
Tyk: Micro-grants for side projects - sakofchit
https://tyk.io/fund/
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bArray
I remember as a child our school were offering £20 to student teams wanting to
run a business for a week, with the team that turns over the greatest profit
being the winners. Unfortunately as we were limited in skills and ability, the
best project was a car wash.

I wish they run these types of projects in Colleges and Universities, where
students are more skilled and motivated to work further out of the box. I
would have loved to have been given £20 to buy a little server, a domain, etc,
to build some small product over the course of a month with some friends.
Hell, turn it into a coursework for programming, project management, etc.

This kind of thing seems like a low-cost, high-value exercise for students to
begin to understand the difficulties of business (most will fail - but that's
okay).

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verdverm
From the site... I like this more than the hucksters out there

How do I receive the funding?

We’re not giving away cash money. If you are successful, we will make a
payment directly to a product or service provider that you have specified – or
an alternative that we suggest – that you need for your side project to grow.

~~~
sakofchit
Hey!

So basically they don't actually give you the $500 directly (which is probably
for the better), but they'll be paying for any services that you need to get
your project off the ground + provide guidance. You'd have to apply via their
website, and they'll reach out to you--do a quick interview and if they like
what they see they'll back your side project.

~~~
verdverm
The question is from the website, not my own

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gentleman11
This is a great idea, but I wish was slightly larger. Most people with
interesting side projects aren’t stuck by a lack of $500.

I suppose it is enough to take the risk away from paying for hosting if you
are quite uncertain

~~~
cryptonector
It's a start. Lots of teenagers would love to take that sort of deal.

~~~
toyg
Yeah, but then it's not something "your work won't pay for".

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transitivebs
Love the focus on side projects!

If you want help getting your side project off the ground and it fits the mold
of an API-first SaaS product, then [https://saasify.sh](https://saasify.sh)
may interest you.

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peter_d_sherman
Excerpt:

How do I receive the funding?

"We’re not giving away cash money. If you are successful, we will make a
payment directly to a product or service provider that you have specified – or
an alternative that we suggest – that you need for your side project to grow."

Now that is brilliant!

Yes, usually side projects get stuck on one or more aspects -- like not being
to find the right dedicated server provider, or what have you...

 _By not giving the money directly, they eliminate a whole class of applicants
that might apply for, but not really need the money..._

So again, brilliant!

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SiDevesh
I just applied to it for [https://prismos.dev](https://prismos.dev) this is
something I have been building for 3 years on the side and while I feel its
amazing what this allows one to do, which is build IoT apps with a super easy
API and install apps on your esp8266 IoT devices from an App store, no
flashing and seamless end user experience, its still seems difficult to
monetize to me till far so no point raising funding (atleast till i figure out
a go to market strategy), but I would still want people to start using it.
While the amount isn't a lot, if it can allow me to fund my AWS infra for a
year without worrying about cash while I spend money in promoting it from my
pocket, then its great for me.

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jjjensen90
This is very cool. I wonder how many great ideas need something like this,
between $0 outside money and VC millions to take off.

Side note: Tyk is an awesome company. I've used their API gateway for a few
years. Awesome open source core/enterprise paid model.

~~~
toyg
_> I wonder how many great ideas need something like this, between $0 outside
money and VC millions_

Many, but realistically (by experience) £500 is waaay too low to make an
impact.

IMHO the problem is in the 4 to 5 digits. 3 digits can be scraped together
almost trivially - a credit card, a few months of savings - but they won't
make a significant difference. People who need £500 to bootstrap are already
finding them.

Now, people who need 5,000 - _those_ are underserved in the UK imho. The bank
will likely give you a bad deal (if it does at all), it's too little for real
investors, and it's too little to risk giving away half the business anyway;
but it could still make a substantial difference, because it would allow you
to pay for actual manpower at local rates, without having to roll the dice
with fiverr or offshores.

This said, it's a step forward, no doubt.

~~~
rglullis
500€/month is, e.g, what I put extra to my private social security in Germany.
If I don't have to choose anymore between "pay hosting for a side project" and
"keep a bigger contribution to my retirement" is one less point of friction
and one less discussion with my wife about the family budget and one more
project where the only thing I might be wasting is my time.

It removes almost all of the downside and keeps all the upside for developers.
This kind of funding lowers the activation barrier considerably.

~~~
toyg
I read it as £500 total, not per month. That’s the equivalent of eating out
one time each month, hardly life-changing.

~~~
elkinthewoods
Thanks for the debate on this. I work at Tyk and lead the team running this
initiative so find it really useful.

This is the first 'cohort' for the fund, and we are open to increasing the
grant size in future. However, keeping it smaller means we're able to make a
difference to more projects.

Tyk also started as a side project ourselves, with founders initially working
around their day jobs, before bootstrapping for a few years. Because of our
own experience we believe there are viable, exciting projects out there that
could benefit from this type of small scale help. Applications received seem
to suggest this too.

Once we've finished this round there will hopefully be a blog sharing some of
the projects helped if you're interested to see. In the meantime, thanks again
for the feedback which we'll take on board for next time.

Emma at Tyk

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hashamali
A directory of these sorts of grants along with their deadlines and
application process would be very useful!

~~~
kasbah
There is a directory of sorts here:
[https://github.com/nayafia/microgrants](https://github.com/nayafia/microgrants)

(Not with deadlines though, as far as I am aware.)

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sakofchit
Yeah I came across that, it doesn't really seem actively updated + some of the
microgrants that are listed there are inactive now

~~~
kasbah
I "watch" it on Github and it still gets updated. If notice out-of-date things
you should open an issue or a pull-request.

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sakofchit
Thought this would be interesting to share--applications are due March 31st!

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antpls
How does intellectual property work in this case? Is there a probability that
my idea will be "stolen" if I share it with this website?

~~~
elkinthewoods
I'm afraid I can't speak to intellectual property law, but someone else may be
able to. I work for Tyk though, and lead the team for this particular
initiative. Thanks for your interest in it.

I can confirm that we do not - and will not ever - ask for any Intellectual
Property rights, equity, or 'ROI', in return for the microgrant. The only
thing we ask for is the opportunity to share the stories behind the projects
we fund. And if winning applicants said no to that too, we'd be fine with that
:)

Why are we doing this? We started as a side project ourselves. This new
initiative is our way of paying it forward to help others working in their
spare time to create open, innovative projects.

Appreciate the point your question raises, so I'll make sure our FAQs are
updated to make our position on this clearer. Thank you! Tyk

