4 ms·

Ask YC: Should I send this to Angel Investors so they might invest in my project?

• yrashk 19y ago
  I'm not an expert in this kind of questions (yet?) but I'd personally state what percentage of ownership/share of profit angel will receive in return to an investment made. Though may be it will be wiser to negotiate it when somebody will contact you.
  • gscott 19y ago
    I was thinking 5% but I was afraid to add it in up front.
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    • yrashk 19y ago
      May be it will be a good idea to put some numbers in but say it is a ballpark number that is a subject for negotiations and will depend on a final agreement terms?
      • gscott 19y ago
        It does seem to be a glaring missing item, I will put that in.
    • prakster 19y ago
      so u r valuing ur company at $380,000. seems extremely reasonable.
• utnick 19y ago
  Disclaimer: I have no experience in this However, if I were going to give you 20K I would want more info about what you plan to do with it. Break down how much servers, pbx, etc cost and why you need them Also, I would think that a 1-2 yr revenue projection is kind of pointless, it seems just like wild guesses at this point. Its good to let me know how you are going to make money. But the projections do nothing for me imo. BTW, it looks like you have a pretty solid legit product. good job.
  • rms 19y ago
    The revenue projections are pointless but they are required in this kind of document anyways.
    • gscott 19y ago
      I went on the low side on the numbers, not sure if maybe I should be more optimistic or stay with easy to reach.
  • gscott 19y ago
    Thanks, I think I will make a 3rd page with where the money needs to go and a 4th page with survey results I took from the account holders which were very positive in regards to what features they liked, features that could be improved and a willingness to pay, over 50% said they would pay either for the paid modules or a customized solution..
• andrewfong 19y ago
  I don't really have any experience in this either, but I can offer some help with grammar / minor details: > $20,000 investment -- if you're sending this anywhere outside the US, remember to change the currency or specify USD. > pbx should be capitalized (PBX) since it's an acronym. If there's a chance your readers don't know what PBX stands for, you may want to say it is as well. > In case this doesn't format properly, the s tags are strikeouts and [[brackets]] are my additions: "OfficeZilla allows private and shared calendars, contacts, forums, knowledge <s>base</s> [[bases]], <s>email</s> [[emails]], chat <s>room</s> [[rooms]], phone message <s>pad</s> [[pads]], project <s>manager</s> [[managers]], to-do lists, and <s>url</s> [[URL]] sharing. OfficeZilla has no usage limits <s>including</s> on the number of users, files, or mail." > "OfficeZilla is translated into Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish[[.]]" OfficeZilla accounts include non-profit organizations, medical offices, legal offices, realty offices, title companies, planned communities, network marketers, schools, along with other groups, companies, and organizations. > "Create partnerships with realty franchisors <s>with a particular focus</s>[[, focusing first]] on EXIT Realty <s>who</s>[[, which]] has the most realty agents & offices already using the system" > OfficeZilla 6 Month Plan: Shouldn't the stuff under this be bulleted as well? > "OfficeZilla[[,]] as it is[[,]] will remain free, attracting between 15 and 30 new signups a day representing hundreds of additional potential users[[. Each account holder may also]] <s>and the potential that the account holder will</s> want to upgrade to a customized system or add modules for a fee. Continuing [[to sign]] <s>signing</s> up free customers is a priority[[.]] <s>having a</s>[[A]] solid free system equals free marketing and <s>allows</s> goodwill <s>to be developed</s>." > "In order to drive each system deep, there will be one new developer, one technical support person, and one salesperson hired for each system" -- I don't really understand what you're trying to say here, but I'm sleepy and it could just be me.
  • gscott 19y ago
    > In order to drive each system deep there will be one .. I was thinking a person would want to know the expenses but I was afraid to go into too much detail on that. I think I could list a cost per account which would cover all expenses instead.
• prakster 19y ago
  Just curious...what's the backend/architecture?
  • gscott 19y ago
    I don't expect to ever have more then around 500,000 users on the system it is easily scalable to that many. If I had 5 - 10 million users I would sing a different tune but I am focused on paying clients, probably less then 10,000 paying clients. I have been working this architecture since 1999 so I am really good at it, just don't want to say the name since knives would come out (and I cut easily!). About 800 users on the system login every day on a single server and I am not even close to maxing it out (1 processor 2 gigabytes of ram) and a dedicated server for sql (2 processors and 2 gigabytes of ram). I also have a load balancer that I would like to put in place one day (just sitting on the floor begging to be used) to create some redundancy would be nice.
    • prakster 19y ago
      hey don't worry...even PlentyOfFish.com runs on .net ;-)
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• npk 19y ago
  Disclaimer: I have no experience in this either.. However, I have won (& lost) scientifically reviewed proposals for significantly more money. Ok, i read this and wonder why you need $20k. This makes no sense at all. 12 months from now you're going to have $778,200 in the bank. What is $20K going to do. This document does officezilla no favors. I read it, and have no idea what officezilla is, or what problem you're trying to solve. 1) Opportunity. The opportunity is what exactly? To give you $$$? Do people know what pbx integration is? Why is PBX integration important? What is the "first paid offering of the sytem." Are you saying you're about to charge money? I think you need to retitle this section. If you insist on PBX integration, you need to later explain what PBX is, and why PBX is key. PBX seems like an unimportant detail at this point. 2) What is OfficeZilla. "OfficeZilla is a free...", first adjective, free. But you're planning to charge for it? Why is your software different than anything else? Is it web-based only? is there client software? 30K users, 12K orgs sounds like a lot, will $20K make any difference? It has no usage limits. So what? What does that mean? Is your software in early beta, is ready to roll, what. I have no idea how it's used. I'm utterly confused. On the plus side: sounds like you have an impressive product. I just don't know what it is, or why $20K is going to make any difference. Also, tell me something about your organization. How many developers, why are they good? What's impressive about them. I want to know about people. Who uses OfficeZilla. All you're saying here is that a officezilla is useful for any organization. Drop this section. Roll into above section. Use 4 words instead, eg: "has broad customer base" 3 Month plan. Totally comes out of the blue. What is realtygolive? Is officezilla about for realtys? That sounds like a good problem to solve. Should be right up top. In fact, this business about EXIT realty sounds very promising. How many agents does EXIT have? If EXIT needs PBX support, this is a great place to justify it. (whatever PBX is.) What is a module? Why are new languages needed? What is tighten data integration? What are data relationships? What are you talking about? This is all gibberish. 2 year plan: Sounds impressive. You have not justified (1) expertise (talk about people before this) or (2) money. $20K isn't going to get you through 2 years. Worst, if you're only asking for $20k, sounds like you are a one or two person team. How are you going from 1 or 2 people to 15 poeple and satisfy all these different users in one year, with $20K? Basically, sounds like you have incredibly optimistic expectations about income, and yet you're asking for peanuts up front. * Overall Expectations First sentence is gibberish. Potential rewrite: OfficeZilla core is our flagship product. Core is free to use and will satisfy most users needs. We will sell modules that target specific needs outside of core. Table: No numbers justified, sounds like you pulled them out of thin air. Before you said $5/user, here $10/user. I think here you need to focus on EXIT, as it sounds promising. Drop the Non profit business, unless you have customers ready to pay. Second table is utterly confusing, why is non profit system listed twice. Why are monthly and recurring fees listed twice? "In order to drive each system deep..." What? what is deep?
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• gscott 19y ago
  I have updated an updated version based upon everyones feedback, I cut back the estimated paid accounts by half and added some additional information: http://www.userlinks.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc http://www.userlinks.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc