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This "why an investor is going to put money in you if your family and friends don't do it" question has been around for long in the startup 'hype' lingo, but I'

This "why an investor is going to put money in you if your family and friends don't do it" question has been around for long in the startup 'hype' lingo, but I'm very curious if this has actually ever worked for founders that don't come from wealthy backgrounds, or from families with sizable savings (something that is a mirage for middle class families). If you need 50-75K, perhaps it's better to just go for 100K€ (because things will not go as planned, as some investors will tell you) and, if you can build a solid case based on your business' performance, then reach out to angel investors, as 100K€ is an investment exactly in their ball park (unless your granny is sitting on 1M€ and can spare you 100K€). PS: these things need proper planning, fundraising is a long process based on trust and personal impressions...so, contrary to what you read around the web, it's unlikely you'll have a lot of success (in Europe, at least) if you just show up of the blue to pitch your case and leave a business card behind, unless your revenue/orders are already solid and you have a realistic plan to multiply their volume/value.

sigi45 10y ago
The question is, what you need 50k for. For a office? Do it at home. For people? 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year. 50-100k can mean that you have friends working with you, or it can be that you moved back to your parents to work fulltime on it. It is such a small number in the business world, its strange that someone thinks that 100k can make a real difference.
- privateprofile 10y ago
  > 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year. If you think a minute about that sentence, I think you'll realize that that depends on where those engineers live. 100K€ can allow 2-3 people to quit their jobs to work (for a year on low pay) on the features requested by their paying customers, or hiring an offshoring firm to build what they can't, or just having money to apply for government grants or cover real-world business expenses (provisional patents, technical infrastructure, lawyers, accountants, promotion).

sigi45 10y ago

The question is, what you need 50k for. For a office? Do it at home. For people? 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year. 50-100k can mean that you have friends working with you, or it can be that you moved back to your parents to work fulltime on it. It is such a small number in the business world, its strange that someone thinks that 100k can make a real difference.

privateprofile 10y ago
> 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year. If you think a minute about that sentence, I think you'll realize that that depends on where those engineers live. 100K€ can allow 2-3 people to quit their jobs to work (for a year on low pay) on the features requested by their paying customers, or hiring an offshoring firm to build what they can't, or just having money to apply for government grants or cover real-world business expenses (provisional patents, technical infrastructure, lawyers, accountants, promotion).