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Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

64 points by arjunvpaul ↗ HN
I am a non-technical guy who has validated a business model using messengers (WhatsApp and FB messenger) to sell stuff and made over $60K over the last 12 months without writing a single line of code. I now know how all the parts and pieces need to work together.

During the process I have encountered a lot of inefficiencies. If I had a technical co-founder, we would be able to build a web application that could greatly reduce these inefficiencies and scale this up significantly.

How would you guys go about finding such a person? (would be glad to talk to anyone here too). This is in Bangalore, India.

40 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] thread
haser_au
Looks like you might need to farm out specific problems (e.g. I need a website, built on technology X, that has THESE capabilities). You could just put those specific tasks out to tender on a programmers-for-hire site. Unless you are happy to part with some equity in your company. Here are some links on this topic to help.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tech-co-founder-myth-vijay-ga...

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-find-good-technical-co-founde...

http://web.archive.org/web/20120229131356/http://lederhosenl...

arjunvpaul
Thanks for the links. Yes, I would happily give away equity to a cofounder who can manage the tech side of things.

I can scale this thing up a few 100K dollars a year the way I am doing this now. But it is excel sheets and 3 computers side by side so I can see product info, customer info etc side by side. Its just ugly. lol. I need some elegance in my life now.

I have settled the "should I really bring-on a technical co-founder" question in my head and hence the post.

doubleplusgood
My wife has a small business similar to yours, and I ended up building a micro CRM for her, complete with scraping (some of our vendors don't offer an Api), reports, invoicing etc.
charlesdm
Curious: what impact did that have on her sales numbers?
doubleplusgood
It streamlined the process significantly, lowering the total "handling time" from a couple of hours to ~10-15m in total, which freed up time to tend to custom commissions from clients.

I don't have serious hard numbers before that, as the CRM saw its first commit around sale #6.

arjunvpaul
My story is similar. My friends wife was selling Indian women clothes and I took a stab at re-jigging her business for the "messaging-first" world. worked like a charm. she is now selling a very non-differentiated product at the rate of 1 every 20 working minutes. :-)

so now we have good problems to solve like actually needing a CRM, invoicing etc that I hoping to do via a web app.

Once that is done, it could be sold to other similar businesses. I have already done some presales using my mockups and there is interest.

cylinder
you should just blog about whatsapp selling and sell your services; other than selling to Chinese on wechat I have no idea what this even is or how/why it works.

below you said you are running whatsapp sales for b&m shops, but how do customers find you? afaik whatsapp has no discovery features.

arjunvpaul
If are really curious, I would be glad to explain on a call on how a customer finds us, how a sale happens and money is collected.

don't wanna post exactly how that is done publicly (yet)

majortennis
you could have multiple monitors instead of multiple monitors and machines
arjunvpaul
Thanks for pointing that out. I actually do have only multiple monitors. (not machines)
ajinvw
currently we @Nexart solving similar kind of problem. They were selling through Whatsapp. In there case the solution we suggested was better. May be i can suggest you some solution and act on it. you can mail me at ajinvwilson@gmail.com
arjunvpaul
Hi there, are you part of a development house? will send you an email to discuss but I am not looking to outsource work at this point. Just a cofounder who believes in business model enough to work for equity.
wayn3
I'd be interested in taking a look at it. What are your long-term goals?
arjunvpaul
to teach high school in my hometown. serious.

could you drop me an email arjunvpaul AT gmail ? I can walk you through any details you need and even show you product animations that I have done to communicate what the web app could look like.

For the product - the long term goal is build a significantly automated web application that other small business can use to do commerce via messengers only (no apps, no websites)

For the business - an exit to Facebook.

viach
I'm currently writing CRM for Whatsapp and Messendger. Clients list, calendar, products list, messages history. Is it what you are interested in?
arjunvpaul
Yeah I would say so. Here are a couple of animations that I made in Keynote to show how the web app could be structured

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCcEoVlmiok

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guA6trEPNls

I just want to "reduce stupidity" now. for example when I get a message saying "haven't got my product yet!!" . I have no clue who this person is or what they ordered without doing a forensic audit of the chat history.

viach
Great mockups. Hm, I'm actually quite impressed by the fact my idea finds sort of real business validation here. If you want you can always drop a message to me (email in contacts)
viach
Btw, are you just also validating your software idea here? :)
arjunvpaul
nope, not here. I know it works cause I have already done some pre-sales and there are business signed up to use the platform.

CRM and inventory is not the hurdle. Its an essential. The need is "digitization of inventory" and "customer acquisition".

I'll be happy to share everything I have learned so far on what I think the secret sauce is if you would like to talk.

swah
I'm actually very surprised that Whatsapp still has no Store or something akin to that. People are using Whatsapp updates to post pictures of products.

I'd like to write a little CRM myself but they don't even have an API.

shimon_e
Arjun, I am in bangalore. Add you contact details to your profile.
arjunvpaul
Hi there. added contact info. you could reach me at arjunvpaul AT gmail
vr3690
I'm in Bangalore for a few days right now and I am interested in talking about it. Contact me through my website listed on the profile. FYI, I live in the US.
mandeepj
Hi Arjun! There are lot of open source, pay-as-you-go (very cheap) crm products that might fit your need. Have you explored any?

Having a tech cofounder gives its own advantages But why you are not Hiring a tech person to quickly build your mvp to simplify your life? It will not cost you much. Once this takes off then you can take the call whether u still need a tech cofounder.

arjunvpaul
Thanks for the tip. Would you know of any CRM products that would work with WhatsApp?
mandeepj
I just sent you an email. We need to talk a little more. I will explore on WhatsApp integration
captn3m0
Have you looked at meesho? They are a YC company helping businesses sell using WhatsApp and Instagram. http://meesho.com/

(not affiliated with meesho)

arjunvpaul
Yes, I have. They have a slightly different business model and do it via an app. Its very clever I must say how they have managed to sidestep whatsapp's restrictions and they look like they have a great team.

I have a different business model that doing it via a web app. My approach is to - digitize the inventory of existing stores - train them to use to use the app - collect a commission every time they make a sale through the system.

This is what I know works from the last few months of working on different permutations :-)

anmolparashar
>>without writing a single line of code

Umm, how? You have a web app, you provide people with an admin dashboard to interact with the messaging apps. Am I missing something here?

arjunvpaul
I don't have a web app yet. the video is just a mockup I did on keynote to show what things could look like :-) so that, the potential tech co-founder would understand what I think the solution would look like.
anmolparashar
That makes sense. Could you share with how exactly did you make the money - what were you offering before?
arjunvpaul
I just approached a few brick and mortar stores and offered to open up a new sales channel (their existing customer acquisition channel was basically having a store front and then staring into space, so was not hard to beat)

I offered a "I make money only if you make money" pitch. Sold their wares via Facebook and WhatsApp and then took a huge markup from those sales.

anmolparashar
Nicely done. I'd suggest not taking an investor though unless you are really having trouble with scaling.
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sidcool
This is a very inspiring thread. The help being offered by the community is heartwarming​.
vladimirpolo
I was looking for a technical cofounder in 2016.

1. I created a Google Spreadsheet with a description of my idea and my goal was to inspire readers of this document.

2. Then I made a Facebook post where I shared this document. I received few dozens of likes/shares from my friends.

3. After that, I used Linkedin Premium (it is free for 30 days) to find developers in my region. I asked them if they are considering new job offers. And if they answer was yes, I shared a link to my Facebook post.

They came to my page and see likes and shares (social proof). Then they read the document and if the idea was interesting for them, we scheduled a skype call.

That's how I found the CTO for AcademyOcean.com : )

arjunvpaul
awesome! thats a great idea to use linkedin premium to find folks closer to home.
Amogha_IO
You might want to find a technical co-founder. If you have a proof of concept and you have validated the business model, it shouldn't be too hard convincing an entrepreneur-minded engineer to join your startup!

Finding a technical co-founder isn't that difficult if you know where to look for. couple resources/networks I have used successfully in the past:

   https://www.meetup.com/
(if meetup.com hasn't caught up where you live, there might be something similar that's popular)

-Meetups geared towards entrepreneurship, software dev, engineering.... are great places to find a technical co-founder. Prepare a simple pitch-deck, meet smart people, share your idea and see if they would be interested in joining the cause. (don't worry about someone stealing your idea... it's all in the execution. You can hold back some key features until you sign an NDA or something.)

-networking in general goes a long way. Start networking with any and all engineers you know (shouldn't be hard to find software engineers in Bangalore!)

   https://angel.co/
-Angel List is a great place to post jobs, especially if you are looking for a co-founder.

Be prepared to give up a considerable amount of equity (30%-50%) if you are looking for a "serious technical co-founder". Make sure to have vesting & a cliff in the contract.

Also consider talking/networking with friends, family, ex-colleagues.

arjunvpaul
Thanks for the pointer about meetup.com . seems to be very active in Bangalore. Could be helpful to make fundraising connections too. Signed up for an event too! thanks!