Criteria is: 1. Product is ready and has beta customers 2. One of the founders is in bay area 3. Real problem, big market. Not a photo sharing app. 4. Open to anything - consumer, SMB, Enterprise
1. How much are you looking to invest? I hope you won't answer that "This depends on the business, the model, the founders, how much market share there is, and what percentage of the business I will receive." Those are all important details. But what range of cash on hand do you have. $5000 - $10,000 is far different from $500,000 to $1,000,000.
2. How many other startups are you currently invested in? What is their current market capitalization? What is your net valuation of these businesses? I understand you probably can't give names, and that's ok that will come up in due diligence, but a general idea would be nice.
3. You would like to take a business development role to scale the business. What is your experience in this previously or currently? Can you give us some idea of your track record and success rate?
4. You are an engineer, a product manager, and an entrepreneur. Can you please give us an example of one of your startups which is either still running or has been sold?
I am not trying to give you a hard time. We just get this mentality, especially on HN, that any money is good money. Answering these questions sure helps to let us know whether or not that is true in an individual case.
If you are okay about not meeting the first and second criteria, then I'm willing to share a bit more with you.
Most of our team is based in the Bay Area (Berkeley). Feel free to contact through any of the channels on our site or reach me directly at [keerthik][at][company domain below]
1. Our product is ready and we have beta customers 2. Founders are in Los Angeles 3. Real problem, big market. We are generating revenue from beta customers 4. We are in the SMB space
If anyone is interested in investing, please send me an e-mail.
Shoot me an email (in my profile).