5 ms·

TinySeed applications close today

96 points by einarvollset 8y ago

TACIXAT 8y ago
What's weird about this application is that there is no field asking what the business is. There are a lot of questions around that (why is now a good time, who is your target customer), but there is no elevator pitch. As well, a lot of the questions are focused on which businesses your customers are, is B2C not a thing?
- btilly 8y ago
  It isn't just B2C that doesn't fit their model, but the common B2B of consulting services also doesn't. Believe it or not, someone offering consulting services usually doesn't have a product on offer.
- rwalling 8y ago
  We'd like for the marketing website, product demo or deck to do the talking. We don't need someone to re-hash something they should have already communicated in another format.
  - TACIXAT 8y ago
    For sure, that filters it to established products and not prototypes though. I have a garbage landing page now, but when I applied I just had some barebones features prototyped. I might have read a little much into the "seed" part of it.
rsweeney21 8y ago
This is an interesting approach. I'm not sure I'd call it bootstrapping if you are taking external funding. Having access to mentors is good though. I bootstrapped my first company to several million and revenue by doing contract work on the side. Later, I decided to use the money from my bootstrapped company to launch another startup. Once we got some traction I decided to take company #2 the VC route. 0/10 would not recommend! :-) I'm working on a blog post about why bootstrapping can be much better for founders. I've since gone back to company #1, where I own 100%, and pivoted it into a service to help engineers go from FTE -> contract -> truly bootstrapped startup. Of course, you are could always just go from FTE -> contract if starting a business isn't your thing. We've got quite a few devs in our network now. More info: https://blog.facetdev.com/the-facet-developer-network-the-freelancer-network-for-former-faangetc-engineers/ https://blog.facetdev.com/the-facet-developer-network-the-fr... To sign up: https://www.facetdev.com/work https://www.facetdev.com/work
- akcreek 8y ago
  I bootstrapped my first company to several million and revenue by doing contract work on the side. Later, I decided to use the money from my bootstrapped company to launch another startup. Once we got some traction I decided to take company #2 the VC route. 0/10 would not recommend! :-) I'm working on a blog post about why bootstrapping can be much better for founders. I'm in a similar position; company #1 is successful and now running without me and I'm switching focus to company #2 and considering the VC route as this business has appropriate scalability. I'm quite interested to hear why you are 0/10 on going that route. Will you be posting that to the facet blog or how can I ensure I see that when posted?
  - rsweeney21 8y ago
    Yeah, i'll be posting it to the blog in the next week or so. You can subscribe to the blog to get notified when it gets posted. Also happy to talk one on one about my experience. My direct email is in my profile.
- smnplk 8y ago
  this reads like an ad
  - whamlastxmas 8y ago
    Agreed, and the cult it perpetuates surrounding FAANG companies is annoying and off-putting. I get that it's their marketing gimmick but it still comes across as out of touch and shitty.
- imetatroll 8y ago
  I was momentarily excited until I realized that not being part of the FAANG club excludes me.
  - rsweeney21 8y ago
    It's not just FAANG. It's "FAANG or similar" or "FAANGetc". We're still looking for a better word to describe "senior engineer that has experience building software at scale". If you are a senior engineer, please apply! From our FAQ: What companies are considered "FAANG or similar" We don't have an official list, but generally it includes Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and any other company where we are confident the hiring bar is sufficiently high and the user scale is sufficiently large.
staunch 8y ago
TinySeed seems much better than the "predatory" deal Earnest Capital is offering[1]. But they still seems hamstrung by not understanding that startup investing is inherently a hits-based business. At some point they're going to get a 1000x return, whether they want it or not, and it will make all their previous investments look financially insignificant. A startup doesn't have to be the "the next Facebook" to return 1000x. It could be an Atlassian or GitHub, two previously-tiny bootstrapped startups. The big advantage of trying to make your money off your big hits is it allows you to be genuinely founder friendly. The big hits pay back so much that you can be generous and high-minded with the rest, like YC. 1. Giving up 15% for ~$150k would suck as a founder. But 8% would be a good deal. Forcing smart founders to insist on the minimum end of the range seems like a bad place to start the relationship. 2. Having an investor make monthly payments and control your salary would suck as a founder. It's going to cause anxiety about the money being cut off and it will make you feel like an employee that has to report to their boss. Investors should be peers and partners. Seems like they should just make the deal 8% and pay the money at once, and trust that you've chosen good founders. If they blow the money, well, you messed up. And if they spend it differently from how you would, but succeed, who cares? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160036
- einarvollset 8y ago
  Skipping over the comment about how we don't understand startup investing.. :) On pt 2: there is no mandatory monthly payments, and we don't really control founder comp. What we're trying to do (which relates to the point I skipped over above) is attempting to come up with a structure where a founder can build a profitable business doing 7 or 8 figures while the investors get "suitably" risk adjusted compensated for that success. Whether you think our valuations "suck" or not, we have spent a lot of time thinking about what we can do to build out a novel ecosystem that can provide fertile ground for these kinds of businesses. What we don't think works is simply say "hey, you know what this is a hits business, so forget about valuations and just give them a SAFE". If you had a business that wanted to raise financing but was honest about the fact that the founder did not thing they were going to become GitHub you'd know what I meant :)
zenlibs 8y ago
It would be interesting for applicants to share their submissions, for the HN community's feedback, and vote. I've created a simple markdown version, for easy editing here: https://zenlibs.com/write https://zenlibs.com/write Just fill in the specifics and share as a gist or on Github.
- throwaway_d158 8y ago
  This editor looks fantastic. Have you shared the code anywhere?
let_var 8y ago
Two thumbs up for this "...companies that don’t aspire to grow at all costs to reach a $1B valuation..." If someone is raising capital, not sure if that'd be same as bootstrapping. Access to mentors-cum-support group who has some stake in the game makes them valuable.
urlwolf 8y ago
Can anyone post the text for the form? I'm very interested in what their thesis is, but didn't get there on time.

96 points by einarvollset 8y ago

What's weird about this application is that there is no field asking what the business is. There are a lot of questions around that (why is now a good time, who is your target customer), but there is no elevator pitch. As well, a lot of the questions are focused on which businesses your customers are, is B2C not a thing?

btilly 8y ago
It isn't just B2C that doesn't fit their model, but the common B2B of consulting services also doesn't. Believe it or not, someone offering consulting services usually doesn't have a product on offer.
rwalling 8y ago
We'd like for the marketing website, product demo or deck to do the talking. We don't need someone to re-hash something they should have already communicated in another format.
- TACIXAT 8y ago
  For sure, that filters it to established products and not prototypes though. I have a garbage landing page now, but when I applied I just had some barebones features prototyped. I might have read a little much into the "seed" part of it.

rsweeney21 8y ago

This is an interesting approach. I'm not sure I'd call it bootstrapping if you are taking external funding. Having access to mentors is good though. I bootstrapped my first company to several million and revenue by doing contract work on the side. Later, I decided to use the money from my bootstrapped company to launch another startup. Once we got some traction I decided to take company #2 the VC route. 0/10 would not recommend! :-) I'm working on a blog post about why bootstrapping can be much better for founders. I've since gone back to company #1, where I own 100%, and pivoted it into a service to help engineers go from FTE -> contract -> truly bootstrapped startup. Of course, you are could always just go from FTE -> contract if starting a business isn't your thing. We've got quite a few devs in our network now. More info: https://blog.facetdev.com/the-facet-developer-network-the-freelancer-network-for-former-faangetc-engineers/ https://blog.facetdev.com/the-facet-developer-network-the-fr... To sign up: https://www.facetdev.com/work https://www.facetdev.com/work

akcreek 8y ago
I bootstrapped my first company to several million and revenue by doing contract work on the side. Later, I decided to use the money from my bootstrapped company to launch another startup. Once we got some traction I decided to take company #2 the VC route. 0/10 would not recommend! :-) I'm working on a blog post about why bootstrapping can be much better for founders. I'm in a similar position; company #1 is successful and now running without me and I'm switching focus to company #2 and considering the VC route as this business has appropriate scalability. I'm quite interested to hear why you are 0/10 on going that route. Will you be posting that to the facet blog or how can I ensure I see that when posted?
- rsweeney21 8y ago
  Yeah, i'll be posting it to the blog in the next week or so. You can subscribe to the blog to get notified when it gets posted. Also happy to talk one on one about my experience. My direct email is in my profile.
smnplk 8y ago
this reads like an ad
- whamlastxmas 8y ago
  Agreed, and the cult it perpetuates surrounding FAANG companies is annoying and off-putting. I get that it's their marketing gimmick but it still comes across as out of touch and shitty.
imetatroll 8y ago
I was momentarily excited until I realized that not being part of the FAANG club excludes me.
- rsweeney21 8y ago
  It's not just FAANG. It's "FAANG or similar" or "FAANGetc". We're still looking for a better word to describe "senior engineer that has experience building software at scale". If you are a senior engineer, please apply! From our FAQ: What companies are considered "FAANG or similar" We don't have an official list, but generally it includes Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and any other company where we are confident the hiring bar is sufficiently high and the user scale is sufficiently large.

staunch 8y ago

TinySeed seems much better than the "predatory" deal Earnest Capital is offering[1]. But they still seems hamstrung by not understanding that startup investing is inherently a hits-based business. At some point they're going to get a 1000x return, whether they want it or not, and it will make all their previous investments look financially insignificant. A startup doesn't have to be the "the next Facebook" to return 1000x. It could be an Atlassian or GitHub, two previously-tiny bootstrapped startups. The big advantage of trying to make your money off your big hits is it allows you to be genuinely founder friendly. The big hits pay back so much that you can be generous and high-minded with the rest, like YC. 1. Giving up 15% for ~$150k would suck as a founder. But 8% would be a good deal. Forcing smart founders to insist on the minimum end of the range seems like a bad place to start the relationship. 2. Having an investor make monthly payments and control your salary would suck as a founder. It's going to cause anxiety about the money being cut off and it will make you feel like an employee that has to report to their boss. Investors should be peers and partners. Seems like they should just make the deal 8% and pay the money at once, and trust that you've chosen good founders. If they blow the money, well, you messed up. And if they spend it differently from how you would, but succeed, who cares? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19160036

einarvollset 8y ago
Skipping over the comment about how we don't understand startup investing.. :) On pt 2: there is no mandatory monthly payments, and we don't really control founder comp. What we're trying to do (which relates to the point I skipped over above) is attempting to come up with a structure where a founder can build a profitable business doing 7 or 8 figures while the investors get "suitably" risk adjusted compensated for that success. Whether you think our valuations "suck" or not, we have spent a lot of time thinking about what we can do to build out a novel ecosystem that can provide fertile ground for these kinds of businesses. What we don't think works is simply say "hey, you know what this is a hits business, so forget about valuations and just give them a SAFE". If you had a business that wanted to raise financing but was honest about the fact that the founder did not thing they were going to become GitHub you'd know what I meant :)

zenlibs 8y ago

It would be interesting for applicants to share their submissions, for the HN community's feedback, and vote. I've created a simple markdown version, for easy editing here: https://zenlibs.com/write https://zenlibs.com/write Just fill in the specifics and share as a gist or on Github.

throwaway_d158 8y ago
This editor looks fantastic. Have you shared the code anywhere?

let_var 8y ago

Two thumbs up for this "...companies that don’t aspire to grow at all costs to reach a $1B valuation..." If someone is raising capital, not sure if that'd be same as bootstrapping. Access to mentors-cum-support group who has some stake in the game makes them valuable.

urlwolf 8y ago

Can anyone post the text for the form? I'm very interested in what their thesis is, but didn't get there on time.