$20M Seed vs. Bootstrapped

$20M Seed vs. Bootstrapped- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Look you need to have few database server farm decentralised for major countries,, and those will handle millions of searches every second plus you need to build an entire company and software systems to serve customers with potential few office and sales in 5 major countries. The product is full market fit and even 500 million users might pay a premium for it. What's your view? If any questions, please ask in comment.

If you startup SOM is more than a billion customers, could you raise $40 mil as seed funding?

Solution architect

Hi All, I am thinking of starting up in a space that in very passionate about and feel I have a unique insight. I also have a cofounder who I know from a long time from college when we studied comp science

What are some common pitfalls to avoid at the early stage of an startup?

Startup pitfalls to avoid

Business Development Manager

Hey all, I’m 29, Marketing and Growth Guy. Making 2.5L/Month (In Hand). And some side income of 50k-1L. 

I’m an expert in taking the startups in their journey of 0-1. 

However, every night it haunts me that in some years, I’ll be irrelevant because of younger generations taking up the positions or if not irrelevant, I’ll be costly for 0-1 startups.

In fact, even now, most of the high growth startups don’t hire me saying I don’t have experience of handling massive budgets. 

Can’t go into corporate after working for 8 years in startups. 

I’m investing and saving a lot. But that won’t be enough. Not looking to start my own business. Been there done that. Didn’t work out. 

So what are your plans? Or if you have any suggestions for me?

How does the future look like for 0-1 Guy.

Growth Manager

willl try my best to be honest, ask me anything

AMA - I work at a VC fund

Analyst

I am addressing folks who have progressed in their careers enough to earn at least 30 LPA.

If you are earning this much in India, you are already in the creamy layer of lifestyle. You can afford a decent house, a decent car and probably save up some assets for children's education (A lot of people bring up the expensive school fees). 

If you get a salary hike from 30LPA to 40LPA, there is a high chance that your lifestyle will not change that much. Your savings will go up, but still it will take years to retire early in either case. It's quite apparent that if you want to improve your lifestyle at this stage (highest-end middle class), you will require an income source capable of providing leverage and exponential growth.

Barring a few folks I know, everyone else is busy grinding leetcode, mugging up system design for their next job switch or even worse, kissing ass for the next promotion. 

Why don't enough people start learning about business on the side and slowly start investing their free time in learning everything they can about it ? I am sure it will be a much better time investment if you play your cards correctly for a long enough time (I am pretty sure this is still a quicker path to riches as compared to 30 years of SIP investments).

Note: I completely understand that many people have monthly payment obligations like EMIs. And that's why my question is about 'aspirations'. I am not asking 'Why are people not leaving their jobs to pursue entrepreneurship?'. I am rather asking 'Why are people not even thinking about anything else apart from the next (disappointing) hike?'

Why are there not enough folks having entrepreneurial aspirations?

Software Engineer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

I am a final year student. I have an oncampus offer from Tekion (Chennai) which is a 6M Internship(onsite) + FTE offer. The offer is low compared to other standard Tekion SDE-1 offers. 
I also have a offer from an early age web3 startup ($3M seed funding). The offer is an internship(remote) + FTE offer and FTE compensation is almost 1.5x times that of former.

Which company should I join? Will the name of Tekion internship on my resume help me get interviews of other better startups for FTE while applying offcampus?

Established startup vs Early seed Startup

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. 

And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

Why are startup folks so entitled?

Team is less than 10 people still, slowly growing. Net profit could be higher, that's top priority to work on now. Total cash invested by founders was 15L over 3-4 years.

Yearly revenue :

2019 - less than 30k 
20 - 1.5L (after pivot)
22 - 50L

Getting to the first lakh and then to 10 lakhs was probably the most challenging part.

We thought of shutting down multiple times, struggled through multiple fights between founders. Glad we didn't stop working and pulled through.

This is my 4th or 5th attempt at starting up. Except for 1, other attempts didn't even get to incorporation stage.

Would love to hear from other bootstrappers and their experience.

Personal milestone: 1Cr in rev as a bootstrapper

Generalist

I have been talking to a few companies, across different size bands.
Only Indian startups seem to obsessed with full week WFO/Micromanagement.

A few years back, startups were known for being more flexible, now it just seems to be the reverse.

Why are Indian startups so obsessed with Micromanagement? i.e. WFO

Founder

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Hello grapevines!
Need your help/opinion here.
I work for a big corp. ~6YOE. 48L.

The work culture here seems a bit off. Constant pressure to compete and snatch the work and prove oneself. Chaos is being glorified. Onsite team is unresponsive and hiding information. Asking for a KT is being judged upon(expectation is apparently to read through the code). Everyone is trying to earn brownie points by impressing the manage because no one seems to know what to work upon. Technical ability is being looked down upon in the name of domain knowledge.

I switched recently to upskill and grow, but seems like it was a wrong choice.

I’m looking for early stage startups to switch to. I know the current market situation is bad, but I’d take the risk as long as I’m getting to expose myself to good problem statements and less bullshit.

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