Category: 500startups

The ABC of raising your seed round

After failing miserably to raise 18 months ago, digging deep and bootstrapping our way to profitability, we made another attempt earlier this year and got a huge break by getting into 500startups.

We are now in the middle of raising our seed round and are doing a much better job at it than previously. I wanted to share some of what we’ve learned that helped made the current attempt a successful one.
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The awkward relationship of tech bloggers and startups

Today Robert Scoble came to visit our batch at the 500startups offices. He did some 1-on-1 sessions and later gave a free-form talk, mostly about Google Glass (not surprisingly), but also about reaching out to tech media. Here are a few bullet points from the talk –

  • Know what every tech blogger likes to write about and approach them with stuff they care about and that’s why people who want to share go and get information online on how to start a blog and become bloggers. Robert for example is infatuated with Google Glass right now, so even if you have the shittiest Google Glass app (his own words) he would be interested, but if you have the most amazing WinXP app he will probably not.
  • Get tons of traction and people will write about you (a given). Get everyone in your batch to say you’re the “hot” company of the lot.
  • Get intros from insiders and trusted people in the blogger’s network. If Dave McClure gives a personal guarantee about your startup, Robert will likely write about it.
  • Build something in a hot market. Everybody loves mobile and mobile is the future. Nobody cares about desktop. So build mobile – you’ll get more love from bloggers.

This looks an awful lot like advice for fund raising. Robert has put himself and other prominent bloggers / tech blogs on the same level as investors as far as getting their attention is concerned. Is this a reasonable positioning for tech media?

IMHO, no.

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Recapping Week #1 at 500startups accelerator program

The first week of the 500startups accelerator program is in the books, and I definitely feel accelerated. Keeping with the current Star Trek theme at the 500s offices, I’d say we’re about Warp 7 right now after previously being at sublight speed for an extended duration. Lets go over what we managed in 1 week:
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