[odonnellryan]

Read a lot of comments here, and I don't know what's with the idea that you need $1,000,000 to fund a startup.

Most of these startups could have the operating costs of the following:

1) $100/mo good, solid servers 2) $500/mo freelance illustrators and designers (if that) 3) Time of the founder (if he's a programmer)

I know because I've made plenty of web apps for that. The difference is the programmer's time was mine, so I got paid.

[howareroark]

From what I understand, a million is what you need to get you an "industry presence" that creates a gravitational effect. Where in you prompt people to join you vs competing with you.

5k-20k investments almost seem silly... Why not just bootstrap it yourself?

[odonnellryan]

Not everyone has that opportunity. Not everyone has rich friends or family. Some people have expenses they cannot control.

You don't know everyone's situation, why do you assume to?

Later on, sure, you'll have to raise more money. Immediately, even $1k can help you a lot depending on your situation...

Why not let the market take care of it?

[vinceguidry]

If you're in a rough spot, starting a company isn't likely to help out much. You're far better off building a career and getting stable first.

If you have to start a company instead of getting a job for some reason, a tech startup isn't the best choice for immediate cash flow. Particularly one that requires investment to get off the ground.

There are knowledge, skills, and savviness gaps to bridge, unless you're a serial entrepreneur, you won't have done this when you start. You need the stability to weather through the failures caused by those gaps.

If you're a developer, you need time to understand the business world and the business mindset. Alternatively, you can find someone who does, but in that case you need to be able to properly vet business cofounders. You also need to have the social skills to not blow up the relationship.

Asking an investor to fund you while you learn these lessons is unreasonable. He has no clue how long it's going to take. If you approach one with an idea, he is going to be looking at you as much as the idea, and they see dozens of hopefuls just like you every day.

[david927]

That's a lot of reasoning but little insight. Very few people have 20k cash to spend, world-wide. Some of them might have true innovation in their pockets.

The problem is, an investor needs these people more than the other way around. There this general pretense that when you're funded you've been blessed by 'angels', but they need the big hit more than you do. And yet, they won't budge. They refuse to see that it's a two-way relationship and so everyone loses.

In other words, we don't have the innovation we all want partly because we are so bad at figuring out how to connect funding to innovation. Currently, we use inane heuristics, ego and bankrupt intuition -- and it's not working.

[howareroark]

I'm not sure 'true innovation' is what investors are looking for though. I mean that's what they say because it 'sounds right'. In reality they want to create a buzz and draw attention to something. I do agree that they need people, but the good ones make sure they have the right network.

I think what they do is entirely based upon intuition and ego. If it was just about making sure that things 'add up' a computer could do it and banks would make big bucks. They need to be sure that the idea really can be big in society, and that the founder is the type of person who will drive it there.

[howareroark]

I totally agree with what you are saying right now. Didn't mean to seem like I was assuming that everyone has money, I know that is not the case. More-so that if you just need 5k-20k to get things off the ground... I don't think a VC is who you turn to. Especially in an extremely public setting like that with your heart on your sleeve.

I just think this site/concept is a gimmick designed to rise up hacker news/twitter and attract attention to this particular VC. Sort of like... "look at me other VCs and real opportunities". The videos are basically displaying... "Look how much of an ace investor I am, come to me on the side with legit stuff please and I can help you out."

Mainly because investing is about hype as much as anything else. From a VC point of view: If an idea is not worth 1 million right now ... how could it ever be worth a billion? How could it ever attract the market?

[morgante]

If you're a developer, you shouldn't need rich friends or family to save up a $20k investment for yourself.

[odonnellryan]

That's not true in all circumstances.

There are many amazing developers who have mental problems, or other disabilities, that prevent them from working full time.

Nothing is wrong with these people. Some of them are even on government disability. They essentially have no money.

Are they or their ideas worthless?