Let's say I'm working on a software side project, It's at the MVP stage, deployed, and has managed to gain a couple of users. At what point does it become more than just a side project?

Is time dedicated to it? employees? Income? Systems? structures?  Is there even a defining moment?

I am hoping to make the transition, so I want to know if getting more devs to work on it will help, yeah.

for “improve the world” I mean to invent something, improving the human experience. I think that the best thing anyone can do to improve ourself and our knowledge(Are the things that put you in the condition of being able to have more ideas and projects) is to listen to intelligent, curious people and ideas. What’s your opinion or general advice for a teenager that has this desire?

[Hiring/Seeking/Offering] Jobs / Co-Founders Weekly Thread

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I see a post like this in this sub all the time, like "I will build your SAAS or website for free". But none of these posters ever talk about HOSTING the website, so that people can actually access it and view it.

The SAAS I'm building is a website builder platform, which is a webhost/sitebuilder type of platform that is designed to host HTML/CSS/JavaScript websites.

I'm trying to get at least a dozen or so people using it for their actual everyday business websites.

I'm not mentioning the actual name of my platform because this post isn't about promotion, it's about trying to connect with people and offering my help.

The downsides of my platform is that server-side code execution is not supported right now. I may plan to add this in the future, but the idea is a basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript solution. This means that if your website is mostly an information source, links, references, blogs, etc, then it's great!

But if you need to take and process orders INSIDE your website, it won't work for you. However you can always link off to thinks like Paypal Checkout and Stripe Checkout or to whatever service you are selling stuff through.

I'm also an experienced HTML/CSS/JS developer, and I'd be happy to customize some non-wordpress theme from themeforest and put it on there for you. Comment with more info about your business or message me.

Webhosting fees and whatnot are of course waived - unless your site somehow gets a bazillion visitors a day. So many people are having to waste between $9 and $99 a month for a site that gets maybe 200 visitors daily, and I'd love to help stop that.

I have a client who has the exact problem I want to solve and they’re ready to do a paid pilot with me.

In the paid pilot, I will be building my product while solving for his specific use case.

Product will be pretty extensive. I estimate it will take me about a month to compete the MVP and 4-5 months for a good enough first version.

The market rate of my competitors is $50,000 - $150,000 annually which includes product and consultation.

I need some wisdom on how and how much should I charge for and during the paid pilot.

I have been working for a pre revenue and pre investment startup in the legalized sports gambling space for the past 8 months. It is a b2c app.

I was originally brought on to be the head of customer success and to be the voice of the customer. I was brought on for a 3 month trial and to have salary and equity negotiations after the first 3 months when my trial was over if things went well.

Although I was brought on to manage customer success, the app has not gained any customers, so I have sort of taken on a product management role. Mostly working with the dev team to build features that would help the customer and doing a lot of product testing and bug finding.

I clicked with the founders well and after my trial I was promised x dollar amount as salary with 1% equity that would be given in a drip over 2 years.

After my first month of being a "full time member" I was not paid what I was told I would be. I still have not been paid what I was told to this point, with the reason being they can't pay me the full amount until fundraising is complete. This was not voiced to me in negotiations that my full salary was contingent on fundraising.

I have also not signed anything in relation to my equity. When I bring it up the topic is sort of brushed off that signing will be done after fundraising.

My two questions are:

1. Is this type of behavior typical in the startup world? This is my first startup and first job post grad so I don't have anything to compare it to.
2. Should I ask for more equity? I feel like the 1% equity (.5% given after year 1, .5% given after year 2) to be a little low considering the role I have and the fact I am not being paid what I was originally told.

If anyone could provide a little feedback it would be greatly appreciated. I don't know anyone with startup experience, so I feel a little lost navigating all of this.

Thanks!

Nine months ago I launched my new business and came to reddit looking for some advice. Well, a couple of months ago I landed my first customer and am now about to get a second contract from the same customer to produce a small batch of the product I helped design for them. It's pretty cool so here's how it happened along with the results of some of the other things that I tried.

First let me just cut to the chase and explain how I got my first customer. Funny enough this was the last thing I tried even though it was the most obvious.

My first customer was already a contact on my phone, I just sent them a text. I met this person two years prior while working at my day job when they were doing contract work for my employer. We worked closely together, developed a professional working relationship and kept in contact. That contractor also had a business where they sold hardware to several industries. I let them know that I too was performing contract work. Having worked with me they were aware of my capabilities and immediately asked for help with a cost cutting effort that he had been wanting to pursue for some time. I ended up designing a 3D printed component and will be printing them at scale soon to replace his current supplier. So that was pretty simple, just some networking. Honestly I should have started here but just didn't.

Here is a list of all the other things I tried that has not worked...so far.

Engaged with Redditors: People DMed me after seeing my first post. I ended up receiving two RFQ's and provided formal quotes. The feedback I received was that pricing was higher than they expected.

Created a website: This was honestly a pretty half assed attempt at a website. I have a philosophy of not spending any money on a business that I start unless I can make some money first. So this was just a free website I made to send potential customers to. Probably a mistake to not develop this further. No sales from this, a few people have completed the "contact us" form but then go cold when I respond.

Cold E-mails: I made a long list of local companies that I could see a potential partnership with and tried contacting people who worked there. I looked up employees on linkedin or their "about us" page and guessed their email addresses. I sent emails to 107 people at 94 companies. I received 3 replies. All 3 replies soft no's along the lines of "sorry, we don't have any projects right now but we will keep you in mind." This was actually very time consuming and demotivating. It was also difficult finding enough local companies to even contact.

Offered my services for free: I did this on reddit, I made a post offering free consultations. I actually didn't look at this as a sales technique I was just curious to meet people who were trying to make things. I didn't try to push sales or anything, I simply offered advice for about an hour. I had about 10 people take me up on this and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Made a LinkedIn Page: Not much to say about this. Gets a view or two per month which makes sense because I put next to no effort into this.

That is it. Aside from this I ended up starting my second ecommerce business, this time manufacturing my own products (my first is print on demand). I have seen some success there as well making about $500 a month after just 2 months. It is slowly growing and I am proud of it.

My plan is to continue to try and grow my network and work on my own products. I'm open to hearing any feedback or additional ideas that anyone may have.

It took me 6 weeks to build on Bubble the all-in-one AI marketing app I needed to get my campaigns going. It works pretty well and covers all these tasks:

• Positioning canvas
• Buyer's Journey
• Target Audiences
• Campaign Ideas
• Content calendar
• Landing Page
• SEO content hub
• Blog post ghostwriter
• Ad headlines
• Social Posts
• Email sequence
• Newsletter

Shoot!

I've been part of a startup that me and a friend started about 3 years ago. The startup is in the consumer hardware category (something that connects to your phone and works with an app).

My friend has been working full-time, bringing in all the cash, and he's responsible for the hardware, manufacturing and business side of things. I've been working part-time and am the only developer on the team.

We're both first time founders, and given our lack of experience, we didn't discuss equity in the beginning. Our initial deal was that I get a percentage of the profit for the products sold.

The idea has taken much longer than we anticipated mainly due to technical and financial challenges. We currently don't have any revenue, but did raise about $100K through crowdfunding. We've now gotten to a stage where we're getting closer to actually selling the product, and wanted to finalize each person's equity.

Now, I totally understand that my friend has taken a much greater risk than me and has put in more work, but moving forward, what amount of equity would make sense for me? considering future dilution, opportunity cost, etc.

Many thanks in advance.

Edit: I wanna add that the discussion of equity is not just about the contributions of the past 3 years, but also the contributions for the future. Following the equity discussion, I would join as full-time, with minimal salary, and my responsibilities would extend beyond just coding.

Our initial deal about profit sharing was just an initial deal for us to get started. We always had this understanding that we'll come back to discuss the equity, and now is the time.

I just want to know in general what amount of percentage would make sense for a cofounder to join full time at this stage of the company. If you only got 15-20% max, would you join this company and help build it? Remember, no revenue and no PMF as of now. Just a polished product that still needs regulatory certifications.

also, we both are total beginners in these things so if any recommendations for further reading are welcome. Thank you

I'm spending some time dealing with the same discord messages over and over, most of them could just be answered with some sort of Retrieval-Augmented Generation on my FAQ and documentation.

Unfortunately, I haven't found anything to actually pull this off yet, and the last thing I want to do right now is build another internal tool.

Hello everyone,

We're on a mission to build an app that measures and celebrates our users' holistic growth journey. Picture this: activities are assigned values across six attributes, accumulating on a user's profile. It's like how martial arts studios or sports tout their offerings beyond exercise—think discipline, social skills, and strategic thinking. Our platform takes it further by offering a holistic approach to consumer services, whether meditation sessions, growth mindset seminars, or even adrenaline-pumping adventures like rock climbing.

We're excited to extend an opportunity for entrepreneurs like you to showcase your services comprehensively through our app. By breaking down your offerings within our attributes, you can demonstrate your services' full spectrum of benefits. We'll show our appreciation by acknowledging your contribution with a mention like "Attributes Courtesy of [Your Business Name]" along with a link to your website.

Are you curious to see an example? Check out our landing page (https://thelifexpapp.com/), where we've already highlighted boxing as an activity.

As we kick off this initiative, our focus is on early-stage startups hungry for exposure. Rest assured, our team will curate all services so we can wholeheartedly recommend them to our users.

If you're interested in learning more or getting involved, comment below or message us. Let's collaborate and empower individuals on their journey to holistic growth! 💪 #LifeXp #HolisticGrowth #Entrepreneurship

I started working on an audio fingerprinting project as a hobby, and now I've got it working. Essentially, it functions like Shazam and boasts 100% accuracy. You input a song, it generates fingerprints, and stores them in a database. If you upload a previously fingerprinted song, it can recognize it. I'm using signal processing for this, and it maintains accuracy even with noisy backgrounds. I've been pondering how to monetize this project and would appreciate your ideas. Can I build additional features on top of this? Or is there potential to monetize it as it is? One idea I'm considering is creating a platform to track audio track usage across different platforms and providing users with a dashboard for visualization. What do you all think? Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

So, let’s chat about something kind of intense but super important. Imagine it’s 2028, the U.S. and China are suddenly in a war. This could really shake things up for us in the startup world. I’m reaching out because I’m genuinely curious about what you all would do in this scenario.

As a korean startup founder in Korea, I aim to be living in safe countries such as Western Europe, North Africa, and Australia, and to become a startup founder with a global customer base by 2028.

I am very interested in strategies and items that can safely operate a business even in the event of a war, and I am curious about where people will flock to and where living could provide more business opportunities during such times.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

Additionally, if you live in the US, given that it would be a belligerent in the conflict, there is a high likelihood of facing increased taxes and severe instability. It is unclear whether it would remain a safe hub for startups as it is now. Despite this, do you think it would be better to stay in the US?

If you don't live in the US, what decisions will you make and what preparations will you undertake based on your judgment?

Based on my interviews, not very sure if startups are willing to pay for solutions (regardless of the product/idea) due to having a limited budget.

Wondering if growth startups are a viable target market to sell solutions to or if I should focus on much larger startups or business enterprises.

(By growth startups, I mean startups that have raised capital and are basically not pre-seed or in the discovery phase)

If anyone’s had success with selling to startups, what was your idea and how did you sell it?

Thanks everyone!

STOP ASSUMING THINGS ABOUT YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER.

You have to know your market’s struggles, YES - but that doesn’t mean you have to throw it in their faces…

I see a lot of copywriters/offer owners make this mistake (I used to do this as well dw)...

Instead of flat out TELLING them that they’re at rock bottom and can’t make ends meet,

Try *suggesting* that this could be their situation.

Instead of flat out TELLING them that their relationships are failing because they suck at intimacy,

Try veeeery subtly *suggesting* that this could be the case…

I see a severe lack of empathy in the copy/messaging of businesses nowadays.

You don’t have to bully your prospects into buying your offer, dude.

Quit it.

While its not a lot of money, I have just passed $400 in sales from my startup.

Here’s a little context:

• Based in Australia
• Target market is neurodivergent females
• Soft launched MVP in Nov ‘23
• Officially launched end of Dec ‘23
• Sold first product Jan ‘24
• Hired social media manager April ‘24
• Made first B2B cold call May ‘24

Next steps, continue with social media marketing, increase ad spend, build out some more features and form official partnership within B2B space.

If anyone is new to D2C online sales space happy to answer any questions you might have!

I’m reading this popular book ‘Hooked’ about understanding user behaviour and what ticks people to use or not use certain app

But so far, the book seems very surface level and never touches any complex topic. Maybe that is the intent of the book. Either way, did you ever read any book on user psychology and/or behavior around products and what people use to build theirs.

Would love to hear thoughts on this. I know nothing beats experience but whatever preparation there can be, always good to do

How did you come up with the startup idea you are working on? I find just sitting down and thinking through personal experiences does not really help me, the ideas I get already exist, so I guess unless you have had some pretty niche/unique experience, it is hard to find an idea that way. Alternatively, do you tend to do it through having worked for a number of years somewhere and have some unique insight into a problem? Or for the majority of people is it through taking a field you are passionate about and researching it/talking to people in that field, to detect a problem and then work on it?

I am new into the startup world and I am learning :). I need to spend 20k to complete the POC for a few months (solo-founder of a C Corp), prior getting VC funds. What is the best way to address this POC cost, in terms of finances and also taxation (both business and personal taxation)?

1. Reimbursement, after receiving VC fund.
2. Count the POC cost as loan. Convert this loan into equity (preferred shares?).

If you recommend other solutions, please inform.

When it comes to startup fundraising, founders are fairly good at valuation, pitch deck, intros, term sheets, etc. All the technical stuff.

But many fail at the PSYCHOLOGICAL aspect of fundraising.

Here are 5 mistakes I see a lot, especially with first-time founders:

▸ Equity is not a commodity, fundraising is not a marketplace. The power dynamics are closer to a dating app: the top 10% chase the top 1% (whatever that means), the top 50% chase the top 10%, and then it trickles down. Everyone wants to "date up", but few are self-aware of their market value. Maybe you would have better luck with your local angel club than with a Tier 1 fund.

▸ Don't be obsequious to investors. You want to establish yourself as an equal, even better with a bit of negging.

▸ Fundraising can turn founders bitter and angry. If you feel that's the case, stop raising, take a break, and focus on improving your fundamentals first.

▸ Don't believe investor feedback, it's often meaningless. At early-stage, the investment decision is emotional first, and then rationalized ex-post. But investors won't admit it. :) A VC might say "market size is too small". But if they liked you, this wouldn't really matter. "He/she will figure out a pivot"

▸ Investors are NOT your teachers/managers. They have no duty to provide feedback or help you get better. Some will be helpful, sure, but you're not entitled to anything from them. VCS are money allocators first, looking for a return for their LPs.

▸ If you have poor mental health, you probably shouldn't start a VC-backed startup. Sorry, but it's true.

Hey what’s up you guys!

As the title suggests, at the start of 2023 I was extremely excited about a certain niche, and wanted to build infra around it. I spent some time wrestling with open source e-commerce projects like Django-Oscar and Medusa JS trying to add multi-tenancy that supports multi-vendor and single checkout flow to either one, however, I quickly realised that it’d be much easier and faster to build my own system from scratch, and I did.

I built a complete production grade marketplace, but just about when I finished, some personal events happened and I had to move countries, so I had to put the project on hold and that was that. I never got back to it.

Looking at the project and the amount of energy and passion I put into it, the thought of letting it sit there creating zero value aches me.

What would you guys do with it if you were me?

Edit: for clarity, the marketplace has payment, logistics, warehousing and order management with a muti-vendor checkout are all built in. It’s a complete solution with a vendor dashboard, a web app and a hybrid mobile app for both IOS and android.

I am trying to do some research to explore the potential problems that could be solved within the industrial control systems industry and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on talking to people that work in the industry to get more information.

The value that we would be bringing would be to potentially find a way to optimize or automate existing control systems to increase efficiencies and reduce cost (eg. power, chemical and labor costs). My main goal is to talk to people that would be able to give me a sense of what the largest inefficiencies are within their facilities so that we could think about how our technological expertise could be applied. We are already working with a couple facilities but want to see what other potential use-cases for our technology exist.

In the best case scenario I would be able to talk to people in-person or through a virtual meeting but asynchronous question answering would also be very helpful.

I have tried to get in touch with people involved in facility operations on LinkedIn but I get the sense that a lot of people aren't that active on the platform or don't care about my request to ask them questions (understandably).

Does anyone have any advice on how to more effectively interact with the people that could provide the information I'm looking for?

What are things to look out as you scale a subscription based SAAS model?

We're a relatively new startup and we use Wave and things seem "fine" but I'm curious if we need to consider moving to a different service as we scale.
One thing we recently ran into was GAAP accounting with deferred/unearned revenue for upfront payments and how to deal with that with our current software (Wave).

Curious if there are other things to look out for that would justify moving customers to a different invoicing / payments software (Stripe, Chargebee, etc.)

Hey everyone,

I’m compiling a list of banks used by startups and I’d really appreciate your input. Could you share:

What bank do you use for your business? What do you like about it? What would you change?

Here’s my experience to kick it off:

Bank: Revolut (Europe) Advantages: Easy to open esp if you are startup, supports multiple currencies. Disadvantages: The free account is very limited and lacks the accounting tools that other banks offer.

Your feedback is invaluable as I’m considering the idea of developing a banking solution tailored specifically to startup.

Also feel free to share interesting stories / experience around this topic

Looking forward to your insights!

I am building this alone, a mobile application for a b2c marketplace. First time founder, currently working on my frontend I have 0 backend development experience, would love if someone would give me advice regarding that too. But from the above things mentioned, what is the right time duration [in your opinion] required to build the first version?

Hey everyone! Seeking a startup lawyer proficient in trademark law for guidance and protection in the USA. Any recommendations or referrals? Looking for someone who specifically help start up or new business. The start up is in the tech space. Thanks in advance for your help!

I have an idea for a gig platform in a niche area, but I'm wondering if the gig market is oversaturated. I've found some articles and discussion boards that verify my idea could be needed or useful, but haven't done any research beyond that. Would it be hard to get into the gig platform market in 2024?

Also, I am not a technical person. I work for a startup in a senior operations role. I do pretty much everything to keep the company running (HR, general admin, biz development, client engagement/all communications, sales, client onboarding, contracts, daily ops, marketing, product management, basic finance....also designed and built our website but no code) BUT nothing technical.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

I’m good at content creation, was making millions previously and stopped after the covid and moving in IL from abroad. Now I have my greencard and planning on moving in LA. I have kids, rent, and everything and currently making around 18-20$k monthly with my channel and a small team remained remotely.

I had this conversation with my far friend, and he is super hyped about this topic since he is in construction and interested in diversification of his business. Roughly , I am planning on starting a new channel which might again, bring some millions yearly , monthly if best, but currently my situation is dire. I have closed my studio during the covid and spent my most money while waiting the process of moving in the US.

This friend of mine is ready to invest into my business, he is open up to mln bucks, but for the first year, he can give 300+k, I have told him that I will be moving in LA, and there will be initial expenses like studio, car, my house (which is higher than IL).. and he is okay with it.

I also told him that we won’t be withdrawing money until the company becomes very successful. He doesn’t need money back in this step, he also likes the idea of making a big company.

I also told him that all the channels will be registered under my name and he said that he will only provide the money, since he lives in our home country, he won’t be able to help with the operation.

And we share the profit by 50/50. He is also okay with that.

The only question is, I have worked solo all my life and it’s super hard for me to swallow this feeling of working with/for somebody. I feel like I’m working for somebody because of his money. Or is it me who is thinking wrong? Should I be seeing someone to convince me that partnership or investments are good?

Under my current circumstances I can move in LA without his help of course with my kids (3) and cover the expenses. And eventually I will start that channel without his help. But it might take time. With his help I will be just accelerating the speed of it and giving away %50 of the company.

As a friend and as a man, he is a good man. Should I take his money or be patient to have %100? It’s like a watermelon test for me.

Hey everyone I have this idea of a side project that helps people in brainstorming.

When brainstorming, I always find myself wanting to speak to someone, get validation for my ideas and have them help me with pending questions. Similar to every person out there, I could just connect to ChatGPT/ other conversational LLMs and have them help me in the brainstorming. But the UX is not optimal. I prefer to talk to someone and have that interaction, even if it's a bot, I'm not looking to create a humanlike experience, unless I want to, and that I can configure.
Some basic science facts, people type around 40-60 words per minute --> Equival to 0.66 words per second. Rather we speak 2.3-2.8 words per second --> Nearly 4 times the speed!

That means we have 4x speedup in "efficiency" that we could gain if we were able to do our brainstorming by typing.

With that motivation, I'm building an app/companion that helps just with that. From a non functional point of view that's the genuine problem I am trying to solve, while increasing the User Experience. I also am looking to incorporate character traits that might affect the response given by the bot, to create the opinionated view (but that's configurable).

What do you think about this, might you use it? Especially if it's easy to interact with?

Hi Everyone!

I've just finished my first degree, and would like to work on a start-up. I'd love to hear advices of everyone, but I've written this post in the context of Indian Government mainly.

I've identified a problem statement and want to propose a solution for it to reduce their time spent working on it tremendously.

Now, I want some guidance from anyone who's experienced in working with developing anything for government. Is there any existing way to propose to the government that your product can potentially increase their efficiency? Or can we only work on the government tenders that are already open?

If there exists some portal to make proposal, then is it worth it? Or it is mostly dead?

I don't know much about this environment and my questions may not be very polished, but I would highly appreciate any Advice. Especially from an Indian context.

I tried to go through GeM (Government e Marketplace) but I think it's mainly to set up our solution to be purchased by government, rather than giving us an option to propose the idea.

Thank you in Advance :-)