Hey all, As a founder who uses Blind, I often see a bunch of startup-related questions being asked that go unanswered. If you're thinking about launching your own startups and want a founder's 2¢, this thread is for you! Ask me anything. If you prefer to ask in confidence, feel free to DM. For reference: I'm a relatively small startup founder who's gritted his way through an oversubscribed crowdfunding raise ($180K from 440 investors) and went from $0 to $275K+ in creator payouts in ~7 months, of which ~$90K in the past month alone. Username is startup URL, cumulative growth chart found below
Thanks for sharing really appreciate it. I think it’s so important to get folks in the corner that have blazed the trail.
Not a worry! I've learned a ton from this place, so (however small) it only makes sense to give back to it & help people in the process
Did you have a cofounder? if so, how did you find them? What’s the best way to prioritize what to build next after getting your first 10-100 clients? There’s that Henry Ford quote of “if I had asked people what they wanted, they would’ve asked for faster horses,” so I’m doubtful if I should be prioritizing their small feature requests over my bigger ideas
Great questions! I did not have a co-founder, you don't really need one if you're able to write code (& probably more importantly, read code) On what to build: If the small feature requests can be quickly implemented, why not do so? It helps build rapport with existing customers, makes them feel listened to, and if you do so publicly, serves as a magnet to attract more customers. What we do, is take a couple of weeks to implement fast/easy features that were requested, then the next couple of weeks implement a bigger/more technically complex feature.
No problem! 1. Solo founder. If you're technical, I'd suggest going solo 2. I raised the crowdfunding campaign with the initial iteration of my project (not very functional, barely any stats), then used the raised funds to carry out a rewrite from scratch & a smaller scope (creator tool v.s. 2-sided marketplace) 3. Posted about the experience in a comment above ^ If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Have been full-time since the start (first iteration began in Jan 2017), then once that started going downhill I considered joining another company but couldn't find anyone who wanted to hire me, so kept at full-time.
Congratulations op
Following
How did you pull in the initial set of customers? What mechanism to follow there?
We did an initial burst of paid marketing (forum banners, stickied threads) to get our initial set of users, that helped dictate our growth It's fairly cheap/easy, the only hard part is finding communities/forums/channels for the niche your startup serves. From there, you can take the customer feedback and improve your product
How do you continuously find customers? Paid vs organic?
As soon as we launched, we did an initial period of paid marketing by targeting communities/forums which potential sellers browse. We got about 400 sign-ups from that. Following that, we halted paid marketing and shifted our focus on improving the product. The feedback cycle was fast, as we have a Discord channel on which sellers can request features and report bugs. We started to grow organically because of the above, and other sellers noticing their competitors using us. This 'product-led growth' strategy is what mainly drives our growth currently, but we are going to look into doing paid marketing experience to see what sticks and can scale
TC or gtfo
I make such an embarrassingly low amount I'm too ashamed to share it
It's blind. You new here? Not to mention it's a AMA. Seriously TC and GTFO
How can I make your job easier for you?
If you have any tips, tricks, advice that could help us grow our north star (being monthly volume processed) that could help!
How'd you crowdfund? I'm currently bootstrapping my startup but it's tough.
My platform didn't work well and our metrics were terrible. I decided to rebrand to toffee.com, which I managed to lease for $100/mo, and then took a couple months learning how to code & fixing all the bugs Once the platform was bug-free, I shifted focus on the crowdfunding campaign. I had to 'hustle' since I didn't have anyone willing/able to invest a sizable amount upfront, so got the initial $30K by sending out messages to potential investors on LinkedIn. Remember the leased domain? That came in really handy, since the brand convinced potential investors to take a look, going through the metaphorical door so to speak. Then came a 'slog' with ups & downs, but I kept on giving updates and informing potential investors about our progress. People liked how transparent I was, so that with some FOMO mixed in, resulted in the raise being overfunded
Awesome, I have a Dev I'm working with rn but idk how much / hoe to pay him