brianlynn11

I have a product targeted at young, single people who enjoys going out at night to party. Now I'm negotiating partnership with a top nightlife promotional group locally, who can provide us the cream of the crop, highly targeted users to build our initial user base. We deem this as necessary since our product requires network effects, so we need a big crowd upon launch.

My question is, if we offer equity in the company as their compensation, what might be some implications down the road? Would you ever do it?

Some I could think of are 1) a messy cap table that prevents us getting capital from VCs, and 2) if it was the wrong strategy and we end up pivoting, we have a shareholder who provides no value. What do you guys think? Appreciate it!

I'm launching a product that requires network effects. Now we have partners who can throw a launch party and get the top influencers in the community to download the app. Let's say the product needs about 100 active users in a single day to work. If you were running this project, how much would you spend on the launch?

My "guesstimates" right now is like this:

Launch Party 200 attendees - 50% downloads the app - 30% actively use the app = 30 active users

If we can bootstrap the parties to around $2k, that mean the total costs might be $6k+. Do you think that's worth it base on your experience?

Thanks for any feedback/comments.

That's all I hear these days. Many teams are out there to "re-define social networking" by incorporating geolocation, mutual friends, common interests based on the FB social graph using push notifications to connect you with relevant contacts. Apparently many people in the valley hail this as the "next big thing in social networking". Highlight was hyped to the hilt only to get mediocre responses.

I'm based on the EC so there're not many early adopters here, so I would love to hear your thoughts. My question is, have any of you actually used these apps, cared to met someone at a nearby location and felt connected with this person to be your new friend? I just don't see how these apps can provide enough relevance for me to go out of my way and meet up with a stranger, who in the worst case scenario may or may not be a serial killer.