Ask HN: Which of these ideas is more likely to get funded? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which of these ideas is more likely to get funded?

3 pointsEnvec8312 comments

I am a programmer/entrepreneur located in Brazil, and my current goal/dream is to move to either USA or Canada (reasons being the quality of life and the economic/business landscape).

I figured that the best way to achieve that is to launch an interesting product/prototype from here, and once it gets some traction start talking with investors until I find someone willing to put the money in and help us make the transition.

Currently we have three ideas on the pipeline, and I wanted to get your feedback regarding which is more likely to get funded. They are:

1. Weight-loss mobile app - I know it's a crowded space, but I we have some innovative ideas to help people lose weight using the app. It would be a freemium model (basic version free, paid for Pro).

2. Reddit for Deals - A site where people can submit deals and bargains, either from sites or from offline stores. The deals get voted up/down. Revenue source would be advertising and sponsored deals.

3. Email Marketing Automation for physical stores - most email marketing services are focused on online sellers. We would create a platform targeting specifically physical/offline stores.

Any feedback is appreciated.

I find this question somewhat amusing.

You treat the most important aspect to your entire success (traction) as a given and skip straight to questions of funding.

What you should be asking is: which of these ideas will get the most traction?

If you have massive traction, VCs will fund you. Period. So, don't worry too much about funding but focus on traction.

I think you need to get your priorities in order.

Good point.

The problem is that evaluating whether or not an idea will get traction is also pretty tough, as it depends heavily on the team behind and its execution.

In other words, could we say that the feedback you can get on ideas before they leave the paper is very limited?

Any of the ideas can be funded and you need to figure out what would make it stand out from the crowd and what value your product would bring to your users (you know the story how Google was funded - the VCs simply liked the product).

1. Tons of competitors. I read a report somewhere that people use a weight-loss app for less than 2 weeks on average and then switch to another (I guess they don't like results). Thus, you will need to figure out retention problem (e.g. many such apps now include a hardware component).

2. There are tons of "deals" website (in the US) and many have forum format, up/down voting, etc. Key problem to address is how to get enough people to use the product and how to build critical mass.

3. The online sellers marketing automation exploits the fact that you can click on the link and buy the product. With offline stores you need to either force people to go to the store right now (hard) or to remember this marketing email long enough (days if not weeks) until they get into the store (also hard). Can you use location for that? Bluetooth? WiFi? Or is there something else that can help you to get people to buy things after they read your emails?

Thanks a lot for the feedback. My comments:

1. I agree, main problem would be to get users to keep using the app in the long run.

2. Yes I started researching now and think that it's probably too crowded and not enough way to differentiate yourself

3. I was thinking along the line of promo codes. Send a code in the email, and keep it in the database until the user redeems it. Then over time we could add mobile apps and play with geolocation and beacons.

3. Promo codes is good but you need to think about a way to store them and locate quickly. May be an app that you can get people to install? Though it would require some integration with offline store regiesters which might be non-trivial

As was already mentioned above, whatever gets traction gets funded. VCs are just as clueless (maybe even more so) as entrepreneurs about which ideas are "good" or "bad". They fund ideas with traction and good teams with the hope of hitting a big home run with one of them.

Sounds about right. Thanks.

my vote for No 2

and also no. 3, the offline market is huge and mostly unattended.

Will you still look for going out of brasil if it doesn't get funded? my advice: Don't look for funding, bootstrap it.

i.e.: http://37signals.com/bootstrapped

I am looking for funding mostly to be compatible with the startup visa requirements. For instance, for the US visa I would need $1 million in investing, and for Canada $200k.

If it was not for that I would certainly bootstrap all the way, even because we have some capital to fund the early stages of development.

I think it's half that amount ($500k) for investors in the USA.

Depends on the sector. If I am not wrong tech requires $1 million, but yeah could be $500k, I am not sure.

No 2

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