yes it is completely their prerogative to ask whatever questions they want. luckily a lot of investors do ask the right questions. my observation is just that a lot don't and i wish they did because it would mean a lot more interest in series A companies.
i'm sorry to hear that you perceive this as some sort of excuse. that wasn't my intention. we haven't started fundraising yet so i don't know which side we'll land on. this was more meant as my personal observation on the VC ecosystem and how I can see some of the dynamics leading to the crunch.
i partially agree with your point on an explosion in early stage companies. however, i think part of this explosion in seed stage companies is because companies are now raising 2-3 seed rounds and jumping straight to A rounds which in effect is the old "B round." i think part of this behaviour is driven by investors dis-interest in A rounds so entrepreneurs try to be "seed stage" as long as possible until then can raise 10 million dollar A rounds which is really a b round.
hey pbreit. i'm not saying that fitbay necessarily is a unicorn.. i'm saying that there are potential unicorns among series a start-ups that are not getting funded. but i agree that "can this team create traction?" should be the most important question that investors ask.
hey calbear81. i'm not saying that investors shouldn't ask these questions - because it helps you understand the market. however, imo the most important questions are the ones i highlight and these are rarely the focus of discussion.
Hi HN, I'd love to get your feedback on Fitbay. It lets you connect with your Body Doubles - people with your height, weight and body type. Check it out - https://fitbay.com
To sign up you take "The Body Quiz", entering your height, weight and body type to find your 'Body Doubles' – people with similar proportions. Based on your entries we match you with others who have answered similarly to questions including height, weight, body type, torso type, arm length, age, location and cup size (for women). There are 1,700,000+ possible matchings in this quiz, so it's very accurate.
We then encourage users to share photos of themselves (selfies) and tag the brands and sizes they wear. In turn, this creates a personalized shopping experience where everything is in your size, presented by people who have a body similar to yours.
I’ve always had major difficulties with finding clothes that fit. For as long as I can remember, I have been tall & skinny with an extremely narrow waist, and so pretty much every shirt or pair of slacks that I have ever owned have fit me poorly. To make matters worse, I decided to try online shopping a few years ago, only to realize that I was spending even more time returning clothes because they were the wrong size or fit.
While growing up, my best friend and I have always shared the same exact height, weight and body type and so we've always been able to share our wardrobes and advice with each other. It then came to me last year that this act of sharing was something people all over the world could truly benefit from.
So we slowly started building our website, www.fitbay.com, with the ultimate goal of building a community that would help everyone with discovering all the brands and products in the world in the right size & fit. Basically, you plug in your height, weight and body type and we’re able to instantly show you clothes that fit you based on the recommendations people with your exact measurements have made.
To get the initial recommendations we needed, I organized about 3-4 coffee meetings, inside & outside of work each and every day, asking friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances (and people on Reddit) to share with us their height, weight, and sizes they wear in their favorite brands. In doing so, we were able to, quite early, create the sensation of a “personalized store created just for you where everything fits” and a community of people who share the same fit-related issues.
In just 5 months we’ve now grown from just 50 to over 10,000 unique profiles on Fitbay having shared a total of 60,000+ unique product recommendations.
Help us out by visiting the site www.fitbay.com and sharing your thoughts here, and please do let us know if you have any ideas or feedback. Keep in mind that the community is still invite-only, but if you sign up using the link above I’ll do my best to make sure you get access within 24 hours.
We could really use some feedback on our site https://fitbay.com. Help us out by sharing your thoughts here, and please do let us know if you have any ideas or feedback.
hey adrian. the post was just meant to reflect what i like about entrepreneurship. if you get the same feeling in your current job then that's awesome. there are many other reasons for people becoming entrepreneurs - these are just mine.
I agree with you. If you aren't self motivated then entrepreneurship is not for you.. Some day I'll write a blog post about common personality traits of effective entrepreneurs.
We are in no way affiliated with Mark Suster's blog bothsidesofthetable.com. It is a complete coincidence that I chose the name half a year ago when I launched the blog. That being said - after being made aware of this fact yesterday, I will find an alternative name for the blog. I apologize for any confusion this might have caused.
Hi Mark - You're completely right. It's not healthy to do anything for 80 hours + I would hate to sit through 80 hours of WoW :) Too much of anything can become a bad thing, and you're completely right that we need to make sure we don't burn ourselves out.
We, of course, hope that we will not have to work 80 hours every week down forever - but at an early stage we can't help ourselves. The extreme motivation, energy and drive in the team keeps us running.
Exactly. AT an early stage, the product goes through a ton of changes and when they happen the team often needs to work even more to catch up. Having a team that's willing to go through that kind of pressure and still keep truckin' improves the odds of success.
It's really odd - seems like this post was taken down for 30 minutes and re-posted when i had dropped? I've only been on here for 2 weeks - is that normal?
When we work 80 hours per week - we do it out of interest for the things we are doing. Like another person said, that we work 80 hours feels like working 30 hours. There is nothing we would rather do than be at our office. The energy in an early startup is just one of the most addicting things in the world.
Thanks Rob - appreciate your kind words. You could also just shoot me an email after you sign up and take the short body quiz, and ill be sure to bump you :)