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Ask HN: What would you do?

5 points by franciscocosta ↗ HN
Hi, my name is Francisco and I'm a solo entrepreneur (big mistake!!!).

In the last months I've been developing tymr.com , a social platform for discovering, managing and promoting events.

I've already tested the market and had a few clients. The main source of revenue came from ticketing selling but I have other plans to monetize a platform like this.

Right now I've come to the conclusion that I need help developing other parts of the software and the business itself. It's mission impossible for a single person, and I'm not Tom Cruise.

So I'm facing this strategic dilemma:

1- Stop everything and seek funding

2- Keep on going while trying to get more customers

What are your thoughts on it?

12 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 36.8 ms ] thread
beat
I feel your pain. I'd love to find a co-founder to share load, but no luck so far. :(

But if you have a working product and paying clients, you should definitely go seek funding. It'll slow down your development, but you're in a much better position because you're already selling.

franciscocosta
Not selling to make a living yet, just some occasional revenue. Do you recommend any funding company?
beat
Where are you located? What you probably want right now is a seed round of angel investment, but that depends a lot on the angel community in your area.

Go read everything Paul Graham (the guy who started YCombinator) ever wrote, for starters. And read Brad Feld's website as well. Those will give you a good insight into fundraising.

franciscocosta
I'm in Porto, Portugal. We are going through a financial crysis and the economy is on hold right now. I'm starting to look on other European countries. Didn't know about Brad Feld, thanks for the tip!
honzzz
If I were you (and I know that I don't know much about your personal situation) I would try to get into some startup incubator like http://startupchile.org/
franciscocosta
don't you think it would be pointless since its a one man startup?
dfritsch
A lot of the anecdotes about incubators that I have heard (and I'm not familiar with StartupChile, so it may not apply at all there) is that a lot of time there is movement between ventures as ideas don't pan out and others need more help.

I feel like being a one-man team can lead to a hard situation where you need more help to have time to get funding and need more funding to get help.

An incubator could be a good middle ground to offer some help and help you prioritize.

lysium
Is it really black/white: either seek funding or dev? Maybe you can do both a bit. Point 2 already involves two tasks.

Maybe a question helps: Do you plan to getting funding sooner or later (anyways)? If yes, at what point (dev or revenue-wise) would you feel comfortable to start seeking funding? If no, why do you think you cannot go with #2 now?

franciscocosta
You are right.. #2 (dev and sales) is already very difficult to accomplish and time consuming by only one person. Well, I'm asking this because I'm starting to feel that I need to take some funding to keep developing the product and the business. It's been becoming very difficult to keep focus on everything at the same time.
brudgers
I'd start with asking if future sales really depends on further development in the short term, or if further development is instead a way of moving outside your comfort zone and into a focus on business development?

--forgive me if I am drawing the wrong picture based on the details of your sketch.

In other words, if it comes down to features or customers, customers needs to win. Otherwise you may be spending too much time in your own head.

Good luck.

franciscocosta
Glad you ask.. as you can see right now the service is fully operational but lots of improvements an new developments could be make. It's not a comfort zone problem because I'm constantly changing between the 2 areas, but I believe that this way I'm also failing in quality execution on both areas.

Thanks for the advice, it meant a lot!