
Startup Fundraising is a Time Sink - PStamatiou
http://paulstamatiou.com/startup-fundraising-time-sink
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maxklein
I'm really very fond of notifo and the service that it offers is invaluable,
but what I think is wrong with it is the packaging. I can understand what
notifo does, but I don't think anyone else in my family would ever understand
it.

If I were them, I'd pivot notifo to become a kik-like instant messenger, but
with a little twist : it's the IM that webservices can send messages to. So
you grow on the consumer front because people can just use it for normal IMing
between friends, but then you make revenue on the back-end by selling the
website to user offering (when it exceeds a certain size).

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andrewmwatson
I you need to clarify your positioning, first. Then work on your GoToMarket
Approach.

I think you make a more powerful Value Proposition to developers, instead of
individuals. One or two home runs with wildly popular apps that choose to
deliver their notification with Notifo will do a lot to drive up the number of
devices with your app installed...

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biznickman
I think you just won startup buzzword bingo ... congrats!! :)

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nikosdimopoulos
Great post as usual Paul (OP).

The points raised are really good pointers for other startup companies and
their approach towards fundraising, which let's not kid ourselves is one of
(if not the) most important things to do.

I am sure that it is a really good product and has a lot of potential. I can
easily see notifo as being one of the little tricks in a developer's bag, a
framework that handles all of your notifications while you concentrate on
other, more important aspects of your application.

I would agree with maxklein on the approach towards Notifo. Yes it is
revolutionary and brand new technology and it did take me quite a bit to
understand and comprehend what it does. The understanding was also hindered by
the fact that I cannot see what it does, since I do not have an iPhone and the
Android application is under development.

The only obstacle is understanding what notifo is and what notifo does. Some
people will not get it but the more do, the better it will be for you :)

Keep up the good work !!

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PStamatiou
Hey Nikos, email me - I want to follow up on something..

καλές διακοπές

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PStamatiou
OP here: If you get any nginx errors on my site can you let me know here? I
think I'm about to jump ship with my WP setup and move to Jekyll.

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PStamatiou
what do these upvotes mean? that you approve of me moving to Jekyll or that
you experienced nginx errors on my site?

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troyk
I upvoted because I've been looking at jekyll myself and with your writing
talents would look forward to your post covering the experience!

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webwright
Paul is rapidly turning into one of my favorite bloggers. Long-form, candid,
and a lot of actionable advice.

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dshankar
PStam has been my fav blogger since way back in his Georgia Tech days. Great
insight and good journalism.

This article especially is of "PG essay" quality.

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Swizec
Posts like these make me wish a friends&family round was a viable option for
me. Right now my startup is in the sort of place where most of our focus
should be going to the product, it's live, but not quite launched. We have a
lot of great feedback that we really want to execute on before doing a proper
launch.

And on the other hand being live, but not quite launched, is giving us a lot
of scaling issues. You might as well say it's becoming a bit costly to run
everything ... and we can only live without money for so long. That's why
we're starting to devote half of our time to freelancing, just to put food on
the table. This in turn affects the execution I mentioned.

Of course instead of freelancing we could completely stop executing and go for
a round of fundraising ... but surely there's a chicken&egg problem hiding in
there somewhere. Thing is, we have some soft-circled angels/VC's ... but we
can only handle those so fast next to executing on the vision and putting food
on the table.

Ok, rant over, not really certain whether it's on topic or not.

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revorad
Do you mind sharing what your product is (if not the name or URL)? Have you
tried making money with your product itself, directly or indirectly? I think
if you don't try to be ramen profitable, you may never be.

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swombat
Must be great to be in a place where getting meetings with 40 interested
angels is not some kind of impossible fantasy!

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PStamatiou
Thanks for your post! <http://swombat.com/2010/12/21/startup-fundraising-
story>

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swombat
No, thank you! If you didn't post an article worth reading and telling others
about, there'd be nothing to see there! :-)

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revorad
Thanks for the detailed article, Paul. Do you have any paying customers? It's
not clear from the Notifo site if you have a paid version out yet. Don't want
you to spill all your beans, but it would also help to know how many total
users you have (ballpark?) to give some context to your fundraising story.

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sjasmin
Paul, Always enjoy your comments and insights. Glad things are working out so
well. If you are in Atlanta for the holidays i would love to grab drinks and
catch up.

Steven.

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PStamatiou
Thanks for the kind words Steven. Unfortunately I won't be back in Atlanta for
the holidays, but there is a chance I might fly in for a few days around
Startup Riot.. we'll see!

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wensing
Hoping to make it to StartupRiot as well (assuming I am accepted to present).
Andrew Warner and others (like me) are hoping to have an HN meetup of sorts.

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joshu
Pretty good summary.

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axiom
For what it's worth, it's only ever this bad on your first time around raising
funding. Even follow up rounds for your startup are 10x easier (assuming you
did what you said you'd do.)

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jonathanjaeger
Love his app to track his mood from day-to-day. Priceless.

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coreyhaines
Hi, Jonathan,

I'm one of the developer of MercuryApp that is using Notifo for our
notifications. It is the application that he uses to track his mood. We are
opening up in the next few weeks, although you can request a beta invite at
www.mercuryapp.com. We've got some great features coming out to make it even
more useful as a tracking tool.

