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It may look like that today, but when you pitch investors you sell them on the team, the market and the vision. You paint a compelling picture of how you get f
by rahulvohra 16y ago
It may look like that today, but when you pitch investors you sell them on the team, the market and the vision. You paint a compelling picture of how you get from where you are today to somewhere incredibly exciting.
- nickpp 16y agoJust to clarify: I have nothing against you and your team. Good luck to you and kudos! It's just that I remember a time when starting a business meant creating a product, finding a market and people in that market willing to pay for your product. I completely fail to see any of that in your case. But maybe building a feature for an existing product of a company in the idea of selling to that company IS a viable business model. And maybe I am getting old...
- samstokes 16y agoWe think we have all three of those things. We do have plans for features that we think people will be happy to charge for. Right now, we're not ready to talk too much about those features, but we think there is real pain we can remove. We feel validated by the fact that people love the features we have right now so much that many have asked if they can pay for them. Free is a strategy. We'll let you know how it works out :)
- betterlabs 16y agoRight on. And I am looking forward to what you do next. Having said that though, what you have right now is a "nice to have" and it excites everyone for the soft value it adds. But I wonder if the current product can pass the Penny Gap. I know you don't think its meant to, but I am really not sure if the current users will be the ones who would pay for whatever it is that you will build in the future. Xobni is a good example of it. Dropbox on the other end is a great example of a free strategy that sold users on the same product that they expected users would pay for. Basically with a strategy where you acquire a lot of free users thinking they will pay for what they have not seen as yet, can be a dangerous one.
- dasil003 16y agoThere was also a time when "product" meant something mass-produced in a factory so expensive that the number of products on the market was tiny, and all it took to get consumers to buy anything was a bit of TV advertising. These days just getting people to even try out your product is a major accomplishment. Sure, they haven't built a successful company yet, but for the capital expenditure they've made so far they are way ahead of the curve. What's the point of having a clear plan about how you will make money if it ultimately fails like most startups? You are going to need to pivot anyway, so the focus on users over revenue is totally a reasonable strategy. Even beyond the getting bought exit, the value of an audience is tremendous. Look at how 37signals transitioned from a dime-a-dozen agency to a very profitable company based largely on it's blog reach within the target market.
- exit 16y agowhat did you say to pg et al when they asked, "what if google just does this themselves"?
- Harj 16y agowe didn't ask that question because we don't care what the answer is. the biggest threat is almost always from another startup anyway, not google/microsoft/etc so we want to back the best founders. if you've met the rapportive team, you'll see pretty quickly why we funded them.
- christonog 16y agoCould you elaborate on why you wouldn't care? A competitor is a competitor, no matter if they're an elephant that can make waves, or a cheetah that can pivot on the dime. Shouldn't the mantra be to focus more on what your customers want/need rather than worry about threats from other companies?
- Harj 16y agobecause at the stage we invest at, we assume the idea is inevitably going to change so we're really looking at how strong the founders are. that's why it doesn't matter to us if google could 'do it themselves' or if there's competition from other startups, since we're funding the team not the idea.
- 16y ago
- AmberShah 16y agoYou guys seem really positive. How do you stay positive in the face of so much negativity that must come your way? This post is one example, but I assume there's a lot more where that came from.
- rahulvohra 16y agoPositivity is something I consciously work on. 1. If at every point you're taking what you believe to be approximately right decisions, given all the information you have at that time, then you can ban regrets from your mind. This is a good frame of mind to be in: you can focus on the future. The corollary is to arm yourself with information. For more on this, and more besides, see: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/30/how-andreessen-horowitz-evaluates-ceos http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/30/how-andreessen-horowitz-eval... 2. Although we face a lot of negativity, it comes only in a few limited forms. Any negative statement, such as "your business will fail because Google will crush you like the tiny ants you are", should only have an impact the first time you hear it. You then decide what you think of the statement, and unless later information convinces you otherwise, your mind should be made. No regrets. 3. I consciously try not to emotionally react to situations. I also try to smile :)
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- betterlabs 16y agoRahul, awesome reply. Kudos to your team for a well executed product. I am curious to know if you are using Rapleaf to get social profiles or if you are doing it yourself (which is tough/only partially possible). If you are using Rapleaf, aren't you loosing money with every lookup?
- AmberShah 16y agoThanks, those are great points.
- StavrosK 16y agoI hate how well-designed your site is! Congratulations and good luck!
- rahulvohra 16y agoThanks! We are very fortunate to be working with a truly awesome designer (@limedaring on twitter). We simply did not stop working on the site until we felt it was awesome (I think I spent almost a week fulltime on it, and I wasn't doing the design).