? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 03:36 PM PST I feel like a lot of startups could use some employees, but they're probably drowned out by the hundreds of sponsored indeed posts every day. Are there any places for someone to find a startup to work for? I know this sub is mostly for sharing your startup, but I don't know of anywhere where you can find real startups to become a part of. I think it sounds like an awesome experience. Getting in on the ground floor, contributing and growing with the company, and hopefully one day even seeing it become extremely successful! I am a recent IT graduate who got a 3.9 GPA and feel like I'd likely fit in with a lot of startup companies. I just don't know where to even look in order to begin reaching out to them. What are your thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| What have you been struggling with when building and growing your startup? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 10:09 PM PST If you think about when you are starting your business and later growing it, what are the main challenges, struggles you encounter? I had so many along the years and somehow, as an entrepreneur, you never rest isn't it? To be honnest I do love the challenges though, that's what makes me alive and wanting for more. I have to say that I keep struggling with making sure that I resolve a real issue, that my products will always tackle unmet needs, that there is a market for my product. What about you? What do you struggle with? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2020 05:39 AM PST I have a startup idea and looking for an investor I need 80000 $ for the duration of 4 years, what do you think how much percent of company or earnings should I give to investor yearly earnings probably will be around 100000$ a year in 4 years. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME! [link] [comments]  |
| Revenue Model of Startup Forced to Change Due to COVID - How to Proceed? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 05:36 AM PST tldr: How do you approach conversations with business partners about an idea/model that only works in a post-COVID world and what steps should be taken now while we're still in it so that I'm prepared and ready to go to market when things are safe and businesses can operate at 100%? Hi everyone, happy to join the community! I've seen a ton of great posts with some helpful insight and information. As I enter into a f&f alpha round of device testing with my app, without being able to get into too much detail, COVID restrictions have currently impacted my primary business model to generate revenue due to the inability for user participation and lock down restrictions for businesses. However, the model is sound, I've been advised by some top marketing SMEs in my industry that believe I've solved for proving incremental revenue to customers, which will be in high demand for small businesses looking to recoup losses however possible. I know its vague, and I'm sorry but you know how it goes since it hasn't launched yet. I will have my proof of concept ready to present to potential partners and want to start socializing the concept now to prep for a quick ramp up into the market when it becomes possible. I'm confident that in a post-COVID world the model can provide additional revenue, but the timeline has basically shifted a full year so how should I be approaching these conversations with partners - basically having to say "I need you to think back to what it was like pre-COVID" or "when you're able to run at full capacity again" which I feel like is going to be hard to grasp and a tough sell. How can I break through? I have a pitch deck, I have a proof of concept, I have a product. None of it works in a pandemic. [link] [comments]  |
| Phone interview preparation for a marketing job? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 01:29 AM PST Hi all, I've applied for a marketing-based job and they've just emailed back asking when I'm free for a phone interview! I've not been interviewed in just over 3 years so I feel that I might be a bit rusty. Any advice? Also, I don't know if this is a bit odd, but would any Redditors be willing to mock interview me? I can private message you my number, the job and my CV and you ask me some questions. It would be great practice but I appreciate it's a huge ask. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| I'm trying to write a job post for a co-founder and CEO. Here's what I have so far. What else? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 05:14 AM PST As a CEO and co-founder:
[link] [comments]  |
| How to deal with difficult investor? Posted: 03 Dec 2020 01:25 AM PST Hi, I'm 28 and I have 5+ years experience in (digital) marketing, but this is the first time I'm evolving to a more strategic role. I have to present my marketing strategy for 2021 to our startup's investor on Monday. I prepared it as best as I could - but I'm a bit stressed out. The guy is notorious for being rude and destructive even, and will most likely interrupt me at every sentence. Any tips on keeping my cool, and answering tough questions? Thanks, [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:39 PM PST Hi there, My startup is dissolving due to not being able to survive COVID, and it simply was costing too much money for us to operate. We were a SaaS that operated around high school sports live streaming, and live in a state that has banned sports. We are looking to offload some assets we have, such as reserved compute spaces with AWS and live streaming software we bought on subscription that runs on AWS (very expensive, subscription up in September of 2021). How would I go about salvaging any of the assets we had? I've lost about $50,000 on this startup, so even getting a few thousand bucks will help me out. I just don't know where I'd go to sell this type of stuff [link] [comments]  |
| Equity question in well-funded startup Posted: 02 Dec 2020 05:35 PM PST Hey guys. I'm pretty new to the equity and vesting side of early-stage startups so I had a question. So I may be joining a well-funded startup. The current team is 3 friends (non-technical) and accomplished founders in the last two decades but on the non-tech side. They are bringing funds and customers. 1 of them is whom I'll be closely working with including an offshore team. They have no products as of now and expect revenue Q4 next year. They have offered me a full-time market salary of a senior dev (my expertise is both product and software 10-US-YOE). The equity part is as follows - A vested equity offering of 2.5% of Acme Co. each year for your first 3 years of commitment to us (totaling 7.5%). My question is if this is reasonable. I am not building MVPs like pre-seed startups, doing more of a CTO/PM job. Titles are a bit irrelevant to them and asked me to pick any title I want. There is a 3-month probation period where I will be working before signing up for full-time. Software is going to the forefront of the company, is this a good deal? Can I ask for equity down the road? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2020 01:51 AM PST Here! Yesterday on Product Hunt, the product of the day is a browser with a really cool icon, heh. By the way, he has already found the first wave of popularity, hackers of life in the Kappa theme. Will be Are you ditching chromium or are they solving a problem that doesn't exist? [link] [comments]  |
| Customer attraction for an online English school. Posted: 02 Dec 2020 11:45 PM PST Hello to all! [link] [comments]  |
| Creating a Landing Page for a two-sided platform..? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 02:19 PM PST My start up is a two-sided platform for professional services. I am wanting to create a landing page to get start the validation process, but am at a bit of a crossroads. I have two main users. One who creates the services provided, and the other who searches and books/hires the services provided. Do I create 2 different landing pages and market them accordingly? Or do I create 1 landing page explaining the use of the product from both points of view? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Dec 2020 08:10 PM PST So, I started a company 2 years ago with a friend. It was a 90-10 split we didn't think much of it cuz we had a long way to go to make money. Fast forward today - we ditched that old idea, started a new one and its taking off. Thing is the original co-founder was supposed to do sales & marketing. The new cofounder does sales & marketing. Now I do operations and technology - and I put in 12-16 hours daily. I brought in all the capital. Everything is risk in my name. I have no job except for this, the old cofounder is a professor who has no intention of ever leaving his but-fuck nowhere state. The new cofounder is an MBA grad who has a nice job waiting for him to leave, but has assured me that if he sees the potential in the company he will stay. The old co-founder wants 25%, even though he put in a fraction of the energy as the rest of us. Schmoozing is pretty cozy work. Same with design. He does have political connections, but he has never capitalized on them. For example, he met the Health Minister in the state we are in, and was supposed to send in a presentation but didn't. I think at this point. I want 5 year vesting with a 1 year cliff. His sales skills are bad (as in directly talking to customers/partners isn't his fortay), his marketing is alright - but the majority of it is handled by the new cofounder. He can't do operations or tech for shit. He does company admin, but that will be handed over to our CA. He is okay at networking, I say ok because half his people are shit, the other half are good. Dumping him means leaving the house which doubles as an office. I'll have to figure out a new company, a new house, a new office - which are all short term troubles but ones that weigh significantly upon me because I have so much work. I think the real trouble is I don't know what to do with this boy. Is networking, design & lobbying really worth 25%? More importantly, I don't find it fair that I do 12-16 hour days, he does 2-3 hours of real work, and schmooze the rest of the day. Do keep in mind - I'm on the brink of a breakdown here. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Dec 2020 03:48 PM PST Hey Everyone, I'm working on starting a new ecommerce business selling apparel and a few years back, I registered a sole prop company that was more service oriented. Now that I no longer use that company for that purpose, can I "recycle" that company or do I need to register a new one for the upcoming business? [link] [comments]  |
| Determining the Quality of an App Posted: 02 Dec 2020 01:33 PM PST What determines an app's Quality? I'd like to use an idea from the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig to discuss what determines the quality of an app. A quick explanation of the idea of quality in the book: Quality is something we all understand, though it's hard to define. It's difficult to define because it isn't static, it's dynamic across multiple planes. Variables controlling quality change depending on subject matter. Contemporary styles change. Individual perception changes. Etc. What can be said is that the quality of any thing - a particular object, idea, or piece of work - is determined by a combination of many traits or aspects. Here is a shortlist of some of these aspects from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance... "Aspects of quality such as simplicity, unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on". Each one of these 'aspects of quality' can be improved to make the the overall Quality of something greater... I've written my thoughts on what affects the simplicity, unity, vividness and authority of an app below. I would love to discuss what other traits affect an apps quality. Feel free to grab traits from the list above! Simplicity: Simplicity is less. Simplicity is fewer button presses. Simplicity is reduction of concepts, features and settings all the way down to the minimum needed to reach desired outcomes. Unity: Unity involves the coherence and comprehensiveness of an app. Does it contain all the functionality one would expect from such an app? Does it manage the user's expectations so that its feature set is satisfactory to them? Vividness. Now it's getting hard. Vividness is visceral. It draws you in emotionally. It inspires a reaction like excitement, suspense, surprise, fear, joy. To make a vivid app could involve animation, gamification, progression, and other elements. While vividness is important it is not necessary in an MVP. Authority. I think this is something of a secret sauce in popular apps. Outside of recognizable names or partnerships what can we do to achieve authority? One thing to consider is that authority is greatly improved when something is quality in other ways first. The concept of a professionally done app comes to mind. More specifically, we can use things like quotes, reference research articles, papers, experts, and include references to their work in the product. Testimonials are also essential to gain authority. [link] [comments]  |
| How to be an authorized distributor? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 02:23 AM PST So i live in a country that have a limited number of brands when it comes to PC products (only the big names like Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Corsair... etc. are available). I have several brands in mind that manufactures cases, fans, PSUs and cables, not the most expensive pc parts which is a bonus and they are also relatively known brands abroad but don't have an authorized distributor where i live. I would like to start introducing at least 1 of them as a start to the market. I got some info related to the paper work needed, the shipping process, renting storage space, establishing the company, etc. Now the most important step remains, contacting the Manufacturer. I honestly have no clue what to expect, should i E-mail them to ask about their interest to introduce their products to my country, the scale of such an agreement (would a shipment that is worth 10k-15k sound alright as a start or does those kind of agreements usually involves much higher numbers?), how are faulty products being dealt with and basically what are my obligations toward the manufacturer and vice versa? I am hoping to first get a general idea of the volume of business expected by manufacturers in this field to consider a distribution agreement. It could be way higher than my budget. [link] [comments]  |
| How to advertise a dating website? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 12:34 PM PST Me and my co-founder met on Reddit, our idea starts from Reddit. We are just two individuals who are trying to solve an online dating problem. It's for people who truly looking for long term and commit relationships. FB has my account on restricted and Reddit didn't approve my ads, they told me to contact their sales department. When I did, they want at least 30K just to start. We are not a corporation who has ton of money. Just feel like it's not fair when someone else can advertise their products but we have to pay ton of money just to test our MVP. Any advice on how to advertise our site? [link] [comments]  |
| Where do I get resources and help? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 12:11 PM PST Ever since this whole Corona thing started, I've had more time on my hands then ever before. I've always wanted to start "something" related to tech, but could never figure out how to code. In the past, I had always hired third-world developers to start stuff, but none of that stuff ever gained traction or was maintainable (code wise). With all the time I've had this year, I've finally got to sat down and really understand how tech works and how to build something. So, we're here in the last month, and I've finally built the usable MVP version of a platform from scratch that I'm proud of. The code is maintainable enough to be scalable in the future, and I have even gotten my first hundred plus users. The only problem I have now is... marketing it. So I've come here on this subreddit (I've been a lurker, thanks for all your great reads guys) to ask: Where do I get resources to learn how to market to users? I'm pretty sure that if people were exposed to my platform, that a good amount would download it, and after that a percentage of those people would use it consistently enough. I just don't know where to expose the platform to these people. I have next to no "real" professional experience in marketing. I can certainly make photos/graphics and even shoot/edit good looking videos, but I don't know where to put this stuff. Is it really just as simple as shifting gears from coding to making unlimited content on social media for people to discover? Starting an instagram page and posting doesn't ever bring hoards of people to the page and clicking on it. I even tried commenting on many posts related to my particular niche for people to take a look at the platform. This method got a few users which I am thankful for, but nothing scalable and crazy. What I'm hoping to get out of this post is some discussion or general guidance on where do I get started on marketing something that I've made? If you have your own startup that you have made and grown from scratch, how did you grow it from a minuscule amount of users? Thanks for your thoughts everyone. This post was much longer than I expected it to be, so if you read it I appreciate it. Best and stay safe! [link] [comments]  |
| Validating a new concept: what crowdfunding platform suits us best? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 01:16 PM PST So, this is what we want to do: we have this idea for a voice-based social media for mobiles, with a couple of crazy features in there, and a new way to look at monetisation. We've talked to friends, they like it, but they might be too kind. We decided we want to post on a crowdfunding platform, laying out the concept in full, listing options for a couple of new BPs we cannot choose from. We get people to express themselves and, if they like the idea, to buy into it with a small sum, an advance on their future user fees. Brilliant! But what platform would be best for this? ps. We thought of reddit, ofc, we'll post here too, but feel we need something ad hoc! [link] [comments]  |
| Employee stock option (ISO) question from a startup newbie Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:49 PM PST Hi reddit, I am working at my first startup and therefore don't have much experience in this world and would love some advice. I started working at my current startup job about 2 years ago, and when I was hired I was given stock options (ISOs)- specifically, 10,000 options with exercise/ strike price of $ .66 per share (4 yr vesting schedule, 1 year cliff). Given the direction the company is trending, I feel as though I'm in a position to make some significant money, but after reading through some threads about how 99% of employee stock options are useless, I'm wondering if I'm missing something or being overly optimistic. Here are some details on the company: - Founders have started several successful companies in the past. Their last company IPOed at $10 per share (total IPO worth $65 million). This company has since grown to a multi-billion dollar valuation. - Entire executive team is very successful, most have decades of experience at startups/tech companies. - We have exponential growth, our revenue this year is 3x what is was last year. - Total addressable market is extremely large. - Over $100 million in funding. -CEO says if we continue to have good growth, we could IPO in 3-4 years time. So obviously this looks promising, but I'm still not sure. Say we continue our growth and IPO at $10 a share, I believe that would mean I could buy my options (about $6,600) turn around and sell them to make about $100k, before taxes. And I know taxes can take a significant chunk off too. Does this look right/possible or am I being overly optimistic about this? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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