What do you give friends & family investors in exchange for money?
Newbie fundraising question. What, in plain terms, do you typically give friends & family who want to give you money toward your startup. It seems like…
How important is your domain name when launching?
With the lack of good domain names left, especially when bootstrapping a startup. From your experiences, success or failure, how important was the domain…
Need help figuring out all equity / no cash allocation for employee #1 working p/t
I have a startup that I’ve been developing for about 5 years in my small amounts of spare time, and I have lots of interest from people in my field, and a…
Can I assure my idea won’t be stolen (without a patent)?
First of all, I will say that I am a student, and as such, I can’t afford the time or the money to create a patent on my idea, which is not fully original…
Should I increase my product prices?
I have built a clothing brand and community over the last 4-5 years. My demographic just happened to fall into the ages of 13-18. Over the years I’ve had…
Is 34 too late to start coding? Also, is it better to learn Ruby, or to learn to make apps (iOS?)
Overwhelmed: looking for a mentor
I am an entrepreneur based in Gaborone, Botswana (Yes in Africa). I have only recently found this website and it has been a Godsend. I didn’t know that as…
What are good ways to test whether people really buy into an idea before working together?
I have found some people that have expressed interest in working on an idea together, but how can I know whether they are really serious about it? Is…
Starting up with a friend, a disaster?
Recently read this advice: never start up with friends or family. It will never end well. Now that makes me paranoid because I’ve started up with a friend…
Co-founders on different sides
So I have 2 other co-founders. We started a company (online) and have bootstrapped it the whole way. At first it was a side project/hobby and gave us a…
Where should I begin searching for a technical cofounder?
Our social app company is in the process of developing our MVP, but we have had to outsource all development. Our core team members have marketing and PR…
Do Founders Contact Brands to Partner With Them?
Serious question, since I honestly don’t know. Do founders who work with brands, banks, fashion items, etc, actually contact the brands to ask if they…
A competitor buyout of our ‘talent’ vs our ‘product’. How much $$?
We are three female founders in fashion. I say that first because we’re proud and there should be more of us. I am in tech, another is in…
Should I Return Our Investment Money?
Our company is dead. The team has been disbanded and have received placement/salary elsewhere. I’ve devoted the past few years of my life to this…
I am not interested in what we do anymore.
After setting up the company in 2009, things weren’t working that well, none of us were totally committed. A year and a half ago, we got a big customer…
My MVP is TOO good and out of money to make it bad.
In 2007 I had an idea for a social network. It took until 2012 to get it planned out, minimally invested and a MVP was launched and is live. On the…
Limit the equity that I give away in Angel round
In a seed funding round, how can you limit the equity that you give away? I know that it is a debt which will convert to equity. I want to be careful that…
How can i stop letting peoples opinions effect me and then sabotage my success?
I am 21, from 10th grade to now I have tried and failed in 3 business. Every business failed because so many people put me down about the business and…
Should the investor pay my salary retroactively?
Is it reasonable to ask an investor to cover the cost of my time in the company (1 year)? So If I’m asking for $800k, I would ask for $200k…? If not, what…
Where can I connect with a mentor / solid consultant to help guide us through growth and funding?
I’m the CEO of a fast growing company that is a little over one-year-old. We have grown from 4 employee’s to around 175. We funded through friends and…
High attrition – Delivery personnel
We have a startup which focuses on home delivery. For the past six months I have been trying to hire atleast one delivery executive who would help me with…
Have you worked as a consultant at the same time as your startup?
I often hear/read that one way of making ends meet when you’re just starting on your startup is to work as a consultant. Is this true? Any positive or…
6 months at startup and I just got my option agreement, can I still file a 83b election?
My stocks were “granted” unbeknownst to me 5 months ago, I just received the agreement from our HR department. We’re a Series B startup, can I still file…
How do I go about finding/letting potential investors know about my Billion Dollar website idea?
In particular, how do i get someone interested, without giving away the farm? NDA’s don’t seem to be worth that much, though you need one to start with.…
What were your exercise prices at your last startup? What funding round/ipo?
What are the metrics behind exercise price + value of the startup (10M, 100M, 1B+ value)?
Are growth hacked users worth anything?
The internet is full of stories of how this and that startup “growth hacked” tens if not hundreds of thousands of user signups in days and weeks. For…
Starting new business, how do I find funding and get over the “fear”?
I’m currently running a small business and it’s been a roller-coaster of traction and decline for 5 years. Honestly it’s not what I want to do the rest of…
I’m no longer in love with my idea, but I don’t know why.
It is like I had lost interest in the problem I wanted to solve. Maybe it doesn’t really exist. I think there are 4 possible reasons I don’t want to…
No co-founder. What should I do?
Few months ago, I quit my job and started to work on prototyping an idea for a web app. Currently, I am thinking of applying for some startup incubators,…
Pitching VC as the only remaining founder?
This has been a big issue for me and not sure how to tackle it. I started my venture with two other co-founders but within the first few months they were…