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why are you wasting your time with accelerators? Listen, this whole game about VC, accelerators, startup events, finding a co-founder... all the noise you hear

why are you wasting your time with accelerators? Listen, this whole game about VC, accelerators, startup events, finding a co-founder... all the noise you hear around early-stage / startup companies is just that: noise. Go build something, but more importantly, get it in front of customers. If you can't get someone interested and shouting "take my money!" then you need to keep iterating until you do. Realize you need other talents and help on your team? Great, bring in a co-founder. Need Money? More importantly, ask yourself "*Why* do we need money? What would that money do for us?" If you can't answer that for yourself, then keep on bootstrapping and selling product. Key points here: Ignore what you see other people doing. It's about 99.9% an illusion.

me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
I don’t know how to deal with legal things. I spoke with my local SBA advisor who said I need to get a lawyer since I will be collecting PII. The quotes from lawyers are pretty expensive and I’m not exactly from a socioeconomic background that I’ve been around lawyers or used their services. However, do you know of any services or specific people who can help (cookie cutter service for people getting started/noobs)? Thanks
- kingnothing 5y ago
  Every single web app and internet-connected mobile app handles PII (IP address, geolocation data, and email address all qualify). Unless it's particularly protected, like health info or storing banking info, you'll probably be OK to learn how to handle it on your own to get a product to market. You also need to understand the impact GDPR, CCPA, and app store requirements have on what you're building. Then there's the legal side of actually creating the company itself, plus concerns around copyright, trademark, and patents if applicable. At the end of the day, you're going to have to learn some legal stuff to succeed as a founder.
  - coward123 5y ago
    I'm in full agreement with kingnothing here...and in fact if your industry / niche is such that you need to do these things, you need to gain domain knowledge even more than you need to talk to a lawyer.
- coward123 5y ago
  Can the SBA advisor point you at a lawyer? Are there lawyers in your area that partner with the SBA? In my state, there are law firms that everybody knows has focus on early-stage companies, and surprisingly their fees are reasonable (though they may put you with a junior lawyer). Often people are scared to talk to other professionals - accountants, lawyers, etc - because they think it will be crazy expensive. I've been really pleased with how affordable their services can be for basic consult, documents. It's only when you are in litigation that it gets crazy (don't ask me how I know). So - it might be just a couple hours (let's say $600 or so) for some of their time to get all your questions answered. In fact, I've found a brief coffee with a lawyer will often answer all my questions and that only if we have to do something with them after that point does the meter start running. Point being: Get comfortable talking to these people, they are your allies.
- dasil003 5y ago
  > I spoke with my local SBA advisor who said I need to get a lawyer since I will be collecting PII. IMHO this is really putting the cart before the horse. When you are bootstrapping, the first thing to understand is that you can only do 0.1% of all the things people will tell you that you "need" to do. That means what you really need to do is apply your own judgement identifying the critical work that will move the needle like understanding what people are willing to pay for and building it. Of course you should use some minimal measures to protect yourself from legal risk (eg. start an LLC), but generally speaking your biggest risk is no one knowing or caring about what you are doing. Don't start by asking a bunch of experts as that will lead you down the path of "playing house" as PG describes in his Before the Startup essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html)
- csomar 5y ago
  Forget about GDPR, PII, Incorporation, Taxes, etc... No one is going to care about you/what you are doing unless you are making real money or disrupting something. Once you start making real money, start spending some of it on regulation/legal.
primax 5y ago
Unless you are prepared to pay for 100% of your cloud costs, seed funding or accelerator acceptance is required for the ~100k in credits that the major cloud providers offer to startups. There are light accelerators out there that take no equity, just a first right of refusal of funding kinda arrangement. (Now queue the HN cloud haters telling me I can run anything on 3 raspberryPis or something)
- tchock23 5y ago
  A local incubator can also offer these cloud credits. Doesn’t need to be an accelerator…
- p0d 5y ago
  Am I a hater if I say I run the sideline saas product I made in the cloud for €20 per month? I bring in a modest 4 figure MRR. You don't need a 100k or an accelerator. You need an accelerator if you want to go big quickly...and you probably won't...so back to starting with make something and have a go.
- coward123 5y ago
  Cloud costs, basic incorporation fees, etc are nothing compared to labor costs, for example, or what it will cost to keep a roof over your head while you build out your product and get traction. Those credits et al are peanuts by comparison. To be clear - my original comment wasn't really intended to disparage incubators, accelerators, etc, but rather to say that you can spend a lot of time playing the whole startup game where often you are better off to just keep your head down and focus on your own work.
  - p0d 5y ago
    Agreed. I wasn't disparaging incubators, accelerators either. I was on one and sort of admired the fact some people, with no tech skills, were having a go at making a tech business. I think those with tech skills should put the head down first as you say.
- rl1987 5y ago
  You absolutely don't need 100k in AWS credits to validate your idea and most web apps/SaaS APIs can be running on one or more Digital Ocean droplets at fairly low opex. AWS giving away cloud credits to startups is not unlike drug dealer handing out some free hits to new potential customers. They're not doing it out of goodness of their hearts.

me_me_mu_mu 5y ago

I don’t know how to deal with legal things. I spoke with my local SBA advisor who said I need to get a lawyer since I will be collecting PII. The quotes from lawyers are pretty expensive and I’m not exactly from a socioeconomic background that I’ve been around lawyers or used their services. However, do you know of any services or specific people who can help (cookie cutter service for people getting started/noobs)? Thanks

kingnothing 5y ago
Every single web app and internet-connected mobile app handles PII (IP address, geolocation data, and email address all qualify). Unless it's particularly protected, like health info or storing banking info, you'll probably be OK to learn how to handle it on your own to get a product to market. You also need to understand the impact GDPR, CCPA, and app store requirements have on what you're building. Then there's the legal side of actually creating the company itself, plus concerns around copyright, trademark, and patents if applicable. At the end of the day, you're going to have to learn some legal stuff to succeed as a founder.
- coward123 5y ago
  I'm in full agreement with kingnothing here...and in fact if your industry / niche is such that you need to do these things, you need to gain domain knowledge even more than you need to talk to a lawyer.
coward123 5y ago
Can the SBA advisor point you at a lawyer? Are there lawyers in your area that partner with the SBA? In my state, there are law firms that everybody knows has focus on early-stage companies, and surprisingly their fees are reasonable (though they may put you with a junior lawyer). Often people are scared to talk to other professionals - accountants, lawyers, etc - because they think it will be crazy expensive. I've been really pleased with how affordable their services can be for basic consult, documents. It's only when you are in litigation that it gets crazy (don't ask me how I know). So - it might be just a couple hours (let's say $600 or so) for some of their time to get all your questions answered. In fact, I've found a brief coffee with a lawyer will often answer all my questions and that only if we have to do something with them after that point does the meter start running. Point being: Get comfortable talking to these people, they are your allies.
dasil003 5y ago
> I spoke with my local SBA advisor who said I need to get a lawyer since I will be collecting PII. IMHO this is really putting the cart before the horse. When you are bootstrapping, the first thing to understand is that you can only do 0.1% of all the things people will tell you that you "need" to do. That means what you really need to do is apply your own judgement identifying the critical work that will move the needle like understanding what people are willing to pay for and building it. Of course you should use some minimal measures to protect yourself from legal risk (eg. start an LLC), but generally speaking your biggest risk is no one knowing or caring about what you are doing. Don't start by asking a bunch of experts as that will lead you down the path of "playing house" as PG describes in his Before the Startup essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html)
csomar 5y ago
Forget about GDPR, PII, Incorporation, Taxes, etc... No one is going to care about you/what you are doing unless you are making real money or disrupting something. Once you start making real money, start spending some of it on regulation/legal.

primax 5y ago

Unless you are prepared to pay for 100% of your cloud costs, seed funding or accelerator acceptance is required for the ~100k in credits that the major cloud providers offer to startups. There are light accelerators out there that take no equity, just a first right of refusal of funding kinda arrangement. (Now queue the HN cloud haters telling me I can run anything on 3 raspberryPis or something)

tchock23 5y ago
A local incubator can also offer these cloud credits. Doesn’t need to be an accelerator…
p0d 5y ago
Am I a hater if I say I run the sideline saas product I made in the cloud for €20 per month? I bring in a modest 4 figure MRR. You don't need a 100k or an accelerator. You need an accelerator if you want to go big quickly...and you probably won't...so back to starting with make something and have a go.
coward123 5y ago
Cloud costs, basic incorporation fees, etc are nothing compared to labor costs, for example, or what it will cost to keep a roof over your head while you build out your product and get traction. Those credits et al are peanuts by comparison. To be clear - my original comment wasn't really intended to disparage incubators, accelerators, etc, but rather to say that you can spend a lot of time playing the whole startup game where often you are better off to just keep your head down and focus on your own work.
- p0d 5y ago
  Agreed. I wasn't disparaging incubators, accelerators either. I was on one and sort of admired the fact some people, with no tech skills, were having a go at making a tech business. I think those with tech skills should put the head down first as you say.
rl1987 5y ago
You absolutely don't need 100k in AWS credits to validate your idea and most web apps/SaaS APIs can be running on one or more Digital Ocean droplets at fairly low opex. AWS giving away cloud credits to startups is not unlike drug dealer handing out some free hits to new potential customers. They're not doing it out of goodness of their hearts.