I need direction 😅🚀 I'm 22 years old, I've been a programmer for 5 years, I want to start a business in the field and be able to help other people in the future, but I don't have much know-how and network in other areas, what suggestions would you give me to get started? I really want to have my own business and grow professionally and financially. 4 10 replies
VC/Angel Valuations I’m looking to hear from founders who’ve successfully raised funding from venture capitalists or angel investors. It would be great if you could share: • How much you raised and at what valuation. • The industry your company is in. • Which funding round it was (pre-seed, seed, Series A, etc.). • What kind of traction you had when you raised the funds. Feel free to share any other relevant information. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience! 1 2 replies
I’ve been a solo founder for 2 years building my company, now I’m bringing in a strategy team of 6. What should I pay them? **EDIT 1:** The team is my c-suite, they have experience in the industry and a network. I do not. **EDIT 2:** thanks all, I’m learning a lot I’ve scaled to six-figure ARR in D2C and am now leveraging that foundation to build a B2B platform. I’m heading into a seed round to scale D2C further, finish building out the B2B offering, and start piloting it with customers soon. I’ve pulled together an incredible team with tons of experience in areas where the business is set to grow. Their expertise,... 5 10 replies
Is it possible to be a successful founder without building a social media following? I feel like both twitter and LinkedIn are losing their power as a growth channel. Both have taken a sharp turn towards prioritizing engagement bait and video. On a personal level, it just feels like a huge time suck anytime I open it and does not leave me feeling good afterwards. I don’t feel a need to build a personal brand at all and would much rather be mostly anonymous if possible. 1 10 replies
Stuck and unmotivated You read it..... I am stuck and unmotivated. In March, I signed a lease to open my shop. I was on top of the world, after 2 years of planning with a S.C.O.R.E. mentor, I received a grant for my main machine, I had all my equipment, my suppliers, my location, and had an open date for 4/1/24. Our open date was planned to coincide with a large semi annual even across the street from our shop. Everything was finally coming together. One moment I was flying high, and... 1 1 replies
How would you scale an AI website builder to 1,000 clients? I’m the founder of an AI website builder that helps small service-based businesses create professional websites for free. We make money through hosting, web management, and other monthly features. I’m focused on hitting 1,000 clients as fast as possible so I can scale sustainably with a team and consistent advertising. My background is in running social media ads, but I’m trying to figure out the most effective strategy to grow. Especially from people that have experience in similar areas. I’ve been considering partnerships, like working with companies that manage... 5 5 replies
Secondary sale for series A company What’s the best way to find buyers of common shares of a series A company that has just raised another round few month ago. Spoke to forge, UBS and the likes and they all do not work anything below series B ($500M valuations). Any other ways to find buyers? 5 10 replies
US Startup Common Stock Taxation in India Hey folks, I have an opportunity to join a pre seed startup thats established in the US. I'll be working from India. The equity being promised is in terms of common stocks (similar to what founders have). No ESOPs. Does anyone in this community know what the tax implications of this would be for me? PS: i will consult a CA for sure just wanted to get info from startup folks. 4 0 replies
Do you go ahead when you’re ready or go ahead when you have an idea? I see these two advices float around the internet a lot. They’re both very popular. The former describes that you must have a solid plan and foundation for the idea you want to embark on, if not it’ll fall apart before you even begin. The latter describes that the moment you have an idea, you ought to act on it because if you don’t, someone else will, and also because the future is unpredictable so there’s no point in planning every single step. They are both great advice, but... 3 5 replies
Payment gateway for Marketplace SaaS application Hello SaaS subreddit! I'm a first time entrepreneur and I need an advice for the payment gateway selection for my SaaS application. The best payment gateway will have the following features: - Monthly subscription charge - Minimum transaction fee - Allows me to surcharge a % for every purchase made on marketplace, that we will charge as a platform fee - Minimum deposit fee to allow me to deposit the funds to my customer's account while keeping my platform fee that I charged above. I already saw stripe but... 5 2 replies
Does anyone have experience with startup accelerators in Germany? I would appreciate some help I’m in the process of launching a startup, but navigating the system and finding the right resources and support in Germany has been quite challenging. From legal processes to finding funding or mentorship, I’m encountering several roadblocks along the way. If you have experience with starting a business in Germany, know about helpful resources, or simply have advice to share, I’d love to connect and learn from your journey. Please send me a DM—your help would mean a lot. Thank you! 3 3 replies
What do I prioritize? I’m building something I am truly passionate about. I love the journey I’ve embarked on, and look forward to every moment I get to build the future I hope to see. I’m currently in an accelerator program in SF for the first time ever, and I’m really trying to pick up momentum. Realistically, I don’t think I’m going to get picked by the VC for funding for a number of reasons: I’m solo-ish (my cofounders are not here in sf or full time), I’m not building ai/crypto/vr, I don’t... 4 2 replies
Hardware lighting related idea - need advice! Hello, I have a hardware lighting related idea that I've been working on for the past few months that I have a working prototype for. However I don't have much experience in manufacturing these at production level or at scale. I have done user studies already for the idea that I have as well as competitive research and so far all of those have been looking great. I was wondering if there's anyone here that I can pick the brain of for basic questions like where do I go... 3 0 replies
Pitch/Crowdfunding video If this is not an acceptable post, feel free to delete it. Would anybody be interested in checking out my pitch/ crowdfunding video that I had created. I left it kind of generic in the end so that would work for a pitch video or for something on a crowdfunding site. I have never made one of these before. Actually, I’ve still never made one because I paid to get this one done. I won’t post it here because I don’t wanna get in trouble, but if you’re interested,... 5 0 replies
How can I earn $50 weekly, while working remotely? Hi, I'm a web designer and developer with skills in UI/UX, Figma, HTML, CSS, JS, and popular web-design tools like Webflow and WordPress. I'm really struggling to land clients right now. I see so many people consistently getting projects worth a few dollars, and I’d love to know how they do it! Since I'm in a developing country, even one just $50-100 project would cover my entire week. My portfolio is all setup. I'm looking to connect with agencies or startups, entrepreneurs who need help with projects and work... 4 2 replies
How would you search for a small niche? I'm thinking of building a few MVPs for small niches that big companies don't care about, and see what sticks. I wanna do something that would be a good side project and portfolio builder. How would you go about finding a small niche with a unique, big pain point? I have a ton of big ideas, but now I'm looking for small ideas if that makes sense. I don't want to be the next OpenAI, more like my own venture builder for lifestyle projects. 1 3 replies
Dicey Exit I co-founded and bootstrapped a B2B SaaS product as CTO/CPO with my first-time founder CEO brother-in-law almost 3 years ago. I’ve been doing SaaS startups for years and have seen many things. This one is a mind bender. My BIL and I’s relationship has rapidly deteriorated over the last year as I’ve built the product to be self-service, low-maintenance and low-cost to run. I believe he now sees me as dispensable and hence wants to get me out of the company. I own 50% shares outright of the company... 5 3 replies
Suspicious TikTok Ad Conversions – Anyone Experienced This? I recently ran an experimental ad campaign on TikTok, using Branch io to track events like installations. After running the campaign for a day, TikTok reported 110 conversions at $0.70 per conversion, which sounded too good to be true. I double-checked in Branch, and it was indeed showing 100+ INSTALL events. However, I noticed **0 signups**. I’m also running smaller ads on Instagram, which are converting well. This makes the 100+ installations with 0 signups from TikTok suspicious—there’s no bug or red flag in our sign-in flow, as we’ve... 5 2 replies
How to raise seed funding ? I would really appreciate your advice ! So basically i'm a co-founder of a startup and we actually finished our mvp and we have users that are eager to join , we are adding them little by little so we can manage the server loads, but the thing is that we don't have funding to support our startup for long and we have no idea how to raise, where should i start ? I noticed that most of startup accelerators fund are people who work with FAANG, but the thing is i'm a college dropout and... 3 2 replies
Ugly co-founder breakup Hi everyone, We are 3 founders with equal shares and equal legal rights in our startup (a Delaware C corp). Recently, we've had some issues with one of our co-founders who has stopped performing and we also discovered he lied about some agreements we made within the founding team at the time of incorporation. Long story short, he wants to leave, and we also want him to leave. However, it's become contentious as the departing co-founder has threatened to screw us up. We incorporated just six months ago, so... 1 10 replies
