Damien Gonot

Business

Homepage / Notes / Business

Incorporation

Federal vs Provincial?

Address

  • Canada Post PO Box
  • UPS Store address

Name

In Québec

Partie générique (en français) - Partie spécifique - Particule

Examples:

  • Quincaillerie Saint-Jean inc.
  • Épicerie IntermarchĂ© inc.

Resources

https://junjizhi.com/all/experience/indie%20hacking/2021/05/01/indie-hacking-incorporation/

Accounting

Banking

https://forums.redflagdeals.com/cheapest-business-chequing-account-2472972/

BMO

eBusiness Plan

https://www.bmo.com/main/business/accounts/ebusiness-plan/ Free chequing account

HSBC

Fusion

https://www.hsbc.ca/small-business-banking-solutions/small-business-owners/

Chequing

https://www.hsbc.ca/small-business-banking-solutions/everyday-banking/#rbb-chequing No fee with $10k balance?

Pillar

https://www.gopillar.ca/

Invoicing

Simple HTML Invoice Template

https://github.com/sparksuite/simple-html-invoice-template

A modern, clean, and very simple responsive HTML invoice template.

Credit Cards

Payment Processing

Stripe

https://stripe.com/en-ca/payments/payment-links

Paddle

https://www.paddle.com/

lemon squeezy

https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ Acquired by Stripe.

Rotessa

https://rotessa.com/ A better way to get paid. Withdraw money directly from your customer’s bank account when their payments are due. Schedule one-time or recurring payments to get paid on time.

Polar

https://polar.sh/

Payment infrastructure for the 21st century

Billing

Killbill.io

https://killbill.io/

Open-Source Subscription Billing & Payments Platform

Domain Names

Namecheap

https://www.namecheap.com/

Porkbun

https://porkbun.com/

Communication

How to communicate better?

"Bottom Line Up Front"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

Better writing

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1459531954446024712

Language Tool

https://languagetool.org/

How to communicate effectively as a developer

https://www.karlsutt.com/articles/communicating-effectively-as-a-developer/

Team Communication

Zulip

Chat for distributed teams (Slack alternative) https://zulip.com/ Has an "official" terminal client

Other

Free stuff (dev)

https://free-for.dev/#/

Issue tracking (Jira alternative)

https://linear.app/ Pretty, fast, keyboard-driven


ToolJet

https://tooljet.io/ Build & deploy internal tools Open-source low-code framework to build & deploy internal tools with minimal engineering effort.

Finding a co-founder

https://www.startupschool.org/cofounder-matching YC's free online platform for finding a high-quality co-founder. Match with co-founders based on your preferences for interests, skills, location, and more, and start building your company.

Best "SaaS starter kit"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28774647

Ask HN: Main things to consider when building an app for business/enterprise?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34287685

Business Broker (for selling a business)

https://quietlight.com/

User Management (Auth System)

Clerk

https://clerk.com/

Supertokens

https://github.com/supertokens

Firebase Auth

https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth

Supabase Auth

https://supabase.com/auth

Feature Flags

Configflare

https://www.configflare.com/

Notifications

Novu

https://novu.co/

Spreadsheets

Google Spreadsheets

https://www.benlcollins.com/

Marketing

https://markosaric.com/startup-marketing/

https://www.synthesia.io/ Create your own AI video.

Emailing

Tracking

Jitsu

https://jitsu.com/ The Open Source Segment Alternative

Reddit

https://twitter.com/mynameis_davis/status/1473299500290695175

Twitter

https://tasshin.com/blog/a-guide-to-twitter/

List of techniques

  • SEO
  • Blog
  • Medium
  • Landing Page optimization
  • Social Media
  • Reviews / Social proof
  • Product Hunt
  • Influencers
  • Communities
  • Partnerships
  • Word of mouth

Strategy

SaaS pricing

https://nofreeplan.com/

Open startups

https://openstartups.run/

For agencies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3EXUxO_kbE

  1. Be hyper specialized Example: Scaling Facebook Ads for e-commerce brands, post-product market fit
  2. Make yourself essential to your clients
  3. Personify your brand
  4. Be selective with your clients

"Infoproducts"

  1. Find a niche
  2. Create an infoproduct
  3. Presell it
  4. Use affiliates to drive traffic to it

Validate Ideas

http://momtestbook.com/

Buy websites and add revenue

https://twitter.com/JamesonCamp/status/1480638561921777676

Build newsletters and monetize them

https://twitter.com/JamesonCamp/status/1422243525870166019

Financing

Pitching your early stage startup

https://stripe.com/en-gb-be/atlas/guides/pitching

Entrepreneur First

https://go.joinef.com/toronto-2021/

Mentorship Network

https://pioneer.app/

Venture Capital

Y Combinator

Need to record a video introducing the co-founders to apply And fill in simple enough form https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/

Deal

https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/ $125K post-money for 7% equity

Twitter thread "Y Combinator is not worth it"

https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1487500943511932941

a16z START

https://a16z.com/programs-a16z-start/

Ernestine Fu: All You Need to Know About Venture Capital

https://youtu.be/qieDyvn6q0Q

Getting into VC and Staying in VC

As a partner: no application, all about connections (example: founded a successful company, early portfolio company
) Analyst / associate: after business school Always Be Closing or you'll be booted from the next fund

Dynamics of Negotiating A Financing Round
Convincing founders

Assume it's a really good company Never show any dislike or distaste You never know if this founder is gonna start the next billion-dollar company Their first idea might be terrible, they second idea might be wonderful

Keep an open mind, be very friendly and positive to the founder in addition to pitching your partnership / your firm Start your reputation (demo day
) before you even meet a founder for the first time

Convincing the rest of your partnership

Max 2-3 deals per year (major (>20%) deals with a seat on the board)

You might see hundreds a deal, have 8-10 that you might fund and at the end of year you typically fund 2 or 3 deals For each of the hundreds of deal that you see, it might be one of the 8-10 and you'll want to fund VC firm is a partnership, need to convince the other partners, deals are usually a consensus between all the partners

Competitive deals

Always assume it'll be competitive and that many other funds will want to invest You either want to be in really early (first term sheet) or very late (last term sheet)

Sourcing Deals and Finding Investment Opportunities
Sourcing Deals

Data-driven approach:

  • Who's raising in App Stores rankings?
  • Who's raising in Alexa ratings for top sites?

Attending demo days at incubators, accelerators..

  • Anything available on the Internet or at a demo day: you're not the only one looking at it
  • Make sure you have your network in place
  • The best VC firms know all the companies at YC demo day before they even present
Best Investment Opportunities
  • Tech (is there a strong product?)
  • Team (what's the founders track record? evidence that they have a vision? an idea is cheap, it's about how you execute it)
  • Product/Market Fit (is this actually a need that's being met? 100% of 10M market < 1% of $1B market)
Term Sheet Basics
Pre and Post-Money Valuation
  • A company has $3M worth of assets
  • An investor comes in and put $1M in the company
  • Pre-Money Valuation is $3M
  • Post-Money Valuation is $4M
Liquidation Preference

Preferred Stocks vs Common Stocks

  • With Preferred Stocks, investors get their money back first
  • It only really matters when a company sells for below their valuation price
  • Snap has investors holding common stocks but this is very uncommon
Board of Directors

With a significant amount of capital usually comes a board seat

Common board for early stage companies:

  • Founder
  • Lead Investor
  • Independant Board Member

For later stage companies:

  • Co-Founder
  • Co-Founder
  • Lead Investor #1
  • Lead Investor #2
  • Independant Board Member

Goal of the board is to guide the CEO and hold them accountable

Protective Provisions

For example, approval of board before any X amount of capital spent

Right of First Refusal (ROFR)

As an investor, if a company is selling secondary shares, you'll be able to purchase those shares before anybody else

Pro Rata

The right of keeping a % of the company shares in later financing rounds by adding capital and not being diluted

Drag Along

As a lead investor, drag along means that you make all major business decisions for all the smaller (typically angel) investors

Employee Option Pool

VCs prefer that the employee option pool is created before their investment (typically 15-20%, diluting the founders) Best entrepreneurs refer that the employee option pool is created after the round of investment, diluting everybody

No Shop Agreement

Usually 40 days (VCs want it longer (60-90 days) and entrepreneurs shorters (30 days)) Means you're not shopping around the term sheet / valuation (otherwise process never ends) Term sheets aren't binding, though usually everybody goes through the deal as your reputation is on the line

Portfolio Management

3 types of companies in a typical portfolio:

  • unicorns, $1B outcome
  • dragonites, potential to have a high ROI
  • the walking dead, consistently operating but probably won't make a huge exit for you

VCs would typically focus on the top 2-3 companies in their portfolio of ~10

Walking dead strategies:

  • Being an activist: Sequoia merged Elon Musk's X.com and Peter Thiel's company creating PayPal
  • Ignoring it
VC Firm Composition, Governance and Dynamics

Every VC firm has those four roles:

  • Analysis and Market Research
  • Sourcing
  • Investments and Portfolio Management
  • Fund Raising

The more senior you are, the more towards sourcing, investment and fund raising you are

Generally speaking, towards the beginning of the life of the fund, that's where the investments that are true to the spirit of the fund are made In the middle, that's when the crazy investments are made And towards the end, investments are made very carefully as it might impact being able to raide for the next fund

GP / LP Dynamics

  • GP = General Partners

  • LP = Limited Partners

  • LPs invest in VC funds

  • High net worth individuals, corporations, institutional investors, universities


  • Every VC fund is a partnership, is there good synergy between the partners?

  • What's their investment thesis/strategy? Particular sector?

  • Are the GPs well suited to source and close investments?

  • Typically a 2-3% management fee

  • $100M fund, $2-3M for the GP to manage the fund

  • Other: 20% carried interest => 80/20 split of profits

  • $1B fund, LPs get $800M, GPs get $200M

"Everything I Wish I Had Known About Raising a Seed Round"

https://blog.startupstash.com/everything-i-wish-i-had-known-about-raising-a-seed-round-a615f8f7740b

Product Management

https://online.stanford.edu/courses/xprodmgt110-product-management-transforming-opportunities-great-products

Agile

Scrum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#Workflow

Sprint Planning

https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/sprint-planning Sprint planning is an event in scrum that kicks off the sprint. The purpose of sprint planning is to define what can be delivered in the sprint and how that work will be achieved.

A|B Testing

Growthbook

https://www.growthbook.io/

Misc

People Management

https://www.manager-tools.com/

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco

https://lattice.com/library/6-people-management-tips-that-will-make-you-a-bette

https://twitter.com/Jobvo/status/1477610639040434183?s=20

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30497703

Advice

"How to Get Rich" by Naval: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1002103360646823936.html

Inspiration

Engineer turned marketers for SaaS businesses: https://www.gkogan.co/ Studio that builds SaaS apps for marketers: https://www.incremen.to/ "Founder reads": https://founderreads.com/

Clients Relationships

How to handle clients in a freelancing / agency relationship?

  • https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook
  • It's a relationship like any other, and you earn each other trust through your interactions over time. So you need to be extremely reliable and responsive if you want to be perceived as trust worthy.
  • If something bad happened, be transparent and the sooner you say it the better. It's extremely uncomfortable, and you'll try to delay it because you don't want to say shit happened, even if it wasn't your fault.
  • Never bring up a problem without a solution, or a potential solution, or a recommendation for a solution. No one wants problems, we all have plenty of those. Even if it's something out of your control, you should always spin a solution for it.
  • Always reply, never leave someone hanging.

Real Estate

Becoming a broker: https://www.collegeimmobilier.com/

Analytics

Counterscale

https://github.com/benvinegar/counterscale

Scalable web analytics you run yourself on Cloudflare

OpenPanel

https://openpanel.dev/

An open-source alternative to Mixpanel

The power of Mixpanel, the ease of Plausible and nothing from Google Analytics 😉

Resources

https://bigmachine.io/products/going-solo/

SaaS promotion

https://appsumo.com/

Startup School

https://www.startupschool.org/

List of free tier dev tools

https://github.com/255kb/stack-on-a-budget

Blog from a group of companies

https://bychgroup.com/blog/

Hacker News: Successful one-person online businesses?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332072

Reddit launch list

https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/fuw483/alternatives_to_product_hunt_to_submit_your/

SaaS growth articles

https://github.com/yongfook/saas-growth-articles

Making money with courses

https://go.consulting.com/evergreen-training

Case studies of successful companies

https://www.starterstory.com/explore

Solopreneurs

Startup Playbook by Sam Altman

https://playbook.samaltman.com/

Startup CTO's Handbook

The Startup CTO's Handbook, a book covering leadership, management and technical topics for leaders of software engineering teams

https://github.com/ZachGoldberg/Startup-CTO-Handbook