#StartupAdvice #FundingStruggles #FirstTimeFounder
Hey fellow entrepreneurs! 👋 I’m in a bit of a pickle and could really use some advice from those who have been in my shoes before. Here’s my current situation:
– My users are willing to pay for my product if it was just a little bit better 💸
– I need funding to build a better product, but investors want to see some sales and product maturity before they’re willing to invest 📈
– It’s tough being a first-time startup founder with no impressive background. How am I supposed to break this cycle and get the funding I need?
Any tips or advice you can share with me? I’m all ears and ready to take action! 🚀
One possible solution I’m considering is:
– Focus on increasing sales and improving the product with the resources I have available
– Look for alternative funding options such as bootstrapping, crowdfunding, or grants to help bridge the gap
– Network with other entrepreneurs and industry professionals to gain insights and potentially find a mentor who can guide me through this challenging phase
Have you been through a similar situation? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on how to navigate this tricky funding landscape as a first-time founder. Let’s help each other succeed! 💪 #EntrepreneurialJourney #ResourcefulFounder
+1
What are you building?
Are the customers just saying they will pay or are they actually willing to do a down payment or advance? If you can get advance payments by several customers you can either build the actual product (depending on the amount you received and the pricing) or go back to potential investors showing them you have paying customers.
Maybe using something like kickstarter might help . I’m not sure though since I never used it but in your case , it could work.
You need to pay your developers before they will work on the improvements? I assume you’ve been working on the product in the past, why do you need investment to continue doing that?
Funding is not going to solve anything, infact it’ll make it worse by investors pressuring you even more.
How many users are using and how many are ready to pay if you improve? You can’t go by just few ppl’s request.
If you are the one building the app then what is stopping you from improving it? If you aren’t building it, then perhaps you need to look at bringing on a technical cofounder who can. Find the right person, give them cofounder type equity, bootstrap until you’re in a position to make a decision on the next move.
Get the users to sign a preorder form. If they don’t even want to do that, they are not in real pain of the problem and won’t pay you.
From your comments you are based out of India, a place where venture money is hard to find. But the best part is that you can find engineers for cheap but scams are a huge part of such economy. I recommend if your clients are interested in better features sign a letter of intent that if you build those features client will buy it. Once signed go hire a software engineer and build the product, tell them they get 20% of the money on each product development milestone.
You’ve got to solve a problem so bothersome that customers are willing to pay you upfront for just a chance that you’ll be able to build a better product. If they’re not willing to pay you before the product is offered, then perhaps the proposed solution isn’t so useful that it’s worth building.
Everyone’s right on the money: Build MVP designs, a demo video based on the customer feedback. Get your customers to pay you via a pre-order. If no one wants to pay anything, then they weren’t likely to buy when it was actually completed.
either build your self (using no code or chatGpt or something) or pre-sale, at least a refundable deposit.
just to make sure they are series. If they don’t they are not that serious tbh.
You can apply to Google, they offer AI based start-ups up to $250k of hosting and infrastructure credits. That sounds like it will be of huge help to you