

Looks like I have traction, but no connections. Where to go? - r_z_

The company I founded (a social web startup) is getting about 100 new users per day organically (would be more but I can&#x27;t afford to let them all in), second day retention is between 60 and 70 percent, activation is about 20%, and the people who say they would be &quot;Very Disappointed&quot; if they didn&#x27;t have the product is 42%.<p>By these measurements it would seem I have reached PM Fit, but I have absolutely no connections to raise a seed round. I live in Los Angeles, but wouldn&#x27;t be averse to moving to SV. Any tips?
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erichocean
Apply to an incubator. That's what they're for: providing connections.

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r_z_
This was the logical next step, but they seem to have something against solo
founders, and I am averse to taking on a co-founder ONLY to appease.

Edit: Not opposed to taking on a cofounder if they provide an adequate amount
of value other than pacifying incubator/accelerator/investor fears.

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dennybritz
You're right in that there's a negative bias towards solo founders, but having
traction trumps that to a large degree. I would give it a shot.

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JSeymourATL
Build-in time for strategic networking. Create a Top 10-20 list of social web
players (Linkedin is a good search tool). *Important: actually, reach out to
these folks for a live conversation (first by phone). They need to hear your
voice and vice-versa. If there's good tonality, schedule a meetup in person
for more dialog.

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hpagey
For consumer apps, you would need millions of page views/ users / daily
interactions to declare product/market fit. I would wait for some more time.
Get more users, interactions and then decide on applying to incubators of
moving to SV. You will be in strong position then.

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eroo
It would be really helpful to have some more context.

(0) Can you link to the product?

(1) When did you start and what has the growth trajectory been (e.g., weekly
growth rate)?

(2) Is there some marginal cost other than server space that is limiting
growth?

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r_z_
0\. I would have linked to the product, but I'm honestly trying to avoid
anymore sources of traffic. It's a microblogging platform wherein all posts
have a shelf life determined by the user. Currently building the iOS app, but
won't release that until the product can handle even more growth.

1\. I started part time about a year ago, full time about 6 months ago. I
recently completed the survey (I think created by Sean Ellis; with a few
tweaks), and implemented based on that. This resulted in a spike in growth in
the past week, but I fear that'll only hurt if the product stays as slow as it
is now on the current hosting situation.

2\. Server space is the only cost limiting growth, unless the stats have
fooled me and it's really not at PM fit; in which case marketing would be
another cost.

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ig1
Given how cheap server space is why that is limiting you, you should be able
to get a few hundred gigs of space for a few dollars ?

Also you shouldn't have performance issues with your numbers, you should be
able to comfortably run a site with 100k users off a cheap server. Maybe you
should spend some time analyzing the source of your performance issues.

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r_z_
True. I'll look deeper into that today as well, but the question remains the
same.

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dennybritz
Perhaps start with Angellist. Angels are pretty approachable, and many are
happy to make introductions to VC funds if appropriate.

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jlees
Look for angels in the LA area, too. There are some!

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fsk
Ask your customers to pay $5/month and bootstrap. Then, with revenue, look for
investors if that's the path you want.

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dennybritz
If this is a "social" product then getting more users should be the first
priority. Monetizing too early will slow down user growth (maybe even lead to
starvation), and only limit options for monetizing later on, when it really
matters. That's why Twitter, etc only started monetizing recently.

