

Who needs angel financing/help?  Testing hacker news for this purpose. - betashop
http://betashop.com/post/249983268/new-investments
I'm currently evaluating potential new angel investments.  Checking out hacker news as a potential source of discovering interesting startups in need of some help.
======
joshu
You didn't post an investment thesis, direction, or field. Just looking for
engineers that think they are good, apparently. (One never sees investors who
ask for people who iterate slowly and hate shipping.)

I find it slightly odd that you specify people who aren't just looking for any
money, and then announce "Who needs some money?"

I suspect you are going to see a great deal of adverse selection with this
strategy.

~~~
betashop
we'll see. sometimes you just have to ship it and see what happens.

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vaksel
I think you should probably tailor the post a little bit more to the HN
community. Right now this is the equivalent of you linking to an angel
investor's "contact us" page. Interesting, since you are an angel investor,
posting on HN, but otherwise a little bit too generic, since most of them have
those types of statements.

I dunno maybe expand on what you are looking for in a founder, or what you are
looking for in a company. Also focus more on what you can offer, angel money
is the same, a dollar from you is the same as a dollar from the next guy, what
differs is the advice and the connections you can give.

~~~
betashop
Hi. I agree with everything you have written here. What I bring to the table
is my recent experiences and network of contacts.

~~~
wavesplash
I'm with Joshua on that point. In Silicon Valley experience and contacts are
in abundance. Why would someone want to bring you on board vs. other well
connected people in the valley? How do you differentiate from the other great
angels and early stage VCs out here?

~~~
joshu
I don't think he's in Silicon Valley. Possibly a big plus, or a big minus,
depending.

Personally, I like to meet the people I'm investing in. Meeting your investors
is probably good too. Network effect, etc etc etc.

~~~
betashop
I"m currently Hamburg Germany based, but moving back to New York in the coming
weeks.

~~~
khangtoh
Welcome back to US and HN, Jason. Are you transitioning away from
SocialMedian? We're building a mobile startup now focusing on the iPhone, love
to talk to you if iPhone startup does not scare you away :)

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jasonlbaptiste
This is a smart approach. If I were a founder, I'd certainly want to be
pitching an angel/vc that was on a similar wavelength as the crowd on hn. X2
credit if they actually participate on a regular basis ala joshu. I would like
to know some of the areas you're interested in. Your past experiences give
some good idea of areas you like, but there are obviously other sectors.

------
betashop
Ok, in the first hour since posting this....

I've received about 15 emails so far from founders. All full of passion and
belief in their ideas. 3-4 are definitely products I'm interested in exploring
more.

~~~
joshu
They should post their projects. A lot of VCs and investors read HN.

~~~
betashop
@joshu: I agree. We should create a simple way for HN readers to post their
projects.

~~~
stanleydrew
A lot of people post their projects under "Ask HN: Review my startup" type
posts. See here: <http://searchyc.com/review+my+startup>

~~~
miloshh
It seems that many of the review requests are ignored without any comment, as
I learned by clicking on that link.

~~~
spokey
"Review my startup" posts are among my favorite aspects of HN. I generally
find them valuable no matter what the submitted site is about. Time permitting
I go out of my way to try to comment on them but unfortunately lately it seems
that many of these posts don't get a lot of traction or thoughtful discussion.
I wish I knew how to help the HN community keep these going. I'd trade 3
techcrunch posts for 1 "review my startup".

(Also, that link doesn't seem to list the most recent posts, or at least not
at the top of the list. I think there have been more recent review posts than
the top few on that list. Some use variations on the searched terms, for
example "rate" rather than "review".)

------
quellhorst
Maybe you guys looking for investment should test posting your response as a
comment here instead of emailing privately. He isn't the only investor on
hacker news.

------
gridspy
Here is my proposal, public for HN investors.

Enquires to tom at gridspy .co.nz

Gridspy provides an online realtime power monitoring system for homes and
businesses. They are looking for both trading partners and investors,
especially with marketing or sales background.

<http://www.gridspy.co.nz/>

The Pitch: Gridspy provides you with an interactive view of power, water, gas
and other resource usage in your building. Gridspy allows you to access and
monitor your consumption patterns in real-time using a standard web browser on
your PC, laptop or mobile phone. The data is accurate and updated each second
as you watch.

The power data is split into multiple channels so you can see which parts of
your building are using the most power. Unlike a smart-meter, the Gridspy
system can isolate the power usage within your building to individual systems
such as AC, hot water, lighting or computers. This allows you to focus your
power efforts where they really count. Learn how much you actually use on
standby devices, or how changing to compact florescent lights will actually
save you money.

Gridspy has passed the development phase and is a working product. We need
your help to get to market. The team behind Gridspy bring years of experience
creating smart hardware devices and off the shelf solutions and have supported
a variety of customers that have succeeded both in New Zealand and
internationally.

What sets us apart from our competition is our live data collection and
display, our web based approach, and our low cost. We also offer high accuracy
and can sample many different loads at once. We can also provide automation
and control to any degree of complexity. The aim is to give people back
control of their power usage, helping our customers measure and save power.

Accomplishments to date:

    
    
        * Development of a power monitoring prototype, with all the key technical hurdles overcome.
        * Manufacturing plan that will take us from prototype to fully automated production over three months grounded on previous experience.
        * Comprehensive manufacturing contacts.
        * Several sales leads with potential for large sales volumes over the next quarter.
    

Development plans:

    
    
        * Begin the electrical approvals process, including CE Mark, so our solution can be sold both domestically and internationally
        * Create staged runs of 25, 100, and 400 units to build our manufacturing pipeline
        * Design and test several related devices to round out our offering
        * Offer Gridspy to New Zealand industrial clients
        * Improve the look and feel of our website and general branding
        * Create a stock of rental and trial units to enable sales
        * Build a community of home and business owners who are proud to openly discuss their power usage and demonstrate their environmental credibility.
    

Key Challenges:

    
    
        * Cash to finance due diligence and further prototype runs so we are ready to handle future high demand.
        * Our current small production runs force us to adopt higher prices than we would like
        * Competition is entering the “Smart Grid” arena all the time. Our niche is unique and we need to continue to differentiate ourselves.
    
    

Principals & Previous Experience: Stephen Leys as 30 years experience as the
managing director of Technman designing custom electronics solutions for a
wide range of clients. He is an experienced electrical engineer and has seen
many products through concept to large scale production.

Tom Leys is a software developer who has been working with firmware with
Stephen for 9 years. Tom has a background in designing user interfaces for a
number of applications. Since 2008 he has been spending all his free time
making Gridspy a reality.

~~~
thorax
IANAL, but you might want to reconsider making such a public post, due to SEC
regulations disallowing public notice of equity investment opportunities of
private companies.

I've seen people point to Section 5:
<http://www.law.uc.edu/CCL/33Act/sec5.html>

~~~
gridspy
Gosh, I had no idea that asking for investment online was so filled with red
tape. Consider this a request for you to contact me for more details, and a
great way to get thoughts on my site.

Also, I can rest in confidence knowing that I am NZ based.

I can no longer edit my own post. If a moderator comes across this, please
remove the body of my proposal message above, leaving only a gridspy business
summary and a link to

[http://nzangels.com/2009/11/03/gridspy-an-online-realtime-
po...](http://nzangels.com/2009/11/03/gridspy-an-online-realtime-power-
monitoring-system/)

------
davidw
I could really use some advice, but don't really need money at the moment.

~~~
betashop
@davidw: ask HN, or email me directly

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DanielBMarkham
Interesting idea -- using HN as a forum.

E-mail me if you'd like to start a conversation.

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lefstathiou
I decided to follow quellhorst's suggestion and post my product publicly (see
it as a good little exercise).

My name is Leo. I'll try to keep this short and sweet. If any of you have
specific questions or comments, you can email me or reply to the thread
(lefstathiou@gmail.com). To preface this: I have large ego, so please dont
hesitate to speak your mind, share your thoughts, tell me how ridiculous this
is, etc. I value everyone's feedback, most importantly the constructive kind.

Here are a couple links: \- Our website: www.groupie.mobi \- Download the app
on iTunes:
[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=330225210&mt=8)
\- Facebook fanpage: <http://www.facebook.com/groupie> \- Screenshots of the
App:
[http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121496&id=92527063...](http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121496&id=92527063538)

What is it?

Groupie is a communication tool that allows you to create, join and manage
social and professional groups on the iPhone. Designed specifically for a
smart-phone, it is (arguably) the most efficient way to network and
communicate with the groups and communities that share your interests. It does
so by providing every group access to four tools: a group message board, live
chat room, GPS-enabled map and member directory.

People like to think in terms of analogies so here are a couple: it's like
yammer without the exclusivity and shared email domain requirement or a
streamlined Facebook groups without the friending, pokes, status updates, etc.
Of course there are a dozen other nuances that separate us from them but you
get the gist.

What problem do we solve?

Groupie is the most efficient way communicate with a group of people from your
smartphone (yes there are some exceptions). It is also a very practical
networking tool. If you attend a conference, meetup, etc. There are a lot of
people you meet and even more you dont. Groupie is an easy, practical, and
informal way to do it from the device you keep on you considerably more than
your laptop.

Monetization: we have a model we're very excited and confident in but this I
would rather discuss in private.

About us:

My partner and I are Finance and Marketing guys from NYU. We launched
Scriblink.com a couple years ago, now the leading online whiteboard (which
operates at a small, but decent annual profit). It's a big fish in a small
pond with over 60,000 visitors a month. We started Groupie about 10 months ago
and just launched. We've invested $30,000 of our own money and will release a
web and Android based version in mid 2010 (god willing).

While I would like to say we arent "winging" it in terms of marketing the
application, to be honest we are. My partner and I are fanatically ambitious
and will likely try everything possible to get the word out. That being said,
we could use some direction. While we've come a long way in 10 months, we've
made so many mistakes (and costly ones) that i can say with confidence that it
always helps to hear from someone who walked down our path before.

~~~
joshu
This deserves its own thread.

(Quick feedback: put the screenshots on groupie.mobi. Screencasts are good
too.)

~~~
lefstathiou
Thanks joshu. I like the idea of a screencast. Will upload one to the site
this weekend.

------
zackattack
Would it be a dumb idea to email this guy if I have a product that competes
with one of his investments?

~~~
eam
I don't think so, at least not if your idea is better.

