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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

#151

Post by jamesk_au »

akharris wrote: post #144
jamesk_au wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks very much for your time and consideration, Aaron—this has been helpful.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#152

Post by source99 »

mwseibel wrote: post #149
source99 wrote: post #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 o…

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

There is nothing more than a handshake. No vesting schedule. 1 LLC.

We have been close friends for 20 years.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#153

Post by mwseibel »

fananta wrote: post #148
mwseibel wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why would custom domains turn users away?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#154

Post by akharris »

alantrrs wrote: post #136

I'm building a platform for scientists to run and share their experiments (anything computable) including their whole research environment. Since experiments usually require specialized expensive hardware (like GPUs), I'm thinking about ways to make this affordable to individuals and academia. I'm planning a few modalities for experiments to run: 1) on their localhost (targeted towards individuals) 2) on the cloud (t…

I'm not one of your target users but...When you start a company, the optimal launch order is usually the one that gets you actual users. You can figure out the rest later.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#155

Post by tyre »

mwseibel wrote: post #112
tyre wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) When someone calls into a local government department (elected official, public works, utilities, parks & rec), the staff needs a centralized system to track their issue, collaborate with everyone who can help solve it, and identify important issues across the municipality. 2) Bottoms up: $3bn in ARR as our pricing stands today, (90k gov * 15 depts/gov * 5 users/dept * $480ARR/user). Our customers keep saying our…

1) That is a better description - although I feel like this only describes a small set of things that a government does - is this just for constituent services? Is that a small or big part of the day to day work of a local government? 2) cool 3) cool 4) very cool 5) cool 7) Good RE: YC - you guys should apply - email me at michael@ycombinator.com - this is a space I'm very interested in (I'm a poli sci major) and I t…

1) Constituent services are at the heart of every local government and the data surrounding them are its vital signs.

From an operations (top-down) perspective, constituent services tell you which departments are living up to their civic mandate. Think CSAT and NPS in SaaS companies — two metrics that predict retention and growth, that measure how you're doing and customers' faith in your future.

If, bottoms-up, you want to drive democratic decision making with real data, look at the hundreds of millions of interactions constituents have with their local government. It's only by improving the day-to-day that governments get a high-level view of what structural changes need to be made.

The product focus of Romulus is on those day-to-day users right now, but it's really the level above — the chiefs of staff, elected officials, city managers — that love the potential.

YC) Will do. As a philosophy major, I'm glad to see more liberal arts around here.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#156

Post by margeypargey »

Hi Michael and Aaron. Just a curious general entrepreneur question. If you had to name one uncommonly known success factor beyond the standard-fare hard work, baseline intelligence, persistence etc., that you immediately look for in other successful entrepreneurs, what would that be?

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#157

Post by kartikkumar »

akharris wrote: post #128
kartikkumar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea that's essentially the path that we're trying to take. We are logging all the search queries for which we don't have product listings and aggregating that to show to suppliers. We actually switched from the idea of charging users to charging suppliers because a bunch of suppliers told us directly that they'd pay us a 10-15% provision for every sale we bring them. I've asked the suppliers I've directly spoken with…

Sounds like you did answer it yourself, which is awesome. I actually like your approach of aggregating and sending it out to the suppliers. You could send it to all of them and tell them they have a limited time to respond, and then creating a ranking system based on who is best at meeting customer demands. That way, you have a preferred list that gets more business by virtue of the fact that they're better. That's f…

That's interesting! Ok so I'm guessing this is the crux of the "do things that don't scale" mantra. Thanks!

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#158

Post by akharris »

source99 wrote: post #152
mwseibel wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is nothing more than a handshake. No vesting schedule. 1 LLC. We have been close friends for 20 years.

Sounds like it is time for the three of you to have an honest conversation about what you each want and whether or not you should be working together on a startup.

Hopefully like you've been friends long enough to get through the pain to the right answer and keep your friendship.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#159

Post by fananta »

mwseibel wrote: post #153
fananta wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why would custom domains turn users away?

Ex. A user wants to try it out but paying for a custom domain scares them. They stick to a free subdomain, but never really promote it since it conflicts with their own branding.

Admittedly you're making a good point here that users _would_ get more value this way through increased branding.

Re: HN Office Hours with Michael Seibel and Aaron Harris

#160

Post by mwseibel »

margeypargey wrote: post #156

Hi Michael and Aaron. Just a curious general entrepreneur question. If you had to name one uncommonly known success factor beyond the standard-fare hard work, baseline intelligence, persistence etc., that you immediately look for in other successful entrepreneurs, what would that be?

Can they clearly communicate what they are working on in 2 sentences in a way that any parent would understand? Do they believe the measurement and testing?
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