So, you’re a startup? Then I’m 99.9% sure you’ve already answered these 2 simple questions
So you fancy yourself a startup? Great, you’re an entrepreneur who knows that to raise enough money you have to find the right type of funding, because it’s not like you think a VC will land in your lap office and give you $5 million for your first round, is it?
Oh, and you know you’ll get to know that particular VC or his friend the CEO of your potential partner firm thanks to the right mentor you’ve gotten on board already. Piece of cake, but lets just make sure these simple, funny questions are answers as a sort of a game. Fun, eh?
How to Get Money?
Ah, you want to have the time and people to get your startup on the right food. You’ll need some money. After you’ve, as you have now, used up all your sweat, blood and extra hours after work it might be time to go nuclear: open a company and get the project on track.
For that and other expenses you’ll probably need money, but thankfully you’ve taken care of that little problem by knowing the right path on getting investments. First of all, you went to a dozen startup events through the last year or two and now you know at least 2 dozen people interested in startups. You contacted them and one of them agreed to be an angel investor.
Why? Well, since your startup is only getting on track it doesn’t yet need the millions of dollars needed to grow it. It’s not in the “growth” phase – it’s still being built. You might even have bootstrapped the project, a valid alternative to getting an outside investment at all. So you tried to bootstrap, gotten an angel investor and now you have the right people to get introduced to a VC if and when needed. Child’s play.
How to Get People/Companies to Use Your Product?
Because you have to sell the project, right? It’s not like your definition of a business cofounder is someone who’ll spam Twitter and Facebook on your behalf, right? Their job is to register that great .me domain name you want to get… It’s not like someone should be trying to sell your solution to customers. Talking to the media. Thinking on how to sell the damn thing.
Got you there! You almost thought I didn’t know your team has a business person as well as a developer. The business person actually has some experience and has read up on startups. He or she reads Noah Kagan’s blog and talks to all the people you need to get on board, from bloggers to potential investors. The project is not only getting developed, it’s getting created as a company.
Ah, thankfully, you’re a startup – you knew all this already.
