[Thread] You get massive seed funding: What do you don’t do?
Not over hiring, for sure. 😂
Lose your confidence. It happened to me. I raised a large seed round after a lot of struggle and hard work and basically doing everything myself. (I'm a full-stack hardware + software developer + sales + CEO)
The moment, I raised my large seed round, everyone started telling me I need to bring in corporate people who will teach me how to run the show.
As it is, imposter syndrome is such a big deal for me!!!
Basically, led to instant bloat and I ended up paying a lot of fancy people who in-turn hired more people.
Now, I am back to doing their work myself.
My next round, I know exactly whom I want to get and it's definitely not going to be a corporate leader.
@itzprobablyme Agreed +100, keeping a lean setup with people who have bias for action is critical.
That’s what I hate about a corporate job. Unnecessary red tapism hinders productivity and innovation.
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1) Build an office with a slide and 2 massage rooms
2) Company offsite to Ibiza
3) Cookers and hoke
VCs when Dan Bilzerian walks into the room: “Founder mein Alpha hai”
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Upgrade your ergonomics game by buying 1.2L rupee Steelcase chairs for the entire team
1. Focus on building your organic marketing channels now, SEO/ASO, it will give you long term benefits in terms of customer acquisition.
2. Don’t spend too much on paid acquisition. Do a thorough analysis on your ICP, and their most spent time(in terms of app and content), and accordingly you would be able to know what kind of communication would work for your ICP(rough idea).
2. Get PMs who had worked on similar product features before.
3. Don’t hire internal HRs, instead get HR consultants to work with you.
4. Work towards building a proper feedback loop channel(customer care). This helps a lot
VacantFuel98
Student
a year ago
Nice insights, can I connect with you?
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chakbodi
Stealth
a year ago
Quite a few things other than what's already noted:
1. You don't create a "new" plan to spend all that money quickly in order to "show" huge traction/growth
2. You don't go overboard (2X) in giving salary hikes to the early team
3. You don't give a huge party to celebrate seed funding as if you hit a business milestone, no harm in a small celebration
4. You don't become a Startup Guru and waste time in industry meetings, you have not arrived till you have cracked a sustainable model for a profitable business
One thing you must do is meet those founders who have seen the journey from Seed to profits, and meet as many of them as you can. Nothing can beat the tribal knowledge.
Forget that it still is a liability, the return clock on which has started ticking
Get some Indian SaaS godfathers onboard
make their redundant playbooks your mantra
totally build something that doesn't connect with the ethos of the present gen
Sell this buggy with product marketing
And to compensate for this get semi skilled people for half the price and make them do engineering roles
Parallelly steal from competitors clients and employees
Focus on getting good pitch decks made
Target SE Asian investors and clients
Focus on emerging markets - Africa and South America
By this time, another competitor is already eating your market.
I don't know, where do we go from here?
MetalMan20
Stealth
a year ago
1. Don't fall into the trap of hiring for strategy folks from MBBs specially while building your founders office team. Have seen investors pressure to make such hires at massive premiums but they end up not contributing or worst leaving in months. Your early days require you to build a team of executioners who have successfully built their own benchmarks by being on the ground.
2. Stop doing massive PR around your fundraise, puts unnecessary pressure to start delivering the moment it's out. Rather focus energies and effort on building targeted campaigns for your target customers. This yields better value and given its niche nature might be more cost effective to drive a pull effect or Inbound
3. Avoid participating or spending money in stalls or big events hoping you would meet your customers. Most people are there for freebies( not generalising though) Rather prefer intimate setups with your customers or better, invite your TG for a small roundtable over coffee or beers. You will drive better insight and tangible connections than at events.
4. Your Start-Ups Distribution!= Your social media followers! Don't fall into this trap of becoming a creator or influencer with the guise that you're doing it for your organisation. Again, not saying don't build content in platforms, but all goals should be to drive people towards value of your org or your journey and how you can help. Enough bhaiyas or gyanis out there already who guise their mission as their start ups mission
4. Hack for PMF! Don't spend big bucks on multiple product folks, rather find someone with enough technical chops who can build a model and iterate till you're clear the moat that will drive user love and adoption. Till then, keep hacking !
5. Plan your runway and ESOP pool in advance, this will help you navigate conversations better with potential candidates. Most times, this comes pretty late and can mess up your allocation and budget because of poor planning.
MetalMan20
Stealth
a year ago
6. Keep some runway for misc applications, these are enthusiasts or professionals who will make a case to be part of your venture. Their conviction would be inspiring and more or less they will be your go to problem solvers that you don't have time for! Great to evolve into BU or CoS office roles over a period of time.
7. Growth isn't only content or ads! Identify your traction channels well. Could be well placed partnerships, collaboration or something else all together. Do it yourself, so you own your benchmarks and have a play book handy. Don't spend money on ads or other performance marketing metrics. Use hacks to identify the right audience first.
8. Hire consultants for anything administrative, but don't go and hand over advisory shares to random Tom dick Harry org giving you long term picture of value add. Most times, post your series A you will get the right partners via your investors themselves. This simply clouds your captable
9. Do your first hires via cold outreach! The more conviction you bring to potential candidates, the better you will be at closing your first customers. Treat it as a play ground to home your sales chops
HemanzHere
Stealth
a year ago
Plan a runway
HemanzHere
Stealth
a year ago
Wah, jaha koi, aata jata, nahiii..😉
A cheap international offsite after an year of the funding is actually feasible and should be adopted imo. You retain the good talent and it in turn helps you attract good quality freshers/young folks from tier 1. Two for the price of one.
Megamind007
Stealth
a year ago
What field, what product?
No field and no product. @ThousandSunny don’t you remember? Kunal Shah replied to my tweet 👀
Megamind007
Stealth
a year ago
Nah...forgotten.... kindly remember me please. Wha it hood?
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[Thread] You get massive seed funding: What do you don’t do?
NO!! DON’T!! DONOT !! ……… Even begin to SMILE (You cannot let happiness seep in your overdriven system(s)), until you start generating genuinely(productively/financially) from your enterprise.
DISCLAIMER: There is simply, No Time, for you to nurse a celebratory drink. Not, until you & your team has crossed over seed funding safety marker.
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