Opinion
Singby: High-risk 'billion or bust' VC trajectory is acceptable for first-time founders
“If they put me on a billion dollar track, you know, billionaire bust, I think it's still okay. As a first time founder, solo founder now you know, if I'm put on that track and, you know, what are the odds on day one, right? Like 90% of going bust and like, I d…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SmartQ secured an 18-month customer contract despite early stage
“Some go for a quarter, the others are a year. Someone signed on for 18 months.”
Disclosure
Singh expects to sell 10% to 15% equity in seed round
“I am thinking anywhere between 10 to 15%.”
Disclosure
Singby: SmartQ is targeting a $2M raise at a $10M valuation
“We're talking to a few investors and we're looking to raise two million on a tongue, ten million valuation.”
Disclosure
SmartQ relaunched in September 2022 after a full architectural rebuild
“And so we went back to the drawing board, re-architected the entire product, relaunched it this past September. So just two months ago, and we're back at, you know, six, eight customers now, a few paying others in pilot.”
Disclosure
Singh plans to raise $1M to $1.5M in seed funding
“I am looking at anywhere between a mil to mil five.”
Disclosure
Singby: SmartQ was built for about $8,000 in founder capital
“We've put in about eight K for our own money.”
Disclosure
Singby: SmartQ spends $1,000 per month on dev team
“Like I said, you know, put an eight K and we're putting in about a thousand dollars a month.”
Disclosure
SmartQ raised $150K pre-seed with an accelerator equity buyback option
“And so we ended up raising a, yeah, we raised a really small, 150,000 pre-seed. A lot of it you know, from friends and family angels and some of it from an accelerator part of the equity I can buy back.”
Disclosure
Singh draws zero salary, paying team with early revenue and funding
“So, well, I'm not paying myself and with the others, it's partly this revenue and the fund that we raised.”
Assertion Supported
SmartQ achieved Product of the Day on Product Hunt in September
“So for example, in September, when we launched our product hunt. We actually ended up being product of the day for, you know, a solo founder running a super lean team, no marketing team behind it.”
Disclosure
Singh built a 2,000-person community over 18 months before launching
“These thousand odd people, a couple thousand people is, is actually my community that I've been building over the past year and a half since I started SmartQ, right?”
Disclosure
Singby: Departed SmartQ co-founder retained single-digit equity
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, not, not that big. It's in the single digits.”
Disclosure
SmartQ charges $49 per user per month
“So we're charging 49 dollars per user per month.”
Disclosure
SmartQ reaches 18 users across six customer companies
“No, six companies. And we, I want to say 18 users right now.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Singby: Most initial SmartCue users came from network, two from Slack
“Most of them actually are from my network. We have two that were, you know, sort of cold referrals. You know, I posted messages on Slack groups and stuff like that.”
