Terrible. There are people here with huge exits. I know at least a handful of them because we all get coffee. We all chuckle at comments here assuming there aren’t. I bet there’s more than you think. We just get burnt out since we tend to do this in real life also as mentors and advisors.
Someone above said it. Find podcasts from successful founders. Read HBR, bcg/bain/mckinsey content (they have a TON). Go find books from professors about marketing, advertising, etc. Successful founders don’t want to become YouTube gurus. They’re too busy lol. It’s the people who are typically middlemen that do because they hit a ceiling and get stuck since they’re not unique and typically just get social followings to sell crap. Don’t get me wrong, they make some money, just more of a scam-ish than creating any real value long term.
Ding ding. Dead on.
Thanks for the defense :)
I’ve sold ventures worth hundreds of millions. Sorry bud. Wrong commenter to pick on :)
Stop watching YouTube gurus. Period.
You’re basically offering agency services as a success fee instead of hourly or etc. It’s not unique, just a riskier pricing model. Just become a marketing agency and offer the standard services. See what you could make doing it normal and offer success fees in lieu of standard fees once you have an audience.
I agree with the first comment about not crowdfunding. I strongly suggest going for angels, VCs, etc. l could share tons of crowdfunding horror stories from founders I know. It’s take up pages.
It’s not too difficult to create a pitch deck, cap raise process, shareholder agreement, etc. I’m confused though. Are you wanting donations or are you raising capital via equity? Very different scenarios. Crowdfunding is donations with very little, to no, expectations. Raising capital via equity means you’ll have a roadmap, use of funds, growth strategy, etc.
Regarding secrecy. If you’re concerned, there’s another reason to raise a seed round from friends and family - it’s really not too hard. Also, just be aware you will need to actually disclose your product and plans in a pitch deck. Additionally, most prospective investors won’t sign an nda, unless it’s fairly light. That typically gets tackled later on. So, avoid sharing trade secrets but don’t hesitate about showing financials, the mvp, etc. to them. Too many founders get caught up in secrecy when in reality, investors don’t care at the early stage. Obviously, there are expectations to this, they’re just rare.
Good luck!
Keynote, ppt, slides, etc. Just export to PDF for investors. Nail the content, length, and similar. That’s the critical part.
Don’t you dare animate anything or try to add a video. Remember, pitch decks need to be concise, engaging, and easy to translate to others.
People like choices. You keep saying water. Why does wine, whiskey, coffee, tea, etc. exist. Coke is dominate due to them being one of the first colas to the market (unique), had a hard to replicate formula that gave them intellectual property (even without cocaine since it didn’t scale until that was long gone in their formula), capital since they grew due to being unique (and invested in), etc.
Basically, they built barriers to entry and own the top spot in the market. It’s VERY hard to dethrone a top player. Remember the coke sells a lot of other products also, including water. They also diversified when their sales were growing as quickly and/or slowed down in the past.
It really depends on your savings and risk tolerance. I’ve jumped into founding startups (different than what you’re doing but similar salary tradeoff) when I was 22/23. I had some savings as I worked a lot since I was in high school (and through college). Just have a backup to your backup plan. If your idea fails, what will you do? If it only succeeds 50% what will you do? What if it takes longer but you see traction (and not enough income), what do you do? etc. Basically, decision tree out what you want to do, what may happen, and what you realistically can do after. It doesn’t have to be crazy or complex… but it’s a super smart thing to do when evaluating risk and understanding your options today and tomorrow.
Good luck!
Source: serial entrepreneur who does a lot of corporate strategy and startup advisement/mentorship.
Learn to be a mechanic, valet, work at a specialized service center behind the desk, etc.
I’ll add I asked a few in my network of consultants at mbb (Cs through partner). I’m not sure why, I was just sharing your post, and the resounding answer was the consultants would not use this. Even if good mba candidates were on it since their funnel is already so robust. It’ll likely have to be firms outside MBB. Which, if that’s the case, means you’re getting worse candidates and your pool will be weaker (and therefore not as attractive to the Deloitte, KPMGs, EYs, etc. or the world since they don’t want to hire second-tier mba grads).
Biggest feedback was no ROI and too big a time commitment. They also said this has been discussed internally at a couple of the MBBs and it always lands on being not needed. They already do so much recruiting work, have tools their firms use, and promote case-prep solutions that have proven to work and already exist.
The pitch would probably have to be time saving for a consulting firm…. But that’s hard. Hope this helps! Tried to shortcut it a bit for you since I have a good text chain of friends in the space.
This here. Most of this is resolved in the operating agreement or similar around what the board can and cannot do with simple majority, quorum, unanimous, etc voting.
I agree. Doesn’t matter. Use ppt though. You’ll end up using msft 365 as you scale so why not build content in it.
Guy who’s done this and used keynote, slides, ppt, canva. Just use ppt so you have an appendix of slide content you can use over the years. Plus, easier collaboration- everyone has used ppt. Not everyone has used slides.
Built and sold ventures with vc/pe. I don’t, and haven’t had, any cash flow management or monitoring issues. It’s not that hard to do. Just a good financial model in excel and some type of accounting software checks the boxes until you’re big enough to warrant the bit kids of netsuite, sage, msft dynamics, SAP, etc. The important things are around setup of said software, export of said data, and import into financial models. Again, all very simple to do.
At 15 they should educate themselves on stock. Sure, but why not just use a tool that lets them fake invest to play around in the market - tons out there? Then, IF they are comfortable, use the funds they’ve saved and earned interest later on. No need to waste $1500 on learning the stock market. Just me two cents.
Naw. Use university for that. Use this as a foundation for something in your 20s. Save it.
Great job! I worked during my teens and started businesses back then. Put it in a high yield savings account (hysa) if you can hit a deposit. You could also invest in a stock market. Just make sure you put it into an index fund and don’t touch it for a long time. Good luck! In 10 years, just in an index fund, it could be worth about $5,100.
I’ve built and scaled SaaS ventures from seed to liquidity (with vc/pe capital).
I’d suggest a c/s corp for future tax savings. Depends on stock issuance timelines and when you plan on liquidity. Section 1202 allows for some small business stock to exclude cap gains from federal tax. HUGE SAVINGS if applicable. You can’t just “fix” your equity at a sale event either to qualify.
For example, it saved me millions in taxes on recent venture when we had liquidity.
If only people realized they’re being advertised to via these folks. Scary effective for a big chunk of the population. Modern day mlm is what it reminds me of before people became aware of mlms.