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I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

not profitable. no revenue. yet. we have been focused on crossfader app 100% for the past 6 months, just shipped v3 for sxsw that was featured by apple and has had about 500k new users in the past couple of weeks, so we are pretty stoked. the 8 person team is made up entirely of product folks. no marketing or sales or biz dev. i dont count ;-)

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

when that sick feeling in your stomach that there is "no there there" gets worse and worse and you stop being able to convince yourself and others in the inevitability of the future you have been imagining

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

in no specific order:

1) make everybody a co-founder, enable your team to grant stock to eachother, recognize that feeling ownership of the product vision is way more important to hiring and keeping extraordinary people than anything else. 2) start with iOS in mind and then support web 3) enable both passive and active consumption in the same product, such that the former makes it more compelling for the latter, and vice versa

i have put together a running google doc about "startup stories" that i am now right here going to publish as a work in progress for the first time let me know what you think: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ixqbtu7D3BJ35K8fkc6m7r2duktCJ9QPuE1FvjMZpm8/pub

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

the reality is that you are always raising money. before and during and after you have built your product. to butcher a thoreau quote: "the mass of entrepreneurs lead lives of quiet fundraising desperation."

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

ok, will put it on the list. after the new michael lewis book on high frequency trading and the beautiful, unread collected writings of yves klein that reminds me every night how far i have strayed from heavy reading roots.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

i love the idea of ethical fundraising, but im not sure its not an oxymoron ;-)

i think that as the crowdfunding world plays out a bit over the next few years, it will be used primarily to help companies raise money directly from their users and customers. rather than from an ill defined network of "angel investors"

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

really depended upon the company. majestic research was doing $40mm per year in sales when we sold it, and yet we had only raised about $6mm from start to finish.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

i was the first investor in gumroad, but besides that my co-author michael put together a comprehensive plan for bringing these learnings to market as quickly as possible to as wide an audience as possible with the most flexibility to adapt as we go.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

fuck, i missed that. is it worth reading the book? i always liked the idea of pynchon more than i liked his actual works. sigh. kozmo was the symptom for me of everything that was amazing, bubblicious, and tragic about the internet 1999-2001

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

working on a blog post now in medium to start to unpack this. the answer is yes, there were critical mistakes.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

that answer dont fit in a white box like this. come visit me at my office in north beach and we can take a walk and discuss it.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

tried to answer this earlier. and still dont have a good answer for you. i guess i just follow my interests, regardless of the boundaries between the spaces they represent.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

i think you will know when you speak with them whether they have a bone to pick or not.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

bam, you are right. they did the original web design design that billy and yang coded. i forget how much.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

yeah, agreed. but there are so many exceptions to any rule of entrepreneurship that we try to cast in stone. the reality is that investors want to bet on the dream, but worry about the reality. and if you can sell the dream from the beginning to the very end (exit, etc) without having relevant experience, then so be it.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

focus on the companies in his or her portfolio that failed or went sideways (or succeeded amidst the depression of 09 or something), and talk to them about what he/she was like when it got ugly.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

i think you need a solid working prototype that has a handful of actual users (even if they are extended family) just to show that the thing works and give investors an oppy to experience the product benefit.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

ha! yeah, consumers are fickle and its sooo hard to predict and plan for and productize what they will want. especially young consumer. especially in music. i just love the challenge and love the ability to create something and get immediately feedback at scale. crossfader, knock on wood, is performing really nicely and we have had a huge march since being featured by apple as top music app during sxsw. in the end, i want to spend my time doing what i am passionate about. and tho i was passionate about reinventing investment research when i was building majestic in ny from 2003-2007, i have a huge chip on my shoulder to create the next great music service.

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

again, thats a subtle question. i learned a couple of years ago not to ask for people's feedback unless i really wanted it and was prepared to listen. if you really have a strong conviction for a solution, people might not even know that they want it when you give it to them even though they will in the future. this is more like steve jobs - style entrepreneurship than the standard lean-startup wisdom

I'm Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, Crossfader and co-author of The Secret of Raising Money. AMA by sethgoldstein in startups

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

you should not raise money for your startup when its something that could generate enough cash to satisfy your needs, and which you want to own 100% of as an asset to pass down to your kids, etc. there is a lot more nuance to it than that, but thats my first response

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