Ask HN: Is it possible to raise money without a working prototype?

Sure: http://ycombinator.com/apply.html

1000 hours is about 3-5 months, so you're probably looking at $15-30k of seed money to support you while you get your prototype built. If you keep your expenses low, that should be plenty of money. If your idea is good enough and your team is strong, you should have a good chance at getting the seed money to start. That's the idea behind programs like YC.

I'm no expert, but I say: Sure! Mock something up and give it a shot. Sell investors on the idea and the market, the pain and the cure. Convince them that you're the guy or team to make it happen.

Anyway, if you had the thing built you wouldn't need money, now would you?

I think there's a pretty big disconnect between your version of "working prototype" and what is actually necessary.

If your goal is to get some seed money, to build a "prototype" to raise money, then the net requirement isn't a full functional app, but just enough to get the point across in an elegant enough way to secure additional financing.

This could be as simple as a sketch on a napkin, and as complex as a full functional website with an e-commerce component.

As long as you can effectively deliver the experience of what it is you need money to build, then your medium for doing so isn't as important as getting the point across.

Wtf kind of prototype takes 1000 hours?

Maybe you should think about what you could do if you only had 100.

The answer probably depends on how much money you are trying to raise and from what type of investors.

If you need thousands to tens of thousands of dollars and have a rich uncle then the answer is probably yes.

If you need hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars and you want to raise from professional startup investors then the answer is probably no (Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital says something like, "I invest in URLs not business plans").

There are exceptions of course.

From experience, my rule of thumb is to select projects that takes around one month to finish (give or take).

Any longer project will be a challenge to finish because you'll lose motivation (for various reasons).

Launching quickly will give you a lot of insight on whether you are on the right track or not. And if you are, this will motivate you to start improving what you have built and probably rewrite it sometime later.

Shrink your idea.

one of the important things about start up is that you have a well documented starting to crawl before you walk is a well established tried and true method; My advice is use about 160 hrs for a good prototype. Use that to test if the idea has stickiness in the first place before you invest 1000 hrs.