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5 comments
I am actually in this situation (roughly speaking). Although I have a bit of a head start, I just signed a deal for $30k of funding. It is designed to carry me six months (i.e. $60k salary for half a year). I know this is not that low by some startup salaries (I lived off $35k/year in my first startup), but I have many more expenses now like a car payment. I am not building a "finished" product per se, but a prototype to demo for Kickstarter and raise my next round of funding. Six months is a fairly short amount of time to build even a game prototype, but if all else fails I have $20k saved up myself and I can also sell of my car. My project is at gavanw.com if you are interested.
I'm not sure what your business model is or whether you are already making money - $20K is not a lot of money, especially if you have employees working for you - I would say keep a tight hold on money.
As you mentioned you have a market ready product, spend as much as you can on customer validation and getting new customers - invariably would would find you might need the cash flow for the process and scaling up. Cost of sale is often underestimated, and sometimes you will find unexpected expenditure when you thought things are going well. If you are building an enterprise focussed product - you would have to allow at the least 3 months of lead time for getting a customer signed.
As you mentioned you have a market ready product, spend as much as you can on customer validation and getting new customers - invariably would would find you might need the cash flow for the process and scaling up. Cost of sale is often underestimated, and sometimes you will find unexpected expenditure when you thought things are going well. If you are building an enterprise focussed product - you would have to allow at the least 3 months of lead time for getting a customer signed.
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Perhaps not a list worth $20K but I'd do...
#1 (If you don't have one already) SSL cert.
#2 Marketing, SEO, etc
#1 (If you don't have one already) SSL cert.
#2 Marketing, SEO, etc
Spend it all on an epic launch party. Get the tech press and the silicon valley elite to come. Build so much buzz in one night, all of sand hill road skips work the next day to slide checks under your hotel suite door.