I have an MVP for a new social media app, an extensive market research report, estimations for the cost of monetizing the app, and a roadmap for what comes next. It’s also live on the app store now and have 100+ users, mostly from my own network.
I do not have a scripted pitch, but I can explain the value behind the idea to users and how it will make money to investors. I believe in the idea very much, but am struggling to get users on the app outside of family and friends due to no advertising budget, and no time for promotional events.
I am a non-technical founder who has bootstrapped up to this point over the last 3 years by working a Finance 9-5 and paying developers to build the app. I have reached a point where I’d like to receive external funding for a better equity deal than I would have gotten at earlier stages of development.
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Where can I find investors that are suitable for investing at the stage I am currently in?
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How do other founders who are working a 9-5 and sacrificing so much for your company cope with feelings of burnout?
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What are some startup/founder groups that are good to join pre-seed? Are these groups worthwhile when you are short for time?
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- you should search everywhere and ask everyone. Start with a friends and family round and try to raise 50k or something like that so you can quit
I have to fly to SF and sleep on couches when raising money. It took about 4-6 weeks to raise 3.5M
- if you’re feeling burnout working a 9-5, you should consider what it will be like when you raise money.
You will not raise money if you’re still working your current job.
Startups are hard & lonely. The thing that keeps you going is your belief in what you’re working on
Find a support system of other founders that you can trust and talk to about the dark parts
- the best groups live in small text message formats. Slack / discord communities (and even this subreddit!) are typically worthless outside of some superficial advice
Refer to #2
My advice to every young founder is to move to SF. Your chances of finding like-minded people are much higher. Your chances of success increase by hanging around those people.
Then your worst case scenario is taking a job at some other startup where you could learn and do well at
Good luck! I’ve done it for 7 years, one acquisition and recently started working for one of the best early stage companies & teams I could imagine
It is not easy, it will only get harder 🥹
Man…what I could do with $3.5 million….im personally hoping to scrape together about 20k and I know I’ll be able to turn that into 500k a year…
You can’t turn 20k into 500k/yr if you can’t even raise 20k
Here’s your hard truth:
It’s not the money that’s holding you back, it’s your own mindset.
Dude, its for inventory. and no its not my mindset thats holding me back. Its my crap credit from my divorce thats holding me back from getting 20k at the moment. Ive already turned a startup that went from 50k a year to over 6 million a year. I wasnt the founder though so I did not benefit from that growth. Now ive started my own business so I can benefit from my hard work and dedication.
Tech Twitter, Y Combinator networking & hiring events, and IRL events.
What makes finding investors hard is that there are soooo many solutions that offer slivers of functional benefit differences to users that it’s not immediately apparent unless the marketing is super slick
DM me. Maybe ill invest some after the demo
if u dont mind, dm ur app id love to check it out
Definitely keep your job.
All you need to do is make a chart showing how you will spend the money and make a table on how you will make profit.
I am a non-technical founder who has bootstrapped up to this point over the last 3 years by working a Finance 9-5 and paying developers to build the app.
Odds are that there are major technical issues that are hiding in what you’re not aware about, and business decisions you’re not aware about accidentally having taken simply by letting the tech be implemented the way it has.
Start by getting yourself an early startup-experienced fractional CTO with a technical background, to review where you’re at right now. As well as being able to act as a startup mentor to help you get your pitches etc ready for VCs.
You need that competency, as well as doing that work, before you’re ready to be invested in.
Regarding the scripted pitch: try dumping your brain about your product into ChatGPT and ask it to “generate an elevator pitch for the following product description”. Sometimes it does a great job. Other times it at least gives you insight.
Social is probably one of the most challenging spaces to raise money in. The general rule of thumb for investors in this space is 100k users with a proven growth channel where r0 is greater than 1 and their money is going to be like pouring gas on a fire for a proven concept. Almost every B2C product fails so investors are genuinely afraid to put money into unproven projects.
That said, crunchbase is your best bet for finding investors. Pay for a membership and search for companies that raised in the social space. Find angel investors that invested in those apps. You should understand all the companies in the social graveyard, why they failed, and try to have conversations with their founders. This will be the most promising channel for warm intros, which are the gold standard when reaching out to angels. Cold outreach will have a low hit rate but you will succeed every now and then at getting on a short call. Ask every person you talk to if they will intro you to 1-2 people that might be able to help give you guidance. Other than crunchbase you can try angel list. Avoid angel networks, they want guaranteed investments and will consume your time like crazy while they deliberate in DD, but you can reach out to individual angels with better success.
Remember, as an investor you see TONS of ideas. Maybe you make a few investments per year. Traction is the thing that matters most, not ideas. No matter how impressive an individual is, if they don’t have traction the answer will be “not right now.” They can afford to wait. It’s your job to show them growth that makes them feel that they can’t wait.