just out of interest really!
what stage are you at? what product are you developing? when are you planning on bringing it to market? why is yours better than the rest? looking for investment?
what are/were your experiences of it?
i'm part of a travel-tech start up, developing a new search platform inintially for travel, but hopefully to be expanded into other markets (cars, houses). looking for investment at the moment, so all rather exciting...
Go to your Local Small Business centre
You will get sound advice and direction in what you require
Good Luck
Have you got yourself a business plan?
yeah - we've a few people advising us at the moment r.e. polishing our business plan - an investment banker, a lawyer, marketeer etc.
will be pinging it off to a few interested investors in the next couple of weeks all being well 
yeah - we've a few people advising us at the moment r.e. polishing our business plan - an investment banker, a lawyer, marketeer etc.
they're all just helping us tweak the business plan - language, strategy etc.
The most important is to have the most honest and realistic business plan and then be imaginative with sources of money. I'm due to speak to someone next week about money I'll hopefully not need, but will be nice to have in reserve.
Good luck.
EDIT: I have it also said, and I tend to agree, that the business plan is not the be all and end all, enthusiasm and belief will help greatly.
Good luck with it, IME investors are very risk averse at the moment. Even a successful startup usually only returns about 5% to investors which they can get with other less risky dabbling. These days people with serious cash are looking for ways to preserve it rather than grow it. Hope it works out though.
My first experience was as a director in a start-up which became a plc, which was then utterly shafted by the original founder - allegedly.
Since then I've been involved in a few. Prepare for a hell of a journey.
thanks for the advice
definitely going to be tough to get an investor - will just have to see how it goes. done the best we can so far!
Prepare for a hell of a journey.
the past year and a bit has been one so far!
what kind of thing have you guys been invovled in?
been involved in fitness industry, ethical fashion, public health, private wealth management.
got a bit tired of the 'jam tomorrow' nature of it and the fact that no one can be trusted.
wow - fair bit then... i came straight out of uni into this so, er, somewhat less experienced! am 1 of 5 partners though, and we're not all totally green.
Still in the planning stage.
Still trying to find out if there is a demand.
I'm playing silly buggers in the world of construction or insulation or security or.... I suppose. 
Previously done lots in the world of sales in with a distribution company and construction companies.
whats the product? (without giving away trade secrets, of course 
)
don - nothing like mine then!
Nahhh ... too embarrassing to describe coz the idea might look silly.
Okay will give it a go ...
It's about linking people up like head hunter but different so get a cut from one or the other.
The problem of course is trying to get someone to trust it. Not dating site by the way nor a cyber pimp.
Travel-tech? Is it a bicycle?
Yup I'm a serial entrepreneur, most of my startups have specialised in the pharma industry; recently in contraception. I tend to take an idea from inception to IPO or private buyout then bail on to the next thing.
You win some you lose some, I've made a small fortune over the years but lost a big one
Edit: My advice would be not to worry too much about the rigidity of the business plan, they very rarely end up anything like what you originally envisage. Also don't rely too much on "experts" - you can do a lot of the donkey work yourself. Oh and don't spunk your investment money on toys and expensive crap for the office that you don't need 
Oh yeah and don't worry too much about having a USP, there is room in most markets for a number of players. Oh and be prepared to lose friends and alienate people if it's successful, it's weird how relationships can change due to the the pressures of work etc.
chewkw - not giving much away then!! sounds intriguing
Charlie - not quite
without giving anything away, the initial application will be for travel sites - helping ppl find holidays directly with minimum of time input. different financial/technical/system model to anything else tried in the industry, with some nice features to aid the process. a couple of similar companies have done similar models in different markets in the past year and both received a LOT of investment (one car based one in the US has raised $12m in the past year). travel is a crowded market though.
we're only looking for initial at the mo, to kick start us, then hopefully more to fully market it all. i'm not, by any stretch, implying that we'll receive millions btw (as nice as it would be!).
random - only thing i'll be spunking money on will be a new computer, and some staff!
Search engine stuff must be a tough market to get into, even if it is a niche area. Are you hoping for a buyout or actually to run it long-term?
I work for a company that was a start up about 10 years ago. The mentality of those days still has not left some people, which can make life interesting at times.
As this is a search engine I imagine the company will be internet based and it's product mostly IT based. My advice is to find one really good IT engineer rather than 2 or 3 average ones to help you build and develop it.
If you are also hosting your own site, don't spunk lots of cash going for 99.9% uptime. Stick to aiming for 98%, the extra kit required for that last 1 or 2% really costs. If your product is good people won't mind if the site is down for a few hours at random times.
yeah - we've a few people advising us at the moment r.e. polishing our business plan - an investment banker, a lawyer, marketeer etc.
Looks like you are not short of cash then...
This may interest you; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
If you are also hosting your own site, don't spunk lots of cash going for 99.9% uptime. Stick to aiming for 98%, the extra kit required for that last 1 or 2% really costs. If your product is good people won't mind if the site is down for a few hours at random times.
As an ex-boss once said to me, 'I don't want 99.9% availability all the time, I want 100% when my customers want it'.
b r - what if you have customers who shop 24/7?
It's best to plan and architect for extensibility with systems like this, small db's you can replicate easily
IME the people who get a start-up going aren't the people who should be running it when it takes off. Pay them off, bring in new people who are more risk averse, less creative and less likely to be bored.
interesting stuff - thanks
Looks like you are not short of cash then...
no cash, but an idea people want to be involved in.
I've interviewed lots of entrepreneurs over the years, not least Sam of mountain biking's very own Singular Cycles, plus the founders of numerous dot coms like kaggle (one you might be interested in is travel search engine adioso.com which is about to relaunch).
A couple of things stand out:
Time: prepare to sink it all in the start-up
Business plan: VC invest more in people than plans
Networking: network, network, network; you'll need 'warm' introductions to investors
Failure: don't be afraid of it
For me the last one is the biggie and it's the biggest difference between bitter old Britain and Silicon Valley. Failure is stigmatised in the UK, holding potential entrepreneurs back. In Silicon Valley, failing can make the next attempt easier; it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's this relentless can-do attitude I admire most about the US. (Never mind that most start-ups, er, fail... that's a very British way of thinking :wink:)
@corroded never a truer word said that man! I've had far more failures than successes but have learned from each of them, so none of them was a waste of time.
again - thanks for the advice
regardless of what happens in the next 6 months, the past 14 or so have been a massive learning curve. would be far mroe confident applying for jobs after this, if it doesn't work out.
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