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sink
Sep 10, 2005

gerby gerb gerb in my mouf
It's ok.

In the startup cycle I've seen a lot of: Do a quick v1 in Ruby, get traction, realize that RoR is slow, bloated, and difficult to manage complexity with, then do a rewrite in something JVM based (hint: Scala).

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transient
Apr 7, 2005
Apologies if this is out of place in this thread.

A former coworker is asking for help with his startup (pre-funding). My part would at least initially be to refresh the website to give it a more professional feel (anything after that will be discussed soon as I haven't accepted yet).

Word of mouth sounds like pay will most likely be all or mostly equity.

If I'm not planning on sticking it out with them, is this just working for free? I'd assume that only people who stay on or who were founders hold onto their stake. I'm semi-interested in doing it regardless, just have never worked with a startup before.

So, is my assumption of probably doing this for free accurate? Anything I should watch out for during negotiations?

Daeus
Nov 17, 2001

transient posted:

Apologies if this is out of place in this thread.

A former coworker is asking for help with his startup (pre-funding). My part would at least initially be to refresh the website to give it a more professional feel (anything after that will be discussed soon as I haven't accepted yet).

Word of mouth sounds like pay will most likely be all or mostly equity.

If I'm not planning on sticking it out with them, is this just working for free? I'd assume that only people who stay on or who were founders hold onto their stake. I'm semi-interested in doing it regardless, just have never worked with a startup before.

So, is my assumption of probably doing this for free accurate? Anything I should watch out for during negotiations?

Assume the equity is worthless. Is this a major project? If this is something you can grind out in the evenings and a couple of weekends I'd probably do it. Its like buying a lottery ticket. You'll most likely lose, but maybe you'll win.

paperchaseguy
Feb 21, 2002

THEY'RE GONNA SAY NO

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

I hadn't heard of airbnb and when I heard the gist of the idea I thought of how stupid it is. Then I checked out the site and did some more homework and it's pretty brilliant. That's what a good start-up is: something that makes you say "Hey this is stupid" and then realize it's stupid enough to work.

Really, the idea of airbnb is brilliant and probably the best one I've heard in awhile.

Y Combinator agrees.

Creepy Goat
Sep 19, 2010
I don't know whether I should write up a thread for this or not, but figured I should post here first for some advice on the feasability of it.

My dad died a couple years back quite suddenly, and I was being groomed to go into a business area of my choosing under his guidance and experience (worked as a very successful international freight and shipping consultant for 30 years). Amongst other things, it left me adrift with no direction and no backup plan for what I wanted to do or where to start. Had a couple of lucky breaks recently, and I think I am getting back on my feet and ready to take some direction.

Now, I worked in Africa qutie recently for a few months and made a good deal of contacts in law, engineering, construction, and government. I want to register a company, go back to my work area in Africa and work free of charge on various projects that I originally had a hand in starting (under a less than stellar programme that I would like to scrub off my CV). Then use that work experience under my private company name as a starting point to get into very low-level contracted work and progress from there.

I understand that doing free work as a company de-values you, but I would be starting out at pretty much rock bottom anyway. Is this a feasible thing to do? If I have a reasonable number of past contracts, even though they are unpaid or at most extremely low-pay, under a registered company name with the contacts to back me up could I progress (albeit very slowly) to proper paid work?

The work I am looking at is construction management primarily in poor and underdeveloped areas. Specifically basic architectural planning, brokering supply deals, negotiating funding and permissions, and actually managing the sites and workers.
I actually did a drat good job whilst I was out there, and I have a pretty high personal bar for 'good job', but because of the lovely organisation I was employed under it gets dismissed by employers even though they had no hand in, or even knowledge of, most of what I was doing.

I have a very cool project involving super-cheap shipping containers that would be areally great selling point for me, although dependant on funding from the state government. Basically 'I am very good at this thing but how do I prove to the people giving me money that I am very good at this thing'.

(Also I realise it's not a textbook startup, but the idea should follow the same principles)

Creepy Goat fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Oct 16, 2012

lunatikfringe
Jan 22, 2003

Creepy Goat posted:

I don't know whether I should write up a thread for this or not, but figured I should post here first for some advice on the feasability of it.

My dad died a couple years back quite suddenly, and I was being groomed to go into a business area of my choosing under his guidance and experience (worked as a very successful international freight and shipping consultant for 30 years). Amongst other things, it left me adrift with no direction and no backup plan for what I wanted to do or where to start. Had a couple of lucky breaks recently, and I think I am getting back on my feet and ready to take some direction.

Now, I worked in Africa qutie recently for a few months and made a good deal of contacts in law, engineering, construction, and government. I want to register a company, go back to my work area in Africa and work free of charge on various projects that I originally had a hand in starting (under a less than stellar programme that I would like to scrub off my CV). Then use that work experience under my private company name as a starting point to get into very low-level contracted work and progress from there.

I understand that doing free work as a company de-values you, but I would be starting out at pretty much rock bottom anyway. Is this a feasible thing to do? If I have a reasonable number of past contracts, even though they are unpaid or at most extremely low-pay, under a registered company name with the contacts to back me up could I progress (albeit very slowly) to proper paid work?

The work I am looking at is construction management primarily in poor and underdeveloped areas. Specifically basic architectural planning, brokering supply deals, negotiating funding and permissions, and actually managing the sites and workers.
I actually did a drat good job whilst I was out there, and I have a pretty high personal bar for 'good job', but because of the lovely organisation I was employed under it gets dismissed by employers even though they had no hand in, or even knowledge of, most of what I was doing.

I have a very cool project involving super-cheap shipping containers that would be areally great selling point for me, although dependant on funding from the state government. Basically 'I am very good at this thing but how do I prove to the people giving me money that I am very good at this thing'.

(Also I realise it's not a textbook startup, but the idea should follow the same principles)


Ive worked on similar projects in a third world country. If I were you, I would utilize your government contacts extensively because this is where any potential money is going to come from. Particularly, you need to saddle up with a national level politician looking to score points through PR generated from civil projects like the ones you are mentioning. A pilot project is necessary to prove that your solution is helping the people. Then your political contact needs to identify funds that can be channeled into such projects. Usually these funds originate from aid given to the country through programs started from first world countries like the US. Someone knowledgeable of this type of funding, and how the government works is going to be your key to success.

Creepy Goat
Sep 19, 2010
I know for certain the funds are there, there was around £350,000 a month completely unaccounted for that was meant to be channeled into public services. Expanding my contacts into national government would be tricky, but if I have my foot in the door at state-level then I should have a chance.

The angle I was going for is exactly like you said, find people with money who want to gain political and social standing and then persuade them that my project(s) would be the most cost effective way to get the prestige they want. It is unfortunate that this is the best way to go about it, but whenever I pitched my plans to officials they always wanted to know what they would personally gain from them, even though the money was meant for public spending. The government is incredibly corrupt so you have to find a way to spin your negotiations so that it is personally favourable, either finacially or prestigiously, to the officials with all the cards in their hands.

Eventually I would love to expand into disaster zones and conflict areas. Things like refugee shelters perhaps and safe-zones. I am driven by pride rather than huge profits, otherwise I'd just go into oil engineering or something. There were a huge number of jobs for example during the close of the Libyan civil war such as constructing communication posts and temporary medical facilities.

lunatikfringe
Jan 22, 2003
Seems theres a lot of good ideas in this thread, what say we start organizing some entrepreneurial goon meets over coffee or drinks? I for one would love to chat with some of you on a saturday and see what projects people are working on. Maybe even gauge interest in your local area for working on a goon project collectively.

Im in the Chicagoland area if anyone is interested in discussing startups or possible ideas for projects and wants to meet. Send me a PM.

hummingbird hoedown
Sep 23, 2004


IS THAT A STUPID NEWBIE AVATAR? FUCK NO, YOU'RE GETTING A PENTAR

SKILCRAFT KREW Reppin' Quality Blind Made Products

Creepy Goat posted:

Development stuff.

Creepy Goat, send me a pm or let me know how to contact you.

Creepy Goat
Sep 19, 2010

Hummer Driving human being posted:

Creepy Goat, send me a pm or let me know how to contact you.

Don't have plat, my email is *bleep*.



lunatikfringe posted:

Seems theres a lot of good ideas in this thread, what say we start organizing some entrepreneurial goon meets over coffee or drinks?

Ughh I would love this, but I am across the pond. It's very difficult to find anyone to even have lighthearted business discussions with where I live, everyone is either a student at the two not-so-great universities and not interested, or fulltime retail workers. It's very stifling when you can't have casual face-to-face discussions about these things :(

Creepy Goat fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Oct 20, 2012

swyys
Sep 20, 2012

Hey all! Delurk and hopefully a contribution as well.

sink and I have been working on a startup called Knollop for the past couple months. Knollop is a portal for online education and its goal is to organize and personalize online learning materials in a meaningful way, whether it be MOOCs, OCWs, educational podcasts, independent modules, looseleaf tutorials, or really effin informative scalaz blogposts. Its current incarnation provides three verticals of functionality: keyword education search, reviews and ratings of learning materials, and education profile management. Ultimately, we are going to create knowledge dependency graphs by using automated introspection of course materials to reverse engineer very granular concepts (do you *really* need diffeq to understand the predator prey model? ). These smart topic hierarchies coupled with a very rich normalized course schema will hopefully allow us to create "learning pathways" for users based on learning preferences and prior knowledge.

Info for the curious: We're in beta right now, steadily building up our database of providers and expanding our course schema, but the last 2 months have already been very eye-opening. Our stack is Django + Postgresql which is in the process of being migrated to Play (scala) + MongoDB. We've been doing a lot of experimental backend development for augmenting our scrapers with NLP capabilities and concept inference, the results of which will be exposed after the migration (and some clever UI design brainstorming). On the non-tech side of things, we've been learning a lot about user interaction, dynamics in the education industry, and trying to pick up business skills.

Anyway, words words words. It'd be awesome if you could let us know what you think or if you have any questions :D

swyys fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Dec 17, 2012

Nybble
Jun 28, 2008

praise chuck, raise heck
As someone who tried an education startup called Knackeo...

good luck with people spelling/pronouncing it right.

That said, I needed a bunch of Python classes, so thanks for this :)

swyys
Sep 20, 2012

Nybble posted:

As someone who tried an education startup called Knackeo...

good luck with people spelling/pronouncing it right.

That said, I needed a bunch of Python classes, so thanks for this :)

Totally hearya... already registered 3 typo domains and trying to get my friends to stop spelling "knollup". Glad to hear about the Python interest-- the one that just ended at Coursera has been getting extremely interesting and glowing reviews :)

btw that's really cool-- what was your involvement in Knackeo? Any chance CourseHorse is/was your direct competitor?

unixbeard
Dec 29, 2004

swyys, I think you should provide the option to create an account for your site. Many people are stuck behind corporate firewalls that block things like facebook and g+.

swyys
Sep 20, 2012

unixbeard posted:

swyys, I think you should provide the option to create an account for your site. Many people are stuck behind corporate firewalls that block things like facebook and g+.

working on it as I, er, type! I think we're schedule to push it out tomorrow!

I have to admit I've been pretty embarrassed that it wasn't implemented sooner :blush: but seriously, thanks for dropping a note!

Nybble
Jun 28, 2008

praise chuck, raise heck

swyys posted:

Totally hearya... already registered 3 typo domains and trying to get my friends to stop spelling "knollup". Glad to hear about the Python interest-- the one that just ended at Coursera has been getting extremely interesting and glowing reviews :)

btw that's really cool-- what was your involvement in Knackeo? Any chance CourseHorse is/was your direct competitor?

Hadn't seen the Coursera one, will also check that out!

I was one of the 4 founders and worked on it full time for about a year (at least until I ran out of personal savings and contract jobs). Didn't know of CourseHorse, but yes, that and Skillshare are similar.

snagger
Aug 14, 2004

swyys posted:

Hey all! Delurk and hopefully a contribution as well.

Anyway, words words words. It'd be awesome if you could let us know what you think or if you have any questions :D

Sweet! Thanks for posting.

You've already got my brother's classes up in the music category. Thanks for that! :buddy:

snagger
Aug 14, 2004
Speaking of my brother's classes, can you guys critique our landing pages?

http://ude.my/bre63
http://ude.my/buaaj

The only content we can really change is the introductory video, text, and what videos are viewable for free.

We haven't really done much to improve these (outside a tiny amount of SEO work) since we put the classes up, but I'd like to try to optimize the content before making a SA-Mart thread.

swyys
Sep 20, 2012

snagger posted:

Sweet! Thanks for posting.

You've already got my brother's classes up in the music category. Thanks for that! :buddy:

No prob! Actually, now I have a question... we have teacher pages on the site. Are those something that you think your brother, as instructor, would like to have access to for editing?

http://knollop.com/teachers/Dr.-Kris-Maloy/


snagger posted:

Speaking of my brother's classes, can you guys critique our landing pages?

http://ude.my/bre63
http://ude.my/buaaj

The only content we can really change is the introductory video, text, and what videos are viewable for free.

We haven't really done much to improve these (outside a tiny amount of SEO work) since we put the classes up, but I'd like to try to optimize the content before making a SA-Mart thread.

Yup! There are several things:
1) Your introductory text is sorely lacking, both in your brother's description of the course and in his bio. Seeing as you're charging, you need to make it stand out from all the free content out there on the web (for example, we've seen plenty of free OCW material on the web). It's true that you'll learn these bits and pieces of theory, but *why* would the average person want to? Will they then be able to deconstruct their favorite music or find it easier to move onto playing a cover on some other instrument? Is this especially good supplementary material for string musicians? Given your lecture content, it seems like the course (I'm looking at the first one) will not cover more than what you'll get for free learning piano and guitar, as they always come with standard music theory, but not necessarily other instruments. Also, why is your brother the one people should be learning from... talk about his exact experience and anything applicable to working with beginners. In any case, just make sure to connect with users clicking through.
2) Price! You're on the high end of Udemy price points. Tons of people will drop $20 to take the most absurd classes (earthworm composting). I won't claim to be an expert on Udemy pricing, but I would research a little more thoroughly. I'm sure people would be several hundred to take a course, but right now it looks to me like the exchange is $300 to learn... intervals, and I'm not even sure what I would use them for. I could do that with some google.
In any case, good luck! I studied music so always happy to see another musician succeed in a non-performance context. :cheers:

snagger
Aug 14, 2004

swyys posted:

we have teacher pages on the site. Are those something that you think your brother, as instructor, would like to have access to for editing?
http://knollop.com/teachers/Dr.-Kris-Maloy/

Yes! I handle all the online stuff so PM me with details.

Thanks, btw, for the awesome feedback. We're going to reshoot the introductory material and run a sale in the next few days. Hopefully we'll do a better job showing off what's unique.

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
I agree on the price issue. For $299 you could easily take a similar course from an accredited community college, many of which have well-developed online programs, and earn college credit for it. It will be difficult to compete with that.

DreadCthulhu
Sep 17, 2008

What the fuck is up, Denny's?!

Scaramouche posted:

I'm curious, how are you guys defining 'startup'? Is it merely a new venture, or does it have to be a radical world-changing angry birds twitter pinterest that attracts enormous IPO dollars?

To parrot Steve Blank on this one: "A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model". I'd say the media tend to focus on the super-quick-rising-VC-fueled-rocket because it makes for a story people will read, but it shouldn't be exclusive to that kind of company (even though many hope to one day found one like that).

Seraphiel
Mar 29, 2012
I'm currently a manager at a UK-based angel investment network, so I generally see a lot of entrepreneurial proposals and whatnot, so I'd be glad to answer any questions if you guys have any?

Doctor w-rw-rw-
Jun 24, 2008

Seraphiel posted:

I'm currently a manager at a UK-based angel investment network, so I generally see a lot of entrepreneurial proposals and whatnot, so I'd be glad to answer any questions if you guys have any?

What ideas are overdone, and which ones are big opportunities with strangely little interest?

What should cynical devs make if they're just chasing money? What is an ambitious idea which you think will be big?

What interest is there in Google Glasses outside of nerdy Android developers?

DreadCthulhu
Sep 17, 2008

What the fuck is up, Denny's?!
Does anybody here have any experience with the educations space, catering to schools and all that jazz? We're very vaguely considering pivoting towards making mobile software for schools (it looks like iPads are getting big in schools and the funding is as good as it's ever been), but I have absolutely no idea if there's ultimately any money in it.

I know that startups in health have an incredibly hard time, with regulations and overall entrenchment of the different players, and I'm suspecting that schools might be somewhat close to that situation.

Anything helps!

wins32767
Mar 16, 2007

Not any direct experience, but my mother was a special educator and spent about a year and a half to get a PO approved for new software for a child who was required by law to have it available. K-12 schools, especially right now, have no room in their own budgets. If you can ride the coat tails of a grant or state or federal initiative (which is where a lot of the funding for iPads and laptops comes from) you'll have an OK shot, especially if you make it really, really easy for the school to apply to get in on the grant/initiative, but absent that I'd say don't bother.

Health startups aren't a total no-go. While I work for a heartless multinational on regulated medical-like software, 90% of my team are former employees of a startup that got acquired. You just need to hire a full time person to deal with the regulatory stuff and make sure you've hired a real QA team before you sign any customers.

You can't be a two-developers-who-live-on-ramen type of startup for sure. But there is space for consulting or implementation specialists which you can use to get your foot in the door with some customers while you develop a product.

Seraphiel
Mar 29, 2012

Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:

What ideas are overdone, and which ones are big opportunities with strangely little interest?

What should cynical devs make if they're just chasing money? What is an ambitious idea which you think will be big?

What interest is there in Google Glasses outside of nerdy Android developers?

For ideas that are overdone - basically most social networks, or 'one-stop-shop' platforms that claim to integrate every online site you use/need. For obvious reasons, I should think.

We actually had a major success story with a new social network, with an interesting idea and a lot of funding raised, but I just can't see the massive user shift away from facebook - unless it's using next level technology. This goes in general too, clone ideas with maybe a spin on the userbase, or other area, just don't get funding anymore. We get a lot of these, and they all come with grand claims; 'The Next Facebook' is one I'm sick to death of hearing, but is quite useful in quickly knowing which proposals will be time wasters (although we always provide feedback and re-submission - rarely outright rejection).

For ambitious ideas that might be big, obviously we get less. New p2p type approaches, e-learning (like mentioned earlier in the thread) - especially in developing countries, waste and recycling - cleantech/ethical startups are doing (and will be doing) very well, healthcare in the UK as well, as long as it's money-saves money for the government. My professor at my uni was able to do very well out of this, although not on our platform, with an AI and NLP based approach to medical resources & overspending, to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds.

The most recent proposals I've approved have been for Luxury Products and Homes, NHS/Healthcare, e-Publishing, Nanotech, and a weird Prize-winning game. I think one of the biggest and most ambitious ideas I'm waiting for is a 'Reward-based Solution' for encouraging Eco/Ethical behaviour amongst those that currently don't care - as leaving things to those that do, won't work. God knows how it'll be done though.

Cynical devs should probably make something neural network based(?) that predicts consumer something something. There's always a market for more precise info like that. Buying habits based on present/future mood/need, perhaps, as opposed to prior behaviour.

Honestly, Google Glass passed me by a bit I think.. thanks for the homework assignment. AR will be huge, but I honestly don't think we're anywhere close to it though - but I'd be glad to be proven wrong.

Maluco Marinero
Jan 18, 2001

Damn that's a
fine elephant.
So, a couple of months ago I was working on a web application for Planned Maintenance on ships, called Spanner. Things are slow going with it, it's a somewhat conservative market and I really need field testing on board a ship to really get it out there. To that end, it's looking like I'll be rolling it out on my old employer's ship soon, which will provide me with real world user feedback, and some good case study stuff for marketing.

On the other hand, I have another child on the way and my wife will soon to be going on maternity leave and then hoping to stop working. That has meant I really need to get something happening in the near future, or get a real job :) . I decided to work on another project in a different market, with a broader potential audience. That also means more competition especially is the space I've chosen, but I think there are certain concepts I've used that are pretty unique in this fairly samey and saturated market.

What it is, is a personal organiser that uses Getting Things Done principles, it has note taking, calendars, projects and tasks. This is a proof of concept that is entirely offline based using HTML5. It'll cache the whole website so you can take it offline, and the only functionality you'll lose is the embedded Google Maps and Directions.

The unique aspect of it is how you enter information into the system. All input is done through the same text entry system, the app parses the text to turn it into calendar entries, projects and next actions. Here's an example:


It's not exactly conventional, which is why I've built a proof of concept to get feedback and see whether it's the kind of thing people would use. Personally I've been using it for real while developing it, and it feels pretty good being able to enter information without switching contexts all the time, and just see it self organize actions using @Contexts, #Topics and +Contacts.

I'm making the prototype freely available at http://elephantneverforgets.com.au if you want to have a play with it. At this point it's only Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, due to the storage medium I'm using to keep everything on the browser. That wouldn't be the case when I build a commercial release product.



-------------------------------------

My plan as it stands is to market this prototype to gather interest and narrow down my target market and get a bit of support. Off the back of this I intend to run a crowd funding campaign using Pozible, the idea being to secure enough funds to buy me the time I need to develop this into a fully fledged product, a HTML 5 desktop/tablet app, a HTML5 mobile app and a web server to synchronise it all. That should take me about 3-4 months, so my target is $25,000, which is allowing for fees and poo poo happens, and would cover keeping a roof over my family's head while I work on this full time.

If the campaign falls through, I've made some diverse contacts in the Startup community here in Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) since we moved here 2 months ago. They'd be able to get me in contact with investors if it comes to that. If all falls down then I'll just have to sideline the thing while I get a real job, and work on it during my spare time.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. I'm pretty optimistic that whatever happens I'll be able to make things work. My prototype is ready so now it's an exercise in research and marketing. I definitely need a video to better explain the product to people who are trying out, that's my next task, and then It's a case of gathering feedback and seeing how people respond to the product.

musclecoder
Oct 23, 2006

I'm all about meeting girls. I'm all about meeting guys.
So I abandoned previous startup attempt in favor of something people actually want. In addition to my day job I do custom applications for small businesses. One of them was to build a basic ecommerce app that integrates with QuickBooks. Well, QuickBooks is a giant pain in the rear end to integrate with. Figuring other developers had this same issue, I set up a small landing page describing my solution and got some coverage on Hacker News and Programmable Web.

My idea was to provide a very easy REST API on top of QuickBooks. A lot of people liked this idea, and signed up so we built it. It's called MajorApi and is officially launched.

If you're a QuickBooks developer, I'd love your feedback.

paperchaseguy
Feb 21, 2002

THEY'RE GONNA SAY NO

Maluco Marinero posted:

I'm making the prototype freely available at http://elephantneverforgets.com.au if you want to have a play with it. At this point it's only Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, due to the storage medium I'm using to keep everything on the browser. That wouldn't be the case when I build a commercial release product.

I have used this a little and like it. I need something to help me keep track of things to do at work, and most of the tools available are either too simple or don't fit. Some of the 37signals tools sort of do what I want, but the free versions aren't big enough and they don't work well enough to pay for.

Maluco Marinero
Jan 18, 2001

Damn that's a
fine elephant.

paperchaseguy posted:

I have used this a little and like it. I need something to help me keep track of things to do at work, and most of the tools available are either too simple or don't fit. Some of the 37signals tools sort of do what I want, but the free versions aren't big enough and they don't work well enough to pay for.

Cheers. I was shooting for a system that hopefully doesn't break down when you really start filling it up like other tools. As you said, they end up a little too simple of you have too much going on, that you may as well use paper for what they do.

This is trying to work with a middle ground that wants a comprehensive getting things done style system, but doesn't want to constantly be babysitting it, configuring it and what not.

Please pass it on of you reckon you know others who'd like it.

Smeef
Aug 15, 2003

I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!



Pillbug
I'm a partner in a startup in Southeast Asia. In November there were just the 3 of us. Since then we've added 4 full-time staff, an intern, 3 part-time staff, and one contractor. We'll have about 20 staff and operations in 5 countries by August.

The tech scene out here is starting to really take off, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more entrepreneurs coming here to found startups. Tons of human capital, cheap cost of living, high rates of internet connectedness, ridiculous rates of smart phone penetration, huge markets. The community is pretty chummy and supportive. There really aren't a lot of drawbacks. Singapore and HK are the two easiest places in the world to do business, and even Thailand has recently seen a VC firm founded.

We're funded, but I think funding is overrated. It's certainly not an absolute necessity out here where you can hire junior programmers for $700/month and rent an office with a swimming pool for $1,500/month.

I do think there's a lot of irrational exuberance in the startup industry worldwide. Startup entrepreneurs are no longer interested in creating sustainable, profitable businesses. They just want to show explosive growth (often times by faking it), expect some sucker to buy, and then take the money and run. The way I see it, if your startup is worth buying, then you should be very reluctant to part with it, because it's going to be generating enough money that you'd want to stick with it.

creamyhorror
Mar 11, 2006
the incredible adventures of superworm across America

Smeef posted:

I'm a partner in a startup in Southeast Asia. In November there were just the 3 of us. Since then we've added 4 full-time staff, an intern, 3 part-time staff, and one contractor. We'll have about 20 staff and operations in 5 countries by August.

The tech scene out here is starting to really take off, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more entrepreneurs coming here to found startups. Tons of human capital, cheap cost of living, high rates of internet connectedness, ridiculous rates of smart phone penetration, huge markets. The community is pretty chummy and supportive. There really aren't a lot of drawbacks. Singapore and HK are the two easiest places in the world to do business, and even Thailand has recently seen a VC firm founded.

We're funded, but I think funding is overrated. It's certainly not an absolute necessity out here where you can hire junior programmers for $700/month and rent an office with a swimming pool for $1,500/month.
Where are you? I'm in Singapore and hoping to launch a site/app, and would love insights and advice. You sound like you've gotten a very quick start - on my end we have no funding and have been doing the coding and work ourselves for months. Launching is intimidating when the local market is so small and we don't have any good plan for penetrating another market.

AKP
Oct 17, 2007

by XyloJW
o

AKP fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Mar 24, 2014

unixbeard
Dec 29, 2004

Smeef posted:

I do think there's a lot of irrational exuberance in the startup industry worldwide. Startup entrepreneurs are no longer interested in creating sustainable, profitable businesses. They just want to show explosive growth (often times by faking it), expect some sucker to buy, and then take the money and run.

It's more or less always been this way, and yeah it rarely works out.

unixbeard
Dec 29, 2004

Take a read of this, and be cognisant its nearly 15 years old http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html

Smeef
Aug 15, 2003

I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!



Pillbug

creamyhorror posted:

Where are you? I'm in Singapore and hoping to launch a site/app, and would love insights and advice. You sound like you've gotten a very quick start - on my end we have no funding and have been doing the coding and work ourselves for months. Launching is intimidating when the local market is so small and we don't have any good plan for penetrating another market.

I'm in Bangkok. I can't imagine how expensive it is to operate in HK/Singapore. We're structured to take advantage of HK/Singapore's superior financial environment, but operations are in Bangkok for now. That said, I think the vast majority of our revenue will come from HK and Singapore. Until that happens, our footprint in both of those cities will be minimal.

I can't really say much about getting funding out here, because ours comes from the San Francisco area. Thailand's first VC fund launched this past month. It's called M8VC. Check them out. Dudes over in the States will probably laugh since they've only got about $10 million in capital

Drive By
Feb 26, 2004

Dinosaur Gum

Seraphiel posted:

I'm currently a manager at a UK-based angel investment network, so I generally see a lot of entrepreneurial proposals and whatnot, so I'd be glad to answer any questions if you guys have any?

I'm founder/CEO of a seed-stage startup that's currently thinking about moving operations to the UK. Could I send you a slide deck and ask for your opinion on how well-suited we are to the investment environment there? If this is too much like work I'll totally understand if you decline.

mcsuede
Dec 30, 2003

Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Creepy Goat posted:

Don't have plat, my email is *bleep*.


Ughh I would love this, but I am across the pond. It's very difficult to find anyone to even have lighthearted business discussions with where I live, everyone is either a student at the two not-so-great universities and not interested, or fulltime retail workers. It's very stifling when you can't have casual face-to-face discussions about these things :(

Google+ Hangouts seem like a more reasonable way to do this. I've been using them for accountability groups (as well as keeping in touch with friends spread about the country by using it to play remote games of cards or whatever). Face to face is best but...this is an internet forum.

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Seraphiel
Mar 29, 2012

Drive By posted:

I'm founder/CEO of a seed-stage startup that's currently thinking about moving operations to the UK. Could I send you a slide deck and ask for your opinion on how well-suited we are to the investment environment there? If this is too much like work I'll totally understand if you decline.

Absolutely, sounds interesting cognitivestudies@gmail.com..

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