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How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

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Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#171

Post by edoceo »

jiofih wrote: post #152
edoceo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've built a few companies. I think it's super valuable to have some on the team who doesn't give shit at all about the tech and only cares about a) is this the right problem and b) who cares (read: pays). This person helps you focus, forces (if given authority) the tram to focus on "things that move the needle". Devs and designers simply lack that customer-development focus. I think every team would benefit from a q…

Autocomplete just gave away your European origin. > Devs and designers simply lack that customer-development focus That’s an unfair generalization. They will have that focus if imbued on them by the company, and the right motivated hires are made.

Alameda, CA now in Seattle.

Me generalization is made from 20ish years as a dev who's now a CEO and was doing a bunch of hiring along the way.

You said my generalization was unfair, and carved out a narrow exception where it would be great. Maybe proving my point.

Query...does your dev team talk about tooling and stack more than customer feelings?

Is it "ohh react native on k8s" or fix the accounting reports and that one UI bug that tricks users into click the wrong button because some eng forgot to use the UI green constant?

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#172

Post by lmeyerov »

streetcat1 wrote: post #90
chrisgarand wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to consider that most businesses that start in new areas/ try re-defining the market don't have business models, as they are too small to build a model from. Sure they can bootstrap from one idea to the next until something takes hold, but unless it's a new paradigm that is on the cusp, you're many years (think 5+) from attaining a scalable model. The funding is to be able to hire people, and iterate q…

Startups should not create new markets. Too risky. Do what amazon/google does, just with a twist. You dig where the gold is.

That's sad and I disagree - category creation is amazing. Though indeed, I've observed that almost all VC's are indeed against this until it's been handed to them on a silver platter, despite what they may believe about themselves and their firms. So the tricky part is how to fund it over time :)

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#173

Post by AndrewKemendo »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #145
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #59

I empathize completely with this team because my company was in a very similar situation in 2018. We had two very technical computer vision products, had found traction and a growing enterprise user base but revenues didn't grow fast enough and all of the major companies were entering the market. We were lucky enough to find an acquisition off ramp last year but all of the feels are the same. The big takeaway I learn…

Would you say that building technology with the hope of being acquired is probably a bad strategy? It seems to me it should be safer to try to build some kind of product/service using that technology, that way you have at least your product as a revenue channel, and your product can make a business case for the technology you're developing as well (as well as server to increase awareness).

"Serial Founders" with multiple exits seem to do exactly that, but it looks like alchemy to me, and takes a certain type of person to do it.

In the ~13 years I've been doing startups I've only run into a few of these people who can pretty consistently build companies for acquisition, and I'm not really sure if it's just survivor bias in a growth market or they really have some secret formula.

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#174

Post by mikekchar »

melvinroest wrote: post #128
AchieveLife wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe I'm being naïve here, but isn't it kind of crazy to raise 3.5M in funds for a business that has no plan but to be acquired by someone else?" That's a sane question. IMO it's the current financial environment that encourages such "leap without looking" strategies. Fear of missing out is huge right now. I know of a startup that received a multi-million valuation and many more million in funding. They don't even…

Well, not everyone does that. I applied to YC with my side project [1] and got rejected. I didn't expect to get in, but if I would have, then I would be full-time on it. Now I can't, which is a shame. So in that sense, I wish someone would fund me. I have a lot of "doodling the internet" type of ideas. I use digital note taking extensively myself, so I know what's missing. [1] doodledocs.com

I'll give you a hint. You should pivot to a collaborative design app. There are a couple around, but very few that have that "doodle feeling". You should be able to pick up a pen, sketch something quickly and then have someone else be able to modify/review it.

I'll give you another hint. Add shape recognition and move from capturing and storing pen strokes and generating bitmaps to capturing pen strokes and generating shapes. Add rudimentary grouping and ungrouping functionality, ability to move, stretch, rotate, etc. Allow pasting clip art and letting it grow/shrink/rotate when grouped with other objects, but just with a rough scaling, etc -- it doesn't have to look pretty. It's just for sketching things out.

Practically every software/design team needs an application like this and there will be money to pay for it.

P.S. I was on a team that built this as a windows application about 20 years ago, but we were ahead of our time. A SaaS webapp would be the bomb here.

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#175

Post by hgjbhujxgjbv »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #59

I empathize completely with this team because my company was in a very similar situation in 2018. We had two very technical computer vision products, had found traction and a growing enterprise user base but revenues didn't grow fast enough and all of the major companies were entering the market. We were lucky enough to find an acquisition off ramp last year but all of the feels are the same. The big takeaway I learn…

Let me share another aspect, the Chicisimo and their company should go down. The whole idea is terrible, instead diversifying between people, they are streamlining wear and if they succeed everyone will look the same. As happened with pop music after ai generators were involved... some things shouldn't be touched by machine.

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#176

Post by adventured »

asah wrote: post #167
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #59

I empathize completely with this team because my company was in a very similar situation in 2018. We had two very technical computer vision products, had found traction and a growing enterprise user base but revenues didn't grow fast enough and all of the major companies were entering the market. We were lucky enough to find an acquisition off ramp last year but all of the feels are the same. The big takeaway I learn…

Agreed but be cautious in the application and don't get jaded. Microsoft DOS started as a feature of IBM PCs, and Google started as a feature of Yahoo. Like "tech in search of a problem" IMHO "feature vs product vs company" needs to be applied case by case.

> and Google started as a feature of Yahoo.

The DOS point is correct in spirit. Google however did not in any regard start as a feature of Yahoo, it was an entirely stand-alone search engine for nearly two years prior to the Yahoo deal. Just one year after launching publicly it was handling several million searches per day directly on their own site. Google had already become very famous, with people going directly to Google's site to use their search engine before Yahoo signed a deal to use them to power their portal search. Just prior to the Yahoo deal, Google was routinely handling 15+ million seaches per day - a large figure at the time.

Here is a Salon article from December 1998 noting Google's superiority and promoting google.com specifically:

https://www.salon.com/1998/12/21/straight_44/

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#177

Post by slowenough »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #59

I empathize completely with this team because my company was in a very similar situation in 2018. We had two very technical computer vision products, had found traction and a growing enterprise user base but revenues didn't grow fast enough and all of the major companies were entering the market. We were lucky enough to find an acquisition off ramp last year but all of the feels are the same. The big takeaway I learn…

A takeaway seems to be: if you're going to use AI in product, let the AI power a whole new type of product, not use it as a feature in an existing one.

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#179

Post by sabalaba »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #59

I empathize completely with this team because my company was in a very similar situation in 2018. We had two very technical computer vision products, had found traction and a growing enterprise user base but revenues didn't grow fast enough and all of the major companies were entering the market. We were lucky enough to find an acquisition off ramp last year but all of the feels are the same. The big takeaway I learn…

I completely agree with all of your points, having built a Face Recognition API in the past at Lambda. If it’s a feature, high willingness to pay customers will just build in house. Low willingness to pay customers will want to use it for free or not enough money to keep the lights on. It’s difficult to build an API business with pure CV/AI/ML for that reason.

I know this is unrelated, but I want to thank you for your work on Kessel Run. It’s inspiring to meet folks in the DOD working hard on making software work for our national defense. I ran into some of your colleagues and was very impressed and excited about that program.

Re: How to proceed when you run out of cash, but you still believe?

#180

Post by hrydgard »

dazhbog wrote: post #87

Haha, that is exactly what is going on with us now. We just launched our first Kickstarter[1] and its not going well. We will go ahead, eat ramen, and pursuit this, and its a HW product. Wish us luck. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pycno/pulse-building-sm...

You need to begin the Kickstarter page with way better examples of problems you can solve.
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