until you actually get it in front of a customer, you’re ‘idea masturbating’ - you dont know until its in the hands of the customer and they give you visceral feedback - ask more customers, get a pattern in the feedback then use that to optimise.

dont worry overly about competitors, there will always be competitors, and ideas are generally never really original, the goal isn’t to be original, its to be valuable to the customer, by truly addressing their problem with a solution they can embrace.

The fund i work for has several investments in india, from what i understand there are several challenges which put-off international investors.

firstly is the economic and political situation - just the overall stability over the long run.

next, concerns about the authenticity of data and performance.

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but the really big one, which has resulted in may of the startups we invested in actually setting up SG entities - has something to do with requirements relating to the invested funds.

not my area of expertise, just 2nd hand hearsay from our investment team - so please check -

but i understand that indian taxation of intl investment is really high, there are requirements on local investors and there are issues about deploying investedfunds (by the company) internationally.

(regardless of the accuracy of my comment, TL;DR) basically, its hard to invest due to gov/ legal requirements, as far as i understand it.

what your describing is outsourcing. quite common.

the issue is the channel (cold call) you are choosing to use, its not typical for web design to use that as an approach, and most people will assume it spam call. you can try messaging on their website (if they have one) snail mail to their studio, linkedin messaging, messaging via deviant art and related placed.

additionally, try and find events where painters would meet, nothing bets speaking to a customer face to face.

well investment is different from loan, though they can overlap.

if they are investing 30k for 5% they they believe your business is worth 600k in value (they believe if you try to sell your business it will sell for 600k) - if this the route they are offering, they would own 5% of your business, and be entitled to 5% of any dividends you pay to shareholders (if you pay profits to the owners of the business), when you sell, they will be entitled to 5% of whatever the business ends up selling for.

If its a loan - then they might be saying the’ll lend you 30k, and you have to pay back 30k + 5% (1500) - they would not own part of your company.

the third scenario is where they lend you 30k as a loan, but once it reaches a certain point it would convert to equity (i believe called a convertible note, but check as not my area of knowledge)

assuming its equity - you need to determine if 600k is a realistic value for the business, and if you want this person involved in your business, you should speak with a lawyer.

next, you should also consider if you need the 30k, and if there are better alternatives (e.g. borrow from the bank) to get that 30k.

Its a very reliable business, for the most part you’ll always be in-need, but its not particularly scalable in that its basically always going to be a margin business where cost of salaries and revenues will general run in parallel, so to get the kind of returns you’re describing would be a challenge, especially over the timeframe you describe.

yes, thats what i’m hoping the math to look like, thank you!

its a short term marketing strategy to gain traction, in the hopes that longer term there will be sufficient customers that the impact of these lifetime customers is diluted. at the same time, since the lifetime customer will pay a greater upfront fee, they can use this to reinvest in growth, lastly, assuming they’ve done it correctly, the avg lifetime of a customer could be not that long meaning lifetime, isn’t actually lifetime.

Yes. I started in affiliate marketing and slowly climbed the ladder, i actually moved to China which fast-tracked my career, i ended up as COO which is where i really started to earn. sold 1 company, advised on a 2nd merger, joined a 3rd company as COO and sold that one. Yes it was saturated, it was hard work, long hours, lots of networking, lots of diplomacy, lots of pitching. we didnt spend on ads, but we had lots of networking, its would be easy to replicate since its an ad agency, at the time we were pulling around 8mil a year something like that, but our team was like 60+, so it was a reasonable sum, but net it was breakeven basically.

Not my main area of expertise, but 1. For that amount you might want to try a bank loan, 2. In very simple terms investors are constantly evaluating opportunity cost; meaning the return from lending you the money needs to be greats (as well as faster and less risky) than alternative investment options; so, at the very least you should be giving a return greater than if the investor simply put the money in the bank and let it accrue interest for the same period of time

Research the development cost of the software, then the hardware and location costs, then see if you want make it financially viable

When you think you’ve managed to get the numbers squared. Plan out you “games” on paper and go to your local bowling ally on a Saturday night; offer to buy a round of games for a few groups on the condition they follow your “games” - at the end get their feedback and ask them what they would pay

Next, put up some promotions where ppl can sign up and you can be “game master” doing it manually but this time charging for it, again get feedback… assuming it’s positive then you can go forward with trying to find someone willing to build out the software and, if you’re lucky finding a bowling ally willing to let you calibrate 1 lane a week for your experiment… if successful then you’ll have more options on what to do next

Focus on the one that has the highest retention (usage) and PAYS

At 25, with your experience, all of those options will be good for you. But you only get a few shots doing something for yourself before life starts to push you towards finding something that gives you more security.

On the other hand, very generally at avg age for more successful entrepreneurs is around mid/late 30s, before then, you need to develop business management, people management and project management skills; otherwise you end up being a founder that struggles with actually running the business, which I see often.

So looking for another job that exposes you to more and gives you the 3types of management pointed out above would be a good next step, you will always find new startup ideas to work on and capitalize, but you want to have enough skills and “level up” to take advantage when those opportunities arise.

I wouldn’t stay put even on a different team since it would limit my exposure to other approaches and styles of work

reading your outline - firstly i think you can look at quidco and topcashback - both offer 100% cashback where their affiliate commissions are passed as savings in the form of cashback to their members who pay a subscription.

regarding combatting uses who game the system, thats typically done by only paying out the cashback after affiliate commissions have been received, affiliate commissions are then only paid out after the transaction has been completed and past the refund period.

as someone who spent almost 20 years in digital marketing with a focus on performance marketing (i started my career in affiliate marketing, now work in VC), i can tell you that almost all cashback, voucher code, loyalty programs and comparison sites are affiliate sites.

your idea is to try to make the cashback reward paid to the customer unrelated (unaffiliated) with the brand they are purchasing from - not the first time i’ve encountered this proposition - you’ll face the following dilemmas -

1. if the brand doesn’t pay the reward to the customer (for their unbiased review) who pays and why would they pay for it?
2. how will get enough brands willing to be in your network?
3. how will you get enough customers willing to be in your network?
4. how will you get networked customers to actually post reviews and frequently enough?
5. how will you ensure the reward to the customer exceeds the reward they might get elsewhere for less effort?

i think if you can resolve these dilemmas you will be able to progress.

ask them what they believe is reasonable commitment and what they expect as compensation. ask them how they feel partnering will match with their aspirations. - you’ll likely get a feel for how serious they are from their responses.

don’t do anything related to pay or equity until you see proof of their commitment - make sure the reward is proportional to their contribution. with equity, 1 year cliff 4 year vesting is typical.

in your specific case, seems like your friend isn’t particularly committed, either they dont know how they should be involved, they under estimated your expectations and the level of commitment needed, or they aren’t particularly serious.

ultimately, if they haven’t contributed, then you should cut your losses and move faster.

(all monthly)

(rent + utilities + staffing costs)/ (opening hours* 60%) = hourly cost

hourly cost * 50% = hourly price

so then anything between the hourly price an the hourly cost can be assigned as discount

*nb - occupancy rate and markup can be changed as you wish, just proxy numbers.

slightly contrarian view.

don’t rely on motivation. Rely on discipline. motivation ebbs and is generally reliant on external signal, i.e. its reliant on the dopamine hit of reward, that makes it susceptible to external influences.

I work with over 50 startups, and the founders that seem to have the most success are the ones that are extremely disciplined - they are ‘routine machines’ - everything runs like clockwork, they make decisions factually based on data and minimise the impact of their emotions on the decisions they make. additionally they show a focused passion for solving the specific problem their business addresses, for them, its not about other peoples acknowledgement as much as it is about solving the puzzle perfectly. they see the signal of success in terms of their business value and revenue growth over any subjective ‘pat on the back’

TL;DR - emotional support is a vanity metric; you’ll know if you’re doing the right thing by the health of your balance sheet.

you could set up two profiles, label one personal.

neither linkedin nor instagram allows you to segment the people you follow.

an alternative might be to ‘mute’ the people you follow that you dont want to see posts from, but thats also, i assume, not an ideal solution.

firstly inflation has outstripped pay increases for years.

next, work from home made people realise that the 2hours a day they spend travelling could be put to better use.

ultimately companies expect a lot from workers, and workers aren’t sufficiently compensated to make it worthwhile.

theres sufficient data to show that the additional free time work from home brings, is almost worth like 30%+ pay increase - but ultimately companies neither want to pay 30% more, nor give a couple of days work from home.

and no amount of free pizza or happy hours is going to off set that.

I’m based in China, Chinese IP laws run parallel to western IP laws, meaning they don’t recognize international patents, they have their own, if you register your patent under a Chinese patent then you’ll be well protected but if you don’t do that step having a intl patent means nothing — NAL, just my basic understanding.

The famous case was the new balance Chinese brand name which was an issue for all of the 11 years I’ve been in china and I think only finally got settled a couple of years ago.