Startups Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products (surveys/polls sre welcome) |
- Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products (surveys/polls sre welcome)
- Startup exploded. $0 to $5M profit in 8 months. I want to make this a billion dollar company. How do I connect with the right people to help me get there?
- Leaving a high paying job to be a startup founder
- I want to start a weekly newsletter for startup growth, $0.
- Early-stage startups: how much time do you invest in writing technical documentation?
- Should I buy out my startup option upon termination
- How do I evaluate a two sided market?
- Cofounders not doing much - contemplating leaving
- Awesome opportunity, or horrible mistake? ��
- Hardware / FCC
- Company layoffs + pivot and unsure what to do
- My framework for handling a "NO" from an investor.
- Books on how to scale a company / its operations?
- Would it be a good idea to not raise money now?
- Advice on a part-time hire
- How and when do I reach and properly define an audience?
- Join a recently acquired startup?
- Credit card scanning in browser on mobile
| Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products (surveys/polls sre welcome) Posted: 09 Dec 2021 09:01 PM PST Welcome to this week's Feedback Thread! Please use this thread appropriately to gather feedback:
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| Posted: 10 Dec 2021 12:23 PM PST Hey scrappy startupers, Long time reader/contributor on my main account. Using a throwaway here for anonymity. (check out my previous post from when we hit $1M 5 months ago for some more context). I'll start by saying the majority of my life my primary focus has been creating a billion dollar+ company and driving as much positive change for the world that I can. I've invested tens of thousands hours of sweat equity into companies that have never made a dime. Along the way I had a few small successes and learned a lot. This is my first big success, and I can see a path to making this a multi billion dollar company. Unlike previous businesses I've founded this one is extremely scalable. I have two big challenges. My first challenge is finding advisors. With this being my first big success, my network is limited and I don't feel that I'm connected with the right people. What advice do you have for building out my network and connecting with the right people that can help guide me in the right direction and make the right decisions as I continue to scale? My second challenge is hiring. As a solo founder my time is extremely scarce, and the opportunity cost of my time is extremely high. What suggestions would you have for someone in my situation? Should I hire an agency to help with hiring? Should I make another hire to hire hiring first? Is that a biz dev person? How can I find those critical 1st, 2nd, 3rd hires? -- For some more context the business is a digital asset (crypto) trading / investing firm. Think: Alameda Research. We have developed state of the art technology and systems that allows us to gain massive advantage in emerging markets. These include data ingestion, sophisticated trading algorithms, advanced execution strategies, risk management frameworks. The next part of our business that we want to build out is the investment side. Simply put, our mission is to find asymmetric trading opportunities to make money, and then to take that money to invest in the future of Web3 / Crypto. Doing early stage investment in companies to help build the ecosystem. Ideally looking for a generalist who is able to take on many roles but some skills we're looking for might be: quants, quant developers, investment analysts, on chain analysts.. -- Any advice on tackling these two challenges would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Leaving a high paying job to be a startup founder Posted: 10 Dec 2021 09:11 AM PST Hey all - Long-time reader and first-time contributor. I work in an investment role at a BB bank (post-MBA) and have been working on a start-up part-time with a friend/post-doctoral scientist. We're working on developing an MVP now and have a lot of conviction in the idea. The greatest hesitation going forward is a familiar one to many - I have a high paying job and he has a successful career in academia and there are endless risks to leaving these positions. We can both afford to make no money for a couple years as we work on the start up full time, but the opportunity cost of pursuing our idea seems rather high. Since we will both be first time founders and are not regulars in the start-up ecosystem, we haven't had a lot of experienced founders to bounce our ideas off of and ask about how we should think about leaving our roles, timeline, and launch. I'm curious to hear this communities' opinion and anecdotal stories of how you took the leap into your first venture and how you manage leaving a comfortable corporate gig to embrace endless risk. Thank you! [link] [comments] |
| I want to start a weekly newsletter for startup growth, $0. Posted: 10 Dec 2021 11:09 PM PST Would you join? $0. The internet is filled with charlatans. I hate them. Difficult to go through the noise to find meaningful advice. And so I'm making a newsletter of curated tweets on growing your company from vetted, legit founders and marketers from Twitter - at zero cost to you. Thoughts? [link] [comments] |
| Early-stage startups: how much time do you invest in writing technical documentation? Posted: 10 Dec 2021 04:24 AM PST As an early-stage startup with an MVP, still seeking Product-Market Fit, how much time do you spend in writing technical documentation? For example, how much time do you / your technical founder / your developers, spend on documenting technical choices and implementations (such as system diagrams, functional requirements). Why is it valuable to spend time on it at this stage? [link] [comments] |
| Should I buy out my startup option upon termination Posted: 10 Dec 2021 04:45 PM PST Got ~50k units of options at $0.3 strike price. Most recent valuation is $0.5 per share. If I decide to buy, would pay ~20k out of pocket incl. AMT. [link] [comments] |
| How do I evaluate a two sided market? Posted: 10 Dec 2021 07:53 AM PST I am struggling with determining the opportunity of a two sided network idea. Basically pharmacists are frustrated that they have to call doctors offices, leave voicemails, play phone tag, and delay patient care. I would have assumed that doctors offices would be frustrated with the number of voicemails and calls as well (in every city, it is pretty close to a 1:1 ratio of pharmacies to doctors offices). The idea was to have a HIPAA texting messaging app. Pharmacists have loved this. However, doctors offices, physicians, and admin have not been interested, not even in a free product, for a variety of reasons. I don't understand how that is possible? Both sides are obligate to answer medication questions. How is one side so interested and not the other? What could I be missing? [link] [comments] |
| Cofounders not doing much - contemplating leaving Posted: 09 Dec 2021 08:45 PM PST Question: am I getting shafted in my current position at an early-stage startup? I feel like I am, and am tempted to leave and do my own thing because the current founders do not seem to be at the forefront of the business. Is my situation normal? Has this happened to others before? Just want to get opinions and feedback, if this is a normal thing or not. Background: joined a pre-seed startup earlier this year. It's a SaaS startup in based in Asia, and they've raised 2 rounds of funding. We're still trying to find PMF as the founders keep pivoting the business model. I get paid an OK salary, and have a small % of equity (<2%) in the company with the usual vesting (1 year cliff 4 years vesting). Situation: both founders have gone back to their respective home countries in Europe and the USA. They're basically backseat driving everything without being in our operational countries. None of them are generating revenue, nor are driving product or marketing decisions (usually they only veto decisions). Issue: I'm the only revenue generator in the entire business (~20 people, including tech). I've closed all the deals that generate recurring revenue (>$20k MRR), scope out and problem solve customer issues with product, and hack together marketing programs to raise awareness of our solution. The founders: - have vetoed all hires as they don't see a need to hire in our core markets (only mine is generating any recurring revenue, the others haven't had a chance to prove themselves yet). - don't understand the realities on the ground here, and continuously make questionable decisions when it comes to product features. - I suspect have other side businesses they're working on, and are not 100% in this business. Yet they've raised 2 rounds of funding (last round was in the single-digit millions). So r/startup peeps, am I getting the short end of the stick here? I feel like I'm the one carrying the business, and they're dead weight. Is this a normal occurrence, or did I just take a bad deal? [link] [comments] |
| Awesome opportunity, or horrible mistake? �� Posted: 10 Dec 2021 02:20 PM PST I have the opportunity to join a startup in a space I'm really interested in, but I heard some questionable gossip about the CEO in one of the interviews. The job seems awesome: lots of visibility and variety with a few strategic responsibilities on top of more admin-type stuff. The company does cool stuff too. BUT one of the people I interviewed with said the following about the CEO: doesn't receive feedback well and will use negative feedback against you, gaslights people, is better as an individual worker than manager, micromanages, and very hard driving. But the few times I met them, they seemed really awesome and inspiring!! Since I would report to the CEO… is this a horrible idea? My current job is fine and am well paid, but it will definitely burn me out. What would you do in this situation? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 10 Dec 2021 01:18 PM PST Hi - at what point do we do FCC cert? Our PCB is done. Also, what's the approx cost? Using an ESP32. Currently looking for a mech eng to turn our files into something that can be prototyped and sent to manu. We are already DFM and have 3D prints but need a high fidelity proto. Side question: is that best to be done w the manufacturer or a local prototyping house? We want this proto to be almost exactly like what we'll see post prod/injection molding. [link] [comments] |
| Company layoffs + pivot and unsure what to do Posted: 09 Dec 2021 11:58 PM PST My company announced layoffs in other departments, citing a pivot from direct to consumer as the reason. We were told no further layoffs are anticipated but they have no clear timeline for when things will change. We were told people will be moved to new roles (not let go) which I understand as a startup but without any clear answers, everything feels very up in the air. The company went through layoffs two years ago (before my time) and many "survivors" still work there. I work in operations and it kind of seems like my team-which is vital to the current business model- will ultimately be dissolved. This is after a big push for career development and many recent improvement projects. It seems like the entire department and local management was totally blindsided. Has anyone experienced something similar and have any advice? ETA: I've been here for a little over a year. I really love working for this company because of the people and environment so just feeling pretty depressed about the whole thing. I love my current role and don't know that it would translate to another company. [link] [comments] |
| My framework for handling a "NO" from an investor. Posted: 09 Dec 2021 03:47 PM PST Rejections are hard. Whether it's an application to a university, matters of the heart, a job interview, or anything important, rejections are hard. One such important event for anyone as an entrepreneur or founder of a company is investor rejection. The very fact that an investor rejection feels like a shock to your system. Sometimes you question the very faith with which you started your venture. You'd think it was all a waste of time. Sometimes you could go the opposite direction, where you completely ignore the rejection and do not care about it all. After going through quite a few rejections, here's my answer, you need to be more deliberate about it. Here's a quick framework for investor rejection. Start by qualifying the rejection at various level Idea: If it seemed like the investor didn't agree upon the idea or premise of business then it needs to be explained better. It's good to reflect feasibility, barriers to executing the idea e.g. I want to create a flying car, while a flying car may be feasible, the infrastructure behind it won't easily work. However, things like this have been accomplished by the likes of Elon Musk, who did create a successful electric car company but remember he had many successes and the financial wherewithal to deal with it. There's always going to be a question of are you the person to execute it? look at Pedigree for more on this. Market size: A common reason for investor rejection. We will need to paint a full picture of how a business is going to be a billion-dollar business and worth their time. Paint a larger canvas of where all your product and idea could get to. Competition: This is where most of the time we, the entrepreneurs are in denial. It's absolutely critical we look at the competition and assess them dispassionately. Sometimes competition is overlapping, very broad, and sometimes specific. In some cases, it's usually incumbency or inertia to the way of doing things. It's important to call out differentiation. Proof/traction: Traction trumps everything. So, you go with customer numbers that you can prove then you're on the top of the pile. If you're early stage, go with engagement numbers with early customers and early results. Stage & focus area: Stage is one of those common missteps all entrepreneurs make, including me. We misjudge the stage of investment. Some people take bets early on when ideas are on the drawing board. Some do require some customer traction and proof. Some need a growth story. Needless to say do check out their focus areas e.g. Crypto/blockchain, Marketing, AI and enterprise are different categories. An investor who focuses on AI won't necessarily take a bet on AI unless they have that in their portfolio. Pedigree: You may have an unproven past or lack a track record of industry success. This is one of the reasons you could get rejected. The only reflection that I have here, building credibility through execution, showing your thought process, and getting more recognition. So, there's a bunch of hard work involved here. Investors don't think it's fun rejecting your idea. From their perspective they're looking to make a case for a big win, we as entrepreneurs have to show them it's with us they win. [link] [comments] |
| Books on how to scale a company / its operations? Posted: 09 Dec 2021 05:35 AM PST Looking for books, industry-thought leaders / best practices on how to scale a small company (<10 people) to something much larger. Would ideally be looking for topics around what processes/ systems we should have in place, how to improve and grow revenue, proper financial management etc. [link] [comments] |
| Would it be a good idea to not raise money now? Posted: 09 Dec 2021 01:27 PM PST I've been planning and going through an equity-based seed round for a few weeks, but after finishing our financial models, I realized that we could potentially not need to raise money in the first place. We're operating in a specific niche of enterprise networking hardware and software and have captured 2% of our immediate SOM. We expect to capture at least 50% of it by Q4 2023 and generate around $1M MRR from software sales, along with $1.8M of monthly hardware sales. I can say this confidently because we have a unique vertical in our market that no company has been able to replicate, and we've accomplished all our growth with no sales or marketing so far. I realized that doing the fundraising round would get us to our goals faster by around 6-8 months, which is potentially not worth it. But, the two concerns I have are:
The competitor thing is unlikely, as our vertical is technically cannibalizing the TAM being a more direct and 10x cheaper solution to a costly issue that businesses have. So the bigger companies in the market would shoot themselves in the foot if they try to compete with us, plus such an unusual vertical is not backable without traction, though aspiring competitors could pull off an Airbnb on naive investors and use us as proof of traction in their pitch. I've prepared austerity plans to ensure that such a competitor does not spawn in the first place, and if they do, we plan to make sure their existence is highly challenging. Still, I can't get it out of my head. What if I don't raise now, and in 6 months, a new angel-backed competitor pops up? I am very confident we can deal with such a situation, but it would be costly, and if they have the same tenacity we have, we could be in trouble. I've been running through our data and models for weeks to ensure everything is accurate, and although my advisors agree with me, I know I could be tunnel-visioned and missing out on something. So far, I've been declining all offers we got from angels, but my intuition is telling me this could be a big mistake as I feel like my decision not to raise now would be purely based on greed. Then again, we're not short on cash, and why would I take an investor's money now when I know this company will be worth 20x in 2 years. Plus, every expert I spoke to told me I should focus on my product and customers and not even worry about competitors. I know it all comes down to how realistic my plan is and how well I execute it, but I would appreciate any input. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2021 05:31 PM PST Hi everyone, I co-own a small digital marketing agency and am looking for advice on a very important hire for me. Like many others, most of our client engagements begin with a Wordpress web design project and currently this process is managed by me. I have wireframers, designers, copywriters, developers that I outsource to overseas that I trust and do a great job. The problem I'm running into is it takes a lot of my time project managing & client servicing especially when we all of a sudden have several projects at the same time. I also think I have a very good eye for design and have a very good knowledge of front end development (css/JavaScript/php) so "letting go" of so-so design and bad code bothers me. We sell websites pretty cheap by customizing themes, so the most profitable way to do it would be to build the whole website myself which I wouldn't mind doing if I had the time. I've hired dozens if not hundreds of different skillsets on upwork to support our business, but this one is harder as it is very near and dear to me. I'm looking for the unicorn who can do it all (design, develop, project manage, client service) like I am currently doing, but on a part time basis as we can't afford a full time employee. I think I know the skill set I need and it's a creative director/project manager, but wanted to see what you all think. [link] [comments] |
| How and when do I reach and properly define an audience? Posted: 09 Dec 2021 08:07 AM PST Hello Everyone. As a new CEO who is just starting out, I feel a bit overwhelmed as to how to define an audience that is neither too big nor too small, and how I should reach them when I got it defined. There are a lot of resources on this, but as someone who is new in the field, I find there's so much I could do, that I can't figure out what exactly I should do, basically right now. How do I define and reach an audience? Also, should I build my product before trying to reach my audience? [link] [comments] |
| Join a recently acquired startup? Posted: 08 Dec 2021 11:04 AM PST Hi everyone, I have no idea how much influence the bigger company will have on the startup, but apparently at least the products will be somehow be integrated into each other (I'd be a product manager). The CEOs talked about how this is a great opportunity for the startup to scale up and have a bigger impact. I specifically chose this job because I thought I'd like to gain some startup experience (and because the product solves a really important problem), but now I'm really considering declining the offer. [link] [comments] |
| Credit card scanning in browser on mobile Posted: 08 Dec 2021 08:32 AM PST We're doing online ordering through QR codes. The process is practically the same as in McDonalds with the self service kioks, except you order and pay on your phone rather than on the kiosk. We've had a huge demand for this product in the last few months although it is barely ready. Which always a good sign. But we're struggling with the credit card scanning with the Safari browser on mobile: it's not very intuitive for customers to tap in the text field, than tap on the button right above the keyboard to scan their credit card. We've added Apple Pay and Google pay of course but a lot of customers still don't use it. Have you had any experience of a process which simplifies this? Or any advice/tool to help us do better? Thanks for your help! [link] [comments] |
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