
Ask HN: Ok. I have the MVP. I have a small feedback. What is next? - pavelshtanko
Hello HN people!<p>I do have questions (tons of them btw) and I do think that it is the good place to ask.<p>Got:<p>1. The idea<p>2. Two developers<p>3. The MVP (actually working prototype, to say mo I&#x27;m already using it for my own purposes together with my family)<p>4. A very small feedback (14 guys interested and waiting for the start of the project) after a few posts on the internet boards.<p>5. All the tech-related things like certificates, scaling, tests, ci\cd, etc (don&#x27;t really think that it worths mentioning here, but why not...)<p>6. Vision (don&#x27;t like this word) of how to scale and apply the idea to different markets and integrate with my current main project (or similar) where I&#x27;m working as a developer<p>Want:<p>1. Run the prototype and test it in the live-mode.<p>Problems:<p>1. This is the side project running in the parallel with the main job. So the time is the problem.<p>2. I do not have the experience of running the c-corp or something to legally start the stripe integration for payments. And I can&#x27;t actually run the project without it.<p>3. The project already has the expenses related to the Google cloud and some of the others 3rd-party providers.<p>Questions (I know nothing about the investments and startup stages so please forgive me the stupid questions):<p>1. Does the project on the right stage for searching for investments?<p>2. Do the investors willing to help me with the legal issues?<p>3. Do I need to look into startup accelerators?<p>4. What is the best\fast\safe option to run the project?<p>5. What are the good articles to read about the process of building and funding the startup\sideproject?<p>p.s. I don&#x27;t think that you guys like the advertisement so I didn&#x27;t put the link to my weird landing page here. (ping me if we need it for the discussion)
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contingencies
First of all, congratulations to you and your team on coming this far.

1\. No. Investors will want to see product market fit, size of opportunity,
growth potential. Without true and paying customers (people you don't know),
this is too hard to claim, so even most angel investors will consider the
current state too early.

2\. An angel investor would be able to assist you with company registration,
however you can also do it yourself through an agency. I would recommend
pricing this out (both establishment and annual ongoing fees and charges) so
you have an idea of what you're getting in to financially before taking the
plunge. This will be part of your first financial forecast, which is going to
be maintained going forward.

3\. Accelerators are fronts for investment. They also want high growth
potential businesses. Unless you can justify this, it may be hard to get
accepted. Also, they usually demand full time commitment for the whole team in
a certain physical location (ie. whole team has to move cities) and some
traction with an MVP at a minimum. Unless you and your team are all willing to
quit your jobs, they may not be right for you. However, they may provide the
dangling carrot that maintains team motivation and gets you all to commit full
time. Only you will know if it's right for your team. Frankly, it's a large
risk. You would probably do well to maintain your income and operate the
business part time initially.

4\. Decide on ownership and investment structure. Commit to paying the C-Corp
and related accounting/filing fees. Get it done through an agency. Try to sell
the tool and get some real market validation.

5\. You don't need articles. You need sales.

In short: Register a company, listen to your real or potential customers, get
some sales.

~~~
jmngomes
>> "An angel investor would be able to assist you with company registration,
however you can also do it yourself through an agency."

Although this is true, I would seriously advise the founder to get his own
(trustworthy) lawyer assist him through the process, as with everything
related to incorporating the company (ownership and investment structure).

~~~
contingencies
More legal advice is always nice but it costs and may not add significant
value. Registration tends to be straightforward and necessarily formalizes
ownership structure to a significant extent. That said, lawyers may be useful
for contracts. If the OP has concerns about registration costs, my advice
would be to hold off lawyers at this stage and get a customer first.

~~~
pavelshtanko
Can't get the customers without registering the company (stripe won't let me
go live :) )

~~~
yehosef
Did you look into Stripe Atlas? - they do all the work of setting up the
company and bank for around $500.

~~~
pavelshtanko
I did look, but it looks like overkill for the initial start (I don't even
know will someone buy the product or not).

~~~
masukomi
you have an MVP that sounds like you've actually honored the "M" part (as many
fail to). You find it useful already. Do you honestly think you won't be able
to get $500 worth of customers? If you really think that, then just stop. It's
not worth your time, because $500 worth of customers is nothing. I'm assuming
you're charging more than $1.

If you can get more than $500 worth of customers then who cares? All
businesses have costs. The question is, can you recoup them?

Yes, you can incorporate yourself online for like $150, and about an hour with
google will tell you which form of corporation is the best fit for you.
Probably S-Corp I'd bet. C-Corp is probably overkill.

BUT regardless of if you use that Stripe service or not, use their $500
barrier of entry as a guide for if it's worth continuing or not, because
obviously it's enough to make you pause.

------
thisisit
One, it's your thread. So, it's fine if you post the link. Getting feedback is
important.

Second, get some Linkedin/Facebook/Google ads running. Get some more people to
your site. IMO, one of the biggest problems is having a small audience for
feedback. If your conversion rate is say 1% then you barely have 1 user. So,
go big or go home.

Third, I believe there will be tools out there to help with other stuff like
c-corp etc.

~~~
pavelshtanko
Thanks a lot for the feedback! I was thinking about the small amount of paid
adds as well and I'm glad that you prove that it may work.

Can you share some of the tools besides the stripe's atlas?

If you are wondering the landing is
[https://goandcall.me](https://goandcall.me). Idea is to let you create the
link or widged to your own phone and let your customers or visitors call you
without any plugins or additional software. Just from the browser. As well as
give you the ability to manage links and numbners different ways
(activate\deactive, schedule, etc.)

~~~
jacquesm
Like this?

[https://www.innovaphone.com/en/produkte-unified-
communicatio...](https://www.innovaphone.com/en/produkte-unified-
communications/call-me-button.html)

~~~
pavelshtanko
Close enough, we are the link to your own phone (physical one that you have in
your pocket). So it is comfortable for you to run your own business from any
place you are currently now without the need of sitting in front of the
computer. Or just send the link to your parents and they will be able to call
you whenever they need wihtout any additional tools. (btw you will recieve the
phone call from the local number) We want to keep it as simple as possible.

------
antoniuschan99
Like the others here have said and I will stress it as well:

Nothing matters until you get sales.

Paying customers gives you a more defined value proposition for your product,
it also tells you what specific niche to serve.

A suggestion for Got #6. A very important piece of advice I received when I
was working on my product was, "It's better to have 10 people love your
product than 1000 who like your product"

------
strife25
> 1\. Does the project on the right stage for searching for investments?

Don't worry about investment - focus on getting your first paying customer.
Build a business first, then get investment when you need it to grow. You'll
also have more leverage in the terms if you have a viable business when
talking with investors.

~~~
pavelshtanko
I'm thinking more about the support from experienced investors. Not about the
money, more about the sells strategy, legalization part, marketing. More about
transferring of the experience than about the money.

------
jlebrech
You might want to look for a partner that's more business oriented than an
angel.

Say come up with a value you're willing to start negotiations with an have the
partner buy half (or less), then let that person deal with the business side
of things.

------
BartBoch
1\. Do you need an investment? Is your strategy completely dependant on
getting funded? You should always build a company with Bootstrapping in mind.
If you can survive without external funding, then it will be much easier for
you in the long run. Funding will help you to grow, rather than survive.

2\. You can always join startup accelerator or hub, they will help you out,
often for free.

3\. Yes, sounds like this is the best option in your situation.

4\. Can your MVP run on a free basis? If yes, then release a free version and
build it from there. This will be the best way to test your concept.

Edit your post and add a link, without that it is hard to suggest anything.

~~~
pavelshtanko
1\. I do need the support to implement the legalization part (I don't know how
to run c-corp or something)

2\. For free? What is the profit for them?

4\. Suddenly not, I rely on 3rd party providers and they cost me some money.

The problem is that I can't edit post right now. So here is the link:
[https://goandcall.me](https://goandcall.me) (I've got very bad communication
and copywriting skills but I promise I will improve them).

The main idea that you can get a link or widget for your website, email
signature or get it per prospect via API. This link will help your customers
call you without any plugin or additional software. Free for customers, paid
for you. You can manage links and numbers (activate, deactivate, assign
schedule).

~~~
neltnerb
1\. You are definitely overestimating how hard this is. Look up contract CFO
firms, and you should be able to get part-time support for logistics like that
(as well as helping you get your books set up and do taxes).

2\. Many are non-profits or have a mission that is unrelated to them making a
profit. They often are funded by VC firms, companies who would like to provide
services to companies in the accelerator once they have money (law firms,
etc), and companies that want to raise their own credibility in the startup
scene (3dsystems, or area-focused companies like GE maybe funding accelerators
that work in batteries). Some also get government grants.

------
adamqureshi
The single necessary and sufficient condition for a business, says MIT’s Bill
Aulet, is a paying customer.

[https://stripe.com/atlas](https://stripe.com/atlas)

or use a paypal button.

Adapt this mentality. No investor will ever give you money.

Make sales. Learn. Adjust. Repeat.

Good Lucky! ;-)

~~~
pavelshtanko
I'm thinking more about support than money. I can run it for some time on my
own for sure... But registering the company, talking about marketing, helping
with sales strategy all these things.. I definitely need them more than money.

~~~
ryandrake
When you used the word "support" I thought about something else too not to
forget about: Customer support.

When I turned on a side project iOS app a while back, and actually managed to
get customers paying for it, I soon found myself swamped with support
requests. "How does this work? It crashed, help! I'm getting this error
message!" Also, automated bug reports. The app was bringing in tens of dollars
per month, not thousands, so how does supporting this even make sense? I
thought: Well I took their money, so I kind of have to own this, but it was
shitty.

Have a plan for customer support.

~~~
scrollaway
It's a simple game of numbers.

If you're getting an overwhelming amount of support requests compared to how
much money your product generates, something is wrong.

1\. If large amounts of tickets have a similar root cause, make sure those
customers are picked up before they create a ticket. Maybe you fix the issue,
implement the suggestion, have an FAQ you make sure they see, rework your app
so that this no longer comes up, etc.

2\. If you have a ton of free users producing a ton of support requests, and
not enough revenue from the product, you might be monetizing it wrong. Could
be a sign of a bad conversion rate, a bad monetization strategy, or simply a
sign that you shouldn't have a support stream for free users.

3\. (General advice) Do all the customer support yourself for as long as you
can. This is the best way to know what they want and they'll be happier for
it. It won't stop making sense to do this until you really are a big company.
And even then I'd still advise to pick up support tickets whenever you can.

------
hartator
Sure, it's okay to post your landing page here. Please do.

MVP stands for "Minimum Viable Product". It implies some paying customers.
Nothing wrong to use the word prototype here.

~~~
pavelshtanko
I'm to shy about it (not the best quality), but anyway:
[https://goandcall.me](https://goandcall.me) Idea: the link or widget that
will help your customers reach you to your own phone number without any
additional plugins or tools. Manage the links\numbers, activate them or
deactivate. Attach scheduler to them. Hide your own number behind the links.

~~~
bbri06
"Let your customers reach you out in a simple and reliable way" does not sound
right. Try either, "reach you in a..." or "reach out to you in a..."

~~~
pavelshtanko
Amazing, thanks a lot will update it immediately

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chkte
Put some money on Google AdWords. Absolutely worth it. Check the conversion
rate, do some A/B testing. You will know very soon whether your idea is worth
pursuing or not.

------
sharemywin
easy way:

1\. register llc in home state.

2\. goto local bank with registration paper take it to local bank to get a
commercial bank account.

3\. pay money later to fix problems if investors are interested.

~~~
pavelshtanko
Not in the US... Thinking of stripe's atlas. But scared of some hidden
things\taxes

~~~
dirktheman
Stripe Atlas might be too soon for you... Focus on getting some sales first.
While Stripe Atlast is great (and cheap!) for what it is (setting up a US bank
account and a Delaware C-Corp) do realize that you'll have to file taxes in
the US from now on.

If you use a payment provider (like Stripe, which is awesome!) you'll be able
to charge people from the US just the same without going straight to tax hell.

Sell, sell, sell. Worry about LLCs and US bank accounts and EIN numbers later.

More: [https://hackernoon.com/stripe-atlas-is-not-for-everyone-
cave...](https://hackernoon.com/stripe-atlas-is-not-for-everyone-caveats-
based-on-my-experience-2735a226df8a)

~~~
pavelshtanko
Looks like you are right, but how can I setup payment system without the EIN
number? Stripe won't allow it

~~~
thecodeboy
I built Slyme ([https://5ly.me](https://5ly.me)) and couldn't find any usable
payment platforms. I live in India and couldn't automate payments from the US.
This is really a big problem. Stripe is expanding to other countries in the
future though.

~~~
dirktheman
Stripe India is in private beta, I believe. Can you use something like
Razorpay? Also I read somewhere that incorporating a business in India and
setting up a bank account is a really difficult process... here in The
Netherlands you can do it online and it's almost immediate...

------
victomlinson
I’m a proofreader & editor. I can do it for a reasonable price. See
victomlinson@proofpapers.com.

------
victomlinson
I can help you with proofreading & editing any text. My email is
victomlinson@proofpapers.com. I’m inexpensive.

~~~
grzm
Please don't spam the forum with off-topic advertisements.

