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We have a funded startup but no product

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: We have a funded startup but no product

#11

Post by mratzloff »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

Take a long weekend, go get drunk, walk along a beach, climb a hill. Don't touch a laptop or a iphone till Monday. On monday, walk into the room with all your team, and brainstorm. They will have ideas. You will have ideas. Some you might like. By Lunchtime Monday, choose one and run with it. Get the 'enter your email' site up by Monday 9pm, and post a link here. Here is one for free. : Dealer app. You 'throw' yout i…

Don't brainstorm. Have everyone take 30-60 minutes and quietly write down a list of ideas that they have. Then get together and go over those lists.

Brainstorming will only limit the ideas that you come up with.

Re: We have a funded startup but no product

#12

Post by danielfrese »

debacle wrote: post #9
danielfrese wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wanted to make spontaneous meetups happen. However, our real world is not made for spontaneous meetups. You have to spam about 70 people to find some people to meet spontaneously. And if you only have 10 friends near you, chances are not good that a spontaneous meetup will happen.

Yes that is tough. Maybe you could create a kickstarter for meetups? Someone can schedule a meetup, and depending on how many people sign up the meetup either does or doesn't happen? It's very hard for my local subreddit to schedule meetups, but if people could just throw out dates then it would be much easier. I'm not sure what the monetization strategy would be, though.

We thought about that. We wanted to make people define a minimum number of attendees. But that's more of a feature, not a product.

Re: We have a funded startup but no product

#17

Post by teachef »

I've been told by a lot of people in my most recent round of fundraising that a successful start is comprised of: 50% Market, 45% Team, 5% Concept

So, you need to find a Market and Concept. There are a lot of people with great ideas that need teams for execution. I have a series of ongoing projects that I could plug-and-play a good team into.

Questions include: 1. How do you find the people with the great ideas? 2. How do you structure the deal? You have taken funding already and are beholden to your existing stakeholders?

My answers: 1. Finding Ideas: Hacker News is a good start. Also, you can act as a contractor-service company and see which projects may be good long-term fits for you. Try finding these online (odesk/elance) or offline (Berlin has a burgeoning tech scene looking for CTOs). 2. Corporate Structure: You need to be very communicative with your existing stakeholders. Being proactive is essential in your pivot. Then, be realistic when it comes to the deal: Start with milestones are are achievable, and move your stake up through performance.

Time is of the essence! You want to keep your momentum moving forward.

Re: We have a funded startup but no product

#18

Post by nopassrecover »

danielfrese wrote: post #6
debacle wrote: post #4

Why did your old idea die, if you don't mind me asking?

We wanted to make spontaneous meetups happen. However, our real world is not made for spontaneous meetups. You have to spam about 70 people to find some people to meet spontaneously. And if you only have 10 friends near you, chances are not good that a spontaneous meetup will happen.

Few rhetorical questions:

* I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that customer-driven development is key, so who were you building this for and why were they interested?

* What are they doing to solve their problem at the moment and how is your solution better?

* What evidence did you have that this was a good idea?

* What evidence do you have now that this is a bad idea?

* Why does it have to be friends - can you facilitate spontaneous meetups with strangers (ideally with similar interests and values)?

* Why does it have to be spontaneous - could it connect people who will agree to meet [sometime today/this week/by the end of month]?

* Why do you "spam" people - why not have people collectively opt-in with a "I'm free" marker (with various [free to anyone|free to friends])? Bonus points if you can align calendars to suggest a free time (why Google doesn't do this I'm not sure).

* Is "spontaneous meetups" the right way to sell the idea? What about [coffee-with-interesting-people/speed-dating-in-your-lunch-hour/try-something-new-every-week/never-eat-alone-again/get-fit-with-strangers]?

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