Startups Registering your startup at home address |
- Registering your startup at home address
- Startup Issues with Co-founders
- Patents: US National vs US Provisional vs PCT?
- Workload Technical vs Non-Technical Founders
- Investor fees for raising seed capital
- Is there a standard way to structure equity arrangements that account for dilution from new founders and cap raises?
- What should I do?
- Featuring the best Black Friday deals of 2021
- How much of a salary increase should I expect if I forfeit equity?
| Registering your startup at home address Posted: 20 Nov 2021 04:25 AM PST I am a software graduate and have received a start-up business idea award, and have been developing the product for more than a year now in preparation for its first MVP. I'd like to know what to do if your landlord won't let you register a business at your home address? Must I rent an office space or is there a type of small 'box' I can rent like a postal room that will forward my mail to my address? [link] [comments] |
| Startup Issues with Co-founders Posted: 19 Nov 2021 05:44 PM PST Hello! So over the past months I have been working with one of the Co-founders built his Shuttle Business into more of a platform in which we can let the passengers be picked up through an app and where the users park their cars on one of the Co-founders parking lots to use. So in general the platform deals with ridesharing through different cities within the State and parking operations. We came into an agreement in which I would handle the operations side of the business. At the same time I brought a technical founder with the permission of the other Co-founder through the Y-Combinator Co-founder match. When the technical Co-founder came into the picture issues started to begin. He started to pitch a pivot from the vision of the company dealing with ridesharing and parking operations to more of a blockchain centered shuttle operations. He begin working selling this blockchain centered shuttle operations to the other Co-founder stating that if we pivot to blockchain we will garner investors and more business. I asked him why he wants to pivot since a blockchain centered shuttle operations makes no sense since most of the passengers just want to go to point A to point B. They mostly pay cash and some pay with their debit/credit cards with Square. He continue to say that blockchain tech will help this shuttle business expand because the users will have their data saved and their location will already be on our system. I told him that we can do that without blockchain and he continue to say that we can get people as well with crypto. I was completely lost because when I interviewed him he was okay with the mission of the company. The issues continued to a point where he influenced the other Co-founder to pivot the companies mission promising that this new tech will garner investors and that we don't need to do the shuttle business anymore but a logistics one. After asking what he meant with Logistics he said that he didn't know but that the shuttle business should track the passengers. So this week I have been completely erased from meetings and they have moved forward with this Blockchain shuttle operations logistics company. I don't believe it will work since they don't need blockchain and they are missing the main point of what a shuttle business is. I believe the technical founder is manipulating the other founder into wasting his money and reputation into a worthless venture. Any advice on how to help him not get taken advantage? I feel guilty leaving the business since I would feel responsible bringing that technical Co-founder into the picture. Sorry for the long post, I do apologize. [link] [comments] |
| Patents: US National vs US Provisional vs PCT? Posted: 20 Nov 2021 05:47 AM PST I'm preparing to file multiple hardware and software utility patents, and I've been speaking to a few patent agents and lawyers, but I'm looking for some feedback from people who've done this before. We have a multinational user-base, so it would make sense to do a PCT, but also the inventions are not 100% ready, so most patent agents recommended filing multiple provisional applications to be later combined in a single national application. I thought about filing multiple PCTs, but I was told it would be an unnecessary expense at this point. Plus, I'm not a big fan of PCT making the application public record, as that could (in theory) come back and bite us hard if our competitors saw it. Any recommendations? [link] [comments] |
| Workload Technical vs Non-Technical Founders Posted: 19 Nov 2021 05:47 AM PST Hello everyone, I the technical cofounder of a two-person startup. We are currently doing systems integration consulting for local businesses to keep ourselves in the black, but long-term we want to support ourselves by selling software products and maybe add in some customizing consulting. Up until now this constellation has worked out pretty well, because my non-technical cofounder has been able to do more simple technical tasks like setting up printers, etc. However, we now we have some heavy-hitting software projects starting and I can tell that my business/marketing cofounder is struggling to find meaningful things to do, because we don't have any marketable products yet. I, on the other hand, am more than 100% booked for the next 4-5 months. We are using these projects to get our customer to pay for the development of our software product for release sometime next year, so 100% of my time is booked but not billable. Does anyone have experience with dealing with this kind of imbalance in the early days of a tech startup? Should my cofounder be using this time to familiarize himself with digital marketing, or other topics so that we are ready for our product launches next year? He is great at connecting with people, dealing with strategic business decisions, and all of the legal stuff, but since I am already fully booked I think he is skeptical about selling more because we don't have the technical capacity for it. We wanted to keep the company 100% in our ownership as long as possible, so he can't look for investors either. Curious to hear your thoughts! [link] [comments] |
| Investor fees for raising seed capital Posted: 19 Nov 2021 09:00 AM PST Hi there - we're currently raising a seed round and received a term sheet, which looks good. However, there's a clause stating that there's a 10% investor fee + tax on the raise. i.e. if they invest £100k then the fee would be £10k + 20% = £12k total. Thus we'd receive £88k but dilute as if it's £100k, Is this normal? Has anyone seen this before? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Nov 2021 11:51 AM PST I assume in practice this varies greatly and is all in the legal details, but at a high level, is there a standard to structure equity arrangements that account for future dilution? More specifically, I'd like to look at this scenario: Let's say Jack and Jill form UpHill Inc, building it from the ground to their first dollar of revenue with just sweat equity and small (equal) cash injections. They realize to go to the next level, they will need to bring on someone more experienced, who they must compensate with equity because they can't offer a market-rate salary. Based on the salary they can pay, they're offering 5% equity in then company (with let's say a 4-year vesting and 1 year cliff). 6 months in, this new hire is thriving, and the company is ready to bring in outside capital. They're targeting a $1M raise for 20% equity. Does the new hire's 5% get diluted to 4% (5 - (5*.2))? Are standard arrangements where equity does or doesn't get diluted when the company raises money in exchange for equity? Any insights here would be helpful! I know it may differ significantly from arrangement to arrangement, but is there anything that's standard? Anything that's considered best practice? Predatory? Other considerations? Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Nov 2021 12:03 PM PST My friend and I started our social media startup a few months ago and after more than 100 feedback sessions with users, We have validated our idea and also found our product market fit (yes, we found it just by asking all the users what they want and what they don't want). We have 100 users and a few influencers on our waiting list. Half of the apps have been developed. We need funding for product development and for some organic marketing things, but whenever we are cold emailing investors or in our pitches, they all say that we should get some traction for them to show. But we can't launch the app because we need funding to build it. And investors are not giving us funding before the launch. So we are stuck in a paradoxical situation. What should I do? How should I continue now? Your help is very much appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Featuring the best Black Friday deals of 2021 Posted: 20 Nov 2021 01:50 AM PST Hi All, Black Friday is a day where brands give their best discounts to attract more customers. Back when I started Draftss in 2018, I didn't know where I could place my offer to get more eyeballs. The more people viewed my BF offer, the more chances I had for making a sale! Now with an audience of 25k+, I am offering an opportunity for founders to promote their Black Friday offer free of any charge or commitment. If you are interested, just fill up the details on this form & I shall share your deal with my audience: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1thoK62QN4Q4qMoZXj5RgcmRtDjSRH-ffI6CTCNe4Sz8 [link] [comments] |
| How much of a salary increase should I expect if I forfeit equity? Posted: 19 Nov 2021 05:17 AM PST I've received an offer in London for a small startup. Salary on offer is £49k, with "generous equity package" (I don't know how much exactly). They said I can choose to have less equity for more salary if I'd like so I'm wondering how much more can I expect if I say I don't want any salary at all? The salary is around my current salary so not really enough to move on. Would it be daft to expect it could go up to £59-60k without equity? Just looking for ballpark figures on what equity is usually offered (small startup of around 6-7 people doing £4m per year in revenue or so). [link] [comments] |
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