Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by jasonmcalacanis | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

jasonmcalacanis·

The best way to get your first 1,000-10,000 users is to land a successful angel, mentor or advisors.

Someone like Sacca, Dave McClure, Naval or Kevin Rose can bring tens of thousands of users--instantly.

In fact, the way I pitch myself as an investors is:

a) product feedback b) help raising your seed/1st round c) bring your first 10,000 customers

View on HN

If you're a first-time entrepreneur and haven't gotten traction, it's going to be really hard to get you or anyone like you as an angel, mentor or advisor.

It's similar to how it was (and probably still is) for anyone coming out of undergrad in the early 2000s. Every employer seemed to want someone with experience, but how is one to get experience without being employed? The top angels/investors/mentors seem to want entrepreneurs with experience or traction but it's awfully tough to get to that point without a good angel/investor/mentor helping along.

I know this will vary from startup to startup, but how do you know when you have traction?

I think the easiest answer to this is: when people are coming to you versus the other way around. I think this is true even outside startups, just in general once you're wanted you're over - at least the initial - hump.

It's easy to get traction if your product is good looking, fits a need, solves a problem, etc.

Really. I make investment decision on what people have built, how good it looks, the UX, the business model and NOT what they've done in the past.

I would take someone with NO experience who made a stunning product over someone who worked for 20 years at five startups but who shows me an ugly product with bad UX, etc.

Build something of value and you'll have TOO MANY angels up in ya business! ya hearD?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com