Startups How do you budget your time? |
- How do you budget your time?
- Leave my job for a newish startup?
- How do we ask questions about an idea for a startup to find pain points, but at the same time keeping the context of the idea confidential
- Inappropriate to charge for beta access?
- Timing of launch- how much does it matter?
- Need independent perspectives on cofounder's spending
- Managing people to do a job when they don’t do as good of a job as you would
- Jobs during starting up
- Finding Partners or VC
| Posted: 03 Apr 2021 11:45 AM PDT I'm having trouble figuring out how much time to spend on everything, specifically personal growth activities like reading and exercising. I see a bunch of founders of smaller companies, like many that I meet online, and of larger companies, like Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates who all talk about how they spend an hour doing this, an hour doing that, and they still find time to work, spend time with family, and do fun things like a little bit of video games or TV. My question is how do some of you spend your time (in terms of numbers). Do you have time to read and exercise for an hour a day and still manage to spend time with family and on fun things? [link] [comments]  |
| Leave my job for a newish startup? Posted: 03 Apr 2021 08:32 PM PDT Here's the deal. I've been at my current corporate job for almost 7 years but was recently approached by a 2 1/2 year old start up looking to "expand their team". I'm not very familiar with startups and still have a lot of questions even after reading about a dozen articles about them. According to Crunchbase this company just had their fourth round of Series A funding and has raised about $7 million altogether. They have about 100 employees and have had a 35% growth in headcount over the last 8 months according to linkedin. I'm okay with my current job although I make about 1/3rd what my male colleague (I'll call him John) makes, and my last performance review was absolutely demoralizing. The only people who have been promoted from my position were two women who were on "John's" team and kiss a lot of ass. Management literally holds John on a pedestal and asked him if these two women could lead their own team - his response was "yeah probably" which was literally the reason they went forward with the promotions according to one of the women who happens to be my friend (side note: John spends 80% of his time at work online shopping, watching basketball games, not picking up his phone, leaving two hours early because he's on salary, etc.; I used to sit next to him and had to move because I was so fucking angry watching management glorify him while he puts in 0 effort. He's my friend and I don't hate him - I just hate that he can get away with it while I get a demoralizing performance review because I complained about how idiotic some of my clients are and refuse to kiss ass even though I put in 200% and know more than the two women who were promoted combined. With that being said, I don't hate the job, although after putting it all in writing I'm wondering if I've just become numb from all the shit I've taken from them over the years. I love most of my clients and feel really comfortable at the company because I've been there so long and know the job better than most, however the idea of leaving to join a relatively new start up terrifies me. Assuming I was offered the position at this startup at the same/higher pay, what would be the pros and cons of accepting? I should mention I am terrified of change and literally stayed at my current job even after they almost fired me a few years ago because the interim manager wrote me up for being insubordinate because she didn't like me (fun fact, I really don't like stupid people and this woman was a complete fucking moron - my coworkers and I made it painfully obvious what we thought about her, but I was never insubordinate - funny thing is she ended up getting fired for lying about a bunch of shit, being homophobic, and more!!). Based on the numbers does it seem like this startup company is heading down the right path? Are those numbers enough to even project where they're going? They're in the same sector as my current job which is rapidly growing and I'm very qualified for the position so I'm confident it'd be a great fit. My biggest fear is joining a company that's gonna fail in 1-2 years and I'll be left feeling massive regret for not sucking it up and staying at a job that was paying the bills. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2021 12:42 AM PDT So we have an idea, and we're trying to make a google form to get some insights from people which will help us validate our assumptions of the problem. In the same time, we don't want to disclose the app idea to anyone so early. How would you go about doing it? How do you make sure that the app concept is hidden. This is something me and a friend faced, and when he first articulated it, it struck me that this was something that we lacked. Would you mind sharing your story as well? I think it would help guide our process better. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Inappropriate to charge for beta access? Posted: 03 Apr 2021 11:37 AM PDT Hey all, first post here! I come from an indie game dev background, and, without giving too much details, just received pre-seed funding from a notable fund to take my software full time. I am new to the startup world and am looking for some advice about a potential early business model: As I'm sure you all know, in gaming "Early Access" is common, asking players to pay for an in-development product. Would this be inappropriate for a non-game startup? It's a B2C/"B2-Small Business" SaaS product, and at the moment I have a pretty solid MVP that could stand on it's own. Rather than having people sign up for a free beta, I would like to offer this smaller, useful "vertical slice" at a discount, with the promise of the full feature set in the future. These early users would then be grandfathered in, (I think that's the right term!), Keeping the lower price after a 1.0 release. Thanks so much, and thanks for all the other super helpful posts I've learned from! [link] [comments]  |
| Timing of launch- how much does it matter? Posted: 03 Apr 2021 11:44 AM PDT My friend & I, we have built an app specific to our college where people can talk to each other. It is like omegle, as in real-time single chat sessions, so the critical mass of users needed is a bit high. We were done with the app, managed to create a bit of recognition through social media and was going for a launch when a new wave of covid struck our college and now two weeks later, half the people are at home, some stuck in campus and the rest either positive or stuck off campus. We needed to proceed with the launch, but as it didn't seem like the best time, we launched it on a smaller scale just to validate the idea and test the backend. We got about 15 users throughout the night, and we had to talk to ~5 of them because no one else was available at the moment. In general, people do like the idea, it just needs more users. Now, my co-founder is totally in for releasing it on full scale asap, or otherwise the initial users would go away. Whereas, while I want to retain the initial users at all costs, I just don't think people aren't in the mood to get matched and meet new people as they were two weeks before, with half of them at home and covid being the major issue right now. I suggested we build an audience for two months until we get back on campus. Once we are in the campus, we go full scale launch and people would be more receptive then & we'd have a greater chance of reaching the critical users. I say more receptive, as people are pumped up about their social life at the start of semester, proven by the new profiles we get on Tinder, Bumble etc. Also once you're in campus, you know you can meet the person you're talking to, which is not the case when everyone's at home. As for the initial users, I've planned to offer them some kind of incentive to stay with us(as in not delete their account) until we launch on scale. Currently, we have 3-4 people who return to app, see no one else is available, and leave. While I love them for that, I don't think this is enough reason to launch full scale now. Even if we launch now, we'll get 40 more users maybe, but as it won't hit the critical mass, we'll just be disappointing more users. I'm not thinking to launch on scale twice(now and 2 months later), as it'd be impossible to get hyped by a product you saw launch 2 months ago and were like meh. It also has a spam vibe to it. I'm divided between winging in & seeing where it goes, and planning for audience now and waiting until the time is more favorable. Thank you for taking the time to read this. What would you do/suggest? [link] [comments]  |
| Need independent perspectives on cofounder's spending Posted: 03 Apr 2021 05:29 AM PDT Hi all, The cofounder is spending business money on personal expenses and on costs which are in my opinion non essential or more expensive than necessary. They have a history of hiring their friends as (expensive) freelancers, while I have a history of working with independent freelancers and finding students who can do straightforward tasks cheaply. While there have been moments where I wasted some business money too - we live and we learn - the total amount is significantly less. I made the mistake of not having a contract with them. Possible course of action? - Hiring a lawyer and going through the process together of drawing up a contract. Trying to establish boundaries in this way. - Leaving the company, demanding a sum to walk away. Possibly being paid out over x years. - Other? Personally, I would love to cut all ties with this person and leave the company asap because they have anger issues, particularly towards me. However, how can I walk away and expect to be paid if no one is holding them accountable for their spending, so, they are spending money as it comes in instead of generating profit with which to pay me. Need independent perspective on "both sides" The cofounder claims that I have no right to authority because I was not working full time on the business while they were. Their attitude is that I should be 'grateful' for getting paid a full time salary amount, while I am working on the business part time. However, my attitude is that they have been wasting a lot of business money and that I (well both of us) could have been paid more if there was rational, responsible spending. Hypothetically What leverage do I have to "force" them to cut certain costs? When I try to have a rational conversation, for example about essential vs. non essential costs, they respond that everything is subjective, while at the same time having the attitude that their opinion / vision is objectively the best course of action. [link] [comments]  |
| Managing people to do a job when they don’t do as good of a job as you would Posted: 02 Apr 2021 01:46 PM PDT So I've just started a university society which I am running like a startup because we have the potential to grow massively in the next year in terms of members/reach. We've just hit our first roadblock which was that my marketing & design person quit. Things have been turbulent in that area for a while and although it was both our faults I think I fucked up a lot with how I managed her within the society. Basically I started this up alone and used to do all the graphics. Graphics is kind of my thing and I'm good at it. Obviously since I am running the society, as much as I'd love to, I cannot possibly do graphics as well because it's very time consuming and I'd have no time to run the society properly so we have a role on our team for designer. The problem is that, even though she was great designer and often made really great stuff, this person also quite frequently made designs that I wasn't at all happy with. Occasionally they were such that I didn't even want to let them be posted on our social media because they were not on brand and didn't look professional. Furthermore, whenever she made a design I saw a few small things I could add to make them way better so I added them. It ended with her feeling like I was micromanaging and didn't feel like the graphics were her work at all since I'd always change things or ask her to remake aspects. This hasn't happened with anyone else on my team either, and I feel like it's because I trusted them to do their jobs and I knew that they can do a better job than me in those roles, whereas with graphics, since it's kind of my thing, I know the direction I want it to go in and have standards that need to be met. My question is how do I fix this for the future? I don't want to have to spend my time making edits on graphics or making one of my team feel under appreciated or bad at their job, but I am very particular about our brand and the standard of stuff we post on social media. What are some methods I can still be involved in monitoring the standards of graphics and making/suggesting improvements without coming across like I'm trying to take control or that the work my design person has done isn't good enough? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Apr 2021 01:54 PM PDT Hey guys What jobs did you guys do/are doing/ can do during the initial months of starting your ventures to support your needs when there's no revenue and you are a full timer on it? What kind of jobs allow you to earn and also focus on your venture ? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Apr 2021 01:42 PM PDT Hi, A problem I am having right now is that I am worried if I pitch to a VC or to other people so I can find partners, is that they will take my idea. I know ideas aren't that special and no one gives a fuck, but I still want to know if there is an industry practice on this matter. What's the norm, can you have people sign an NDA or an NCA, or would that be too serious. Primarily my worry stems from the fact that I don't have a formal tech background but I am knowledgeable enough to not get ripped off. This means I understand the tech I work with, but it would be more efficient for someone more knowledgable to create it. Given this, it seems to me like if I pitch to a more tech-savvy prospective partner, he might say, "cool, I don't need you anymore since you're not the one writing the code." Is there a place for an idea person in a startup, who is knowledgable about the tech but not an expert, and what would be that role. How would the power dynamics and equities play out? Any advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
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