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How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

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How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#1
I live in Denver, CO. I get most of my tech news from YCombinator and like the comments. I want to start a scalable company. I have little domain knowledge other than registering a company in my state, freelancing , and paying taxes as a business.

it looks like YCombinator is for seed funding, and its a turnkey solution that may or may not work, but its a major dependency, and so is moving to San Francisco.

Bootstrapping my company would make an efficient small POC/MVP of a business, but scaling is harder without investors.

I'm just scouting at this point. Suggestions/beneficial critiques would be helpful. Thank you.

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#5
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the start , yes. What are my other options ?

(I guess I could google for a few hours to find out, help on this would also be appreciated)

https://www.builtincolorado.com/guides/accelerators-incubato... >> this looks promising

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#6
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the start , yes. What are my other options ?

(I guess I could google for a few hours to find out, help on this would also be appreciated)

I was thinking about the whole process. I could make a freelance software guild, but no one would want to join that (I wouldn't due to sketchiness/no-pay) ,maybe I could have a low retainer for developers to be on standby (like lawyers) and save a certain number of hours per month for when work floods in. Retaining developers would be a bit of fun -like a club of sorts or a guild. I'm not sure what the rates or sustaining would go (I'll pay you X money to do nothing until I need you). it would certainly build communication to an extent if it was a 2 week check in.

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#7
Getting funded through YCombinator is not a major dependency, nor is moving to San Francisco. There are benefits to both, but they are by no means required.

Don't worry about premature optimization and how you are going to scale your business with or without investors. Build that MVP and see if you're building something worthwhile. If you are and can demonstrate that people are actually interested you shouldn't have a hard time finding someone interested in investing.

The most useful advice I can say is just start. Learn as you go.

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#8
"but scaling is harder without investors"

Walk before you can run. Forget about Scaling right now. Forget about it. Did I say forget about it yet ? Unless you have a past track record or a very rich dad/uncle. Even then, forget about it.

So yea, Bootstrap. It is easy these days to bootstrap a software company if you can code. Focus on getting your first 10 customers. Period. Do everything manually. Learn to sell. Don't automate. Learn from it and keep trying to figure out Product/Market Fit. Can you definitely answer what your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) is yet ? Once you have figured that out, you can then think about scaling. This generally doesn't happen until at least 10K MRR or more in my humble opinion.

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#9
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I guess I could google for a few hours to find out, help on this would also be appreciated)

I was thinking about the whole process. I could make a freelance software guild, but no one would want to join that (I wouldn't due to sketchiness/no-pay) ,maybe I could have a low retainer for developers to be on standby (like lawyers) and save a certain number of hours per month for when work floods in. Retaining developers would be a bit of fun -like a club of sorts or a guild. I'm not sure what the rates or susta…

I think the prevailing advice in this thread will be to worry about finding the work, and only worry about finding developers once the "work floods in".

Re: How do I found a company without YCombinator seed money or SF move?

#10
First, you don't need to have a company initially. A company, like any other asset, is a first and foremost a liability (time/money/focus). You can legally perform almost any work as a sole trader with your personal name in most jurisdictions. Do that first. There is no legal reason you can't later assign the IP/assets to a company, when that makes sense.

Second, realise that you may fail and that the journey may take far longer than you hope. Therefore, make sure you have adequate resources. If you are highly motivated, it can be a good move to maintain another income while you work on the idea. If you are lucky enough to have a supporting partner, friend or family member that may similarly help. That way there is a lot less stress as you are unlikely to run dry.

Also keep in mind there are numerous viable sources non-equity based financing. These include commercial bank loans and trade financing (accessible once you are cashflow positive, but if you do this you probably want to register a company ASAP), vendor financing (deferred payment plans on anything you buy for the business from the seller), non-secured loans (credit cards, etc.), crowd funding, etc. All have their drawbacks, but none are ultimately as expensive as equity based financing (the worst option) if you do eventually reach scale.

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