[david927]

This seems to me to be right from the MBA textbook chapter called, "What happens if you have no Business Development".

You need to get more customers (and not just from referral, though that's great), and you need more buzz. When you get stronger demand, the capital supply will more easily rise up to greet it.

[davidfm]

I know I can get lots of customers very quickly, I'm turning business away. My issue is letting them down because I don't have the resources to support them. (my previous roles were biz-dev, I do that well)

[david927]

If you're sure you can get the business to support it, then go to the bank and get a loan. If you aren't able to do that, you're probably stuck slowly bootstrapping. (You're asking for advice, but it's hard to really help because you haven't given a lot of details.) If you have 20 customers after years and it's not profitable enough to hire more developers, I'm guessing you'll have a hard time finding investors. But I don't know. In all cases, I wish you luck and hope you find what it takes to get lift-off. I know how hard it is.

Edit: You might want to take a look at http://www.cofounderslab.com

[davidfm]

I looked at cofounderslab a while back. Can't remember what stopped me completing it then. It seems to have evolved a lot. Thanks for replying, much appreciated.

Edit: CoFoundersLab looks really hopeful David. It's just gone down for updates but I liked what I saw - thanks again!

[david927]

Happy to help! My email is in my profile if you have any questions at all. Again, all the best of luck!

[rwallace]

In that case it sounds like your problem isn't lack of capital, it's that you're undercharging. Probably by a lot; technical people, due to whatever quirk of human psychology, almost always massively undercharge.

Given that elsewhere you say your customers are huge companies, I would suggest increasing your prices by one or two orders of magnitude - hard to be more specific without knowing details - and seeing where that puts you.

[read]

(off-topic: can you answer something I asked you?)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7545852

[rwallace]

Done. At least I think so; it gave an error message when I posted the reply, but the reply seems to show up anyway, let me know if it doesn't show up for you.

[fraserm]

Is your issue that you need cash to fund business expenses or a developer to add features to grow the product?

If the latter and you are confident in quickly adding revenue why not offer some equity/percentage of profit in lieu of salary? If the product is interesting you should be able to find someone willing to take on the risk.

The whoishiring thread would be a decent place to start.

[davidfm]

It is definitely the latter. The business has next to no expenses (just me and my family!). I'll take a look at whoishiring again. Maybe I can persuade someone to work in that manner for a few months till I get the sales flowing. Thanks v. much

Edit: just went through April's whoishiring. Is it common to ask for equity in lieu of salary? Do developers really consider that?

[HerokuMan]

Can you put up a contact e-mail?

[davidfm]

david.miller.hn [at] gmail.com