
Ask HN: How Would You Fund-Raise for your Startup without vast personal network? - mrShiningWizard
This issue comes up times and times again: brilliant founder comes up with revolutionary idea. Yet she doesn&#x27;t know where to find financing to turn this idea into a business. What advice can you share?
======
Kagerjay
First question I would ask is what kind of business is it, and whether
fundraising is necessary. Many times, the answer it is not if you have
technical proficiency and/or can gain it on your own, and what your timelines
and visions are. Pick 2 of 3 - build it cheap, build it good, or build it
expensive. I don't know which ones this "revolutionary idea" falls under, most
ideas are worthless anyways including all the shitty ones I have had. Its all
pure execution.

I would seek out your local startup / tech incubator and tech meetups in your
area as a starting point. Both for building a personal network of people you
can rely on. I have lots of fantastic developers I talk to in my city's dev
channel, some being among the best in the industry as well. I say hello to the
owner of my city's biggest tech incubator, the mayor is a good friend of mine
too from nonprofit work I've done. I had a nonexisting network about a few
months ago, but show your face enough times people will remember who you are.

You can build a prototype without any technical proficiency. There's lots of
off the shelf tools you can just throw wordpress/airtable/zapier/kickstarter
etc at it, and see how far you get.

~~~
splatzone
Great thoughts here, thanks for sharing.

Shouldn’t it be pick two of: build it cheap, build it good or build it fast?

Why would anyone choose good and expensive over good and cheap?

~~~
nerdwaller
I think the gist is meant:

> Fast + Cheap = Low Quality

> Good + Fast = Expensive

> Cheap + Good = Slow to market

~~~
Kagerjay
yeah that's what I meant, got the wording mixed up

------
EGreg
My answer:

Launch a company in a jurisdiction that allows issuing utility tokens (not
USA)

Then get them listed on an exchange or sell them

Use the money to build the stuff

Also pay people in the tokens themselves

The latter thing can be done legally with equity in the USA. Look up the book
“Slicing Pie”

My #1 advice to first time entrepreneurs is DONT BE AFRAID TO DILUTE YOUR
EQUITY ENOUGH TO GET THE BEST PEOPLE ON BOARD AND MOTIVATED TO TAKE INITIATIVE
EVERY DAY/WEEK TO HELP YOU.

------
chrisco255
Ideas are only worth slightly more than zero. You need to prove out your
hypothesis (that the market even values your idea, or the execution of your
idea) first, before you go to investors...generally. The only way around that
(usually) is that you have such a reputation of success that people are
willing to take a chance on your unproven idea.

But it doesn't take a runaway success of a product, to be able to raise money.
You can build a prototype, get sign ups with a landing page, use crowdfunding
to raise funds and pre-sell a physical product, etc. Or if it's a SaaS
product, even as few as a dozen customers and a strong target market can be
enough to go raise money through angels/accelerators in Silicon Valley or
other tech hubs.

------
hluska
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I would work on building a vast
personal network. As you go from idea to product to business, you'll reach
many points where you need a network, or at least the skills to go out, meet
someone and get them to help you. I'd start building those skills and a
network while I'm fundraising.

------
dnautics
My approach:

Build a personal network. I went to work for a startup, and delivered
engineering goals on time. Now the CEO thinks I'm the only competent developer
on staff. Will let you know how it goes.

------
danieltillett
It is not a revolutionary idea unless you can fund it, it is just another
worthless idea.

