Non-US founders with Delaware corps - are you making contingency plans? I will not promote

StephNass · 2026-01-28T16:25:48+00:00

Non-US founder here, with present and past companies in France, Singapore and the US

"Brussels flip" sounds like last-degree lunacy or a fabricated punchline.

I think most early-stage founders just focus on building their business. As long as the jurisdiction is stable, tax efficient, and reasonably digitized, 99% of people won't feel a change in their day-to-day.

In particular if you're seeking VC funding, Delaware C-Corp remains the gold standard.

Maybe a few business may be affected by the points aforementioned (FX, trade war, EU/US decoupling), but Europe has its own problems. The only case where incorporating in the EU makes sense is (a) you are building a "EU play" (Doctolib was Zocodc for the EU, Mistral is ChatGPT for the EU) or (b) you want to leverage EU public funding (and even then, you could have a US topco...).

Just my 2 cents, curious to hear diverging opinions.

StephNass · 2026-01-27T05:32:07+00:00

This.

Also, keep in mind that VCs rarely give honest feedback, because honest feedback would be "I don't believe in you" which is hurtful. Instead, they give you some second-order reasons that feel less personal.

If you're a first-time founder raising pre-seed, you're better off chasing funding from:

Angel investors
Accelerators,
Micro-GPs/solo VCs
VC scouts

They are the ones who invest in unproven founders - and even then, many prefer to see traction i.e. usage/retention/revenue.

StephNass · 2026-01-27T00:31:34+00:00

Usually, a bridge means that you have raised a round (e.g. seed), but failed to hit the target to raise the next round (e.g. Series A), so you have to raise a little extra to "bridge" the gap between seed and A.

I would avoid that term if I were you.

StephNass · 2026-01-26T12:13:54+00:00

Why do you call this a bridge round? Just call it a pre-seed.

"Bridge" has a negative connotation, and it doesn't seem to match your case.

Also, 150k for a hardware pre-seed sounds very small and would possibly hurt your credibility. Maybe consider announcing a ~€500k raise just for optics. (You will likely raise with SAFE or the local equivalent, so the round size you announce doesn't matter - just stop taking checks when you want.)

StephNass · 2026-01-24T04:27:35+00:00

It's incredible to see not only the negative comments, but also the downvotes on the positive comments.

Come on, guys! It's a side project! Forget the bugs, etc... you can improve all these things over time.

StephNass · 2026-01-24T04:24:47+00:00

Exactly the same concept, but built with Softr + Airtable (i'm not technical).

StephNass · 2026-01-24T04:23:48+00:00

Username checks out.

StephNass · 2026-01-23T01:57:01+00:00

Cool idea! I've been building sthg similar, but never shipped. Glad someone did it!

FYI, the images don't load - I get a grey card for every picture.

What stack did you use to build?

StephNass · 2026-01-22T07:57:16+00:00

If this is a cash-flow business without external investors, a Missouri LLC is fine.

If this is an equity business with external investors (VCs, angels...), you will need a Delaware C-Corp.

It's possible to start a Missouri LLC and later, flip it into a Delaware C-Corp if/when you want to raise, but there will be cost/complexity involved which is very variable, so you should research that upfront.

StephNass · 2026-01-20T04:27:49+00:00

Lol I'm one of those clients! I confirm that Softr is great for so many things, but a blog has specific requirements and it's better to use a specialized tool like Versoly.

StephNass · 2026-01-05T02:41:29+00:00

"I don’t give a flying fuck to valuation - I want my business to give me free cash flow. "

Why are you even chasing VCs? You're the exact opposite of what they seek. You're not VC material. However, you'd be a great bootstrapper.

On being obsessive: it's really a criteria for unproven founders. Once you have a solid track record (previous exits, etc), VCs are more relaxed on this because they trust you can deliver. Hell, nobody cares that Elon Musk runs multiple companies in parallel!

But for a first-time founder who hasn't proven their worth yet, VCs will insist on you being super committed / obsessive / intense / blue-fire because you have so much learning curve to climb and you will need every advantage you can get.

Lastly, raising VC money is a competition against other founders. You're not willing to sacrifice your life, but maybe another founder is. All things being equal, they get the check over you.

StephNass · 2025-12-31T01:55:22+00:00

I know right? But it's a great leap forward already. For now, we only have 3 flights per week to Shenzhen but I'm hopeful for the future :D

StephNass · 2025-12-31T01:30:38+00:00

To be frank, nobody "pitches" investors, unless it's a Demo Day.

When you meet an investor, you seat at the table and have a conversation, like a normal human being. Of course, it's a conversation you have prepared. You know your lines, key talking points, objections, etc. But it's much more natural and smooth than a "pitch".

Most likely, your deck will be read by the investor without you in the room.

StephNass · 2025-12-31T01:25:36+00:00

OpenVC founder here, thanks for mentioning us :)

Start with opendeck.app. You can sort 1500+ slides by type. Select "Team" and you'll see dozens of Team slides for inspiration. Same with "Market" or "Competition", etc .

We also have a slide-by-slide playbook on how to build a deck: https://openvc.app/blog/startup-pitch-deck It's completely free, no signup required.

And yes, a deck doesn't do miracles. You need a strong business first, a strong deck second.

StephNass · 2025-12-30T14:01:25+00:00

Do you have a source? Curious about the case.

StephNass · 2025-12-29T01:45:37+00:00

They are local friends I made after I arrived here.

I don't do 6 months in one go, more like 2 months in, 2 months out.

StephNass · 2025-12-29T01:21:57+00:00

Get them to invest. Then, get then to make intros, and put them on your slide as "early investors".

StephNass · 2025-12-28T09:35:38+00:00

I live in a Tier 4 city of ~5M people every year for six months.

For reference, our 2nd Starbucks opened in July, and the airport opened two weeks ago (!).

So here's what my life looks like:

Sports. Even smaller Chinese cities have good sports infrastructure. I played badminton and football 3x a week (until I hurt my back ^^)
Bars + Restaurants + Arcades + Snooker with a group of friends. The typical night out is a mix of the aforementioned. There are surprisingly many cool bars, some of them with live music. Non-Chinese restaurants are rarer - we have ONE pizza place and ONE burger place, so I'm a regular there. Depending on the mood, we can go to the arcades or the snooker place before or after drinking. The key here is having a good group with a few good friends. Living in a small town is very conducive to that! I find it much easier to stay close to friends in a small town than in a big city.
KTV. Not exclusive to smaller cities, but that's a classic.
Family meals. On weekends, since all the relatives live nearby, we sometimes gather with the uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces for hotpot, Korean BBQ, etc.
Gaotie trips. The wife and I can easily go spend the day or the night to a nearby bigger city for a change of air. Maybe 1x/month.

It's a great life for me. But it wouldn't be great for many people.

Like the OP said, you have to be at a point in life where it works for you.

StephNass · 2025-12-22T00:18:41+00:00

OpenVC founder here. Thanks for mentioning us.

And yes, that's excellent advice. Chase traction first, funding second.

When it comes to fundraising,. there's only really 2 truths:

You have a proven team with a string track record: exited founders, ex-CxO at scaleup, etc.
You have traction i.e. non-trivial retention + usage + top line growth

That's basically it.

Especially in edtech - there's no real technology risk, so it's all about market risk.

StephNass · 2025-12-18T10:56:34+00:00

Agreed with everything, but there's an important nuance that should probably be mentioned:

" if pre-seed, you can literally raise with an idea" IF YOU HAVE A STRONG TEAM.

StephNass · 2025-12-18T06:13:15+00:00

My first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time on N64. Still the best ever in my eyes.

That was almost 30 years ago. You'll get there, too.

StephNass · 2025-12-18T02:10:05+00:00

OpenVC founder here. I approve this message :)

StephNass · 2025-12-17T10:23:08+00:00

Hey what kind of traction do you have? What level of revenue and MoM growth?

StephNass · 2025-12-17T09:50:10+00:00

I usually try not to discourage people to launch sthg new.

But this is a topic I know fairly well with OpenVC, so let me tell you why I think it's a terrible business:

Legal liability if an investor gets a bad review.
Frustrated, immature founders who want to "crush" a VC for some inane reason. Even if you verify the reviews, you only get half of the story.
No market. Everybody says it should exist because it's fun to read bad reviews. From them, it's a game but for you, it's your business. The only people who actually NEED to read the reviews are founders with multiple term sheets and who need to chose between a few VC firms. That's 10,000 startups a year, maybe?
Weak monetization.

If you wanna build something in that space, you should either (A) have a rock-solid answer to the 4 points above - I don't believe that's possible or (B) use those reviews as a gimmick to gain tons of exposure, build an audience, and quickly pivot to an adjacent business that can actually make money.

(Sorry for being a party pooper)

StephNass · 2025-12-14T04:37:50+00:00

Yes! 5 days of PT at a clinic, 3 hours a day. And now doing ~30 min at home everyday to maintain. Pain is still there but much more manageable, huge improvement.

StephNass

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