Ask HN: Ok. I have the MVP. I have a small feedback. What is next?

[pavelshtanko]

Hello HN people!

I do have questions (tons of them btw) and I do think that it is the good place to ask.

Got:

1. The idea

2. Two developers

3. The MVP (actually working prototype, to say mo I'm already using it for my own purposes together with my family)

4. A very small feedback (14 guys interested and waiting for the start of the project) after a few posts on the internet boards.

5. All the tech-related things like certificates, scaling, tests, ci\cd, etc (don't really think that it worths mentioning here, but why not...)

6. Vision (don't like this word) of how to scale and apply the idea to different markets and integrate with my current main project (or similar) where I'm working as a developer

Want:

1. Run the prototype and test it in the live-mode.

Problems:

1. This is the side project running in the parallel with the main job. So the time is the problem.

2. I do not have the experience of running the c-corp or something to legally start the stripe integration for payments. And I can't actually run the project without it.

3. The project already has the expenses related to the Google cloud and some of the others 3rd-party providers.

Questions (I know nothing about the investments and startup stages so please forgive me the stupid questions):

1. Does the project on the right stage for searching for investments?

2. Do the investors willing to help me with the legal issues?

3. Do I need to look into startup accelerators?

4. What is the best\fast\safe option to run the project?

5. What are the good articles to read about the process of building and funding the startup\sideproject?

p.s. I don't think that you guys like the advertisement so I didn't put the link to my weird landing page here. (ping me if we need it for the discussion)

[contingencies]

First of all, congratulations to you and your team on coming this far.

1. No. Investors will want to see product market fit, size of opportunity, growth potential. Without true and paying customers (people you don't know), this is too hard to claim, so even most angel investors will consider the current state too early.

2. An angel investor would be able to assist you with company registration, however you can also do it yourself through an agency. I would recommend pricing this out (both establishment and annual ongoing fees and charges) so you have an idea of what you're getting in to financially before taking the plunge. This will be part of your first financial forecast, which is going to be maintained going forward.

3. Accelerators are fronts for investment. They also want high growth potential businesses. Unless you can justify this, it may be hard to get accepted. Also, they usually demand full time commitment for the whole team in a certain physical location (ie. whole team has to move cities) and some traction with an MVP at a minimum. Unless you and your team are all willing to quit your jobs, they may not be right for you. However, they may provide the dangling carrot that maintains team motivation and gets you all to commit full time. Only you will know if it's right for your team. Frankly, it's a large risk. You would probably do well to maintain your income and operate the business part time initially.

4. Decide on ownership and investment structure. Commit to paying the C-Corp and related accounting/filing fees. Get it done through an agency. Try to sell the tool and get some real market validation.

5. You don't need articles. You need sales.

In short: Register a company, listen to your real or potential customers, get some sales.

[jmngomes]

>> "An angel investor would be able to assist you with company registration, however you can also do it yourself through an agency."

Although this is true, I would seriously advise the founder to get his own (trustworthy) lawyer assist him through the process, as with everything related to incorporating the company (ownership and investment structure).

[contingencies]

More legal advice is always nice but it costs and may not add significant value. Registration tends to be straightforward and necessarily formalizes ownership structure to a significant extent. That said, lawyers may be useful for contracts. If the OP has concerns about registration costs, my advice would be to hold off lawyers at this stage and get a customer first.

[arkades]

Some big firms will do this level of basic legal assistance for small start ups as part of their pro bono program. I believe Bingham McCutchen does, for one, though I don’t know how you apply.

[pavelshtanko]

Can't get the customers without registering the company (stripe won't let me go live :) )

[ajeet_dhaliwal]

I don’t think that’s right. You can have the account in your name AKA sole proprietorship with a dba and then change it to the legal entity later (you may have to migrate to a new account, I can’t recall) but it’s not too hard. Anyway until you have paying customers I’d put off everything else.

[yehosef]

Did you look into Stripe Atlas? - they do all the work of setting up the company and bank for around $500.

[pavelshtanko]

I did look, but it looks like overkill for the initial start (I don't even know will someone buy the product or not).

[jmngomes]

Is it not viable using a personal Paypal account at this stage?

[masukomi]

starting a business with your finances managed by a company that can, and will, close accounts, and freeze funds for no reason at all is crazy. Especially when they frequently do it when someone suddenly starts making decent money, something all new startups hope to do.

paypal is a dangerous idea to build a business on. Use a real bank that is legally forced to act in a responsible manner with regards to your funds.

[pavelshtanko]

Thank you very much for the amazing feedback. That is what I'm also thinking about, but the starting point seems to be quite challenging for me becuase according to the stripe regulations I do need to open the company or something (I'm not the US based guy).. wil try to solve it somhow on my own.

[dalbasal]

It might be worth laying out your position in an email to stripe, and asking them to recommend a path.

Ie, this is where I am. What's the easiest way to start using the service? They might suggest a sole trader with a business bank account or some other relatively easy/cheap setup that can be temporary.

[pavelshtanko]

Didn't think about it. That's a great advice, will do it and will try to keep the thread up to date. In case it will be usefull for others.

[thisisit]

One, it's your thread. So, it's fine if you post the link. Getting feedback is important.

Second, get some Linkedin/Facebook/Google ads running. Get some more people to your site. IMO, one of the biggest problems is having a small audience for feedback. If your conversion rate is say 1% then you barely have 1 user. So, go big or go home.

Third, I believe there will be tools out there to help with other stuff like c-corp etc.

[pavelshtanko]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I was thinking about the small amount of paid adds as well and I'm glad that you prove that it may work.

Can you share some of the tools besides the stripe's atlas?

If you are wondering the landing is https://goandcall.me. Idea is to let you create the link or widged to your own phone and let your customers or visitors call you without any plugins or additional software. Just from the browser. As well as give you the ability to manage links and numbners different ways (activate\deactive, schedule, etc.)

[sharemywin]

This is a pretty good article on alternatives.

https://www.myusacorporation.com/articles/us-bank-account-fo...

[sharemywin]

https://www.sba.gov/blogs/selling-us-foreign-business-should...

[jacquesm]

Like this?

https://www.innovaphone.com/en/produkte-unified-communicatio...

[pavelshtanko]

Close enough, we are the link to your own phone (physical one that you have in your pocket). So it is comfortable for you to run your own business from any place you are currently now without the need of sitting in front of the computer. Or just send the link to your parents and they will be able to call you whenever they need wihtout any additional tools. (btw you will recieve the phone call from the local number) We want to keep it as simple as possible.

[sharemywin]

As for the ad stuff.

Google is the best for getting small(total market-wise), expensive amounts of highly motivated potential targeted traffic.

[antoniuschan99]

Like the others here have said and I will stress it as well:

Nothing matters until you get sales.

Paying customers gives you a more defined value proposition for your product, it also tells you what specific niche to serve.

A suggestion for Got #6. A very important piece of advice I received when I was working on my product was, "It's better to have 10 people love your product than 1000 who like your product"

[strife25]

> 1. Does the project on the right stage for searching for investments?

Don't worry about investment - focus on getting your first paying customer. Build a business first, then get investment when you need it to grow. You'll also have more leverage in the terms if you have a viable business when talking with investors.

[pavelshtanko]

I'm thinking more about the support from experienced investors. Not about the money, more about the sells strategy, legalization part, marketing. More about transferring of the experience than about the money.

[jlebrech]

You might want to look for a partner that's more business oriented than an angel.

Say come up with a value you're willing to start negotiations with an have the partner buy half (or less), then let that person deal with the business side of things.

[BartBoch]

1. Do you need an investment? Is your strategy completely dependant on getting funded? You should always build a company with Bootstrapping in mind. If you can survive without external funding, then it will be much easier for you in the long run. Funding will help you to grow, rather than survive.

2. You can always join startup accelerator or hub, they will help you out, often for free.

3. Yes, sounds like this is the best option in your situation.

4. Can your MVP run on a free basis? If yes, then release a free version and build it from there. This will be the best way to test your concept.

Edit your post and add a link, without that it is hard to suggest anything.

[pavelshtanko]

1. I do need the support to implement the legalization part (I don't know how to run c-corp or something)

2. For free? What is the profit for them?

4. Suddenly not, I rely on 3rd party providers and they cost me some money.

The problem is that I can't edit post right now. So here is the link: https://goandcall.me (I've got very bad communication and copywriting skills but I promise I will improve them).

The main idea that you can get a link or widget for your website, email signature or get it per prospect via API. This link will help your customers call you without any plugin or additional software. Free for customers, paid for you. You can manage links and numbers (activate, deactivate, assign schedule).

[neltnerb]

1. You are definitely overestimating how hard this is. Look up contract CFO firms, and you should be able to get part-time support for logistics like that (as well as helping you get your books set up and do taxes).

2. Many are non-profits or have a mission that is unrelated to them making a profit. They often are funded by VC firms, companies who would like to provide services to companies in the accelerator once they have money (law firms, etc), and companies that want to raise their own credibility in the startup scene (3dsystems, or area-focused companies like GE maybe funding accelerators that work in batteries). Some also get government grants.

[adamqureshi]

The single necessary and sufficient condition for a business, says MIT’s Bill Aulet, is a paying customer.

https://stripe.com/atlas

or use a paypal button.

Adapt this mentality. No investor will ever give you money.

Make sales. Learn. Adjust. Repeat.

Good Lucky! ;-)

[pavelshtanko]

I'm thinking more about support than money. I can run it for some time on my own for sure... But registering the company, talking about marketing, helping with sales strategy all these things.. I definitely need them more than money.

[jmngomes]

It'll be immensely easier to get a proper investor if you can generate enough sales to break even (i.e. to pay for your costs), because that's an important step to demonstrating viability and avoiding the "too early" argument.

So, given what you already know, how many customers do you need to generate enough revenue to pay for costs, i.e. what slice of the market should you address? Define that segment of the market, e.g. "kindergarten teachers in London" and devise the tactics to get them on your "Buy now" screen, and then to get them to click the "Pay now" button.

Sales strategy really depends on what space your business is in (especially B2B or B2C), but a basic first step could be something like "I'll create a Google Ads campaign for that target, measure how they respond to the landing page and integrate Intercom so I can discover/answer their questions when they reach the website". You'll learn new things about what customers think of your service - pricing, features, etc - that will help you define the next step.

If you haven't received a payment, I'd focus on converting those 14 prospects into paying customers and learning why they have or haven't purchased. Then, if you're a B2C business, focus on increasing that number x10, i.e. get to 100 paying customers, then 1000, until you break even. This is when an investor, in my mind, will be useful: to accelerate growth, and for that you need some sort of growth beforehand (which will also be your main argument when negotiating an investment).

When you are at this point, your premise will be "I'll use this money to hire a senior sales executive specializing in X to devise a proper sales strategy, and/or a senior marketing person to devise and run marketing campaigns").

[ryandrake]

When you used the word "support" I thought about something else too not to forget about: Customer support.

When I turned on a side project iOS app a while back, and actually managed to get customers paying for it, I soon found myself swamped with support requests. "How does this work? It crashed, help! I'm getting this error message!" Also, automated bug reports. The app was bringing in tens of dollars per month, not thousands, so how does supporting this even make sense? I thought: Well I took their money, so I kind of have to own this, but it was shitty.

Have a plan for customer support.

[scrollaway]

It's a simple game of numbers.

If you're getting an overwhelming amount of support requests compared to how much money your product generates, something is wrong.

1. If large amounts of tickets have a similar root cause, make sure those customers are picked up before they create a ticket. Maybe you fix the issue, implement the suggestion, have an FAQ you make sure they see, rework your app so that this no longer comes up, etc.

2. If you have a ton of free users producing a ton of support requests, and not enough revenue from the product, you might be monetizing it wrong. Could be a sign of a bad conversion rate, a bad monetization strategy, or simply a sign that you shouldn't have a support stream for free users.

3. (General advice) Do all the customer support yourself for as long as you can. This is the best way to know what they want and they'll be happier for it. It won't stop making sense to do this until you really are a big company. And even then I'd still advise to pick up support tickets whenever you can.

[neltnerb]

It sounds like an accelerator would be helpful for you, since they will be able to provide mentorship on marketing, sales, and legal advice if they're any good.

But I would be hesitant to pay (much) to join one, there seem to be a lot of faux-accelerators out there preying on small companies. Ideal would be one that accepts people based on merits. Paying a few hundred dollars a month is reasonable, but giving up 10% of your company is not. That mentorship just isn't that expensive to provide to you.

The founder of a startup must learn marketing and sales. This is unavoidable. You're the only one that deeply understands the product, and hopefully the market segment. If you don't understand the market segment, you must learn yourself. No marketing expert or sales firm will do as well as you yourself will.

Once you've figured out how to sell it, which a mentor can help with but not substitute for, then you can train a sales person to "replicate" it. Once you have some example sales, you can define your "customer profile" which any sales person will need to have in order to know who to target in outbound sales to develop leads. Then the sales person would mostly be working on qualifying those leads to see if they truly are a good fit to sell to, and ultimately mostly just following up with them to move the process forward.

Basically, assume that you are the lead sales person. That has to be your role now, there's no other option. Find the training you need, even if it's just an online crash course in sales. Don't hire a sales person until you feel confident you could clearly define not just that you need sales or vague ideas about who your target market is, but what characteristics of a customer to look for are.

Sales isn't really all that hard. But it's also not easy, it requires a lot of willingness to hear "no" and not feel bad about it or move heaven and earth to get them to say yes. They won't. You need to be methodical and persistent, not take anything personally ever, and try to eliminate leads from your list of possibilities as fast as possible if they don't truly look like they'll turn into a sale. That's the only way to do it efficiently.

(I am talking about enterprise sales, FYI. I don't know much about consumer sales.)

EDIT: I noticed elsewhere that your customers appear to be companies. In that case, I believe my advice above applies well. You're likely to have a modest number of customers, who are hopefully paying a fairly high amount per customer. This is the mode in which enterprise sales work best, since it requires a bit heavier a touch (i.e. calling specific people at a potential customer to followup) than consumer sales.

[contingencies]

Cool quote, added to http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup :)

[hartator]

Sure, it's okay to post your landing page here. Please do.

MVP stands for "Minimum Viable Product". It implies some paying customers. Nothing wrong to use the word prototype here.

[pavelshtanko]

I'm to shy about it (not the best quality), but anyway: https://goandcall.me Idea: the link or widget that will help your customers reach you to your own phone number without any additional plugins or tools. Manage the links\numbers, activate them or deactivate. Attach scheduler to them. Hide your own number behind the links.

[bbri06]

"Let your customers reach you out in a simple and reliable way" does not sound right. Try either, "reach you in a..." or "reach out to you in a..."

[pavelshtanko]

Amazing, thanks a lot will update it immediately

[pavelshtanko]

done

[chkte]

Put some money on Google AdWords. Absolutely worth it. Check the conversion rate, do some A/B testing. You will know very soon whether your idea is worth pursuing or not.

[sharemywin]

easy way:

1. register llc in home state.

2. goto local bank with registration paper take it to local bank to get a commercial bank account.

3. pay money later to fix problems if investors are interested.

[pavelshtanko]

Not in the US... Thinking of stripe's atlas. But scared of some hidden things\taxes

[dirktheman]

Stripe Atlas might be too soon for you... Focus on getting some sales first. While Stripe Atlast is great (and cheap!) for what it is (setting up a US bank account and a Delaware C-Corp) do realize that you'll have to file taxes in the US from now on.

If you use a payment provider (like Stripe, which is awesome!) you'll be able to charge people from the US just the same without going straight to tax hell.

Sell, sell, sell. Worry about LLCs and US bank accounts and EIN numbers later.

More: https://hackernoon.com/stripe-atlas-is-not-for-everyone-cave...

[pavelshtanko]

Looks like you are right, but how can I setup payment system without the EIN number? Stripe won't allow it

[thecodeboy]

I built Slyme (https://5ly.me) and couldn't find any usable payment platforms. I live in India and couldn't automate payments from the US. This is really a big problem. Stripe is expanding to other countries in the future though.

[dirktheman]

Stripe India is in private beta, I believe. Can you use something like Razorpay? Also I read somewhere that incorporating a business in India and setting up a bank account is a really difficult process... here in The Netherlands you can do it online and it's almost immediate...

[mikeokner]

I would personally discourage you from incorporating as a Delaware C corp unless you absolutely have no other option. On top of the registered-agent fees, Delaware charges a minimum of about $700/year in taxes. For a company with no revenue, no liability, and no investors, it's extremely expensive and offers no benefit over any other corporate entity registered elsewhere.

You're probably far better off filing for something like a Wyoming LLC[0] for about $150 initially and $75/year after that (if an LLC will work for you internationally).

I'm not an accountant or attorney and I strongly suggest paying one for at least an hour of their time to get some professional advice.

[dirktheman]

I think Delaware has no state corporate income tax and that's why a lot of businesses incorporate there.

[dirktheman]

I don't know where you're based, but here in the Netherlands I can set up a Stripe account, connect any Dutch bank account and start charging worldwide. They do need a tax identification number but that's trivial to get here.

[victomlinson]

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[victomlinson]

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[grzm]

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