[_b8r0]

> Team has no apparent prior company operations experience, let alone M&A success.

The advisors do have M&A experience, and that may well be why they have them. Two of the team founded a company called Moxy, so they'll have some operations experience. Not everyone needs it to start up and an investor should look at the details, not the flashy site.

> "Technical" team member isn't a "founder".

I'm not aware that this is a requirement for a successful business. Indeed, there are plenty of businesses where the technical people aren't founders that do just fine.

I'd worry less about the design than the numbers. For me, I wouldn't say it was well designed because of it's intricacy. It's not intuitive, things were inconsistent (do I scroll or click, or both?) and some areas just seemed to be blank (at least for me).

[tptacek]

I promise: no snark intended with this question, but I don't know a better way to ask it: does starting a design shop count as company operations experience in startupland?

Totally prepared for the answer to be "yes". And clearly there are design shops that have become serious companies, with growth trajectories, quarterly and yearly revenue forecasts, employee turnover, the whole nine yards. Is Moxy one?

[_b8r0]

I totally see where you're coming from on this, but I think you're placing an awful lot of importance on things that might not be that important.

I'd say starting a design shop could count as company ops experience, but not everyone who starts a startup has experience. Indeed, people start up without experience all the time. From the looks of the presentation they have an MVP, have users and have burned through less money than they're asking for (although the details we don't know).

I don't know enough about Moxy to tell whether or not that's yes, but I would say it might not be wholly necessary and would be down to the investor to decide.

[joshu]

Actual angel here.

Ops is not that hard for a startup.

M&A? Build something people want and it will happen.

[drumdance]

At scale, I think running a creative servies business is much harder than a typical tech startup. Mapping billable hours to bodies, some of who you haven't even hired yet, is a difficult process that's hard to scale.

[_b8r0]

Actually what you're describing applies to any service company, including companies separately founded by Thomas and myself on different sides of the globe. Creative service businesses and tech startups are a bit like chalk and cheese, which perhaps is part of Thomas' argument (not wanting to put chalk or cheese in his mouth though). However, one thing is certain, the guys that are pushing out this company and looking for investment are at least doing something about it, and I think that's good enough for me.