Ask YC: How would you determine how much funding to request from a VC or Angel for a Facebook app?

[louisadekoya]

[mrtron]

Why do you need funding for a FB app?

Do you really need funding, or do you need financial motivation to do the work?

I would suggest if you really do need some funding for some specific costs, you should take as little as possible :)

[kf → mrtron]

You don't need funding, but getting money lets you take advantage of the irrational exuberance of the VCs or the FREE MONEY that the Facebook grant fund is offering.

[mrtron → kf]

Haha...I don't know levering the irrational exuberance of VC's is wise in the long run :)

Do you know how the Facebook grant fund works exactly? They reserve the right to be the first to invest?

[kf]

I got this advice from someone when I was considering applying to AppFactory.

"I would say multiply the number of team members by the time period you're asking to be funded over, by a very high valuation of your team members' time ($75/hour, say), and add some server costs."

[louisadekoya → kf]

Thanks - seems like good advice. So did you end up applying to AppFactory and if so how did it turn out?

[kf → louisadekoya]

Didn't end up applying to AppFactory, but maybe I should write that application now that there is the FB grant fund with even better terms (free money).

For anyone curious, one of the facebook platform ideas was to make a Sim City type game for the facebook platform where your city got bigger and better as more people viewed it or you invited them to make their own neighboring cities.

Kind of like this French site, where you build a city by having people go to your web site. http://rms.miniville.fr

[falsestprophet]

As far as I can tell, Facebook apps aren't growing explosively anymore. So there is no immediate need for capital for infrastructure. Just built it.