The age-old adage states that if you win the lottery, keep it a secret. Once it’s public knowledge, the vultures start circling. Unfortunately, after raising a round of funding, you don’t keep it secret. In fact, it often benefits you to shout it from the rooftops.
I expected an increase in inbound spam once we raised funding, but what I did not expect was the sheer volume. I went from going days without emails (except customer ones) to a consistent volume of at least 8+ a day. That might not sound like that many, but for an early-stage startup that focused on nailing product-market-fit, I couldn’t believe it.
There was metaphorical blood in the water and the sharks started swimming. A fresh new company with capital to burn? Better pounce immediately before someone else is able to suck them dry!
Most start by stoking your ego, telling you how special you are for having raised capital and how your fame and fortune are fore-destined. All you need to do is use their services and all your troubles go away. They come in all flavors:
- Dev shops promising they can build entire solutions for pennies.
- “Partnership opportunities” where the partnership involves you buying their product and them doing nothing in return
- AI consulting shops promising to deliver the best LLMs available (*spoiler alert* everyone is wrapping OpenAI. Don’t believe anyone telling you otherwise)
- Compliance software offering a ba-gillion rate increase in getting your SOC2 certification
- Part time CFOs promising to get us IPO’d in the next 12 months (why would I even want this?)
- Design shops offering best-in-class custom design (*spoiler #2* these are almost all pre-packaged themes)
- And more!
I think whats the most frustrating about this is that somehow it must be working. There is no way it would come in this volume unless someone out there is biting. I’ll probably offend someone by saying it, but it borders on predatory behavior. It must be preying on poor founders that don’t know any better. Come on guys, which of you founders out there is buying into this stuff? Given the price tags on these gigs, it’s really easy to see how so many companies burn through capital so dang quickly, even if they aren’t hiring.
Look, I get it, I can respect the hustle. People are trying to close. That’s great. But do you really think that if I’m looking to outsource the development of my product that I’m going to make that decision based on a cold-outreach email? Your time is probably better spent building your brand, and making your services better.
I’m not a startup expert; this is my first time through this rodeo as a founder. But I’ve built a lot of products in my years at other jobs. I’ve worked with a lot of outsourced dev, design, security, consulting, and AI shops. If you’re wondering if any of these things are as good as they say they are, they aren’t. IGNORE ALL OF THESE EMPTY PROMISES. None of them will deliver on the outrageous claims they write. And you’ll be out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do yourself a favor and and just do it yourself, even if it takes a bit longer. Do not outsource your early-stage innovation.
Note: I received two more of these emails in the half hour it took me to write this post. The system is broken.