Terrible. There are people here with huge exits. I know at least a handful of them because we all get coffee. We all chuckle at comments here assuming there aren’t. I bet there’s more than you think. We just get burnt out since we tend to do this in real life also as mentors and advisors.
Someone above said it. Find podcasts from successful founders. Read HBR, bcg/bain/mckinsey content (they have a TON). Go find books from professors about marketing, advertising, etc. Successful founders don’t want to become YouTube gurus. They’re too busy lol. It’s the people who are typically middlemen that do because they hit a ceiling and get stuck since they’re not unique and typically just get social followings to sell crap. Don’t get me wrong, they make some money, just more of a scam-ish than creating any real value long term.
Ding ding. Dead on.
Thanks for the defense :)
I’ve sold ventures worth hundreds of millions. Sorry bud. Wrong commenter to pick on :)
Stop watching YouTube gurus. Period.
You’re basically offering agency services as a success fee instead of hourly or etc. It’s not unique, just a riskier pricing model. Just become a marketing agency and offer the standard services. See what you could make doing it normal and offer success fees in lieu of standard fees once you have an audience.
People like choices. You keep saying water. Why does wine, whiskey, coffee, tea, etc. exist. Coke is dominate due to them being one of the first colas to the market (unique), had a hard to replicate formula that gave them intellectual property (even without cocaine since it didn’t scale until that was long gone in their formula), capital since they grew due to being unique (and invested in), etc.
Basically, they built barriers to entry and own the top spot in the market. It’s VERY hard to dethrone a top player. Remember the coke sells a lot of other products also, including water. They also diversified when their sales were growing as quickly and/or slowed down in the past.
It really depends on your savings and risk tolerance. I’ve jumped into founding startups (different than what you’re doing but similar salary tradeoff) when I was 22/23. I had some savings as I worked a lot since I was in high school (and through college). Just have a backup to your backup plan. If your idea fails, what will you do? If it only succeeds 50% what will you do? What if it takes longer but you see traction (and not enough income), what do you do? etc. Basically, decision tree out what you want to do, what may happen, and what you realistically can do after. It doesn’t have to be crazy or complex… but it’s a super smart thing to do when evaluating risk and understanding your options today and tomorrow.
Good luck!
Source: serial entrepreneur who does a lot of corporate strategy and startup advisement/mentorship.
Learn to be a mechanic, valet, work at a specialized service center behind the desk, etc.
Built and sold ventures with vc/pe. I don’t, and haven’t had, any cash flow management or monitoring issues. It’s not that hard to do. Just a good financial model in excel and some type of accounting software checks the boxes until you’re big enough to warrant the bit kids of netsuite, sage, msft dynamics, SAP, etc. The important things are around setup of said software, export of said data, and import into financial models. Again, all very simple to do.
At 15 they should educate themselves on stock. Sure, but why not just use a tool that lets them fake invest to play around in the market - tons out there? Then, IF they are comfortable, use the funds they’ve saved and earned interest later on. No need to waste $1500 on learning the stock market. Just me two cents.
Naw. Use university for that. Use this as a foundation for something in your 20s. Save it.
Great job! I worked during my teens and started businesses back then. Put it in a high yield savings account (hysa) if you can hit a deposit. You could also invest in a stock market. Just make sure you put it into an index fund and don’t touch it for a long time. Good luck! In 10 years, just in an index fund, it could be worth about $5,100.
Having done it a few times. Be ready to change again. Sounds like you are but you’ll have a few phases if you keep growing and raising. We also switched to asana pre-series a, made some process changes, etc. As we grew, there were a bunch of other things we did to help everyone out (including me, the founder). All ships rise with the tide and all that at a company.
Good luck!
I’ve built and sold SaaS businesses that worked with fortune 100s (who had PR good days and bad days). That is all to say, I’ve seen a lot. As you grow, the loudest folks tend to be the unsavory ones. I’m not saying someone can’t disagree. Rather, it’s the people who are unreasonable or just nasty… it’s those people who will keep popping up.
A good fix I found over the years was just being extremely open, transparent, and honest. Don’t over explain or defend yourselves. Just concisely explain your position and be transparent.
In the future, if you get big enough, you could set up a “corporate social responsibility” type committee that focuses on important social, governance, etc. type issues and tracks/improves them. Then go a step farther and put an annual report out about all the things you do. Just a little preemptive strike.
If only people realized they’re being advertised to via these folks. Scary effective for a big chunk of the population. Modern day mlm is what it reminds me of before people became aware of mlms.