Hi! I'm pre-revenue but there's a buzz in the corporate events industry about my AI Agent MVP. Who do you recommend to help me get my slide deck and financials ready for fundraising? What is the best way to fundraise for seed capital when pre-revenue? Family Offices in the Middle East (because the US is sluggish on startup investing right now)? "Go Fund Me" type sites for B2B products? Something else?
SOLO FOUNDER; OVERWHELMED, BUT ON THE BRINK OF SUCCESS AFTER THREE YEARS
You are coming in to the organization at a fantastic time. There is a lot of buzz in the events industry about our new AI Agent, GotchaFinder.ai. GotchaFinder, operating on the freemium model, spots hidden fees in dense hotel contracts and advises users what to do about it. Users who sign up for gotchafinder are also signed up on eventnation.com. The business model is to build a community of event planners on eventnation, ultimately selling event vendor and venue subscriptions on the back of that success. We are 6 months away from a traunch of seed funding, with the goal being sale of the company within 5 years.
You would be working 2 hours a day as a community manager and a social media marketing person.
You would work for equity. Upon sale of the company, the estimated value for the hours you accrue in 2026 will be between $50/hour to $100/hour. Please contact founder, Faith Keiser, at info@eventnation.com to apply and for more information.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I agree that being a senior startup founder is extremely efficient. It's also more fun. You just don't care what other people think anymore. Thanks for your reply. Agreed that all the women probably won't be tech founders, and that it may take me awhile to locate them. Thanks again.
I am a professional photographer who began taking photos in the days of film. For point of reference, it was 2007 when I switched from shooting film to shooting digital. When shooting film, I would carefully meter the scene, make sure the proper lens was on the camera, compose, shoot, take the completed roll of film to the lab and.....wait. One week to ten days.
Today's cameras embedded into this mini-computer/talisman we carry around, that we insist on calling a "phone", are incredible marvels of modern engineering. So incredible, that people are tempted to document everything through them, until it seems like "me" is the image that is projected to the world, not the identity you share with intimates.
You're not limited to reducing the complicated, dynamic aspects that define "you" to the flat, small image that comes from the camera that comes with your phone. You're welcome to pick up a Nikon or a Canon camera at any time, and see how much richer life looks through its horizontal frame that adheres to the golden ratio.
I have such mixed feelings about cancer research. I don't often share this, because gifting cancer non-profits with lots of money is considered heroism of the first order in our society.
When I read of these large gifts, I can't help but think about a purely economical model of human generosity.
How many lives will be saved with this large gift, vs. how many lives could be saved in the developing world with the same amount of money?
It makes me cringe every time to think that all lives are not valued equally. Otherwise the gifting of large sums of money to possibly save people at some point in the future, who have enough money to afford expensive cancer treatment vs. definitely, absolutely right now saving large numbers of people who have no potable water, little sanitation and need basic care like vaccines and public health education.
Hi mate, that's a good remark. I appreciate it. The reason I didn't mention problems in the development world, is because I came from one, and I know that money, or rather large sums of it would help my country. Politicians would steel it, just like they've been doing. I talking strictly about my country, which is located in Subsaharan Africa (West).
But, I do know that we would benefit a lot from having cure for Cancer, AIDS and other diseases.
Other issues such as poverty, clean water, electricity, at least in my country they are solvable by having people in charge who actually want to solve them. Again, I am talking about my country.
Try artists' studios. There are buildings that rent reasonably priced spaces meant for making art, but they are private yet in a building with funky, creative people, so that environment might suit you. Good luck. I have often thought of starting an AirBnB-type marketplace for just such an office as you are looking for. Especially post-pandemic, there are so, so many offices with empty desks.
It strikes me that you're very clear on the problems with each person. That's a good place to start. You're not confused as to the problems.
I would have coffee with each of them, and give each person concrete examples of where you think they failed the mission, and why.
Speaking of mission, does your team have a mission statement? I know this sounds like it doesn't matter, but they're truly amazing.
Get everyone together to come up with a mission statement, keep repeating it, and let everyone know that everything they do every day has to contribute to the core mission. If it doesn't add anything to the core mission, then don't do it.
There are so, so many distractions. I don't know how anyone in Gen Z gets any work done, frankly. I'm in middle age, and our brains are wired in a quieter, pre-social media fashion that allows for more clarity of thought. I am not saying this brag, but really to say it's something that needs to be studied now that Gen Z are taking critical positions in the workforce.
This is not an either-or question. Start-ups are a "fast and furious" game, so you can go in and out of them. Successful start-ups only last for 5-10 years before exit, and unsuccessful ones last for even less time. I'm in late middle age. I've decided to found another start-up after a long period of stability while I got married and raised 2 children. During this period of "boringness" I made money so that I don't need a "friends and family" round, since I have the money myself to get the new business off the ground. Additionally, I developed skills that will make me much more likely to be a success at the start-up, since I know better what problems exist in my industry and have some ideas about how to solve them. The period of "boringness" will go quickly, especially if you have children, and will make you a much more effective start-up co-founder later on.
