Startups Share Your Startup - March 2021 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility!

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• Share Your Startup - March 2021 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility!
• Some Advice From a Failed Startup Founder
• When do you know it's time to quit your job and dedicate full time to your startup?
• Do all remote internships require a Visa?
• I could use some advice on how to represent myself.
• Early employee negotiating equity
• How can we know that our idea/product ready for the market?
• Contract or patent?
• Is the Lean Startup Fake ads to validate demand even possible anymore? FB immediately froze our ads account after 20 clicks.

Share Your Startup - March 2021 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! Posted: 01 Mar 2021 10:25 AM PST r/startups wants to hear what you're working on! Tell us about your startup in a comment within this submission. Follow this template: Startup Name / URL Location of Your Headquarters Elevator Pitch/Explainer Video More details: What life cycle stage is your startup at? 1 Your role? What goals are you trying to reach this month? How could r/startups help? Do NOT solicit funds publicly--this may be illegal for you to do so Discount for r/startup subscribers? Share how our community can get a discount ---------- Join our discord for instant chat, advice, and emotional support! ---------- 1 Startup Life Cycle Stages (Max Marmer life cycle model for startups as used by Startup Genome and Kauffman Foundation) ​ 1. Discovery Researching the market, the competitors, and the potential users Designing the first iteration of the user experience Working towards problem/solution fit (Market Validation) Building MVP 2. Validation Achieved problem/solution fit (Market Validation) MVP launched Conducting Product Validation Revising/refining user experience based on results of Product Validation tests Refining Product through new Versions (Ver.1+) Working towards product/market fit 3. Efficiency Achieved product/market fit Preparing to begin scaling process Optimizing the user experience to handle aggressive user growth at scale Optimizing the performance of the product to handle aggressive user growth at scale Optimizing the operational workflows and systems in preparation of scaling Conducting validation tests of scaling strategies 4. Scaling Achieved validation of scaling strategies Achieved an acceptable level of optimization of the operational systems Actively pushing forward with aggressive growth Conducting validation tests to achieve a repeatable sales process at scale 5. Profit Maximization Successfully scaled the business and can now be considered an established company Expanding production and operations in order to increase revenue Optimizing systems to maximize profits 6. Renewal Has achieved near peak profits Has achieved near peak optimization of systems Actively seeking to reinvent the company and core products to stay innovative Actively seeking to acquire other companies and technologies to expand market share and relevancy Actively exploring horizontal and vertical expansion to increase prevent the decline of the company If you are running a traditional business that is not designed to scale rapidly, feel free to reference a traditional business life cycle model and share what traditional business life cycle stage you are at. submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

Some Advice From a Failed Startup Founder Posted: 01 Mar 2021 10:41 AM PST Today I begin proceedings to file bankruptcy for my startup. It sucks, and it's the opposite of those spent-the-last-dollar-on-my-credit-card-and-went-on-to-a-gazillion-dollar-exit stories. I'm posting this in hopes that my personal cost will help someone else not make the same mistakes. Your board is not the enemy. They are your truth-tellers, even when you don't want to hear them, and if you go to them with your problems, you'll have that many more heads and networks trying to solve your problems. If your board doesn't have your back or doesn't tell you the hard truths you should be hearing, get a better board. You are not a super hero. If you get sick - really sick, not temporarily - don't sacrifice your health so you can continue leading at the same pace. You do not owe anyone your mental or physical health or stability of your personal life because they wrote a check to you. They will not write the checks for your medical care when you get too sick to serve in your role, and they will be angry that you continued to lead when you were not at full capacity. You will make mistakes in your foggy thinking that you do not realize are mistakes, and they can cost you your company. And your investors will not forgive you for that. You have the right to fail on your own terms. If the decision of the board will screw over your employees or early investors who wrote the first checks - most likely your family and friends - it is ok to say no and fight for something better. If there is a power struggle, it will come down to what you have signed in your investor agreement, but fight for a fair solution. If you are an underrepresented founder that doesn't come from a background where failure is recoverable, you will probably want to fight too long to keep a failing startup alive. Remember that those checks from investors were risk money. They knew when they wrote them that there was a high possibility of losing it all, and the SEC required that they confirm that they had enough wealth to absorb the full loss of what they invested. You can feel horrible - and you probably will - but don't let those feelings motivate you to do things that result in you digging a deeper hole with deeper debt or more problems to resolve because you didn't want their investment to fail. If you have outstanding debt, file bankruptcy for the company. Don't leave it open-ended where those debtors can come after your assets. You are paying a massive price personally and financially with the failure of your company. You do not owe it to anyone to be financially devastated by having to cover losses that the company could not make right. This is also why you absolutely need to keep your personal and company finances separate. Look out for your employees. Write them letters of recommendation. Reach out to your network and try to help them land somewhere else. They have been with you in the trenches, and if anyone deserves you going the extra mile, it's them. If your early investors were family, you will have to still face them and deal with the loss they have experienced. Don't be surprised if your parents decide to write that investment out of their will so that you lose that in your inheritance - if there was one. Consider the pain of this dynamic before you ever take a check from them in the first place, because it is a consequence you could face if things don't work out the way you want. The rest of the investors will write it of on their taxes. Your family ... it's more personal and can hurt relationships for a long time. You are not your startup. You have probably built up a reputation as a founder as part of your effort to gain visibility and recognition for your startup. But startups are risky. They are building new economies and disrupting old ones. It feels very personal when it fails, but what you learned - both from doing it right and from your mistakes - are invaluable and are assets that will serve you moving forward. Forgive yourself. You're human, and you make mistakes. It's devastating, and you will grieve this loss in many ways the same as the loss of a loved one. Be gentle and kind towards yourself. Own your mistakes, but, seriously, also own your successes. You did some amazing things, even if the result wasn't what you wanted. You were brave and creative and went on a journey few have the courage to try. You're better off for it - even if the price of what you learned is far higher than you ever imagined. submitted by /u/chickaboomba [link] [comments]

When do you know it's time to quit your job and dedicate full time to your startup? Posted: 01 Mar 2021 11:19 PM PST I have a full time job at a consulting company and during nights and weekends I'm running 2 side-projects/startups. - One is currently making some revenues, but not enough to cover all my personal monthly expenses. In January I've switched to a subscription model and had a spike of conversion due to the old customers already using the app, but I don't think I'll double down on the second month - The other is not making any and I believe it won't for the next year at least My dream would be to go full time on these projects in order to grow them and at the same time re-balance my life, I'm currently killing my physical and mental health by working 13+ hours a day (weekends included). But I'm scared because I have no idea how long it would take to reach financial independence if I were full-time on these 2 projects. So I was wondering what are the signals that you look for when to decide to throw yourself full-time into a project? submitted by /u/r4id4 [link] [comments]

Do all remote internships require a Visa? Posted: 01 Mar 2021 05:51 AM PST Hi, I've been looking for some time and I can't find any startups that accept remote interns without a Visa. is a Visa for remote workers required in all states? I'm down for unpaid internships as well but unfortunately no one is offering any. Summer is almost here and I'd appreciate if anyone can guide me. I thought maybe I'd offer to work as a growth / marketing "freelancer" and they'd accept? ​ Facts about me: MENA region 20 yrs old I want to intern at a startup this summer. Role isn't too important but aiming for growth/marketing. submitted by /u/11coffee [link] [comments]

I could use some advice on how to represent myself. Posted: 01 Mar 2021 04:44 PM PST Hi, I'll start with the question. Should I blog/market myself on my personal website or on my LLC website? I work a normal 9-5 job and have had a personal blog for many years (www.<my name>.com). I periodically blog about a variety of interests of mine—so definitely not just one specific topic or even industry. Obviously this has been just for personal gratification. I also have an LLC that I haven't done anything with along with a website (basic blog). I formed the LLC because I wanted to lock in the name and thought I was going to create a SaaS application. Anyway, I've recently thought about offering training in my area of expertise (data). I think having to know something well enough to teach it would hone my skill set, scratch my itch of contributing to the community, and enable me to package certain courses to sell and make some money for my time. Now there's a lot of work to do to get to the point where I can sell training—I need to develop the training, create the website, set up e-commerce etc. Not to mention, no one knows about me, so why would they buy training from me? And that's where I'm thinking I need to spend some time building my reputation. I have a bunch of blog posts I've written on myriad aspects of my field. But do I publish them on my personal blog that's already set up and tied to my name but is a hodgepodge of other material....or do I publish and try to promote them on my LLC website (that I need to set up a little bit more) and try to make myself the "face" of that company. The ultimate goal is to build a following (to me) and then sell content on the LLC website. Mind you, no one knows me, no one knows my company. And again, this is all on the side (nights, weekends, etc.) because I work during the day. So where is the best place for me to blog / how do I promote myself? Independently? In conjunction with the LLC? And, if I'm way off on my strategy, let me know. We all have to start somewhere, right? Thanks in advance! submitted by /u/phcmyfav [link] [comments]

Early employee negotiating equity Posted: 01 Mar 2021 10:02 AM PST Hello, Im an early employee in a start up that is in talks for acquisition. When I joined the company (10 years approx. back) I was granted stock option agreement. I did not do a great due diligence at the time (major error I know) and now that the liquidity event may be approaching, I would like to understand my options in negotiation. Some more background: ​ -Entities involved are Company is UK based (one up for potential sale). I was the first employee in the USA market (employed under the US entity which is a subsidiary of the UK company) -Role is COO of the US entity. Im responsible for all US entity tasks. -When I joined, I was granted stock option not in the UK entity that is potentially being sold, but in a holding company that owns a % of the UK entity. My option agreement was 5% of that holding company -My stock options vested in 2020. I did not exercise on time. Agreed with my higher ups to create a new option agreement instead of extension as I already missed my exercise deadline. This new option agreement was to add 2% and vesting acceleration immediately upon liquidation event. -In the process of the negotiation I learned the actual % of the main company that the holding company Im receiving the options owns. With that knowledge I was preparing to ask for either A.) equity in the main company at 5%, or B.) a higher percentage of ownership in the holding company. -In the midst of this negotiation, company acquisition offer came in. Therefore Im currently sitting with no stock, or option agreement -In discussing this with higher ups, they proposed to compensate in the form of a management carve out instead of the stock option. Because my stock option is in the holding company that owns only a % of the main company, they explained the carve out would net me more in the end. ​ Im uncomfortable about this. I have been putting my life into this company for 10 years and helped us grow to this point. My question is how to proceed from here: ​ -Do I come back now and make a case that I deserve equity in the main company, proposing a %? Should I be asking for common stock or stock option? Is it too late? -Do I drop the stock and option stuff and focus on negotiating the management carve out? ​ Thanks in advance for any guidance. Ive learned the valuable lesson in my oversight of negotiating this originally. Now I need to make sure I take the right actions, and pretty fast as this sale looms ​ ​ - - submitted by /u/SuchIsLife326 [link] [comments]

How can we know that our idea/product ready for the market? Posted: 01 Mar 2021 04:58 AM PST We are 1 week away from our launch with our marketplace app, with some technological innovations within. The problem is that we feel we are ready in all aspects, but still afraid as we might be missing something. So the question is how can we make sure before the launch that we are ready? What we did in short: 1-on-1 calls with 200+ potential users, 40+ physical stores visited on the same niche, contacted people within personal networks with huge experience on the same niche. Summary of our calls: It is very promising and solves a problem, but there are still some problems we can not sort out, as they are based on bad human behavior. (sorry if my grammar is bad, as I'm not a native speaker) submitted by /u/haggar [link] [comments]

Contract or patent? Posted: 01 Mar 2021 12:28 AM PST So without going into too much detail, I invented a new process for something. I am currently in the process of starting my company. Or really I am in the process of trying to start a company and trying to figure out wtf im doing every step of the way. But my biggest dilemma is should I use the capital from my investor to pay for a patent? Or instead use the money to pay for the construction of the fully flight capable prototype/flight model? Revealing my potentially revolutionary product (in this field) in a patent before i have it built seems like a major risk. I do not have the capital from this initial funding to both build the prototype and pay for the patent. So I must choose one. Which would you choose and why? As an extra bit of detail, this prototype if constructed could easily land a minimum of a 2-5 mil contract. With the possibility of that extending to 20+ mil. However that is also assuming the prototype can be constructed and landing a contract before any known or unknown competition can beat you to the punch. Which would you choose? submitted by /u/NvaderGaming [link] [comments]

Is the Lean Startup Fake ads to validate demand even possible anymore? FB immediately froze our ads account after 20 clicks. Posted: 28 Feb 2021 06:32 PM PST We are looking into a new dating app idea and we tried doing the standard lean startup advice - landing page, ads that were representative of the features, no product. We got banned immediately. How do we carry this out? Is it even feasible? We are also fairly confident in our idea, so we are trying to test demand for which features people like most before we build them. Anyone have any thoughts? submitted by /u/druquest [link] [comments]

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