Startups Help me understand what I need out of a technical team! |
- Help me understand what I need out of a technical team!
- How do you find users for your app if it needs users to function
- App Wireframe
- How to secure development talent before funding?
- How do you “manage” a CEO...?
- Is needed MVP for pre-seed round?
- Should I form a legal entity before I charge customers or wait till I get investment ?
- How quickly should I be able to close my seed round?
- Thinking of setting up a small software company, any advice on liability and set up?
- How would you organize a journal for a startup?
- How do I build a franchise system in the construction/PropTech industry?
- I’ve seen very valuable advice here, requesting some.
- Help with SAAS pricing strategy
- How do I find out investor equity expectations, and how is a lead investor decided?
- Should we quit? Head is spinning, I'm very lost.
| Help me understand what I need out of a technical team! Posted: 24 Nov 2021 07:41 AM PST I have been ruminating/putting the fine points on a startup idea for some time. I will eventually need to find a technical co-founder to help launch the platform, but I am a complete novice when it comes to programming/dev. Without going into too much detail, the platform would be a niche social network with profiles, a feed, and messaging capabilities. Can a single technical co-founder build the MVP of this? How long would it take, if taken on as a side-project? Should I find a full stack engineer, or someone more specialized? To scale, how many engineers would I need for the short-term and long-term, and for what purposes? TIA and let me know if this question is better suited to another sub. Edit: Thank you so much to all have taken the time to contribute to this thread! So much helpful information here. Thankful for this community. [link] [comments] |
| How do you find users for your app if it needs users to function Posted: 24 Nov 2021 12:29 AM PST Let's imagine we have a startup for freelance jobs, like "upwork" for example. Its scales great if there are already a lot of users on a platform, but I don't know what to do if there 0 users in the app. I feel like its a loophole situation: Users do not see a lot of activity or other users on a platform, and they leave frustrated which tends to users do not see a lot of activity... etc.. How do you setup your userbase in situations like this? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2021 01:30 PM PST Hello All, I am in the early stages of my startup. I have sketched out a rough wireframe of my app with pencil and paper. Is there a way I can make it digital and look more professional/easier to understand from here. I have 0 technical experience. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| How to secure development talent before funding? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 02:38 PM PST I'm working on a project with another dev. We plan to hire another couple once we fund a kickstarter. The product is in a close-knit space with very engaged users, and anticipation is high. We've had a number of offers for collaboration from other devs, but I obviously feel a little weird about accepting free help for a product I plan to sell. I was wondering about the best way to approach this. Should I accept any and all help? Should I suggest that anyone who helps sign a document entitling them to part of the next kickstarter in compensation? Should I just ignore offers until we can hire people in a more traditional way? Just trying to approach this in the most fair way possible. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2021 02:39 AM PST One of the vest decisions I've made was realizing I'm not good at managing the company I've founded. I did two things:
The company is doing much better now, and it's a lot clearer what it CAN be, and how big it can be. But I find myself in a weird position: On the one hand, the CEO is way more experienced than both me and my partner. He ran big, "real" companies for longer than I've been an adult :) On the other hand, both partner and me are very involved in the day-to-day, while also acting as the "board". From that position, I feel like we're "mismanaging" our CEO. He seems frustrated sometimes by the lack of freedom, when we "veto" things, but at other times we feel like he's just wrong, and we're still not at a level where we can afford the mistakes. On the one hand, my partner tends to see the CEO role as this omnipotent problem-solver who should be able to achieve any outcome we ask for, But on he other hand, I feel like in a startup with limited resources and man power, we need to cut the CEO some slack if things don't pan out as requested. I feel like being used to a work environment with endless budgets and hundreds of employees - our CEO is struggling a bit in getting results when a significant amount of his "work force" are, well... us... the "board"... I'm not sure what I'm asking really, but any insights about this situation and best practices or ideas to get the most of our CEO would be great. [link] [comments] |
| Is needed MVP for pre-seed round? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 07:57 AM PST Hello guys! I have a plan to build my third startup. Previous one i failed because in same time i worked at job full time and i tried to grow it by my own money. I saw how my competitor build and grow faster in 5x times, we had a conversation and i found out he has a good funding from investors, so here i'm failed. I read a lot information about path from start to grow startup, validate ideas and so on. Especially i like Paul Graham essays (i would recommend its, but i don't know will it help me or not). Here, i would like to ask some questions and my doubts:
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| Should I form a legal entity before I charge customers or wait till I get investment ? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 09:58 AM PST I am building a SaaS product for businesses and I haven't formed a legal entity yet. Some people have advised me to gain traction monetarily before I incorporate a company and the main reason they are giving is that investors will only invest if the startup age isn't greater than 2 years and waiting until getting investment will also reduce the mandatory regulatory expenses until you get the investment after which it can be handled by the investor's teams or from the money you get. On the other hand, some have advised me that a customer or business will only pay you if you have a legal entity with tax credentials. I don't know what to do. And I am still building the MVP and haven't launched yet but have customers who are willing to jump in on it after I launch. What should I do ? and thanks in advance ! [link] [comments] |
| How quickly should I be able to close my seed round? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 09:14 AM PST We're raising $3M at a $15M post-money valuation for 20% equity. We have a solid product, solid team, solid user-base (Including Inc500 companies), company is profitable, we expect $800K-$1M of revenue next year, we have a market advantage, and most importantly, we have room for almost infinite growth & a specific reason to raise the money. We're definitely far from perfect, and we have a lot of flaws. But we appear to be doing better than most of the $3M-seed-round companies that I've read about. I've been told by different consultants & VCs that such a round would take anywhere from a week to 9 months. This is making my head spin because all of these answers came from very reputable people who know what they're talking about. The one peculiarity I noticed is that European tech VCs tend to be extremely slow-moving, and they're the ones who gave me all the 3 months+ answers. Plus, they often want a lot of control. We're an overseas company, but we plan to do a US flip since that's where most of our users are. I can imagine some complications happening due to the unusual nature of our business, and the relatively-big valuation we're looking for. But I cannot see any reason why I would stay "on the road" for more than 1-2 months if I pursue funding from US SV-type VCs & angels. I'm also not fixated on the valuation, and I'm willing to lower it if it means the round can be closed faster. Am I missing something? I know it's difficult to give an answer based on what little information I have provided, but I would appreciate any input or advice. [link] [comments] |
| Thinking of setting up a small software company, any advice on liability and set up? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 04:59 AM PST I've found myself in a small niche that has market value. The market is very small but no one else is doing this so might as well. What the niche is I've stumbled upon a particular software some companies use that has an inbuilt scripting tool that enables you to automate what the user does inside the software, clicking buttons, entering text, downloading reports, etc... companies seemingly don't know it exists and would save them time and money if they did. My concern It takes a while to get these scripts working. Can work with one user and not for another, often user settings but so many tiny issues can go wrong that bugs are inevitable. I don't want to send out buggy software but it's the nature of this. How do I limit liability around these bugs? How would I set up a pricing model around this? I'm thinking of a pricing structure such as this, the value 50% of the time saved in the first year. E.g. if we estimate the programme can save 10 hours a week, 500 hours a year, £10 an hour employee, that's a £2500 programme? I've never done anything like this so quite lost on what to do about liability incase something goes wrong with the code, and how to/if I should charge them for updates? Thanks [link] [comments] |
| How would you organize a journal for a startup? Posted: 23 Nov 2021 06:13 PM PST Kind of a weird question but I want to start journaling my thoughts and notes for a startup idea I have. I just bought a moleskine notebook but I'm having trouble putting ink to paper because I don't know where to start without making it a jumbled mess. How would you organize your startup journal so it's easy to go back and look at your notes and what kind of sections would you put in yours? [link] [comments] |
| How do I build a franchise system in the construction/PropTech industry? Posted: 24 Nov 2021 01:59 AM PST Hi everyone! We have an innovative physical product in the construction industry that caters to the demand shift towards sustainable/green/renewable infrastructure. So far great. Demand is outstripping supply, Fortune 500s are knocking on our door even though we don't run ads and don't do direct sales. BUT we would need massive funding to set up logistics accordingly. We have also early on been approached by some of the largest construction companies globally (public, billions of revenues) with regards to licensing partnerships, however, I feel like our IP position (we work with one of the largest patent attorneys in our area) is not strong enough yet for licensing with the "big boys". Now my idea was to set up a franchise system with established, but not in terms of global top 5, companies. Any ideas where to start? I have a vague plan, but nowhere near something I would be able to pitch to a potential franchisee. Any resources I can check out, best practices, or just personal advice are gladly appreciated! [link] [comments] |
| I’ve seen very valuable advice here, requesting some. Posted: 23 Nov 2021 02:23 PM PST Hi there, my name is Jack and I recently started working for a startup company who improves appointment outcomes by providing a senior with a nurse and transportation to a healthcare appointment and then providing the family member of that senior with a detailed report of the appointment afterwards. Almost like they were in the room for the appointment. I am currently almost done month 2/6 of my business development contract and have yet to get the business a customer. I've reached out to many resource centres and associations within my city who were happy to take our resources and pass them on to coordinators and social workers. Yet we have not made a single conversion or phone call of an interested customer. We have a social media/marketer who is working on getting our SEO ranking al though we do not appear on google at the moment unless you directly search for us. we are on IG, facebook, Linkedin, twitter and i repost all our linkedin posts to my network. We have landing pages and we offer the first experience free. The next realm i am going to explore is partnerships. I feel maybe with incentive for other companies in the same field to work with us on sending us customers for a 15% cut of our sale could get customers. I am nervous that i might go 6 months of this contract and not get a single customer... any advice or thoughts are appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Help with SAAS pricing strategy Posted: 23 Nov 2021 07:39 AM PST Hi All! I was hoping to get a little help with our saas pricing strategy. We are trying to come up with our pricing model for our earliest customers. It seems like SAAS works really well at scale (we could charge $150/ month / seat for example with many customers. But when we only have a couple institutional partners that doesn't cover our costs. How do we do pricing with our first customers while we are still building out the product without operating at a total loss? I often see saas top tier is like "contact sales" or something and then is custom or priced out? Any help would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| How do I find out investor equity expectations, and how is a lead investor decided? Posted: 23 Nov 2021 03:52 PM PST I'm new to start ups, but have been researching into how much equity/shares I should expect investors to ask for in seed rounds. I have a few questions, though, which I would love answers to as this really is a new area for me.
Sorry if these are obvious/wrongly worded questions. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments] |
| Should we quit? Head is spinning, I'm very lost. Posted: 23 Nov 2021 09:38 AM PST Hello, I'm new to this, apologies if this violates any of the rules. I'm starting a COVID testing company with a friend of mine ("Cindy"). We were working on opening up shop in St. Paul, MN, but then an opportunity presented itself in Atlanta (free rent in an office building located right next to airport, lots of connections, etc) so we pivoted and quickly set up shop there. It's been open for just a few days now, but has not gotten any customers yet, probably mainly due in part to poor advertising on our part. But we still have contracts that we signed up in St. Paul. We owe the landlord $2000 plus $1k until March, and a mobile office vendor about $5000 plus $2k/mo until March. The problem is our funds are completely gone. We have all the testing supplies, and there's definitely demand for testing in St. Paul, but we can't open up shop because we don't have money for the landlord or mobile office vendor. So far, this has been funded by family money. Cindy got $20k from some family members, and now that is gone. I'm normally pretty good with budgets, but I've never actually had access to our business bank account, so I never knew what was going on. Cindy had an LLC under her name already, but never used it until we decided to start this COVID testing company. So I'm not listed on the LLC and have not been able to manage or view the bank account. I guess in the eyes of the law, I'm just a guy who has been volunteering full time for a couple of months. I have no idea what to do. Neither of us have any business experience, our background is medical. Cindy is freaking out and has been difficult to work with recently. She has a very high-paying full time job, and reassured me when we initially started scheming that she would be able to pay back whatever money we were loaned. She also has an infant to take care of, which doesn't help her stress. I don't have a job anymore, I've been working full time on the startup. Cindy being stressed out is stressing me out big time. She's telling me that if I want to be part of the company I need to put in as much financial investment as her, but I've never had that kind of money. My contribution has been time, technical ability, setting up operations, design work flow, etc. I think if we can start getting some customers into our Atlanta site, we can start making some money, and that will help us pay our debts in St. Paul, and then we can open up shop there. Maybe we should look into taking out a small business loan? Or I can transfer some of my savings into the business account? It's hard for me to look at this with a clear head right now. Should we just quit? TL;DR: setting up a COVID testing company. Thought it would be profitable quickly, but it hasn't been, and now we owe money to people. I'm not sure what to do next. Tensions are getting high btwn me and business partner because I haven't (and cannot) contributed financially as much as her. [link] [comments] |
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