1. How long have you been bootstrapping your startup? 2 months
2. Roughly how much of personal money have you invested in your startup? £50-100
3. Are you profitable, if not then at what point do you make the decision of pulling the plug and not invest your personal money anymore? Yes, profitable.
Perhaps for those industries patents are a better fit and more standard practice. My personal opinion based on observations of patents in software is that they inhibit innovation.
Invariably in a race to the bottom everyone loses.
> Perhaps for those industries patents are a better fit and more standard practice.
Pharma industries live and die on patents, today, and in the UK they are over-represented in any lobbying effort on the subject. Most politicians don't know/care about software patents, but they will have been lobbied by the likes of AstraZeneca and they will write legislation with that sector in mind, mostly.
Good piece. I've talked with numerous people looking to start a startup with the assumption that implementation is just a case of hiring a few devs or outsourcing to n freelancers.
I especially liked the wake up call to developers at the end. Would be very interested to read any reciprocal articles on why technical founders need a business co-founder.
Totally agree, I'd love to read a reciprocal piece. I think programmers (myself included) often feel that a non-technical person can't write a single line of code* whereas a technical person can figure out enough of the business and product side of things and make up the rest as he goes along. A lot of times this works out, but I'm sure there have been many cases where a failed startup might have succeeded if they'd had a good non-tech cofounder and made better strategy decisions.
* unless he/she decides to learn to code well enough to hack together an MVP, but that's not what the article is talking about
A smart programmer can B.S. his way through business. However you can't B.S. your way though programming and still make it work. The worst possible idea I could think of is for a non technical founder to try and "hire" someone unless it is a really simple app. Implimentation > Idea
Congrats on getting accepted and thanks for being so candid about your application.
I have a couple of questions however:
Did you face any problems having disclosed you scrapped a competitors site for potential clients/leads? Did all the founders think that was an acceptable method for building a base?
How did you derive the potential turnover figures and was the model and revenue discussed in depth at the interview?
Finally, how did you guys decide that FamilyLeaf was the right direction?
No problem, it was our pleasure! Let me address your questions one-on-one.
1. We didn't have any problems disclosing that. In fact, (as you can tell by this little stunt) we are very open about it. We thought it was acceptable. But we also are fallible.
2. Turnover figures? We talked about it at the interview, definitely.
3. We were extremely passionate about it. And less so about AthleteNet. That was the number 1 thing. The other smaller but still very valuable factors included the market size, social impact, and potential for faster scaling.
Feel free to email me if you have any more questions! wesley@familyleaf.com
Personally I find that kind of experience intrusive.
I do like the idea though, but what happens after?
Do I get to keep the app? Do I get upgrades to an app?
I take it the users who are early adopters are also free testers to some degree.
2. Roughly how much of personal money have you invested in your startup? £50-100
3. Are you profitable, if not then at what point do you make the decision of pulling the plug and not invest your personal money anymore? Yes, profitable.