Ask HN: What to do when you have a demo of your start-up?

[shahedkhan30]

Hey,

I've been a bit curious for the past few days, as we're wrapping up our web demo of what key features our start-up will have, what will happen next?

I've been thinking about contacting some Angels near SF, but thought a bit mentorship would help out a lot, someone who's been through my stage.

I'm currently one of the two founders (both being business people), we have one designer/programmer on board as well, he's working temporarily until we receive funding.

So HN, What should I do next?

[imjonathanlee]

I think that a real-life demo is much more effective to knowing whether or not the product works. If you're concerned with privacy- you can even have a quick test run to see if close family members or friends like it.

It would be bad if there were bugs or small annoyances like bad UI when the Angels or VCs are testing it.

If it's a prototype to simply show the idea and not anything close to a full blown site- then go ahead and give it a try. Advice is always going to be advice- it may or may not help, so believe in your product and decide what you might want to do.

[shahedkhan30 → imjonathanlee]

Awesome, would you like to give me some advice on my current product?

[imjonathanlee → shahedkhan30]

I would love to.

You can reach me at jonlee@socialhowl.com

[draz]

Review the following interview with PG: http://tcrn.ch/js0Zzc :-) good luck!

[yesbabyyes]

Get users!

[shahedkhan30 → yesbabyyes]

You have to realize that we're not launching our demo, we have the demo as a mini-preview to show to Angel Investors, in return for a early seed stage funding cycle.

[lacker → shahedkhan30]

Well, launch your demo then. Once you get it in the hands of real users, their feedback will tell you much more about what to do next.

[suneliot → shahedkhan30]

is your demo a functioning demo? or is it a dummy demo purely for demonstration?

the best way to get funding is to put your product in the hands of your users. unless your idea is a out-of-this-world idea, you're likely going to need to show the investors that your product is in high demand on the market and that you've gained some sort of traction already.

[shahedkhan30 → suneliot]

It is a functioning demo, We don't quite want the idea to be released yet, so we thought we would raise Seed Funding, and go into the beta stage, and launch through that route.

[petervandijck]

Customer Development.