Seeking Equity Partner

Questions
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Are you well acquainted with Bubble and have the ability to get a company off the ground, but lack a start-up idea worth pursuing? I’m looking for you!

I’m willing to offer up a substantial equity position, with increases based on performance, in return for your expertise and time(no buy in!). The site is 90% complete. It’s beyond an MVP. The idea is potentially very profitable and I have the strategy mapped out, but I need someone who can see it through because I’m too busy.

Ideal candidate has proven track record of building Bubble apps with APIs incorporated, some marketing experience, and has the wherewithal to put in the work to carry out the mission.

If this sounds interesting to you, please feel free to message me. Prepare to sign a NDA, if I see fit.

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I’m interested to hear the idea to see if I may be interested to stop work on my projects and jump on board to steer your ship.

By the way, NDA, if you speak to any experienced startup entrepreneur or investor they wouldn’t listen if you are asking for an NDA. The reason being for investors, it means if they don’t believe in you and your team, they wouldn’t be capable of investing with another potential group who has a relatively similar idea. Most investors don’t really invest in the idea, but rather the team behind it.

On the side of entrepreneurs I’d personally believe most would be a bit offended to be made to feel that their ideas are not worthy of following through on once hearing the idea of somebody else. I know you made a caveat in your post:

I have a question for you…do you really want a partner who isn’t able to come up with an idea worth pursuing? My thought is that somebody who doesn’t believe in their own ideas, probably wouldn’t have much conviction on other issues of opinion and wouldn’t be the best partner to “spit ball” ideas and solutions with.

Also, I have other questions in regards to your post.

Are you implying here that you want somebody to finish what you started?

It sounds like to me, you had an idea that might not be worth pursuing because if it was you wouldn’t have stopped working on it before completing it. My point is not to offend you, but to highlight how other people may view this.

My thoughts here is that somebody who truly believes in something, would invest everything into it, whether that be time or money. So, if you are too busy, that would imply the idea isn’t worth pursuing, because on the other side, if it was, you’d stop what is taking up your time and focus on the new idea.

At the end of reading this, I interpreted as asking "please complete my app for free, then operate my business for a ‘substantial equity position’ while I maintain a larger share of the overall profits because I had an idea’

Years ago I had great advice from investors and entrepreneurs that helped me to understand their views on these types of issues. Most of them had the same basic thought process, which was ideas are worth nothing, it is the people behind them that have value.

All told me to never feel like my idea was greater than anybody else’s idea, and that I should tell anybody and everybody willing to listen to it because you never know who may be able to help you and ultimately, again, it isn’t the idea that has value, it is the people who are going to follow through and execute a plan that are valuable.

This advice helped me understand how to show my value, which wasn’t about coming up with the idea, but rather believing in it myself to follow through and complete it and invest all I had in it. Because who is going to invest something when you are not willing to invest in it yourself?

Hope this helps…maybe to get more traction on this, post the idea, where the business is currently at in terms of profits and the projected roadmap for future growth.

Again, not trying to be a jerk or offend, just trying to pass on the kind of tough but valuable advice I’ve received over the years.

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Hey Boston,

I’m not really sure what to say here. You keep making excuses in advance by saying you’re not trying to “jerk” or offend multiple times. If you weren’t then that wouldn’t even need to be stated at all.

It’s reminiscent of someone prefacing a rude comment by saying “I’m not trying to be rude, but…”.

When referring to the site being 90% complete I am in fact looking for someone to add (2) features that I don’t have the capability of adding. For example, I need storage capabilities extended. That’s a responsible request, especially when taking into consideration what’s given in return. So, you stating that I want it done for “free” is not correct. A substainal equity position is not free by any stretch of the imagination.

You’re also trying to make it sound like I don’t believe in my idea. I’m not sure where you’re getting this from when this thread alone proves that I’m still pursuing the idea. If I wasn’t I’d simply just throw it away and forget about it. Right? By the way, I’m not looking for someone to operate the business for me, I’m looking for someone to operate the business WITH me. I’m also looking for a private message, not a long opinionated post, that I didn’t even ask for.

And an NDA is required, it’s non-negotiable. Candidly, I don’t care if that offends you.

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No worries, was just offering unsolicited advice. The preface of saying “not trying to offend” was to preface, I am really trying to help you to formulate a post or a way of really articulating what you are looking for better than was done.

Makes more sense now because originally, I read this:

to imply that you wouldn’t be doing anything further and would rely on the equity partner to operate.

What you said here:

is more clear and probably going to help you get the kind of response you are hoping for.

Me saying complete the app for free is based on the premise that, should the business not succeed, then the “substantial equity” would be worthless and so they would have worked for free.

If you want this:

what exactly does that entail? My understanding is that you boost your storage capacity through bubble, or an alternative is to create your own Amazon S3 bucket ( I think that is the terminology ) and utilize an API to send the data to the Amazon S3 bucket, which would extend storage capabilities, as well as lower the costs of storage.

From my understanding, storage costs on bubble are about $0.03 / GB and on Amazon S3 about $0.023 / GB…if the app is successful and you need to extend the storage capabilities the first option ( bubble ) is simple, the second option ( Amazon ) isn’t that tricky I believe as I have read through some forum posts on the subject.

My suggestion would be to wait to see how the app is scaling from success and at a later point when revenues are pouring in hire a developer to set up the storage extension using Amazon S3…probably wouldn’t cost much more than a couple hundred bucks ( far cheaper than substantial equity share )

In regards to this:

I wasn’t trying to do anything except shed some light onto how other people would or might interpret the post based on the conversations I have had with mentors, friends and investors in the startup community, so no apologies for trying to help you out.

Lastly, the NDA, really doesn’t offend me, it was yet again my way of extending some help or advice by passing along what mentors, friends and investors have said to me concerning NDA. In fact some of the things they said were along the lines of

“if you asked me to sign an NDA, I’d cancel the meeting” - investor / entrpreneur

“NDA…hahaha; yeah right” - friend / entrepeneur

“An NDA would exclude me from investing in other companies that share similarities to yours, so I am not going to sign something to marry me to your follow through” - investor

However, NDA is used when hiring a development firm so to limit the chances that they or an employee would steal the idea and build it on their own…so maybe if you are seeking somebody who has the ability to build it, it would protect you in case they believe your idea is something worth pursuing and they don’t believe in your added value as a partner. So, perhaps you are correct to request it.

All in all, I wasn’t trying to offend you. Mostly the caveat is needed because some people don’t have skin thick enough to hear advice they don’t want to hear.

Best of luck. If you don’t find the success here, search the forum, somebody posted about some sites that are useful for finding co-founders.

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But Boston, I didn’t ask for the advice. I’m not looking for free business consulting. I’m looking for private messages from people interested in obtaining an equity position. I don’t care what you have been told from investors in the past, especially from private equity firms, VCs or any form of hard money lender. I’m not sure why you’re so concerned with how people will interpret my post?

If someone has questions, I’m sure they are capable enough to message me(as requested) for additional details. There is obviously a reason for me offering up an equity position instead of just paying a couple hundred dollars to do development for me, as I’ve stated above I’m looking for more then that in return, which again can be discussed in private. If you’re not happy with what I’m looking for or what I’m offering, it doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t looking for a great opportunity. And if you’re not happy with how I have articulated my initial post, that is fine, you can just move along. A long response isn’t necessary. You’re wasting your time.

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I know right… can’t begin to imagine the amount of creative input you’d have after partnering lmao.

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Don’t worry. Not important. Just an observation on the reaction to sound advice.

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Maybe send messages to PMs? Clearly this thread isn’t productive unfortunately. Sorry OP.

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Maybe not productive, but not short on entertainment value.

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I think the most productive part was getting him to rephrase a bit and make it clearer with this statement:

I’m an English teacher and often students need guidance on how to articulate their thoughts more clearly so that their idea is clearly understood and their motivations known. At least he was able to get that point out there.

If the advice was accepted and more changes were made, he may of added a bit of where the app is currently in terms of its market validation, current usage levels, and perhaps if what is making him too busy to complete the app is his persistence in pursuing more customers and other actions to further the success of the project.

But, I don’t think he appreciated the advice much.

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When it comes to considering individual vs partnerships for start-ups, my favorite saying is this: “The only thing harder than starting a business by yourself is starting it with a partner.”
I have learned too many times the truth and wisdom to this statement.

Finding the right partner is a major challenge when you’re evaluating fit with limited insight into the other person. I think you both established a great deal of important insight in your exchange on this thread. (as others will likely do when reading the exchange).

This is one of the main (if not the main) reason I love Bubble so much. Bubble enables individual product creation and is allowing me to take my product development deep into proof of concept. This is something I have never been able to achieve prior and have been forced to give up chunks of equity through my numerous entrepreneurial endeavors.

It is highly curious to me that someone would do all the heavy lifting and then look to give away equity in a “highly profitable business”. I’m not saying that OP doesn’t have valid reasons, but it would certainly get my spidey senses all tingly before wanting to move forward.

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This is incredible?? WTF if you don’t like the guys post just don’t reply? I don’t get 1/2 of these responses?

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I would suggest just letting this post die. It’s a rare unproductive post as a whole. There are good points to parts of it, but it went sideways.

@eve Can we just lock this thread?

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I completely agree, I am new to this community and I need ligit help, not opinions, and if we can be no better than the U.S. congress as a community then I am in the wrong place.