Found+READ: Comments by Sean Byrnes

Sean Byrnes — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:29:35 GMT

Find a good lawyer – they will help you figure most of these things out. Having a good lawyer is an amazing asset since they will help you avoid high costs down the road. Most lawyers that are familiar with startups will work on a deferred basis so that you don’t have to pay them until you have a major event (investment/sale).

Some things to watch out for:

* Informal contracts with friends can become threats of lawsuits if you do in fact sell quickly for a lot of money. While they are usually an annoyance they can hold up your deal and you’ll have to pay them off to make them go away.

* Have a solid go-to-market plan. If you want to sell quickly, you have to show traction quickly and that will only happen if you have a good plan in place. Viral growth will happen, but not immediately – even MySpace had to seed the market. If you don’t have experience with marketing hire a PR firm or find a contract marketing firm to help.

* Handle accounting yourself using Quickbooks. Very simple, just like Quicken. You only need an accountant at tax time.

* Be ready to scale. This includes people (who will you hire), your product (what happens when I’m successful) and revenues.

Good luck!

Sean Byrnes — Tue, 01 May 2007 15:18:34 GMT

So true. The most effective entrepreneurs are the ones who know not to get too heady during the up times and not to let themselves sink too low when things get bad. It’s surprising how poorly prepared a lot of people are for this roller coaster.

It also helps to have a healthy appreciation for life outside of work. Hobbies, sports and art can be an invaluable outlet when things get tough.

Sean Byrnes — Wed, 02 May 2007 06:31:59 GMT

One of the biggest marketing challenges you’ll likely face is that people only plan one wedding in their lives (okay, maybe two or three). That means that an acquired user has a finite tenure that ends once their wedding takes place. Hence, you will need to focus on strategies that continue to attract new users as your service has finite “stickiness”.

The good news is that in my experience wedding planning is a very communal process. Communities like The Knot (http://theknot.com/) spread because people tell their unmarried friends about it after they use it.

Since there are other services out there, you should try and pick one or two things that you do extremely well and build your message around that. For example, maybe you provide indepth comparison pricing on caterers. Use that feature as the hook to lure them into your site and then give them a fantastic experience they will want to tell their friends about.

Hope that helps.

Sean Byrnes — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:36:48 GMT

I’m surprised that you’ve been encouraged to find more co-founders since 2 is a good number to start. Having too many people too early can dilute your vision. Sometimes investors will tell you that if they are looking for validation, but you should know better than anyone how many people your team needs.

I would warn against hiring/engaging people whom you haven’t worked with before as you already have enough work to do – learning how to work together is a stress you would prefer to avoid. It’s no coincidence that effective teams move from opportunity to opportunity together , since they have already solved the hurdle of working together.

If you don’t have any former co-workers that fit the bill, be sure to set very clear expectations for the people you add to your team to make the working together learning process easier.

Finally, good buzz/PR is the best recruiting tool after your personal network. Get people excited about what you’re doing and they will come to you.

Sean Byrnes — Fri, 18 May 2007 18:03:09 GMT

If we assume that the board member is still rational and just motivated by different self-interests, I would start by meeting with the members of the board individually to assess their expectations and get feedback. Sometimes board members will be artificially hard to please to make sure they are driving you as hard as they can – and the best way to determine that is to find out where you stand.

Investors trying to force an exit is a risk of raising investment from any form of institutional investors. Your best defense will likely be the other investors if you can convince them that your plan is sound and there is a bigger payoff by not forcing things too soon. At the end of the day, even if your strategy is correct and your team is on board your investors can force you in a different direction if their interests diverge from yours.

If the investor is irrational then the other board members have probably noticed as well. That would be easy to identify during in person meetings.

Best of luck, board member issues are tough and stressful.

Sean Byrnes — Mon, 21 May 2007 23:19:59 GMT

I agree with Matt, use your free time to research the market, define the customer need and possibly build a prototype. I wouldn’t recommend leaving your job to chase an idea, but to chase a product there is no other way.

To set some expectations, you should plan on not having any income for at least one year. You might beat that mark, but you want to plan for the worst case.

So, if in your free time you can define a product and a business that is a) addressing a real problem and b) will be able to compete with existing solutions then it’s up to you whether it’s worth a year of lost income (which is what you’re risking). However, if you decide it is going full time is the only way you’ll be able to make it real. There are too many distractions with the rest of life to allow you to move quickly enough – you need to make it your top priority (after family).

Good luck!

Sean Byrnes — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:14:06 GMT

I’ve heard of similar dividends, but they were designed to be paid in equity. In essence, it is a mechanism to slowly increase the investor’s ownership stake in the company over time. It’s a tool by savvy investors to make the upfront seem low but to get a bigger stake later.

I would avoid a 10% dividend situation as it makes it more of a loan than an investment. If you’re paying it back over 10 years, perhaps there is other debt financing that gives you more flexibility with your cashflow over the next few years.

Sean Byrnes — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:48:42 GMT

4. “We have a virtual team.” I disagree.

Far-flung teams are not the exception these days – many open source projects are successful with teams that have never met in person. Here in the valley I know a number of successful companies whom have a few people here and many more in India, Europe or other time zones. Success is determined more by the experience of the team with the organizational model than the model itself.

That said, if you have never done it before I would not recommend it for a startup. If you have done it before, it can be an asset.

Sean Byrnes — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 02:22:14 GMT

Hi Tim,

First, I applaud you amazing dedication to realizing your vision. You are the first person I’ve ever heard of outsourcing themselves to make a project successful.

The good news for your roll out is that almost all channels are location-agnostic these days. Targeted advertising campaigns through Google Adwords (web) or Admob (mobile) are bought online. You can create a Salesforce AppExchange service to reach businesses or a Facebook application to reach young consumers from where you are.

The biggest channel, PR, remains somewhat local but is easily addressed with a good PR agency. Many PR agencies routinely represent foreign interests since they need the local influence of good PR. Depending on your target market you can find a PR firm with experience and have them hone in on the appropriate publications.

Finally, use word of mouth! You have a great start here, just give bloggers an incentive to cover your launch. That includes anything from early access beta accounts to interviews and videos.

I would also consider making a YouTube video of your “outsourcing” strategy – I think many people would find it entertaining and get some free publicity.

Hope that helps. If you have more details on your target market I’m happy to provide more specific advice.

Sean

Sean Byrnes — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:06:35 GMT

That’s really good advice. Many of us are good at building companies – but the process of selling is just as important for the end result. Unfortunately, just like with getting started, if you haven’t done it before it’s easy to get lost.