3 ms·

Ask HN: How to respond to investor questions about platform dependency

1 points by markhall 15y ago

I'm building a startup that is built on top of the Fb API in addition to another API. To some degree, as of now, we are dependent on their access for the purpose of our product. We have an upcoming pitch in a public forum where investors will be present. My question is how to respond to investor questions about being 'platform dependent' on other companies? How do you justify future success when it is dependent on other companies? We plan to make adjustments to get around this issue in the long term, but for now, we are technically dependent on others. Based on how we use their API, it is HIGHLY unlikely that there will be any issues, however, investors are normally observant of all the possible drawbacks. Any thoughts on how to approach this?

benologist 15y ago
As long as you aren't likely to be banned from their platform I doubt they'll focus on the dependency. Having a plan to wean yourself off it over time makes it irrelevant long term anyway.