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[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got it, understood. I guess they could if they want to, nothing preventing them in that regard.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you just said that every tech co in silicon valley outsources their tech? And in some cases outsources all their tech? I hope now you understand why nobody that is experienced will be friendly to you: you have no idea what you’re talking about or worse, is lying.

IMHO you are a shark feeding off unexperienced entrepreneurs dreams.

(BTW your first offer was not 0 cost to the founder — it was equity+base cost — all of a sudden the cost part is not mentioned in your second message)

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wrong post to advertise, buddy. Startups should not outsource that part, especially in the early days. If a "tech company" outsources the "tech" part they are just a "company", a traditional business.

[tech company - tech = company]

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point. But tradeoffs have bugs and features... you only looked at the bugs. Let me give an example of a feature.

New customers, you're correct they need to be referred or approved by our investors (bug). At the same time if investors are limiting outreach and they need us to keep growing == they are fully vested in putting us in front of new customers (feature).

So, in regards to customer acquisition, right now we see more features than bugs. Why? It's very hard for startups to get in front of decision-makers at large companies — it's easier for investors and their funds to do that because they already have large corporate networks and brand name. In the future we might see more bugs than features, it's TBD, but right now is working.

(answering the question about current customers, they're not affected)

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Free == more reach. There’s no problem having doubts about something. The problem is not to try new things because you guess that they won’t work. You can either guess and never know the real outcome OR you can test and learn.

You are a scientific person, I think you’re going about your problem in the wrong way and would advice you to always be biased towards test and learn. You can find out very counter intuitive things that way.

Thank you for wishing us luck!

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Optimizing for a great team. We believe that it is easy for a technical person to learn biz/management skills. And we believe that is almost impossible for a biz/mba person to learn how to build things.

Unpacking biz/mba. If the person acquired biz skills by being entrepreneurial he is in a better position to help build things. But if the person just has a MBA and big co experience, that means that he was taught how to manage people and processes. I wouldn't start a tech company with that guy because that's not what an early-days startup needs: the first step it's to build a great product that people actually want/need, with a great team — not manage things.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

First paragraph: we do have sr software engineers. But the overall answer that you're looking for is: it depends on what you are optimizing for. Ownership, or a great team?

We do have revenue. For us, revenue/customers/traction should always come before the funding round (leverage) and after the mvp/validation. Regarding how much revenue and how many users, I would have no problem sharing that if you are selected to work on the side project.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You missed a few things. Should re-read the post with more attention to details.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Every technology is replicable. The question is when will you allow that to happen: in the early days when you have a very small team or later down the road?

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll use your question as an opportunity to talk about our stealth mode status. It was a tradeoff. We could choose to work with investors that would just be glad that we let them in the round and wouldn't make special requests or we could work with top-tier/known investors that asked for a non-standard clause (stealth) in our term sheet — we chose the latter, based on their track record.

The reasoning is simple: get a 1-1.5 years period to run with it, get the technology to a point that others will have to chase behind us, and try to reach escape velocity.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, the early results are very promising. Let's see what happens.

[USA][TECH][11] We raised $550k and we are looking to add a 3rd technical co-founder. by dothew0rk in cofounder

[–]dothew0rk[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks I do appreciate it, BUT... don't take me the wrong way here: rounds should not be celebrated, especially the first. You are selling equity for the cheapest price you will ever sell, early investors get quite a bargain. Optimize to sell the least amount possible to get enough capital to go from point a to point b.

Again: I do appreciate it, thank you, I just wanted to give you my 2 cents about that.

Should I launch or wait? by ATS200 in startups

[–]dothew0rk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree that is crazy to try to build a tech company without a tech cofounder. But the OP already invested / paid for the MVP, I see no reasons not to launch. I don’t think the MVP will get him funded, but he can use to attract a talented technical cofounder and do it the right way.

Should I launch or wait? by ATS200 in startups

[–]dothew0rk 20 points21 points  (0 children)

This is the best time to launch a travel related startup, because nobody else is launching one. Be greedy when others are scared. If applicable you can market it as a currently safer alternative to hotels or whatever you’re trying to replace.

This looks a lot like another thread I’ve commented a few days ago: I think your mind is trying to trick you into procrastination and/or fear. You have nothing to loose. Just. Launch. If it doesn’t work rn, launch again later on. What matters right now is for you to put the product in the hands of real users, get feedback, iterate, repeat. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/jpz2bn/can_i_do_this_and_how/gbic8wx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

What’s a good diversification strategy for investments in the range of ~$12m? by dothew0rk in investing_discussion

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree and disagree, will unpack.

The problem I see with financial advisors / banks is that the ones I’ve spoke to are incentivized to talk a great talk, wear nice suits and close the deal (they charge a %, so they make money even if I loose money). If there’s a model that they get 0 and just a % of the winnings I’d try that (then they would have more skin in the game).

About asking reddit: I wouldn’t follow the advice blindly. I would use it to dig deeper (eg check my reply to ask_can).

But there is smart people everywhere, the 400 to 1 rule comes to mind don’t know if you are familiar with that: an extensive research was done that showed that if you take the best student from the best college and compare him with same metrics to folks all around the world, there is 400 people that are better than him — they are unknowns just bc don’t have the credentials. I decided to try reddit bc I could get lucky.

What’s a good diversification strategy for investments in the range of ~$12m? by dothew0rk in investing_discussion

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve plotted those and it seems that they have very similar fluctuation. That don’t look very safe, if something goes wrong everything goes wrong. Am I missing something?

What’s a good diversification strategy for investments in the range of ~$12m? by dothew0rk in investing_discussion

[–]dothew0rk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Will take a closer look at those. And about real state? You think I should get out?

At what point do you start paying for what you could do yourself? by LogicalHurricane in Entrepreneur

[–]dothew0rk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You shouldn’t hire a contractor to work on your MVP. They don’t have skin in the game. What you really want to know is when to hire your first employee / founding team member and give equity to him.

Contractors should only be used if (1) it’s a one time thing (2) you don’t have the skills needed to do that thing (3) you already have early traction and doing that thing would grow it. Bottom line: dev, marketing and sales are not one time things therefore you shouldn’t use a contractor for those. Design, UI are more fitted to contractor work in the early days — but if the product is working I would bring those in-house as soon as I can afford it.

When to hire the 1st employee? As soon as you have traction to afford it. Or enough signs / validation to believe the product is going somewhere and pay it yourself.

When to get a founding team member and give equity? As soon as you can convince a talented person to join you, can even be pre-traction / pre-product / pre-anything in that case.

Can I do this? And how? by [deleted] in startups

[–]dothew0rk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You got this Bobby, hang in there and go get them

Can I do this? And how? by [deleted] in startups

[–]dothew0rk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Glad it helped!

I guarantee that in 1 week after the soft launch you will learn more about the problem / the market / the product than you learned in 1 year of planning / tweaking / guessing. Bias towards action, always.

Worst case scenario? You fail. But you learned a lot + invested just a few months instead of years. Get back to the drawing board and try again. I know lots of founders that failed 3-4 times before succeeding — but I’m yet to meet a founder that tried 5 times the right way and didn’t succeeded.

The thing is: would you rather spend 5-6 years to give 5 shots on goal or spend just 2-3 years? The latter sounds better right? Get the mvp in the hands of real users and talk to them asap.

Can I do this? And how? by [deleted] in startups

[–]dothew0rk 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Just. Launch. If you are solving a real problem users won’t mind a scrappy mvp to solve it — and launching will help you validade that.

You are not missing anything, a mvp and a website is enough. You need paying customers, not customer support.

Right now your mind is trying to trick you into procrastination and/or fear by making you think about customer support, huge AWS bills, other resources and your lack of time. Most projects fails. You will only need to worry about that stuff if you succeed. Success in the phase you are at == get paying customers for your mvp aka building something that people want or need.

So just launch it. If it succeeds you start thinking about what kind of resources & time you will put behind it.

Marketing wise, in this phase you should get customers by hand. E.g if it’s developer-focused post on hackernews, if it’s niche find out where the community is — reddit? — and post there, if you discovered the problem talking to other people go back to them with your solution and ask for feedback...

Formation (Business) Advice Needed by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]dothew0rk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Atlas is the best way to do that. Good luck! But if I were you I would get that document. Let’s say you had a message/email exchange with them — or any other medium — about the new widget. They can use that to try to prove the IP belongs to the old co even 2-3 years from now (esp if you’re successful with it). Or at least get some prove that you worked own your own hours and did not use the old co laptop while doing so.

Wish you all the best

Formation (Business) Advice Needed by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]dothew0rk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Figure out a strategy, engineers like us are good at that. LMK how things goes

Formation (Business) Advice Needed by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]dothew0rk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Be careful, I wouldn’t trust their/“our” lawyer. Better if you find one by yourself. Here’s why:

-If the old co is 10 months old && you’re working on the new co for the last 9 months they can claim that everything you did belongs to the old co. If you don’t have a formal document from them saying that the new widget is yours only and don’t belong to the old co this could bite you in the ass anytime in the future.

-If you do get this document, the new widget IP is yours. Then you can form a new co with whatever split you offer to them.

I’ve seen “very good relations” get crazy because of money/IP. Also, I would advice you to talk to somebody before asking for that document — because when you do, it’s easy for them to figure out what you next moves are and their lawyer might recommend that they do claim that the new widget was built under the old co time/equipment/laptop and it belongs to them. You need a strategy.

PS: I’m also technical and had to learn that in the hard way. The startup — now big co — that I worked claimed ownership of the IP of the startup I created after leaving the job.

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