4 ms·

> We've reached a manpower ceiling with just two of us working on it daily so the 200k is about double what we need for a few hires that would allow us to build

by arikr 10y ago

> We've reached a manpower ceiling with just two of us working on it daily so the 200k is about double what we need for a few hires that would allow us to build out the desktop experience, some general design/UI updates, get off of Parse and onto our own backend and complete two large features that will make the overall experience a more shareable and viral experience. It should also be enough to take us to our first 1mil users. An investor would certainly prefer investing if it was the case that you were growing so fast that you couldn't handle the growth. The skeptical investor in me would ask: why can't you two get it growing faster without other people? How much longer would it take you to build these two large features with just you two? Which other things are you spending time on right now that you could stop using time for? I feel these are valid questions given you are building a social application that makes money from advertisements, where to make large amounts of revenue requires extreme scale -- therefore why would an investor want to invest unless they believed you were excellent at growth?

amtrekker 10y ago
Good questions. We could certainly build the features ourselves, one of the time constraints we're trying to battle is a self-imposed deadline to relaunch before the end of the year. We saw a large bump at the end of last year, before we had started working on telling anyone we exist, from users looking for interesting ways to do 365 Projects for New Year's resolutions. This year, knowing that's coming and a proven use case, we'd like to amplify that effect as much as possible. The other piece of the puzzle is that we know we're pretty good at what we do but I'm a former theme park designer and that doesn't necessarily translate to UI and graphics 1:1 so it would be nice to bring someone in to up our design game there, likely on a short-term contract. And finally, we'd be learning a completely new skill to rebuild the backend and get us off Parse by the end of January when they fold. There are bandaids available for that situation but if we're going to go through the time and expense, we'd prefer to do it right. So ultimately, my original question plays into your last question, "Why would an investor want to invest unless they believed you were at excellent growth?" I'm hoping the answer is something like, "because these other metrics and circumstances point to a high enough likelihood of excellent growth being right around the corner." But I don't know if that's how the funding market thinks right now even if I can convince someone to believe that to be the truth as much as I believe it to be, so I'm hoping to gain a little insight there.

by arikr 10y ago

amtrekker 10y ago

Good questions. We could certainly build the features ourselves, one of the time constraints we're trying to battle is a self-imposed deadline to relaunch before the end of the year. We saw a large bump at the end of last year, before we had started working on telling anyone we exist, from users looking for interesting ways to do 365 Projects for New Year's resolutions. This year, knowing that's coming and a proven use case, we'd like to amplify that effect as much as possible. The other piece of the puzzle is that we know we're pretty good at what we do but I'm a former theme park designer and that doesn't necessarily translate to UI and graphics 1:1 so it would be nice to bring someone in to up our design game there, likely on a short-term contract. And finally, we'd be learning a completely new skill to rebuild the backend and get us off Parse by the end of January when they fold. There are bandaids available for that situation but if we're going to go through the time and expense, we'd prefer to do it right. So ultimately, my original question plays into your last question, "Why would an investor want to invest unless they believed you were at excellent growth?" I'm hoping the answer is something like, "because these other metrics and circumstances point to a high enough likelihood of excellent growth being right around the corner." But I don't know if that's how the funding market thinks right now even if I can convince someone to believe that to be the truth as much as I believe it to be, so I'm hoping to gain a little insight there.