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Ask HN: I've users + growing who want more. I need capitol, what do I do?
I am running a free site, that could do ads at some point. But my users are asking for an iOS app. They say they would pay for it as well. The problem is the website is easy, well I mean all it took was sweat capitol.
The iOS app would require investment in some more serious hardware. I don't need alot, I just need cover server cost.
I haven't ever worked on something that needed capitol investment, and I don't know where the best place is to ask, or even start looking.
- hapless 16y agoYou don't need a capital infusion. Commodity servers are very easy to lease/finance. I know Dell and HP make credit very widely available. The server hardware lease will probably cost you less than than the lease on the colo/rackspace it occupies! That said, at your scale, no one is going to give you credit on a business account. You will need to apply for credit in your own name.
- voidfiles 16y agoI have no credit history, not even student loans. I can't even get $1000 dollar car loan.
- lincolnq 16y agoWell, that's something you may want to work on fixing, but probably not for this project. (Secured credit card is pretty much where you have to start for that) As for the website, how much capital are you talking about and why do you need it for the iPhone app specifically?
- voidfiles 16y agoRoughly $10,000 would get the server I need for 2 years barring any major surge in users or traffic. The reason why I need a server is because I'm going to be transcoding video. If it is a commodity server then it still needs to be a big one.
- pmjoyce 16y agoHave you looked at zencoder.com or similar?
- rubinelli 16y agoYou can apply for a Y-Combinator-like program in your area. But wouldn't it be a lot less risky to use the money from sales and subscription to pay for, say, one of Linode's heavy-iron (8-20GB) instances month to month? It seems to be a relatively small premium. And have you thought about letting your clients (or at least the desktop clients) do the transcoding for you?
- voidfiles 16y agoYea YCombinator and the like would be nice, but many of them require full time participation, and that's understandable, I just can't afford to leave m job, two kids and a wife. Funding base on subscription is a good idea as well but I still need a bare minimum of investment to float me trhough development. Also I would investigate usig an encoding service, but it costs almost as much as renting server space.
- rlpb 16y agoI make it about $6000 to run an extra large high CPU (8 virtual core) EC2 instance 24/7 for a year, and you won't need a large capital outlay. Would this work for you? Alternatively with a $2000 up-front payment Amazon will give you the same thing for $4000 total.
- voidfiles 16y agoThat's interesting, I haven't done the math for all the different VPS providers / EC2, but yea that is what I am looking for just a beefy box to do some transcoding.
- il 16y agoCan't you use credit cards?
- voidfiles 16y agoNope, can't get a credit card. I would also like to work with an investor who has advice to give, not just money.
- protomyth 16y agoCan you go into a little more detail on the "The iOS app would require investment in some more serious hardware. I don't need alot, I just need cover server cost." part. I am a little unsure about the server <-> iOS app connection.
- voidfiles 16y agoIf you look at a previous comment, I'm transcoding video for iOS devices.
- petervandijck 16y agoDon't spend 10,000$ on a server for 2 years, spend 300$ on an AWS server (the big one) for the first month, and from then on you're getting cash in (as you mentioned), thus paying for future months. Solved.
- ScottWhigham 16y agoIf you can't get a loan for $1000 (as mentioned in comments elsewhere), what makes you think that an investor is willing to give you $10000+? Even as a poor college student with little job history and no paying job I could easily apply for and get credit cards with $500 available. If you can't get even $1000 then I'm assuming there is negative information on your credit report then. If that's the case, it will follow you to investment as well (most likely). And as for wanting an investor who will give you advice, let me just suggest that you not do any of this. Your questions/comments sound very naive right now. Getting involved with investors is serious business. There are lots of people who will take a piece of your business in exchange for advice. That doesn't mean that it is smart for you to do that. My suggestion is that you research more about what is involved in taking on and seeking investors. There are many dangers in these waters, not the least of which is spending so much time learning/seeking investment that you let your business slide.