
Ask HN: Actively looking for co-founders for my growing startup - hvar90
Hi all, I&#x27;m actively looking for a co-founder to join my team, i borrowed $2000 from my mom and in my bedroom i have created a product with exponential growth but for problems with costs i can no longer pay for the servers this is the app : https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=schan.main if you are interested or you know someone who you believe could be interested in being part of my team please send me a message here in the forum or to my email hvar90@gmail.com thanks....
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toomuchtodo
What's your monetization strategy? (Really nice pitch deck btw)

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hvar90
i want to charge 1 dollar monthly but this can change on the future, now i
have focus on how to scale the produc, my users want to use my product but i
can no longer pay for the servers

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toomuchtodo
Have you considered charging a dollar annually (like WhatsApp previously did)
and seeing if current users will pay? If you’re out of funds, and have no seed
round lined up, why not attempt to monetize immediately?

Also, have you explored if Amazon has any accelerator programs you’d qualify
for to get some AWS credits to tide you over (paging jeffbarr).

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hvar90
if i can not get funds so i will monetize my app but i want to try first to
get funds and to hire more people and to work together

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hluska
How long can you survive without funds? If your app dies, all your growth will
be wasted.

Edit - I checked out your app and saw that you had to disable some features.
If I were in your shoes, I would pull a Whatsapp and monetize immediately. As
it stands, you don't have any power and major power imbalances tend not to
work out in the founder's favour.

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hvar90
yes, i will think how to monetize do you have tips to have the same
monetization like whatsapp on early days? is there a tool or software to
monetize easily?

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hluska
toomuchtodo gave you some excellent advice:

 _Have you considered charging a dollar annually (like WhatsApp previously
did) and seeing if current users will pay? If you’re out of funds, and have no
seed round lined up, why not attempt to monetize immediately?

Also, have you explored if Amazon has any accelerator programs you’d qualify
for to get some AWS credits to tide you over (paging jeffbarr)._

$1 per year might not completely solve your cash flow problems, but it will
bring some money in and give you some powerful evidence to help with your
fundraising.

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hvar90
Amazon has accelerators programs I have one right now I was accepted to
Startup school of YCombinator, but the credits are only 1000 that is enough
only for 2 month I need at least one year to grow a lot and to get investment
from a venture capital fund So, I will try to charge 1 or 2 dollar maybe by
month , so I could pay the servers

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hluska
It's your startup so do what you think is best, but at $1 - $2 a month, you'll
lose a massive number of users. Then, I don't know if your app will be worth
$1 - $2 a month (or a year).

How can you save money on hosting?

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toomuchtodo
OP could move from AWS to bare metal, and trade some resiliency for runway.

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hluska
That's a good idea. I bet that OP could save quite a bit running something on
bare metal. And, if they are looking to extend their runway, maybe a specific
ask like "Can anyone hook me up with $x months on $provider?" would have more
luck than a generic 'looking for co-founders.'

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zunzun
FYI, the "Achievements" section has the spelling "everthing", this should be
spelled "everything" (with a "y").

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hvar90
thanks for the correction ;)

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tinderliker
What is your tech stack? Did you build your messaging layer?

Is it written in React Native / Native?

You need to provide some details to generate interest.

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hvar90
this is my pitch deck, here is the details
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/19brptlys0sf3wa/pitch-
deck.pptx?dl...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/19brptlys0sf3wa/pitch-
deck.pptx?dl=0)

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Obi_Juan_Kenobi
Typo:

> allowing to anyone to find trustworthy

should be allowing _for_ anyone to find..

Also, I understand why you indicate your alma mater as 'one of the best'
because most people outside Colombia likely won't know it, but you should
still list what institution it is, simply because the vague-ness is a little
discomforting.

Overall I think a simple Reddit-style moderation with votes can certainly do a
lot to improve an experience like this, but reputation systems are very
difficult. There are many ways to game/manipulate systems like this, starting
with basic sybil attacks, but also coercion (e.g. show me your privates or I
downvote you), and other imaginative abuses. It might be worth discussing
moderation strategies beyond the voting system.

Finally, $1 a year payments sound like a lot of user friction for little
benefit, and also payment processors are likely going to take a large fraction
of that. It's a difficult choice, but some kind of 'freemium' model seems
attractive here: a few dollars for high-quality emotes, etc. People that
really use and enjoy a service tend to be quite open to payments like this,
and it's a proven model for games, Twitch.tv, etc.

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hvar90
>Overall I think a simple Reddit-style moderation with votes can certainly do
a lot to improve an experience like this, but reputation systems are very
difficult. There are many ways to game/manipulate systems like this, starting
with basic sybil attacks, but also coercion (e.g. show me your privates or I
downvote you), and other imaginative abuses. It might be worth discussing
moderation strategies beyond the voting system.

you are right but i have not explained the complete system, this system has
some constraints to vote

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biscottigelato
How is this different from other chat apps?

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hvar90
i invented a new system of moderation so automatically the system can filter
the people with bad behaviour and it can delete them

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muzani
There's a few ratings that says they were banned for no reason, so maybe
you'll have to tweak that algorithm.

Also as someone who has been using these kinds of apps for nearly two decades,
it's really hard to detect bad behavior. Poor ratings don't necessarily mean
someone is bad - they could just be slow to respond. Dirty words may be
acceptable to both sides.

I'd say the safest way to handle it is to ban accounts that exceed a certain
ratio of blocks.

People block for really frivolous reasons. Sometimes someone is enjoying a
conversation, but have to head out and do something else. They don't want to
get downvoted for "ghosting" so they block the other person. I even had one
friend who used to block everyone after a conversation because he didn't know
what "block" meant, and thought it was a way of closing conversations.

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hvar90
i was experimenting with my algorithm and now i have put some contraints to
leave a vote, on the pitch i dont explain with details the method

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segmondy
Interested, My email is in my profile.

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k0t0n0
why requests take way to long? I was trying register form it's just stuck.

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hvar90
But servers because I don't have Money for paying better servers

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zazpowered
How are you getting users?

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hvar90
playstore recommends my app and a lot of people in the world are looking for
an app like mine

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snow_mac
link doesn't work

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hvar90
the link works well try again :)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=schan.main](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=schan.main)

