I was working on a large, high volume project. It was originally to be built with an off the shelf e-commerce platform that like all "turn-key" systems break down in certain areas pretty hard. I ended up rewriting the backend. At the time the only companies I knew that used a similar architecture were large tech companies, but the idea wasn't new ... however, everything was built in house. Since my own custom built solution worked really, really well and I decided maybe for the first time I had a potential product on my hand.
First, since I finished about 9 months ago there have been some big heavily funded companies that try to make this turn key in the sense your need developers and an IT department who know how to use it. It is not marketed towards business leaders that would tout scalability, ability to increase revenue, and quickly add new features, etc. Without giving too much away it works but there's a lot to be done to take a custom built product and polish it with dashboards, QA, marketing, sales, etc.
Feel free to be mean (several VC friends have been), but I've come up with a 40 page prospectus with revenue projections and kept it as business as possible. The fact other companies have popped up and are very well funded tells me I'm onto something but I don't know what I'm doing. First thing on my background:
1. I traditionally consult so build custom software or custom software on "turn-key" products. So I have not worked at a startup but have worked with large companies and am comfortable working with c-level and similar executives.
2. The friend who advised me said I needed companies and existing revenue, what I was assuming would that a VC would take all my equity and do that work for me (exaggeration, but I didn't realize it was we don't want to acquire you when you're making $25 million at 20% growth a year, which might be bad information).
3. I'm not looking to get rich off this, or turn this into the next Facebook but business owners I talked to, unfortunately all retired, think the area is great for growth ... but none were in tech and received funding for their business from friends and family. Based on calculations I'd probably need $250k first year (not including my salary) to create a decent UI, and shore up the programming to make an MVP. I have no problems giving up equity for salary but all my developer friends are senior with kids and already bogged down with 60 hour jobs. Also not the best economy to take a leap.
4. Sales would be the biggest hurdle as the competitors again are completely targeting IT driven companies so for example having a simple way to run the application without needing K8s or minikube is a great sell without having to develop it in house, I don't think I'd compete well in that area (or I'd be competing with huge, well funded companies).
In any case despite doubts, I have a chicken and egg problem of needing something a product making money before someone cares while also needing money. I'm guessing this is a common problem but don't have a mentor or someone to tell me if this is not possible and the world is littered with good ideas that didn't make it.
Sorry if I was vague on purpose on some things. The economy and me having to temporarily move to a non-tech city has been very limiting in my social network. I've spent quite a bit of time creating crazy spreadsheets projecting revenue/expenses and doing all the things a prospectus (right word?) and it almost has made the actual product gone by the wayside. Do I need to sort of look for an "all-in" partner to ease the burden, as of right now this is a full time job with no income but a lot of interest.
To be fair the few VCs I contacted were actually very interested and impressed and wanted me to come back when I was making money. I'm not hung up on "VC" but as someone who hasn't done product work angel investor or something may be better, I'm just at a loss at this point.
So any advice, even if it is, "most people just get lucky and know the right people," would help at this point. |
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