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Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by anigbrowl on Thursday May 07, 2009 @04:03PM (#598557)
Awesome advice. I'll just tell the landlord, supermarket, phone company, and other suppliers that I'm trying to sell my product before I've raised money and they should be proud of supporting a venture whose founding members and first hires are all willing to work for fresh air.

Sorry for the snark, but I'm in a position like this just now. I am in fact working for nothing at present and stretching out a small personal windfall in order to do it. I'm lucky and grateful to have the freedom to do that. We're not a tech startup so our needs are a bit different from grab laptop, update SDK, churn out code - but even so, unless you happen to have deep pockets it takes time and money for any business to make its first sales (which in our case are b2b and thus not free for the customer). I could not and would not do this if I had kids or if Mrs Browl didn't have a good job that allows me to risk my time participating in this venture I'm working for.

Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by mediaman on Thursday May 07, 2009 @04:41PM (#598629)
What sort of business have you started?

I like hearing about non-tech businesses.

Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by anigbrowl on Thursday May 07, 2009 @06:05PM (#598775)
I haven't; I work as a producer - in practice, a manager - for a small TV show that's currently on hiatus due to money problems. I'm not a business person or an entrepreneur, and pretty terrible at making money (just don't have the instinct for chasing it), so the only business I've 'launched' is my freelance work. My skillset is rapid technical ability, creative communications (ranging from manuals to PR copy to video editing), and crisis management. I get lost or cause trouble in big organizations, am a valuable catalyst/trauma specialist in startups, and do best at assembling things where the pieces are lying on the floor and everyone else is confused about what to do next.

tl;dr - unworldly troubleshooter.

Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by jlees on Thursday May 07, 2009 @04:48PM (#598646)
Aye exactly, the linked post is great advice, but if you can't pay your company run rate (i.e. you can't pay your own rent!) then you have two options: raise money or get a job/other source of income and keep going part-time.

"Raise money" can include selling, but if you're still developing the product, what do you sell? Not everyone can conjure weeks' or even months' worth of living expenses out of the air while the product gets done.

Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by rjurney on Thursday May 07, 2009 @08:26PM (#598928)
You have a third option, and its build a product you can afford to bootstrap.
Re:Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to ... by anigbrowl on Thursday May 07, 2009 @06:13PM (#598786)
Right. To make more product (in this case, a cooking show), I need to hire people and equipment. there are limits to what's possible with energy and good will alone, and asking people to intern or work for equity on mission-critical tasks (rather than strategy) is often a false economy. At present I'm arguing that we're budgeting too much on sales and promotion (although it's very important) and not enough for the actual production costs.

Not unlike coding, there's an unfortunate perception that enthusiastic and creative people are worth less than the revenue specialists. There's a reason for the stereotype of the sales guy who makes 10x more than the engineer who delivers a functional, reliable product :-/