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  1. **** BEGIN LOGGING AT Tue Mar 4 17:17:44 2014
  2.  
  3. Mar 04 17:17:44 <ninjaspammer> hi. Yes, of course. I have to be careful about public signals before the company raises money (obviously) but once I know who someone is of course I share all the details. It is proprietary hardware technology. At the moment we've prototyped on an arduino. We need to develop closer to the final form factor (as opposed to bunch of wires) some of the components are proprietary and expensive
  4. Mar 04 17:17:44 <ninjaspammer> in small quantities/dev kits
  5. Mar 04 17:18:26 <me> what do you need? IC fab?
  6. Mar 04 17:18:27 <ninjaspammer> we received an invitation to pitch a very high-volume angel investor who had many questions, liked the answers, and wants to try it. But the current form factor is a bit far - I want to get it closer to what the consumer form factor will look like.
  7. Mar 04 17:18:35 <ninjaspammer> No, no no nothing that extreme.
  8. Mar 04 17:18:46 <me> then why 17K?
  9. Mar 04 17:18:47 <ninjaspammer> You should tone down your expectations! No fab, no airplane, no particular accelerator :) :)
  10. Mar 04 17:18:56 <me> let me guess - you want to hire an engineer?
  11. Mar 04 17:19:55 <ninjaspammer> well, I came up with the budget with the help of #electronics. In truth it's a bit low, as JUST certification by a certified lab (for FCC and European equivalent) is $5K-$15K if you get it right hte first time. But that is not going to be incldued, the prototype will be unlicensed and part of the angel investment (that I'm using it to prepare for) would cover it.
  12. Mar 04 17:20:01 <ninjaspammer> No, I don't need to hire any engineers.
  13. Mar 04 17:20:38 <ninjaspammer> some of the equipment I will be buying includes a used specan (spectrum analyzer), probes, dev kits for the chips I will be using.
  14. Mar 04 17:20:42 <me> i don't know in what country you are accustomed to doing business, but here in the u.s. one is expected to tell an investor exactly what the product is
  15. Mar 04 17:20:48 <me> not necessarily in fine detail
  16. Mar 04 17:21:02 <ninjaspammer> There is kind of a high lab requirement for developing 2.4 GHz equipment on custom IC. The PCB itself costs $20 to put together in Shanghai.
  17. Mar 04 17:21:03 <me> but /what purpose/ it has
  18. Mar 04 17:21:34 <ninjaspammer> it's proprietary educational technology. I have a pitch deck that is very clear, also video of the prototype stage and mockups of where we're getting to it from there.
  19. Mar 04 17:22:04 <me> 'proprietary educational technology' could be anything
  20. Mar 04 17:22:17 <ninjaspammer> In addition, as part of cutting things down tot he wire (everything you'd see is done on $0 so far, yet we're very far along with a real substantial seed investment frmo an angel) I did the development in a low-income country, where I did make use of some university and engineering labor.
  21. Mar 04 17:22:38 <ninjaspammer> Can you tell me something about yourself? If appropriate I can send you the materials.
  22. Mar 04 17:23:28 <me> i'm an amateur maths type, who sometimes hangs out on #bitcoin-assets
  23. Mar 04 17:24:08 <ninjaspammer> So you are not in a position to consider a loan of the amount I mentioned (around $17K, maybe a little bit less but there is relatively little margin)?
  24. Mar 04 17:24:13 <ninjaspammer> ?
  25. Mar 04 17:24:14 <me> not for mystery meat. sorry
  26. Mar 04 17:24:51 <me> if you're under some contractual obligation not to reveal what the hell your product does (e.g. NDA) you will have to deal with meatspace bankers.
  27. Mar 04 17:24:52 <ninjaspammer> What I mean is whether you have assets and a portfolio. For example, the person I connected with previously is a millionaire and runs an online financial service, as well as also being a hardware hacker.
  28. Mar 04 17:25:28 <ninjaspammer> No, there is no NDA. I'm just being stealth about the startup except where it makes sense to share more. (i.e. with the person I mentioned). I will tell you a story:
  29. Mar 04 17:26:14 <me> you know, the moment that you need funding, and go about trying to interest strangers in your operation, is one of those times that it makes sense to share more.
  30. Mar 04 17:26:20 <ninjaspammer> A founder had just closed a seed investment - completely, forms were signed - with an angel investor. That investor had lunch with a mutual friend. Over lunch the mutual friend said the founder had confided that the startup was struggling a bit. The investor decided to pull out, and explicitly mentioned to the founder that the reason is that their mutual friend said that he was struggling.
  31. Mar 04 17:27:02 <ninjaspammer> So if the founder had just clammed up, he would have gotten a nice seed round that would have let him build the company. And just because instead of that he shared with a friend, it fell through.
  32. Mar 04 17:27:23 <ninjaspammer> The expectation, in case you don't know, is that if an angel is going to entertain the idea of putting $200K into a company, then that company will get its shit together for the demo.
  33. Mar 04 17:27:52 <ninjaspammer> I am expected to solve this financing myself, especially since the amount is so "low".
  34. Mar 04 17:28:13 <ninjaspammer> (By the way, you are not being asked to consider it now.)
  35. Mar 04 17:28:20 <me> try to understand that only an idiot would give you even a dollar without knowing what you plan to do
  36. Mar 04 17:28:31 <me> in terms more specific than 'proprietary educational device'
  37. Mar 04 17:29:20 <ninjaspammer> yes, that's very clear. And you should try to understand that the Internet is full of trolls, and that companies have to be quite careful. This is why I asked if you were nominally in a position to consider a loan in that amount. (i.e. you have it and can purpose it for that if you want to.) If you don't, it doesn't make sense to share the private difficulty or what I would use it for. For
  38. Mar 04 17:29:21 <ninjaspammer> the reasons just stated.
  39. Mar 04 17:29:38 <ninjaspammer> If you are in a (nominal) position to consider that, then obviously I can share more after learning a bit about you.
  40. Mar 04 17:30:04 <me> for you, i am a penniless pauper. sorry.
  41. Mar 04 17:30:27 <ninjaspammer> I understand, and I don't take it personally. I don't think there's any minimum net worth for participating on the Internet :)
  42. Mar 04 17:31:08 <ninjaspammer> I realize that you are curious - who wouldn't be - but really, believe me, stealth stage is super important. It is way underestimated. It kills companies dead when they share too much.
  43. Mar 04 17:31:51 <ninjaspammer> For example, I know details about past companies that would have made them uninvestable, and they simply would not exist today if they had been a hair more open.
  44. Mar 04 17:32:15 <ninjaspammer> But not because they were pulling one over on investors - but because supporting a vision before it's been executed on is super tenuous and difficult.
  45. Mar 04 17:32:51 <ninjaspammer> The analogy is to be like a duck - Stay Calm On The Surface But Paddle Like Hell Underneath
  46. Mar 04 17:33:20 <ninjaspammer> obviously that is quite difficult to do before a measure of funding. It was NOT easy to get the level of buy-in and invitations that we got, as well as to make it to the current stage of prototypes.
  47. Mar 04 17:34:00 <me> might wanna go on to the next sucker now.
  48. Mar 04 17:34:15 <me> try bitcoin-talk forum.
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