

Ask YC: Should I send this to Angel Investors so they might invest in my project? - gscott

I have created this document that I want to use to find a small amount of Angel investment to kick forward my project.  I am a terrible writer (to put it mildly)... I need confirmation that my grammer is ok and if that the document is reasonable overall.<p><a href="http://www.officezilla.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc" rel="nofollow">http://www.officezilla.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc</a><p>I could really use some very honest opinion so don't hold back :)
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npk
Disclaimer: I have no experience in this either.. However, I have won (& lost)
scientifically reviewed proposals for significantly more money.

Ok, i read this and wonder why you need $20k. This makes no sense at all. 12
months from now you're going to have $778,200 in the bank. What is $20K going
to do.

This document does officezilla no favors. I read it, and have no idea what
officezilla is, or what problem you're trying to solve.

1) Opportunity. The opportunity is what exactly? To give you $$$? Do people
know what pbx integration is? Why is PBX integration important? What is the
"first paid offering of the sytem." Are you saying you're about to charge
money? I think you need to retitle this section. If you insist on PBX
integration, you need to later explain what PBX is, and why PBX is key. PBX
seems like an unimportant detail at this point.

2) What is OfficeZilla. "OfficeZilla is a free...", first adjective, free. But
you're planning to charge for it? Why is your software different than anything
else? Is it web-based only? is there client software? 30K users, 12K orgs
sounds like a lot, will $20K make any difference? It has no usage limits. So
what? What does that mean?

Is your software in early beta, is ready to roll, what. I have no idea how
it's used. I'm utterly confused.

On the plus side: sounds like you have an impressive product. I just don't
know what it is, or why $20K is going to make any difference.

Also, tell me something about your organization. How many developers, why are
they good? What's impressive about them. I want to know about people.

 _Who uses OfficeZilla. All you're saying here is that a officezilla is useful
for any organization. Drop this section. Roll into above section. Use 4 words
instead, eg: "has broad customer base"

_ 3 Month plan. Totally comes out of the blue. What is realtygolive? Is
officezilla about for realtys? That sounds like a good problem to solve.
Should be right up top. In fact, this business about EXIT realty sounds very
promising. How many agents does EXIT have? If EXIT needs PBX support, this is
a great place to justify it. (whatever PBX is.)

 _What is a module? Why are new languages needed? What is tighten data
integration? What are data relationships? What are you talking about? This is
all gibberish.

_ 2 year plan: Sounds impressive. You have not justified (1) expertise (talk
about people before this) or (2) money. $20K isn't going to get you through 2
years. Worst, if you're only asking for $20k, sounds like you are a one or two
person team. How are you going from 1 or 2 people to 15 poeple and satisfy all
these different users in one year, with $20K? Basically, sounds like you have
incredibly optimistic expectations about income, and yet you're asking for
peanuts up front.

* Overall Expectations First sentence is gibberish. Potential rewrite: OfficeZilla core is our flagship product. Core is free to use and will satisfy most users needs. We will sell modules that target specific needs outside of core.

Table: No numbers justified, sounds like you pulled them out of thin air.
Before you said $5/user, here $10/user. I think here you need to focus on
EXIT, as it sounds promising. Drop the Non profit business, unless you have
customers ready to pay.

Second table is utterly confusing, why is non profit system listed twice. Why
are monthly and recurring fees listed twice?

"In order to drive each system deep..." What? what is deep?

~~~
gscott
Great observations, in the 2nd table I listed the recurring revenue twice. I
will rework the document. I know the $20k doesn't make much sense when the
upside is so large but that is just where I am at right now. I can't bootstrap
this much longer without going crazy, at the same time I am not in a position
to just quit working which is taking way too much of my time.

~~~
npk
I read your proposal and think you're overly optimistic with your numbers.
Seriously, if you can prove your numbers, bootstrap yourself with the help of
your credit cards, family & friends. If you can't bootstrap yourself, and you
can prove your numbers, ask for more money. $1M profit in one year for a
one/two person operation is incredible.

~~~
gscott
Reasonable enough, it is my gut feeling that those numbers are achievable but
it is a little difficult to prove now.

There is money to be made in helping other people make more money, with Realty
Agents I want to help them make more money with marketing tools and tying it
all together in the 'virtual office' being OfficeZilla. I want to attack the
network marketer angle with an integrated system tying the OfficeZilla
features with a replicated website system, and autoresponder system.

I went to work creating a replicated website system back in 1999 that is
running today it has 2400 customers and clears about 15 a month from each
client. I was promised a founding position in that company, I am still a
little unhappy about the things that happened between then and now. I plan to
attack that segment in a different way, I am pretty sure I can hit easily that
many paying network marketing clients.

I just lust after integrating the features of Asterisk PBX into OfficeZilla
and further tying that into the website system that is managed inside of
OfficeZilla so if you are a realty agent you can have a voicemail message
about the house, click to call functionality on the website, and other neat
pbx stuff that all works seamlessly inside of OfficeZilla.

I don't have any sources of capital to turn to at this time so I have to give
a little away, move over this hump between having a lot of happy users to
being able to have a lot of happy paying users. People will pay you when you
promise to make them more money. That is what I am promising, this system will
be adapted to make the customer more money. I could go on, but long posts
don't work well in this forum. I am confident I am tenacious enough to pull
this off!

------
andrewfong
I don't really have any experience in this either, but I can offer some help
with grammar / minor details:

> $20,000 investment -- if you're sending this anywhere outside the US,
> remember to change the currency or specify USD.

> pbx should be capitalized (PBX) since it's an acronym. If there's a chance
> your readers don't know what PBX stands for, you may want to say it is as
> well.

> In case this doesn't format properly, the s tags are strikeouts and
> [[brackets]] are my additions: "OfficeZilla allows private and shared
> calendars, contacts, forums, knowledge <s>base</s> [[bases]], <s>email</s>
> [[emails]], chat <s>room</s> [[rooms]], phone message <s>pad</s> [[pads]],
> project <s>manager</s> [[managers]], to-do lists, and <s>url</s> [[URL]]
> sharing. OfficeZilla has no usage limits <s>including</s> on the number of
> users, files, or mail."

> "OfficeZilla is translated into Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German,
> Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish[[.]]"

OfficeZilla accounts include non-profit organizations, medical offices, legal
offices, realty offices, title companies, planned communities, network
marketers, schools, along with other groups, companies, and organizations.

> "Create partnerships with realty franchisors <s>with a particular
> focus</s>[[, focusing first]] on EXIT Realty <s>who</s>[[, which]] has the
> most realty agents & offices already using the system"

> OfficeZilla 6 Month Plan: Shouldn't the stuff under this be bulleted as
> well?

> "OfficeZilla[[,]] as it is[[,]] will remain free, attracting between 15 and
> 30 new signups a day representing hundreds of additional potential users[[.
> Each account holder may also]] <s>and the potential that the account holder
> will</s> want to upgrade to a customized system or add modules for a fee.
> Continuing [[to sign]] <s>signing</s> up free customers is a priority[[.]]
> <s>having a</s>[[A]] solid free system equals free marketing and
> <s>allows</s> goodwill <s>to be developed</s>."

> "In order to drive each system deep, there will be one new developer, one
> technical support person, and one salesperson hired for each system" -- I
> don't really understand what you're trying to say here, but I'm sleepy and
> it could just be me.

~~~
gscott
> In order to drive each system deep there will be one ..

I was thinking a person would want to know the expenses but I was afraid to go
into too much detail on that. I think I could list a cost per account which
would cover all expenses instead.

------
utnick
Disclaimer: I have no experience in this

However, if I were going to give you 20K I would want more info about what you
plan to do with it. Break down how much servers, pbx, etc cost and why you
need them

Also, I would think that a 1-2 yr revenue projection is kind of pointless, it
seems just like wild guesses at this point.

Its good to let me know how you are going to make money. But the projections
do nothing for me imo.

BTW, it looks like you have a pretty solid legit product. good job.

~~~
rms
The revenue projections are pointless but they are required in this kind of
document anyways.

~~~
gscott
I went on the low side on the numbers, not sure if maybe I should be more
optimistic or stay with easy to reach.

------
yrashk
I'm not an expert in this kind of questions (yet?) but I'd personally state
what percentage of ownership/share of profit angel will receive in return to
an investment made. Though may be it will be wiser to negotiate it when
somebody will contact you.

~~~
gscott
I was thinking 5% but I was afraid to add it in up front.

~~~
yrashk
May be it will be a good idea to put some numbers in but say it is a ballpark
number that is a subject for negotiations and will depend on a final agreement
terms?

~~~
gscott
It does seem to be a glaring missing item, I will put that in.

------
gscott
I have updated an updated version based upon everyones feedback, I cut back
the estimated paid accounts by half and added some additional information:
<http://www.userlinks.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc>

------
prakster
Just curious...what's the backend/architecture?

~~~
gscott
I don't expect to ever have more then around 500,000 users on the system it is
easily scalable to that many. If I had 5 - 10 million users I would sing a
different tune but I am focused on paying clients, probably less then 10,000
paying clients. I have been working this architecture since 1999 so I am
really good at it, just don't want to say the name since knives would come out
(and I cut easily!).

About 800 users on the system login every day on a single server and I am not
even close to maxing it out (1 processor 2 gigabytes of ram) and a dedicated
server for sql (2 processors and 2 gigabytes of ram). I also have a load
balancer that I would like to put in place one day (just sitting on the floor
begging to be used) to create some redundancy would be nice.

~~~
prakster
hey don't worry...even PlentyOfFish.com runs on .net ;-)

