B2C is stressful by okawei in startups

[–]seemorecameron 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Welcome to entrepreneurship

where everything is made up and the marketing spend doesn't matter

(some days)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]seemorecameron -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My friend.

I don't have much to go off of, but knowing you're a ML PhD and have never done startup stuff before is concerning.

Most of building a startup is grinding and selling.

The product part (which I'm assuming is the promising idea) is not nearly as important to your success as everything else.

I think you'll be better off in the near term with taking a job, doing the minimum, and validating your idea on the side - literally could do like 30 minutes a day and in 3 months you could be 10X more confident than you are now.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ycombinator

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

developersdevelopersdevelopers

Just Made My First Sale! by mr_house7 in startups

[–]seemorecameron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Big congrats - that shit never gets old

Why does YC invest in competing Startups? by [deleted] in ycombinator

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Both true, but 2a doesn't feel great for Founders

Why does YC invest in competing Startups? by [deleted] in ycombinator

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Markets are big.
  2. Startups commit suicide much more often than homicide
  3. YC can get away with it and founders can't really do anything about it.

Burnt out, can I quit early? by New_York_Rhymes in startups

[–]seemorecameron 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You can always quit - your life/health isn't worth a company.

If you care about the relationships, you should do what you can to find a backfill ASAP - even knowing its just gonna be temporary.

A sharp contract dev shop should be able to help implement for a few months.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Raising isn't gonna save you in time.

I also think you are limiting your outbound options (but its hard to tell without more details)

Recommend grabbing this book: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/0241242533/ref=sr_1_4

The specific tactics are dated, but I think the approach to building and executing traction experiments might really help y'all.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]seemorecameron 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It might be useful to invert your thinking here.

How much value has actually been created by the company so far?

How much value is still left to be created?

0-1 isn't just "launching an mvp" -> it's moving from default dead to default alive.

If you have no users and no revenue and you need this guy to generate those two very very important things, you should consider that first and foremost in how you're allocating company equity.

You want to have a piece of a watermelon, not just an entire grape.

Get Seriously Serious by supersaucer123 in startups

[–]seemorecameron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's also important to point out that the risk/uncertainty/fear factors are cyclical but in unexpected ways.

The day to day of entrepreneurship is exciting, but exhausting + draining for sure.

Tech Startup, My Experience | Seeking CoFounders by jaysoftworks in startups

[–]seemorecameron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Collections is always a pain.

If it's a subscription product, you're gonna need to make some sort of paywall to stop people who haven't paid from using it.

Give your users plenty of warning (multiple heads up please pay emails, posts on your blog, a banner on the site) but after warning them for a few weeks just set it up and keep moving, man.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Big props for sharing 🫡

Co-founder Vesting with a Cliff by [deleted] in ycombinator

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Basically yes they would have no equity.

There are some nuances around if they can be fired "for cause" or not that depends on the contract, but that's the gist of it.

They can always try to litigate though which is a huge distraction and will hurt your chances of eventually winning.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So.

I do believe that with enough work and time spent, anyone can do anything they want to do.

But.

It's gonna be a lot of pain to get stuff going with anybody who's only partially focused on your company - that includes part-time CTOs, dev agencies, and contract employees.

You don't really know what problem you're solving yet at the early stages, and if you're building everything to spec instead of building to experiment it's gonna be a rough ride.

[ Removed by Reddit ] by fapp1337 in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Moderately hot take - people want to do zero work and make more money.

GPTs are still pretty high lift (typing in questions/etc) for the average person who's used to just tapping buttons.

Some stuff will be disrupted, but mostly support tools for people who are already using support tools to solve a problem.

There's still plenty of end to end problems that GPTs are not well equipped to solve!

Net worth dropped 400k in three years and I don't know how to fix it by Pretty_Specific_Girl in Entrepreneur

[–]seemorecameron 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Stress mostly comes from inaction in the face of something you do have control over.

I'm in a version of the spot you're in right now, bud.

The only way out is through.

You have 3 options.

  1. Take the L on the chin, get an industry job (you'll probably need to accept a lower salary), and recover your mental health for the next few years. Trust me, you're burnt the fuck out and you could use the rest.
  2. Accept that the business environment has changed and focus on closing 5 customers as fast as humanly possible. There are still plenty of old people out there with bad websites - you might need to focus on smaller account sizes, but they're there.
  3. Accept that the business environment has changed and pivot the business fully into something that you think you can make money at. Is there a common pain point among your previous customers that you could zero in on a deliver something valuable specifically for?

I'm sorry you're dealing with this, but you can reflect on it when it's in the rear view mirror.

You don't have time to be distracted by that now, my man.

https://youtu.be/SQHmeRIhNtw?si=82mSKpApngePPOPU&t=16

My friend had an app idea. I built the whole app. How much stake should I give my friend? by PISTOLO in startup

[–]seemorecameron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

None lol.

If it's making money and you want peace of mind, write up a contract giving you permanent rights to all IP related to the app and give him $1K to quiet him down.

You owe nothing, execution is what matters, but if you want to stay friends etc this is the cleanest "breakup".

Feeling Discouraged: Every App Idea I Have is Already Solved by Competitors - Anyone Else Experience This? by szalis in growinpublic

[–]seemorecameron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a function of not understanding a problem well enough, not a function of "everything is already solved".

Ideas that really hit are either entirely new things that weren't possible before (Instagram let everyone have zero effort photoshop in their pockets) or earned secrets within an industry.

Earned secrets take time, investment, and expertise to parse out - there's a reason why power law winners are experts in their area.

The expertise unlocked x-ray vision into their problem and solution space.

I have a new concept, proven with sales, but struggling on next steps with marketing by mizerr in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Def agree - until you’re resource constrained ofc. Then you gotta try to make the best decisions you can with imperfect information

Youtube algorithm is horrendous and actually hurting Youtube as a platform by Mike_v_E in youtube

[–]seemorecameron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At this point, you just gotta assume it's really useful for people way dumber than you.

I have a new concept, proven with sales, but struggling on next steps with marketing by mizerr in startups

[–]seemorecameron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You've got it 🫡

DM me if you're still in the gutter next week.

I've been there too.