How I Met 75 Investors and Raised $650,000
aihuiong.com
aihuiong.com
heh.
I've actually thought about this a lot. I always wear a company shirt, yeah, but I also tend to wear the same clothing all the time, too, on the theory that it makes me more recognizable, and that being recognized is good.
My theory (which may, of course, be wrong) is that in branding? being consistent and recognizable is far more important than looking good. But then, I'm trying to generate word of mouth for small customers, not trying to get investors, so the rules may be different... but it sounds like she has a similar philosophy.
Giving away a metric ton of shirts can have some other interesting effects. In the early days of my manufacturing company we gave away many shirts to people within the industry. We started getting calls about 'our people' attending events that we did not attend. It turns out that some of our customers really saw other customers at trade events, but there were so many people with our company shirt on that they impression was that we were attending in force - we werent at the trade event.
After giving away 20,000 shirts in a four year period, our customers started complaining about having too many shirts. So the technique does not last forever. It did always amaze me the delight a grown adult would show when they were given a $3 shirt. Almost always a better investment than a pen.
Best ideas: Have a decent looking shirt that people want to wear; change base shirt colors so people can have an option. Some people like blue, some like red. Give them what they want, it doesn't change the cost of the shirt.
Personally, I spend about 3x that, maybe 4x on small runs, and get nice T shirts. But then, it's rare I see people that I don't know/ that don't know they will be seeing me wearing the shirts. (and I've only given out a couple hundred) so it's possible that the 'blanket 'em with cheap shirts' strategy works better.
The difference, if it's a well known company, is that the talk is much shorter. "Oh, you work for Yahoo?" you know, they have the whole back story there. with my shirt? The conversation is longer, even if the level of enthusiasm is the same.
But yeah. It's a good point. And I'd probably have a better non-professional social life if I put some effort in to different outfits for several situations.
That's not normal and is certainly not required.
>That's not normal
that's... kindof the point, no? I'm trying to be abnormally recognizable.
(I mean, to be clear, I'm not a stinky hipster who goes for months without washing his jeans; I have a whole bunch of these things, and I wash them. They are just all the same.)
But yeah, I was joking with someone else I met a bit ago. "Yeah, I wear the same thing every day. Got a whole closet full of these. You know, like Steve Jobs... but without the good taste."
(I mean, I understand the advantages of fitting your clothing to the situation; that's not my question. My question is, if the situation calls for a suit, what's the problem with wearing the same style of suit every time the situation calls for a suit? the same style of T shirt when the situation calls for a T shirt, etc...)
Or, maybe you are just telling me to fit my clothing to the situation. Which I'm not doing right now, mostly as a conservation of effort thing, which is to say, I'm too goddamn lazy to bother. But I understand why, at least.
You're that uninteresting guy from the office that always wears the same clothes.....
But, uh, yeah. I mean, I'm still thinking that the opposite is more true. I mean, fictional characters often do exactly the same thing[1], really for similar reasons. And, as you point out, it's somewhat unusual, which is not boring, even if it might be offensive to some people.
On being more interesting... heh. I should re-arrange my closet like the tvtropes photo below, and post photos.
[1]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LimitedWardrobe
The whole same clothes thing you have going on is just odd. You don't need it and it just makes you strange rather than cool and interesting.
You're not a fictional character.
Seriously? you think /that/ is what makes me strange? I'd be "Cool and interesting" if I just learned to dress a little nicer? Oh man. You Java folks really /are/ different.
>You're not a fictional character.
No... but the popularity of cosplaying[1] in our culture aside, stories and archetypes are how we understand humanity. Marketers try to build the public perception of their company into a sort of archetype that consumers can understand and relate to. It's a model for understanding and predicting behavior. (Personally, I don't know if it's a good model... but it is... poetic?) To the degree that I try to construct a public persona, I keep that in mind. (Not that I have done a very good job of staying within an archetype... I suspect doing so would require changing myself more than I like? But acting more consistently, really, is not a bad thing.)
[1] Seriously, like half my friends go to those anime conventions. I think it's kinda weird. My buddy runs http://i360.com - a cosplay photography website. He assures me it's not pornographic... but personally, I think that makes it more weird, not less.
Determined entrepreneurs get money however they can, but mostly pay out of their own pocket or borrow from local banks or credit unions. VC funded businesses are few and far between (except in SF), but seem to get a lion's share of the attention.
Isn't your company called LOVE WITH FOOD? Aren't you supposed to talk about food regardless?
Some of the meetings even get you great feedback (along with VC boilerplates). But alls well that ends well.
Congrats to Aihui.
Fairly standard way to go. Putting the breaks on to acquire funding to continue is common.
I bootstrapped Love With Food 6 months before being accepted into 500 Startups. I'm a Rails developer and was able to build and market the product all by myself. At 500 Startups, I hired 2 more people to join the team. We've been very scrappy even after raising $650,000. Now we are a team of 8. The funding has definitely helped our business scale to a different level.
Concern: is 650k after 75 investors inefficient?
Though seriously, there are no overnight successes and no-one is just going to give you $1m regardless of what we read on HN.
I don't have my notebook at hand to cite the exact number, but Matthew Prince of Cloudflare pitched to something like 60 or 70 investors. This was with Project Honeypot in the bag, and a stack of existing users via that, and the basis for what became Cloudflare tested.
My point is: Even with the idea and execution you're not just going to get the investment.
I think the real thing that Aihui achieved in a short time was to demonstrate determination, perseverance... and in the words of Mark Suster ( http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-line... ) showed that her company (led by her) is a line going up and to the right, rather than a dot. It was most likely the weekly check-ins and constant hard grind at the communication that helped her get the investment.
And he wasn't exactly a nobody at the time either.
B) $650K seems such a low amount of money, it's barely enough to hire 2-3 senior level developers for a year, and rent an office space. I have no idea how you guys launch startups with such small amounts of money.
Sure, ok. Hire one experienced person to train & supervise some fresh-outs, and solve the harder problems.