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Crazyweasel posted:Honestly Ive been lurking this thread since the beginning and had a lot of the same thoughts your detractors did throughout your development and launch; however, having just finished my first year of a professional MBA focusing on Entrepreneurship... You went out there, you did something, it may have taken a little while, but you aren't deep in debt and have I'm sure a ton of lessons learned. The thing I'm proudest about is simply that I did everything with next to nothing and literally no community help besides two friends that partnered for some equity. It was just planning and guile with respect to some marketing opportunities. Just about everything happened according to plan once waters were tested by last spring. Honestly, I'm just really happy that I might have produced something that benefited lives. For instance, I noticed tracebacks from a subreddit like 'lonelyforever' where people appreciated the fact they got bad results because it validated their feelings unlike so much other things online that paint a rosy picture. The most validating thing on the business side was running into a few folks from the Fed at a stats conference. Before I explained my interest in the data and model output, the senior economist in the group laughed and said he had a feeling he knew exactly what I was doing. Lastly, one nice thing is if I ever want to be an ex-pat, I'm sure I'll readily find good friends in Brazil! Otherwise, the funny thing is compared to many other things I've done it's rather lackluster and uninspiring. I wouldn't be impressed with it beyond programmatic success and even that wasn't even challenging. It was just brute force effort and several months of straight 120 hr weeks (including PhD work). I can't say I learned very much besides how unreliable developers can be and my interactions with business types leaving me with a lot more faith in my government work.  My Rhythmic Crotch posted:So this is just my unsolicited smattering of thoughts, questions, and opinions about Nanaya. I appreciate it! I'll answer it just for the exercise to see catch the response. BTW I'll get a coupon code going when I get time so people can try it for free. quote:Stuff about the personality test This is the personality test I'm licensing from the partner. There aren't too many valid personality test options that aren't just answering 100 questions on a 1-5 scale: A. Without something like this, the algorithm doesn't work. B. It's a blackbox to us. quote:Other experience things/lack of indication of what people are paying for Right, so this is what I could build out for the time, money, and energy that I had. Investors, mentors, etc were in disbelieve that people would even want anything like this so I built it to show otherwise. I knew I wasn't going to build anything less or more than what's on the site because I needed to launch on Valentine's Day on budget. I did that so I'm icing it until I can fundraise. Even going back to update revamp copy to better express what's in a report would just take time, energy, and mental wherewithal that I can't afford now. Analyzing the data I've gotten so far would actually go a long, long way in reducing the test length - by half, at least. My "ask" will be to finish what I had in mind for the project which has a lot better social media tie in that would reduce the data entry further, freemium structure around report stuff, and an app with several other key features for localization/social media tie in that would allow for subscription use. I'm toying with the idea of a dating site which is a separate issue. quote:facebook integration is a great and obvious fit, so nice job on that. You might want to clarify if using the site will cause visible changes to your facebook profile. Wait, does it not do that?! It should... quote:Regarding investors and feeling like they want to put you into a "box". Okay, I get the frustration. But honestly how many people per year can you see spending $5 for this experience? That's 200,000 new customers per year to make $1M in sales. Hopefully not this experience! So I want to build some subscription things, though I don't know how well those'd be picked up by users yet. Given the utter lack of marketing and the fact there's always people growing up looking for sex/romance/relationships (I have a few pages on data on this for the business plan), I feel I can afford churn rate so long as word of mouth is good and I keep up the blog/partnering on press-related marketing. But even as I said, the potential revenue models for romance will never be very impressive (*cough cough* OKC/Tinder). Ultimately, I want to build the brand as an engine for addressing major consumer life questions. As that happens, several new business models become available with more clear cut business stakeholders (e.g. higher ed), at which point there'll be a lot of opportunities to license the data for various purposes. I've done the market research for the types of competition in the consumer-facing and business-facing sides of the future business and they're generally growing, underserved, or new/risky opportunities. In general the marketing, data quality, and predictive capabilities of the product become much better as more products are created. I feel this it's a catch-22. Spinning the narrative of the romance product is not compelling when it comes to revenue. A narrative that includes plans for growth leaves me looking unfocused despite a formal, concrete plan into the next major market existing. quote:if I were in your shoes, the only thing I would be focusing on is "how do I get acquired by, or license this IP to, a large dating site?" I had one connection to a major company who doesn't respond/is busy. I'd be happy to license an API but I'm weary of trying to exit early when I see things much larger than romance down the line. I'm obviously pretty obstinate and I know it's not a good thing in business but I would have given up had I listened to naysayers. guidoanselmi fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 5, 2016 |
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May 5, 2016 22:14
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Well, I don't want to be a naysayer, I actually want to give somewhat useful advice, from the perspective of a person who also thinks about and is messing with startup stuff. So I hope it doesn't come off negatively 
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May 6, 2016 00:21
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:Well, I don't want to be a naysayer, I actually want to give somewhat useful advice, from the perspective of a person who also thinks about and is messing with startup stuff. So I hope it doesn't come off negatively No, not at all! It's constructive and if I can't respond to it sensibly then that's a bad sign. Besides, I wouldn't be posting here if I wasn't here to listen. Criticism here helped me reconsider kickstarter and a few other things.
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May 6, 2016 03:18
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Have you considered splitting it into two legal entities. Aim for a quick exit to a large dating site on the romance use the cash to fund the second company properly as that actually sounds interesting.
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May 6, 2016 18:54
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Hey guido, congrats on the launch. I know an investor who's not afraid of 'weird' & just generally a good guy, worth having a chat with. Shoot me a mail unixbeard@gmail.com and I'll give you an intro.
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May 7, 2016 08:03
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Is this place exclusively for tech startups, or do magazine startups fit too? I'm the founding publisher of a pretty small outdoors magazine based in Oregon. We call it O2. It's basically a pet project at this point as nobody gets paid, but we really have hit a sweet spot with our physical magazines and are growing larger with every issue. Subscriptions should be up soon for anyone who might be interested. Good stuff for the coffee table.
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May 10, 2016 21:28
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Does anyone have any good tips or an article or something on what should an offer include? I'm talking about a document that specifies what service/product I am offering (to a company) and for what price. I'm not actually even sure is it called an offer, a quote, a bid (not technically bidding against anyone in this case) or something else. This is related to engineering design so I guess it would need to include price, schedule, services offered, tools used, IP rights... This is just a little project but I'd rather do it right the first time around. Edit: Examples would be great too, I'm wondering about little details like is there usually an abstract etc. Hyvok fucked around with this message at 06:56 on May 15, 2016 |
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May 15, 2016 06:46
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Hyvok posted:Does anyone have any good tips or an article or something on what should an offer include? I'm talking about a document that specifies what service/product I am offering (to a company) and for what price. I'm not actually even sure is it called an offer, a quote, a bid (not technically bidding against anyone in this case) or something else. This is related to engineering design so I guess it would need to include price, schedule, services offered, tools used, IP rights... This is just a little project but I'd rather do it right the first time around. If you're the one selling your services (a vendor) to a company, you can usually start off with a Master Services Agreement (MSA) and a Statement of Work (SOW). I've used the documents from http://msabundle.com/ before with much success (the MSA, SOW, and Retained Services Agreement (RSA) as a consultant).
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May 15, 2016 14:49
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Welcome to GBS posted:Is this place exclusively for tech startups, or do magazine startups fit too? I'm the founding publisher of a pretty small outdoors magazine based in Oregon. We call it O2. It's basically a pet project at this point as nobody gets paid, but we really have hit a sweet spot with our physical magazines and are growing larger with every issue. I'd be very interested to hear about this. The magazines are free, and you make money on advertisements? How did build a subscription base? I'd thought that most of this sort of thing had gone the way of blogs/online magazines. It seems like it would take a lot of cash flow to make a glossy print magazine profitable. Do you have a lot of connections in the outdoor/action sport industry to make this worthwhile, or do you have another business that this would complement?
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May 18, 2016 01:57
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laxbro posted:I'd be very interested to hear about this. The magazines are free, and you make money on advertisements? How did build a subscription base? I'd thought that most of this sort of thing had gone the way of blogs/online magazines. It seems like it would take a lot of cash flow to make a glossy print magazine profitable. The project started as a group of students in our journalism school who wanted to make something that didn't yet exist. We were all interested in the outdoors and our school didn't really have an outlet for it, so we made our own. The magazines are primarily being distributed at our launch parties, on campus and at supporting businesses, all for free. It is difficult to fund the magazine, but it gets a lot easier every single issue. We are finally starting to get interest from bigger companies that will allow us to grow. I am working to set up the infrastructure that will allow for subscriptions both from businesses and consumers, which I'm hoping will allow us to grow even more. If people are genuinely interested I'd be happy to start a 'I ignored everyones advice and helped found a print magazine, AMA' thread.
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May 22, 2016 18:35
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I've recently become unemployed, and apparently I qualify for New York's Self Employment Assistance Program, or SEAP. I have an idea of what sort of business I'd want to start up, but I've got tons of questions about the process. Is this the thread to ask about that sort of stuff, or is there another thread that I missed for small businesses?
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Jun 1, 2016 03:59
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Does anyone here work in fintech? I've spent the last 8 years in finance (specifically, derivatives operations in investment banking) and looking to somehow leverage this experience or at least the name recognition of my current firm. Bitcoin itself is laughably lovely but the underlying technology like blockchain and distributed ledgers could mean big big changes for things like ISDA contracts and settlements. I'm not a programmer or any kind of engineer so not even sure where to start. Should I just try and find someone who already has an idea and see if they are looking for a founding partner?
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Jun 14, 2016 05:50
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zmcnulty posted:Does anyone here work in fintech? I've spent the last 8 years in finance (specifically, derivatives operations in investment banking) and looking to somehow leverage this experience or at least the name recognition of my current firm. Bitcoin itself is laughably lovely but the underlying technology like blockchain and distributed ledgers could mean big big changes for things like ISDA contracts and settlements. Start with two basic questions. Where do you live? (Although the answer is go out and meet people) How does derivatives apply to the blockchain? What exactly are you offering if someone else has to bring the idea and the ability to make it happen? (Not being harsh here but if I was about the start a company why should I give you a huge chunk of equity to start it with me?)
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Jun 14, 2016 07:18
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Thanks for the quick reply. I'm in Tokyo. I've been to a few startup related seminars here and they're pretty unanimous that if you want funding you'll most likely need to leave Japan. So I could potentially move. But the second question makes that more complicated. One major thing I bring to the table is familiarity with this market, such as its regulatory environment, my network of contacts working in the existing industry, and being bilingual. That's kind of losing importance if I were to move. One of my big concerns is that there's a disconnect between "Fintech" and where my expertise is. It seems that fintech to most people means making an iPhone app that somehow involves (consumer) finance or loans or BitCoin or quick payment/POS solutions. On the other hand I'm more familiar with things like Dodd Frank regulation and central clearing, trade lifecycle, so the institutional-level stuff. Probably because the massive overhead required (registering with the FSA, yearly inspections, industry memberships, etc.) it seems that there really isn't much room for startups in the space. Rather the existing players are/will be pouring millions into figuring out how to incorporate the technology into the existing infrastructure. Surely there are other industries where there are similar cases. Lots of big well-established firms with essentially bottomless pits of money to throw at even experimenting, nevermind what happens when they get really serious about it. What do most people do in these situations?
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Jun 14, 2016 10:01
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There is tonnes of stuff happening in the banking and investment space at the moment. Not 100% up on the usa scene but look at Europe. London, Switzerland, frankfurt all have plenty of start ups happening in that space (and what appears to be a more understanding regulatory environment). If you were here Id recommend going to a fintech start up event that has a large amount of start ups doing quick demos of themselves to see what people are doing and to then reach out and talk to the people doing things that interest you, not with a get in bed with them type goal but to get a better idea of where you might fit in and it helps to get your face and name out there. Maybe you can find videos of these events and try connecting with people online from japan?
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Jun 16, 2016 06:48
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As a quick follow up on Softlayer. Something came up where they gave me a RAID alert and they needed to swap out disks on our bare metal server - but they don't offer services to do disk cloning and said that'd be my responsibility. I went through it - but things on both of our ends were bungled in the process. They were really responsive but not very good in providing clear support for something that should have been totally fixed on their end (if it was a true RAID, this should have been a simple swap). So I'm now in the 3rd day of downtime...it's kind of unbelievable for something a host should provide or something that'd take me a few hours in person. unixbeard posted:Hey guido, congrats on the launch. I know an investor who's not afraid of 'weird' & just generally a good guy, worth having a chat with. Shoot me a mail unixbeard@gmail.com and I'll give you an intro. Finally responding to this. I wanted to make sure I had a clear idea of what was needed and what I might expect from someone else before bugging you!
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Jun 16, 2016 17:44
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guidoanselmi posted:As a quick follow up on Softlayer. Something came up where they gave me a RAID alert and they needed to swap out disks on our bare metal server - but they don't offer services to do disk cloning and said that'd be my responsibility.
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Jun 16, 2016 18:01
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zmcnulty posted:Does anyone here work in fintech? I've spent the last 8 years in finance (specifically, derivatives operations in investment banking) and looking to somehow leverage this experience or at least the name recognition of my current firm. Bitcoin itself is laughably lovely but the underlying technology like blockchain and distributed ledgers could mean big big changes for things like ISDA contracts and settlements. I used to do algo optimization for options prop shops (all the way into custom hardware), went to an SV startup that got big and boring, and now I'd like to get back into finance tech stuff. Happy to chat if you want to bounce around ideas. I know nothing about the consumer side of things, but I'm familiar with all tech around prop trading.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:45
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Another minor update in case there's any other folks stuck in the non-Chicago midwest. I was just in LA to make plans for moving back and network for a few nights and am now in SF. In my limited experience in LA/SF of a few networking events, preplanned meetings, and some exchanged emails for the purpose of building relationships, the contrast between St. Louis and the coast is completely it's unbelievable. In St. Louis, people, from investors to others providing startup support, are almost universally dismissive and uninterested in listening. For any relationship in STL a concrete quid pro quo seems necessary. Here, even if people aren't in a position to help the culture is on a totally different level. The most valuable two things are just the capacity and interest in listening and willingness to actually share network contacts. I suppose it can be boiled down to a cultural value of interpersonal and business risk. A few friends in similar situations not in STL would say I had it especially rough based on stories. Experiencing the contrast certainly hammers home that STL is a place where (non-biomed) ideas will atrophy and die if they don't leave. Moreover, I think this speaks volumes about the laughably self-congratulatory image STL and perhaps places like it want to project about their ecosystems - there's a difference between appearance and culture. Many in the STL scene have a dire lack of self-awareness regarding it. Vulture Culture posted:SoftLayer really, really isn't good at these kinds of things. Let me know if you have a problem like this again once they make a hardware handoff and I'll walk you through it. Thanks. Fingers crossed it doesn't. Fortunately it all worked out.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:15
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Looking for legal/financial advice in getting started with a startup. We have an an enterprise product and one client who has shown promising interest. One client is all we need to get started although we have other clients we are preparing pitches for and a couple possible angel investors as well. The catch is that the client is a Spanish company. We have three founders, one American (myself), one Spanish, and one Spanish in America on an F1 visa and so is limited in terms of income. Obviously figuring this out will require specialists and I've reached out to some people on the US side. On the Spanish side we were advised to incorporate there as well as with a US LLC and have the US LLC buy equity in the Spanish entity. But that advisor didn't seem too confident about the international component, or the visa issue. Just thought I'd float this here and see if anyone had any thoughts or hopefully resources in the meantime while we wait to talk to a real advisor. There's not a lot I can find online about international startups.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:49
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Can the spanish guy on the visa still be a director of/make money in spain? Logically (note laws may not follow logic) the us company can own the spanish or visa versa but the spanish one can pay the visa guy in spain.
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Aug 2, 2016 00:20
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The internet has mixed advice about whether someone on an F1 visa can get paid from a foreign company. Apparently the law is ambiguous and some lawyers say not to risk it as it's against the spirit of the law. But we're trying to get legal advice in that arena. Also IP issues, corporate structure... this whole thing is complicated.
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Aug 3, 2016 20:09
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SurgicalOntologist posted:The internet has mixed advice about whether someone on an F1 visa can get paid from a foreign company. Apparently the law is ambiguous and some lawyers say not to risk it as it's against the spirit of the law. But we're trying to get legal advice in that arena. Also IP issues, corporate structure... this whole thing is complicated. The other angle is to look at not paying saleries and paying via dividend. There is no way any kind of visa says you can't hold stock (espeically in your home country) and earn dividend income from them. You may end up having to have him not have an official job just being a stockholder of one or both companies. Then again i am not a lawyer and this poo poo is complicated.
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Aug 4, 2016 09:55
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I'm working in a hardware startup. I've launched a kickstarter that was just fully funded, have taken care of designing a website and figuring out manufacturing. I'm looking for a book that talks about everything else like taxes, accounting, etc. Any good suggestions?
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Aug 27, 2016 17:06
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huhu posted:I'm working in a hardware startup. I've launched a kickstarter that was just fully funded, have taken care of designing a website and figuring out manufacturing. I'm looking for a book that talks about everything else like taxes, accounting, etc. Any good suggestions? hire an accountant. a good one
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Aug 27, 2016 17:11
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the talent deficit posted:hire an accountant. a good one I'm only doing all of this to learn more, so I'd rather not.
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Aug 27, 2016 19:27
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neogeo0823 posted:I've recently become unemployed, and apparently I qualify for New York's Self Employment Assistance Program, or SEAP. I have an idea of what sort of business I'd want to start up, but I've got tons of questions about the process. Is this the thread to ask about that sort of stuff, or is there another thread that I missed for small businesses? If you're starting (or considering starting a business), then you're in the right place. Vulture recommended a few good books a page ago to read if you're just starting out with the idea. Carsius fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 21:50
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huhu posted:I'm only doing all of this to learn more, so I'd rather not. It's good to have an accountant and lawyer, even if you only use them occasionally to ask if you are doing the right thing. But seriously, at least use a tax accountant, it will save you so much time. taqueso fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 15:51
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So I need help deciding what kind of business to incorporate as. My partner and I are based in Texas. We have an MVP already, and in fact have had a demo to investors who have promised a 7 figure sum to us. (as of now its still 0 money, cuz we haven't seen a penny yet). However, one thing we haven't done yet is incorporate. I know that the canonical advice is a Delaware C Corp, but it seems there is a decent amount of costs associated as far as paying state taxes, etc. I assume that we might take some funding from investors in exchange for shares/stock in the company. So what to do here? Should we use something like Clerky.com or one of the other DE registry services such as https://www.delawareinc.com/ourservices/ ? Any suggestions from those who have done this already?
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Sep 28, 2016 17:16
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Stripe Atlas is made for people in your situation.
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Sep 28, 2016 20:42
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lord1234 posted:I know that the canonical advice is a Delaware C Corp, but it seems there is a decent amount of costs associated as far as paying state taxes, etc. I assume that we might take some funding from investors in exchange for shares/stock in the company. I think you need to do more research on your own. The reason so many companies are incorporated in Delaware is because there is no state tax. You seem to be under the opposite impression. Alternately (and optimally) you should hire a lawyer who does this for a living rather than trying to template your way through the process. How are you going to know how to answer questions like how many shares or what accounting method you are going to use? Do you understand the implications of those choices? Probably not, so professional advice is warranted. Corps are not one-size fits all filings. Someone needs to understand your goals and potential structure to make good recommendations.
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Sep 28, 2016 21:17
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Doc Hawkins posted:Stripe Atlas is made for people in your situation. The only thing is that we don't plan to be retail, so having a credit card processor is sort of useless for us. Motronic posted:I think you need to do more research on your own. The reason so many companies are incorporated in Delaware is because there is no state tax. You seem to be under the opposite impression. I think you are right about the lawyer. I think thats what is on our list for the next week or two
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Sep 28, 2016 22:07
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The benefit of a Delaware C Corp is mostly extremely-business friendly rules around issuing stock, liability and corporate governance. You still end up having to pay taxes in the state you're operating in, and in fact it can complicate things a bit. But most investors will want a C corp because its the easiest and most secure structure to issue them equity with. You really should get a lawyer to help you navigate this. Templates are well and good if you're just making an LLC for a relatively simple business, but if you're going to be issuing equity and raising money from outside parties you're past that point and could cause yourself trouble down the line if you don't do it right.
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Sep 28, 2016 22:59
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Motronic posted:I think you need to do more research on your own. The reason so many companies are incorporated in Delaware is because there is no state tax. You seem to be under the opposite impression. Delaware gets away with no state tax in part because it charges an unusually high franchise tax. It's based on the number of shares, so it could be several hundred dollars a year for even a very small C corp.
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Oct 1, 2016 20:10
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Notorious b.s.d. posted:Delaware gets away with no state tax in part because it charges an unusually high franchise tax. It's based on the number of ISSUED shares, but that's difficult to find and not obvious on the franchise tax forms. That's another reason why it's a good idea to have an accountant who knows how this all works.
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Oct 4, 2016 18:29
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So we did it.... We incorporated. The primary reason we were pushed to this is we saw a market that needed someone to fill a large value need. Let's hope this takes off!
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Oct 8, 2016 18:17
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Hi guys, Thus far this thread has been very helpful, especially with the book recommendations. They have been great in having a common basis in talking to business people, since I come from a very specialized and technical background. I have a challenge in realizing my MVP. Our technology uses molecular fingerprinting in an field agricultural setting for crop disease management. Scientifically, the concept is sound and has been demonstrated to work in a field setting across the literature. Translating that from a research model into a commercial product however will take considerable time and capital. The models that currently exist need a lot of love and care. I guess the capital requirement is nothing that isn’t already thrown around in SF but definitely something that requires a set up more elaborate than a standard web startup. Also I am not nor based within America. Laboratories can be expensive things and a garage has some very strict limitations to it. Very early in the thread, there was a discussion about a paper MVP. I presume that corresponds to a presentation to throw at prospective investors. Is it worth creating a direct customer version or would it be better to wait till I have more relevant data and/or a more applicable prototype? Are there any specifics or tips that can make this pitch more convincing? I can bend a few ears and scrounge up more relevant data but it wouldn’t be very fair to my academic associates in this endeavour. My first impulse is to just stuff it with data and an exhaustive literature search but I don’t know if that is relevant. Thanks again for your help.
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Oct 21, 2016 06:43
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Hypha posted:Hi guys,
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Oct 22, 2016 01:04
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Vulture Culture posted:Investors want to be convinced, first and foremost, that people want to buy your product. The reason an MVP is important in a pitch is because it demonstrates, in a very real sense, that you at the very least sense have something that fills a customer need. Academic endorsements won't in any way substitute for this unless you're talking to other academics, but people interested in buying your product will help your standing with anyone. (If your approach is too complicated for someone outside your field to understand, it may be helpful to retain a few people who will say that you're not selling snake oil.) If you think you can have a product ready in a reasonable timeframe, and you're not just effectively asking lenders for grant money to do R&D, your best bet for a paper MVP is to hit the bricks and get some people in industry with buying power to commit to your project. This is actually really encouraging. I am very certain that this will fulfill a critical need and can be reasonably realized. No one actually enjoys spraying pesticides and wider consumer groups outright loathe the stuff. I'll polish up what I do have and pound the walls.
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Oct 22, 2016 05:21
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Maybe reach out to those protest/consumer groups. A quote from them saying this is a great idea we are behind it, would be helpful both to convinvce customers (takeaway the cost and pain or crop spraying, take away the pain of the interest grohp) and investors (the consumer group wont instead switch to protesting your product). Other than that I would want to see the math. Maybe I don want to see all the calculations straight away (i will eventually before you get a penny) but initually I need to know this makes commercial sense. How much will it cost to produce, any unusual fixed costs (ie. The lab) then what does each item (or whatever you call what a farmer buys) cost to make, deliver and 'install' in the plants. Then I want to see that number next to the costs a farmer currently spends on whatever the current methods of acheiving their goals are. Then if that story makes sense I start to care about how good your product is. Whats different to spraying, why does it work, how does it work. Be honest upfront about risks. Show me farmers that are interested. Is it at all possible to set up a trial with a local farmer to prove your story? Or maybe ask for a lower seed amount of cash to run this kinda of trial before going out and asking for bigger sums?
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Oct 22, 2016 08:30
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