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The Manual-First Startup

viniciusvacanti.com

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Re: The Manual-First Startup

#3

Post by orangethirty »

I'm curious. My understanding of anything-first startups is that you do everything manually to test a market, grow your clientele, and turn a profit. In your post, you mention not being profitable yet, even with the injection of around 7.5 million dollars. As someone who is now used to building businesses that turn a profit before they launch, your situation is interesting. Note that I'm not looking to start a flame war, just genuinely interested.

Re: The Manual-First Startup

#6

Post by vacanti »

orangethirty wrote: post #3

I'm curious. My understanding of anything-first startups is that you do everything manually to test a market, grow your clientele, and turn a profit. In your post, you mention not being profitable yet, even with the injection of around 7.5 million dollars. As someone who is now used to building businesses that turn a profit before they launch, your situation is interesting. Note that I'm not looking to start a flame…

That's a good question. If you can create a startup that's profitable day one, that's great.

But, there are lots of businesses that need a fixed cost base that only turn profitable after millions of users. But, they turn very profitable with tens of millions of users.

If you restrict yourself to just ideas that are profitable day one, that's great though you may miss out on some great ideas.

Re: The Manual-First Startup

#9

Post by kees »

orangethirty wrote: post #3

I'm curious. My understanding of anything-first startups is that you do everything manually to test a market, grow your clientele, and turn a profit. In your post, you mention not being profitable yet, even with the injection of around 7.5 million dollars. As someone who is now used to building businesses that turn a profit before they launch, your situation is interesting. Note that I'm not looking to start a flame…

This business was riding on the wave of Groupon like deal sites.

The start-up was not so much about running a profitable business but about capturing the funding possibilities that came up due to the popularity and profitability of Groupon and its numerous clones.

Re: The Manual-First Startup

#10

Post by orangethirty »

vacanti wrote: post #6
orangethirty wrote: post #3

I'm curious. My understanding of anything-first startups is that you do everything manually to test a market, grow your clientele, and turn a profit. In your post, you mention not being profitable yet, even with the injection of around 7.5 million dollars. As someone who is now used to building businesses that turn a profit before they launch, your situation is interesting. Note that I'm not looking to start a flame…

That's a good question. If you can create a startup that's profitable day one, that's great. But, there are lots of businesses that need a fixed cost base that only turn profitable after millions of users. But, they turn very profitable with tens of millions of users. If you restrict yourself to just ideas that are profitable day one, that's great though you may miss out on some great ideas.

This is the way I see it:

If I have to scale to millions of users then my business plan is not as good as I thought. Why? Because as much as I'd like to think otherwise, tech startups do not produce a tangible product. Unlike automobile manufacturers, or hardware folk, we don't need a lot of money to build something big. All we need are people to write the code. Then we just focus on selling it. For me, a software product that requires millions of users to be profitable, is simply playing the lottery. I can play the lottery for $1 and not have to deal with investors and TC.

Someone might say that I lack experience doing so. Well, not really. I've been there, and done that. Online and offline. Nowdays, to me, its a matter of trying to win the millions lottery, or building something that makes me money without the drama of SV.

I know I'm wrong on various points. If you will, explain.

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