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Comment by landemva | Hacker News Reader

Wondering if potential angel investors hesitate because: idea, market size, you.

A dedicated founder in a good market is often fundable.

A little bit of everything. No one knows if this will work because I don't have customers, and it looks like a feature and I can't explain that it will be more than this single product, investors are getting lost. It's impossible to make this startup without a weird path. It's going to be an API in the end, but at the same time I have to show what products are possible to make with it, most think this API is not needed and won't let me put a library in their products, but if you'd talk to potential end customers for these products - they really want it (and I sold multiple products like these). It's a totally weird scheme, so I only pitch the b2c product and then if they are interested tell about this API thing and the vision.

Market is just above 4B$ and is growing well, but it's not like everyone in the world needs this thing.

I have no startup experience, not an amazing dev (barely made an mvp) , never attended Stanford and live in a third world country, so I don't even have connections and rely on highly personalized cold emails.

> I can't explain that it will be more than this single product, investors are getting lost.

It sounds like you need someone to translate this effectively from “techno” to “MBA”.

Messaging is the single most important thing when talking about your amazing product with complete strangers. Don’t discount it.

Maybe look into getting a co-founder?

Absolutely do not sell your house. Get a cofounder. Nobody’s going to fund a random solo person from a third world country who sells their house instead of using OPM. Like would you fund that person?

> I don't have customers > I can't explain that it will be more than this single product > It's impossible to make this startup without a weird path

What the hell is wrong with you?

You have no customers and an idea you can't explain. What makes you think you can build this unexplainable cusomerless thing into a business, let alone LITERALLY mortgage your future for it?

As others have said: No. Under no circumstances should you sell your house to fund... whatever this is. Bootstrap it nights and weekends if you feel passionate, maybe go find a co-founder if you can explain it coherently.

I'm mostly failing to pitch investors, potential customers are excited.

There’s a huge difference between “potential customers are excited” and “customers are paying for the product“.

And the other thing: it’s seems like you put part of the blame on not being born in the USA and not graduating from the Ivy League. That’s not a pre-requisite for success though. If you don’t have connections, maybe it’s you and not the place where you live or your social class.

totally agree - I fell into this trap before of mistaking “customers think it’s a good idea” for “customers will pay”

This video from yc explains how most of our conversations with (potential) users are at best useless and at worse misleading, and how to do it better. Based on the book, “The mom test”

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users

Totally fair, that's why I want to launch asap and need devs for it. I'm well aware of this trap. I also already sold similar products to companies, and now pivoting to b2c.

Well, it helps. A lot. It's very hard to build relationships from another country, I know everyone will say it's easy because of covid, but it's not for people from third world countries without prior startup/FAANG experience. I might move tho. And yes, problem is highly in myself, but I'm always trying hard to help people and trying to be more open and communicative.

> Totally fair, that's why I want to launch asap and need devs for it.

Maybe you’re right, and maybe you have to learn this in your own way. But it’s often possible to figure out if they’re going to pay for the product without building a full product.

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