1 year ago I’ve started working on a startup idea. I’ve created a pitch deck with market research and an MVP app to prove it works.
I thought the idea was good so I tried to find a founding. I had really advanced talks with one investor, we were really close to sign a contract, but then Google I/O happened. Investor got scared because he thought that they may be working on similar thing and may be our competitors. I do not agree with him but somehow it got me really bumped down, and I didn’t have energy to start looking for investor once again. So it was on my hard drive for last 6 months getting dusted.
Now I see two ways how I can proceed:
- Open source the project
- Try to find an investor
Personally I’m more convinced to make it open source but maybe you have any other ideas? What are your thoughts on this? Maybe you were in similar situation?
Thanks!
P.S. Sorry for not writing for last 2 weeks I had last minute trip to Los Angeles 🏀. I will try to write articles regularly again :)
Top comments (6)
You should not give up and look for another investor... If you believe in this product even when Google is doing something similar, than do it!
Make your MVP even better and try to find new investment possibilities. When 1 investor was interested than there will be another one. Your conviction is most important.
Thank you! I'm just afraid that I will spend extra few months on it and there will be no happy ending again. I'm feeling motivated - so it may be good idea to try one more time :)
On the other hand since posting this I was reading about different approaches and how to monetise Open Source Project and cool alternative is GPL, and make it free for personal usage, but if someone would like to use it in commercially then he/she would have to pay money.
What is your end goal? To make more money? Because if that's the case then you should continue looking for investors or mentors who can help you making a business out of it.
Which option is more aligned with what you really want?
At the beginning it was money but when it became realistic I realised how big the risk is. Right now the goal is more to do something important that I can be proud of. Thanks for answer because defining the goal is really important! :)
Do you need investment? Can't you bootstrap it?
This is a good idea but I’ve finished my resources building MVP iOS app and making market research/ preparing pitch deck. I’m not sure am I as an individual contributor able to do much more. I developed everything myself, but I need other experts - machine learning / java / front to make it as I planned. So I evaluated my contribution when I was taking with investor more than just idea.