vincenthaywood
Digital Bloke

Need to be less impatient

I think I’m a very impatient person. I want shit done now. I’ve learnt you cannot have this with a startup early days. Slow planning, meticulous checking, research, and funding.

I am literally freaking out about how bad I want to start things and have some form or working model of my first idea.

So where am I right now?

I have told me tech partner, or possible tech partner, that I need to look around for others to work on this. Right now the funding offer is for me to offer consultancy to my tech partners existing campaign, that money would then pay towards development. It sounds good but its dependent on them finding the work then me quoting. Plus my understanding is to collect the whole sum and then development starts.

So in my search for more developers I have a conference call with some guys in LA tonight, I’ve worked with them before on some existing projects and they are good. Also they specialise in giving startup advice and have already helped setup one or two companies here in London. So we’ll see how that goes.

The business plan is coming together, I love the idea selling, the description of products… the finance section sucks bigtime. I know its the most important but god its boring. I’ve set myself a goal to have the thing completed by Sunday. Or at least looking completed, then I can get some feed back.

I’ve also just bought some survey reports on the PR industry in the UK, very thorough information that will help me sell this even better to investors. An industry worth 7.5 Billion… I want some of that

In short, regardless of the developers and tech partners, I really need to get my ass in gear to get funding. Thats all it boils down too, get some cash and this bad boy will start. 

Yeah, I know its all talk so far on this blog, but I think each post shows a little progress. I think the finance and funding journey will be the long and ongoing part, once thats out the way….boom

I will keep it all updated here.

See you soon!

…and back

Wow, this whole ‘setting up your own company thing’ has its up and downs.

or is it just me?

A lot has happend since I last posted, but lets do a bullet like update :

• The site is about to change, the past few weeks I have been building a ‘micro sale’ site. that is, I am creating something that resembles what the site will function as,it will include a write up as to what Braqes will do and how it will benefit you -then users will go through the whole buying process. Once they click ‘Buy now” or ‘signup’ they are taking to a page that will state ‘This app is currently under development, please leave your email address to be notified) Now the beauty here is I can use google analytics to measure the interest. That way, when I go into my first round of funding I can show the interest levels, conversion levels. (this is all thanks to a great little book : Start small, Stay small)
• Next, I am running a survey through SurveyMonkey - this is more a little bit of research into how agencies are working, what their frustrations are. Again, more data for my first round of funding.
• Talking about funding, my quote for development has come in and seeing as my tech partner is going to have some equity it is being heavily subsidised. (maybe zero?) I need to fund that first phase as I believe Braqes will pay for itself within2-3 months of launch (that money then gets reinvested into V2 – which is already in plans)
• I have formed Braqes Ltd now and will be setting up the business account. It comes with Barclays, so lets see how that goes. (Want to get this out the way for the online payment processing and paypal setup)
• I have started looking into seedcamp, I have heard good things. From what I understand there is a mini-seedcamp in August in London. So I’m polishing up my presentations, gathering all that data and prepping to land a great investor. (If you are reading this – I’m going to make you rich – )
• Plus I think I have a great personal advisor. My cousin, he knows his shit. (not sure if he would want me mentioning him here)

As I said above, there have been some massive ups and downs on this. About 3 or 4 days ago I was thinking of pulling the plug, but then grew a pair and though fuck it. this is what i want to do, I want to run my own thing, I want to supply great software that makes jobs easier or improves on them, I want to make money based on my ideas (yes there are a load more) and I want to live on an island with the occasional snowboarding holiday in Canada. 

But first some bloody hardwork.

Once I get the financing thing out the way for phase one, this ball should start rolling. Hopefully the next post will be announcing the microsale site going live. That should be this weekend.