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HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

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Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#141
Hi Michael and Aaron,

For first time entrepreneurs creating an early stage startup, it can be very expensive to incorporate and do all the IP and necessary legal things to form the corporation. I made the mistake of incorporating in Texas and just recently formed in Delaware. I looked at Clerky, but their service seems costly as well.

Do you know of anyone who does low cost legal advice for early stage startups?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#142
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far the FB CPC hovers around $0.70. We need >200 users per flight booking. A hotel booking has not been made through our platform yet. Not much data has been collected though, seeing as we've only been live for 2 weeks. It might be important to note that, at this point, we're not so much interested in how much we make from the actual booking as much as we're interested in the conversion rate itself. We use the Exp…

Taking a look at the product here are a couple thoughts 1) You push me onto a landing page instead of right into the product - why? 2) The initial form you ask me to fill out is a bit intimidating - perhaps it can be broken up a bit 3) On the results page - its unclear at first what I'm supposed to click on - and you dont tell me anything about the flight or the hotel you've chosen for me 4) Results page loads slowly…

Appreciate the feedback. We've planned to push an update next week addressing most of your points (esp. #3,#5 & #6).

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#143
Hi Michael and Aaron,

For first time entrepreneurs creating an early stage startup, it can be very expensive to incorporate and do all the IP and necessary legal things to form the corporation. I made the mistake of incorporating in Texas and just recently formed in Delaware. I looked at Clerky, but their service seems costly as well.

Do you know of anyone who does low cost legal advice for early stage startups?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you grown to other states?

We have at least a small user base in every state, and also a small user base amongst students who started with us and went on to be accepted into universities and colleges, but to date we haven't invested significant time or effort into growing either. We've been too focused on trying to work out what the business model will be at the end of the day. Would you recommend a different approach?

I think you either need to grow the user base significantly or figure out how to increase revenue. Based on what you said, it sounds like you need to do the first now, because you've tried all the revenue paths.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#145

Hi Michael + Aaron, We're building a smarter way to share product updates ( https://productmap.co ). So far we've received a great amount of interest (waitlist) and have users already integrated that are coming back over and over. The next steps would be to build out some of the feature requests as it's fairly early right now. One of those requests is having custom domains and users are happy to pay $10-$20/mo for it…

Why do you believe charging for domains would be self limiting?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#146
Hi Michel and Aaron,

2 friends and I started an infrastructure inspection automation software company. We have 1 big customer.

2 out of 3 of us see big potential in expanding the software and customer base. The 3rd has very little drive and wants to milk our 1 big customer for every penny. We but heads every time we discuss anything.

When we started the company we split the equity 1/3 each(big regrets).

Suggestions on how to move forward?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#147

Hi Michael and Aaron, For first time entrepreneurs creating an early stage startup, it can be very expensive to incorporate and do all the IP and necessary legal things to form the corporation. I made the mistake of incorporating in Texas and just recently formed in Delaware. I looked at Clerky, but their service seems costly as well. Do you know of anyone who does low cost legal advice for early stage startups?

Clerky is probably the best bet here - looks like they will do it for $400 all in

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#148

Hi Michael + Aaron, We're building a smarter way to share product updates ( https://productmap.co ). So far we've received a great amount of interest (waitlist) and have users already integrated that are coming back over and over. The next steps would be to build out some of the feature requests as it's fairly early right now. One of those requests is having custom domains and users are happy to pay $10-$20/mo for it…

Why do you believe charging for domains would be self limiting?

Users won't be able to use the product for what it's intended value is (better feedback and communication) if they're turned away so early.

Better put, a custom domain isn't part of the value we add, it's just a gateway to realize the value. Should we be charging for something that's not really tied to the value we provide?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#149

Hi Michel and Aaron, 2 friends and I started an infrastructure inspection automation software company. We have 1 big customer. 2 out of 3 of us see big potential in expanding the software and customer base. The 3rd has very little drive and wants to milk our 1 big customer for every penny. We but heads every time we discuss anything. When we started the company we split the equity 1/3 each(big regrets). Suggestions o…

How is the board organized and is there a vesting schedule?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you done to increase your user base? How have you measured your experiments? What do your users say when you talk to them?

1) Initially, we sold "pastries for catering" to very small size start ups in our area. With the money we generated from the sales, we built the first prototypes that we used to deliver the pastries we promised. And when we delivered to these small companies, we explained to the employees (who really liked the pastries they had) how they can do it at home. We closed our first (3) sales like that. 2) Then, we spent a…

We have decided to change our landing page. We thought maybe there is a disconnect between how people perceive us (kids, toys) and what we'd like to be (high end)
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