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what's been the hardest part of running or building your startup lately?
Whether it's fundraising, finding PMF, hiring, burnout, technical problems, customer acquisition, co-founder issues, runway stress, or anything else, we'd love to hear real stories.
Now, I'm bootstrapping (in stealth) a B2B service with 3 employees. The basic service exists. To continue funding, I can get VC investment, or I can get business customers to pay up-front development costs, to customize to their use case.
Let's say for a normal customer, the service costs $X / month. I want to write a deal with a business customer where they pay $Y up front, for us to build the service for their use case. Maybe in return, we discount their usage cost: * their cost is $ 0.5 * X per month for Y/X months, OR * their cost is $ 0.5 * X per month for (1.5 * Y/X) months (like a loan with interest), OR * their cost is $ 0.7 * X in perpetuity (permanent discount), OR * no discount at all, and we the cost to the customer as early access.
I am lucky to run my startup with my own funding, and it causes me to be very responsible with spending.
Finding PMF is the most mysterious thing I have ever encountered. How is it possible to sell anything in this world? People who can sell are the most valuable people in this world.
I guess I have had "burnout" so long, that I cannot anymore feel it. It has now become the feeling of accepting and observing the reality as realistically as it is. "It's just life.", says my friend when reality slaps/hits on face.
Technical problems for technical startups and for everyone else, normal life.
Customer acquistion, individual case of PMF? Mysterious.
Co-founder issues. Hopefully you can resolve things out, because it is the only good way out for the co-founders and therefore for the company. You need to have a real talk.
Runway stress? Time is money (because of expenses), so do things now that leads to making deals (= your product/service + marketing/selling). Do them now. Now. Do it.
Yeah, the struggle and pain is hard. So hard. Let us wish power to for the survival of each other. Good luck, and don't fuck it up (message directed also to myself).
Booting up startup (even the startup needs to be started, it doesn't start by itself) is a constant struggle. Almost every simple and basic sounding action/operation/step causes heavy reaction/resistance by the reality. The reality just doesn't want you to succeed. I am lucky to run my startup with my own funding, and it causes me to be very responsible with spending. Finding PMF is the most mysterious thing I have e…
Booting up startup (even the startup needs to be started, it doesn't start by itself) is a constant struggle. Almost every simple and basic sounding action/operation/step causes heavy reaction/resistance by the reality. The reality just doesn't want you to succeed. I am lucky to run my startup with my own funding, and it causes me to be very responsible with spending. Finding PMF is the most mysterious thing I have e…
PMF is usually the tricky one. You should focus and talk the people you are trying to sell your product to even before you build anything. Starts with asking and identifying if they even have a problem you are trying to solve, how are they solving it today, is it even important to them … You can get sooooo much info just by talking to you potential customers, users … And, it’s really mind-boggling how few startup fou…
And now in the "post-AI" reality, trusting anything people sell is hard.
My other issue is that it is just me sitting at my home office working. I don't really have anyone that I can talk to. I started this venture after I took a sabbatical from work, so everyone IRL just thinks I'm unemployed farting around the house all day. Whereas I am working 6 days a week, I'm just not getting paid. I have tried to join some online communities, but there are just people stumping for their own start ups. I am considering joining a coworking space next year that is geared toward startups. The problem is that is also expensive, especially considering that next year I have to pay full freight on my health insurance.
Right now I am living off my investments. I have done well this year, but like others I am starting to be concerned that we might be in a bubble. I am pretty conservatively invested, but it would suck to have a prolonged 20 or 30% draw back.
I really need to bring on a cofounder to help with business development. Though I have to find someone willing to work for equity only as I don't have enough cash to pay them a salary.
So I guess you could say money is one of my biggest struggles.
I've had trouble finding case studies of B2B development deals. My past experience includes lots of milestone-based development as a contracted solo dev. Now, I'm bootstrapping (in stealth) a B2B service with 3 employees. The basic service exists. To continue funding, I can get VC investment, or I can get business customers to pay up-front development costs, to customize to their use case. Let's say for a normal cust…
My biggest issue at the moment is that development of the MVP is taking way longer than I had initially thought. It's just me working on it and it has turned into a real grind. I am just so ready to get this done. I could hire contractors, but quality contractors are expensive and cheap ones don't deliver quality. Either way I would be burning runway and I'd rather save my money for later. My other issue is that it i…