4 ms·

Tell HN: We just raised GBP 50,000 using Seedrs.com

12 points by buro9 14y ago

And you know what... I just wanted to tell some people who might appreciate it. http://seedrs.com/browse_startups/1217 The pitch is for new discussion forums: Like tumblr, for forums. Raising the money isn't wholly a surprise or shock, we have extremely passionate users who have been bugging me for a good chunk of this year that they'd like to be investors at some level. So when we got rejected for YC we determined whether the users were truly interested, and then completed a Seedrs proposal, emailed our users... and within 15 hours we hit our £50k target. Of course, there's little time for celebration and champagne, Sublime Text 2 welcomed me this morning, and now getting something out there fast is what matters. I'm stoked though, and want to say thanks to people on here for sharing so much as although there are bad moments, by and large being on here is a great thing and exposes one to a lot of other people's experiences and stories... and there's mine, we made the hurdle that was in front of us and can look forward to the next one.

brackin 14y ago
Congratulations, I'm interested to know how easy it is to raise money from Seedrs. Glad to hear a startup kept going after rejection and hopefully will continue to do so. I'm guessing you provided much more detail in your pitch and product than I can see on the public page. As all I see is "Discussion boards. Like tumblr, for forums." Which sounds a lot like Branch. Example: http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-name http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-na... They're working with publishers to create branch discussion sub-communities on popular publications.
- buro9 14y ago
  Seedrs has several layers of visibility as part of their regulatory requirements. What you're seeing is the least information. If you're registered and have passed the KYC checks, which include self-certification that you are an experienced investor, that you accept the risks involved, know you may lose everything, and that you prove your identity, etc... then you see the next layer. What investors see is much like a detailed KickStarter page, with details of the idea, the market, the team, the experience, how far we've come to date, what we'll spend the money on, etc. Finally there is what the entrepreneur sees, which is all of the above and then for every claim that you make in your proposal you need to provide evidence. Such as, if you say "We've made the database schema and believe that we can import other fora"... prove, provide links or documents to such evidence. I was really impressed by Seedrs validation process. It was very thorough. To the point of wanting to validate a work position from 10 years ago using multiple payslips at points within the employment to ensure that the statement that I'd been there multiple years was true. Even when you're declaring market size, a nebulous and vague thing at best, you're asked to prove the numbers at least are realistic and show research into the market. Once you submit a proposal you then go through a process of verification, where Seedrs will now read all of your statements and will suggest re-wording where necessary to ensure risk is communicated and to defuse liability should some event not come to pass: "We hope to", "We plan to". Once all of that is done, you are approved and get two choices: Go live, or make a video and subject that to approval before go live. I chose to go live immediately. To be successful with crowd-funding you cannot come in cold, you really should realise that investors will follow other investors and that the best thing you can do is to line up a lot of interested investors. I found 100 small investors, mostly my users, but a couple of friends too. And kept in touch with them via a forum, and also email. I followed their progress through the KYC checks and when the vast majority were through I alerted them all that I would now go live. All I was hoping, was that if I could push us to 50% of the goal, the investors unbeknownst to myself would step in and invest too. But I now believe that I'd done so well at lining up investors that virtually all of my fundraising was from investors known to me. I get to see investor names, unless they're opted to be anonymous. I'm afraid I cannot vouch for whether it is easy to raise money from Seedrs, just that it is via Seedrs. The tax advantage with SEIS ( http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm ) is ridiculously good, and if you're in the UK and want to raise money then definitely make sure to take advantage of this, it's win-win for everyone.
jamesjguthrie 14y ago
Well done! I'm pretty sure my business was too early stage when we launched our Seedrs listing so it looks like we're not going to make our target. Definitely come along quite a bit in the 2.5 months since it went live so might list again.
- buro9 14y ago
  We are very early stage, but we have done a lot of research and testing of the idea including identifying customers. Where we're at is that we have a few organisations lined up, quite a few medium and small forums wanting to move, and what amounts to about 60,000 users ready to move onto the platform we make. Because of this process, we also now have a lot of people who believe in what we're offering. We perhaps have been too successful at finding the market, as we don't actually have a product yet. Our focus is now going to be to very rapidly produce the first prototype, and then iterate ridiculously fast on the path to releasing the best product we can for those customers and consumer demand. The only tip I've give anyone using Seedrs is that it's really important to line up some investor interest. If you've validated your idea by finding potential customers who will pay, then this shouldn't be too hard. But you should do this before you go live on Seedrs.

12 points by buro9 14y ago

brackin 14y ago

Congratulations, I'm interested to know how easy it is to raise money from Seedrs. Glad to hear a startup kept going after rejection and hopefully will continue to do so. I'm guessing you provided much more detail in your pitch and product than I can see on the public page. As all I see is "Discussion boards. Like tumblr, for forums." Which sounds a lot like Branch. Example: http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-name http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-na... They're working with publishers to create branch discussion sub-communities on popular publications.

buro9 14y ago
Seedrs has several layers of visibility as part of their regulatory requirements. What you're seeing is the least information. If you're registered and have passed the KYC checks, which include self-certification that you are an experienced investor, that you accept the risks involved, know you may lose everything, and that you prove your identity, etc... then you see the next layer. What investors see is much like a detailed KickStarter page, with details of the idea, the market, the team, the experience, how far we've come to date, what we'll spend the money on, etc. Finally there is what the entrepreneur sees, which is all of the above and then for every claim that you make in your proposal you need to provide evidence. Such as, if you say "We've made the database schema and believe that we can import other fora"... prove, provide links or documents to such evidence. I was really impressed by Seedrs validation process. It was very thorough. To the point of wanting to validate a work position from 10 years ago using multiple payslips at points within the employment to ensure that the statement that I'd been there multiple years was true. Even when you're declaring market size, a nebulous and vague thing at best, you're asked to prove the numbers at least are realistic and show research into the market. Once you submit a proposal you then go through a process of verification, where Seedrs will now read all of your statements and will suggest re-wording where necessary to ensure risk is communicated and to defuse liability should some event not come to pass: "We hope to", "We plan to". Once all of that is done, you are approved and get two choices: Go live, or make a video and subject that to approval before go live. I chose to go live immediately. To be successful with crowd-funding you cannot come in cold, you really should realise that investors will follow other investors and that the best thing you can do is to line up a lot of interested investors. I found 100 small investors, mostly my users, but a couple of friends too. And kept in touch with them via a forum, and also email. I followed their progress through the KYC checks and when the vast majority were through I alerted them all that I would now go live. All I was hoping, was that if I could push us to 50% of the goal, the investors unbeknownst to myself would step in and invest too. But I now believe that I'd done so well at lining up investors that virtually all of my fundraising was from investors known to me. I get to see investor names, unless they're opted to be anonymous. I'm afraid I cannot vouch for whether it is easy to raise money from Seedrs, just that it is via Seedrs. The tax advantage with SEIS ( http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm ) is ridiculously good, and if you're in the UK and want to raise money then definitely make sure to take advantage of this, it's win-win for everyone.

jamesjguthrie 14y ago

Well done! I'm pretty sure my business was too early stage when we launched our Seedrs listing so it looks like we're not going to make our target. Definitely come along quite a bit in the 2.5 months since it went live so might list again.

buro9 14y ago
We are very early stage, but we have done a lot of research and testing of the idea including identifying customers. Where we're at is that we have a few organisations lined up, quite a few medium and small forums wanting to move, and what amounts to about 60,000 users ready to move onto the platform we make. Because of this process, we also now have a lot of people who believe in what we're offering. We perhaps have been too successful at finding the market, as we don't actually have a product yet. Our focus is now going to be to very rapidly produce the first prototype, and then iterate ridiculously fast on the path to releasing the best product we can for those customers and consumer demand. The only tip I've give anyone using Seedrs is that it's really important to line up some investor interest. If you've validated your idea by finding potential customers who will pay, then this shouldn't be too hard. But you should do this before you go live on Seedrs.