Show HN: New bootstrap model for startups – VC but with freelancers | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: New bootstrap model for startups – VC but with freelancers

venturly.io

5 pointsabstractalgo7 comments

What is your proof that I will earn more as a freelancer?

As a freelancer, I have been approached a few times over my 20+ year career by people to work for free in exchange for future revenue share. I have declined this each time and on each occasion, when I followed up a few years (or even few months) down the line, the venture was dead.

So in my personal experience, there is basically zero chance of getting that future income. But I am sure there are some people that have success, so I will grant there is a chance, albeit small.

Yet you make claims about earning more and building my pension. I think this is misleading without actual proof that there is very high certainty that it will work out in the freelancer's favour.

This model is borrowed and adapted from venture capital. It's based on return on a risk. As in VC, many ventures fail or have minimal returns, yet VC as a model is successful. Why? Because small percentage of those makes up for the loss on all the other investments. It's a "game of numbers".

As in VC, amount of success would vary. Smart choices would lead to good outcomes, and all is up to you if you're willing to take such risk and what choices to make.

I understand that. My issue is with the fact that (a) you make claims about earning more which you cannot back up with numbers and (b) you do not have any obvious disclaimers stating that this is a high-risk proposition and that the freelancers may just as well never see a single cent of return on their time.

So I am taking issue with the fact that your claims are deceptive.

This will never work, the reason been if you have 100 projects and 1000 freelancers working on them, what do think will be payout ratio? 1% of them getting paid?. 1) There is no assurance that freelancers will get paid. 2) A good freelancers will never work for free.

My advice, please drop this idea and hop on to something else.

There are ways to make sure that payments are to be made when possible and having insights into revenu streams as a third party.

There are pros and cons, like it was listed on the website. It is not for everyone, but some people might need just that approach.

Thanks for honest feedback!

What does Venturly give a freelancer that they can't sign for directly with a startup (request to be paid in stock instead of money), which will yield dividends and voting power?

What startup hires a freelancer and gives him stock for a one time project? For startups they'd need to give out portion of stock, and for a freelancer, they moght not be getting that much at all. Venturly model would assume that freelancer took a serious risk and would yield higher returns overall.

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