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My Startup has 30 Days to Live

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Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#41

Post by random42 »

> I really love my co-founder. It’s an enduring bromance that will last a lifetime. He’s a talented designer, supportive listener and I trust him entirely. However, he left me alone in the cold. He didn’t mean to do this, he didn’t even realize he did. I became the guy who would “do-it-all”. Biz Dev, check. Product Management, check. Support, check. Accounting, check. PR, check. Ad Copy, check. Development Lead, check. While he took complete ownership over design (and really excelling at it).

Communicate. communicate! Cofounder relationship is like any other and communication matters. a lot. You will get tired, feel low and discouraged. you'll have to share it and let one person know who has an outside chance of understanding it and help you out if possible. your co-founder(s).

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#42

Post by mtrimpe »

rcavezza wrote: post #36
greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

You're wrong. A bootstrapped company can grow just as fast as a company that takes VC money.

Yet every bootstrapped company would grow faster if it took (the right kind of) VC money.

(For the record... I'm happily bootstrapping my startup which is a startup as far as I'm concerned. I'd call startups that rely on VC funding "VC startups.")

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#43

Post by senthilnayagam »

hidingmyname wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

Pivoted, pivoted, then pivoted again. The other founders can't stand any more and don't want to "give up" on the latest baby. At this point, I'm running out of options and have a dev team that I can't afford to pay for much longer.

dont lose hope

talk to your potential customers and competitors , your IP can be complimentary to someone or if your team is good you can get acquihired for sure

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#44

Post by marcelftw »

> "The day we set foot into the doors of the accelerator, we had a business that DHH would be proud of"

DHH is well known for being against investors in general. Why would he be proud ?

My point of view on this : investors are OK while the funder(s) have more than 51% share, and therefore still making the decisions. You kind of sell your thing to satan here brother, you shouldn't have. You are not in charge of what you put so much work building, from scratch. People with money come here and change your view on the business, on your values ?

Also, I feel you don't talk enough to your co-funder(s). You should not have secrets, work-wise of course.

A bit of advice, if I may : at my startup (in which I'm associate, not funder), we make a scrum retrospective meeting every now and then (2-3 weeks). In these meetings every member of the team explains : 1/ what we should do more 2/ what we should do less 3/ what we should do the same (SAME !) 4/ what they have found frustrating 5/ what they are happy about 6/ any questions I feel this is really important so that every one is happy. It takes courage to explain all this in front of people, but it builds up the team...

Anyway, good luck brother.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#45

Post by bsenftner »

mtrimpe wrote: post #42
rcavezza wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. A bootstrapped company can grow just as fast as a company that takes VC money.

Yet every bootstrapped company would grow faster if it took (the right kind of) VC money. (For the record... I'm happily bootstrapping my startup which is a startup as far as I'm concerned. I'd call startups that rely on VC funding "VC startups.")

That is the untrue statement of the decade. In my experience, VC and angels are little more than lucky, but deluded to believe otherwise. Or corrupt, and using you to hide their activities.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#46

Post by jt2190 »

hidingmyname wrote: post #20
crabasa wrote: post #13

Could the OP chime in as to why he is writing and publishing this blog? It appears to be a cautionary tale, but I'm not sure what anyone can learn when all the particulars are removed. Why not just write a retrospective after the next 30 days?

Not a cautionary tale, just a blog to vent my frustrations and record the experience. I'm not in a position to give "advice" nor do I suggest anyone follows "advice". If you're a new founder and about to get on the VC train, through the accelerator and out again at light speed, it's good to know that this is one way it can all end up. (Nobody really speaks about it anyhow)

Here are some lessons I'm taking away from this article:

  > ... our initial desire to not raise a seed round was 
  > dismissed and we were thoroughly convinced that we had 
  > to continue on the VC rocket-ship in order to matter to 
  > anyone. My reluctance to do this was met by scoffs and 
  > dismissals from many others in the accelerator cohort...
  >  as well as by the mentors and investors who had offered 
  > their time, network and resources to help us succeed.
Lesson: VCs want founders to take larger risks with their company for the reward of a larger payoff. If the founders don't want to "bet the farm" like this, then they probably shouldn't be seeking out VC money, or at least wait until they're profitable enough to have a lot more negotiating leverage.

  > I didn’t believe the shit I was selling investors. This 
  > was not the company I put my life on the line to build.
Lesson: Founders have to push back on their investors when the investors don't understand the full ramifications of what they're asking the company to do. First-time founders often fail to push back because the investor/advisor line is blurry.

  > When I built this team, I didn’t build it with 
  > generalists and with people who could jump into any 
  > area of the business and get shit done. Instead, I built 
  > it with quality-minded perfectionists who build 
  > beautiful things.
Lesson: The founding team has to build two things: The product and the company that builds the product. Find people who can do both.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#47

Post by mtrimpe »

bsenftner wrote: post #45
mtrimpe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet every bootstrapped company would grow faster if it took (the right kind of) VC money. (For the record... I'm happily bootstrapping my startup which is a startup as far as I'm concerned. I'd call startups that rely on VC funding "VC startups.")

That is the untrue statement of the decade. In my experience, VC and angels are little more than lucky, but deluded to believe otherwise. Or corrupt, and using you to hide their activities.

By "right kind of" I meant to exclude the ones you're referring to.

In general I'd find it hard to believe having more resources available reduces your growth rate.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#49

Post by greghinch »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #39
greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

I would call any new business a startup, but call the VC-driven, exponential-growth-seeking model "growth startup". I think you make a great point, but out of curiosity, what do you suggest are the best avenues for funding a tech business in the more traditional revenue-driven-growth model, if you're not bringing enough seed capital to get off the ground on your own? It seems like what's missing is an accessible happ…

There are a couple options, but the traditional small business route was a bank loan. These are obviously harder to get now, but still not impossible.

The right private investor/angel is also a good route. This should essentially be someone who wants to join you in the business, not someone who is looking for a specific return timeline on their investment. That's a big differentiator between a good angel and a VC.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#50

Post by nhangen »

greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

I don't agree with this because I don't think all bootstrapped businesses have to stay small. The advantage bootstrapping gives you is you can use revenue to find product/market fit, at which point you can start scaling. The problem many 'startups' make is they run out of money before getting to that point.
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