4 ms·

There have been YC companies in the past that spent most of their time away from San Francisco, including some companies that actually spent most of their time

There have been YC companies in the past that spent most of their time away from San Francisco, including some companies that actually spent most of their time in Europe. AirBnB famously flew to and from New York every week. You don't have to be there for the entire 3 months, although I think all that travel will likely exhaust you if you aren't absolutely committed to your company (and it sounds like it could be difficult with the baby). Also, $80k for 3% is a far better equity proposal than YC. $80k for 5% would be equivalent. That said, I can't imagine they'd splinter themselves any further. I think the way they've set themselves up works great for them, obviously they can't please everyone. If you really have that much interest for your idea, get several LOI (letter of intent) notices from your potential customers and take it to investors. That should get you a lot more than $80k.

bedros 10y ago
thank you for your suggestions, LOI can certainly help with raising money, I'll focus on making a better tested MVP and demo it to potential customers and get LOI.
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  Just a suggestion, but why not switch to a services model to get started? Sell them on the demo, present a plan to integrate it into their systems and the costs associated with that (integration being the key word). The costs associated are however long it will take you times $125-$250 per hour. That's enough to set yourself up as a going business at least, then figure out how to grow it from there. It will be a lot easier to raise money if you have 5 customers and example case studies that have worked through this process. You may find you don't need to. You don't need YC's stamp of approval to do this, and many others have followed a similar process in various verticals.
  - bedros 10y ago
    thank you for the suggestion, that's what I'm planning on once I get MVP ready for customers.

bedros 10y ago

thank you for your suggestions, LOI can certainly help with raising money, I'll focus on making a better tested MVP and demo it to potential customers and get LOI.

dave_sullivan 10y ago
Just a suggestion, but why not switch to a services model to get started? Sell them on the demo, present a plan to integrate it into their systems and the costs associated with that (integration being the key word). The costs associated are however long it will take you times $125-$250 per hour. That's enough to set yourself up as a going business at least, then figure out how to grow it from there. It will be a lot easier to raise money if you have 5 customers and example case studies that have worked through this process. You may find you don't need to. You don't need YC's stamp of approval to do this, and many others have followed a similar process in various verticals.
- bedros 10y ago
  thank you for the suggestion, that's what I'm planning on once I get MVP ready for customers.