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Hello everyone:

as the title suggest i am looking to start my own company. i have always loved to make a battlefield look as real as possible and i want to make plastic tiles that fit together like the realm of battle board but more affordable to all gamers.

please see my funding link.

http://www.gofundme.com/oem8ng

any help or advice is appreciated.

from what i see i wouldnt back this projekt... what are ur plans do you have experience with CAD working?what materials you gonna use?facebook page is missing i see none of ur other projects you talk about...
just to make a page.. hey i need money im unsatisfied in my job and in my free time i created terrain so hey.. i need 20k bucks..sorry mate.. just no
show ur other pieces of work, get much more profesional... unpainted things in such a campaign.. no comment

If this is what you want to do, and you want to be taken seriously at it, consider running your text through a spell check.

I'd echo winterwind85 too - Where has the £20k figure come from? What experience do you have?

Don't be disheartened, this is a good place to come for feedback.

Good luck with it all.

Hello mate,

Congratulations on taking the steps required in moving toward having your own business. It is an excellent idea, and one that I think definitely meets a need.

I do quite a bit of work with start-ups and small businesses, and understand the challenges that are in front of you - the fact that you are actually making a go of it puts you head and shoulders above all the other dreamers that don't dare to.

There are two things you are trying to do here though, one is start a new business, the other is to raise funding. As far as starting a business is going, you are doing a great job. Unfortunately, raising funding requires a lot more work if you are going to get it from the public.

Now, so as not to overly sugar coat this and instead actually provide you with some valuable feedback, you aren't at the correct stage to seek funding, but that is OK. If you want money from anyone, you need to provide value. I don't see any value for me in giving you money, unfortunately, and given the other responses, you haven't addressed those concerns.

So, you have a few choices here. You can CAREFULLY map out exactly where every cent of that $20k will go, as well as determine how you will benefit people that put money into it - you don't need die casting machines for vacuum sealed plastic prototypes, RTV silicon molds and quality resin would likely be just as good for a start, it would actually be rather easy.

Alternatively, you can go to friends and family and ask for that money. You are then banking on your reputation, and if you aren't comfortable asking them for the money, you don't have a good plan.

Honestly, I would recommend you make some sculptures of what you want the terrain to look like - then try your silicon molds and do some casts. Fine tune it, and then sell those copies to people at your local gaming groups or whatever to recoup costs (and maybe make money, even do it as a loss, it doesn't matter at this stage). All in you could do that for less than $1k for a long time, that is an awful lot of resin and silicon. Once you have a few good casts available, and molds and something of a system, you can then come and ask for funding again, now with demonstrated knowledge and a product, or you can self-invest and either sell RTV molds or casts (or set up franchises - ie., send me a copy of the molds for whatever amount, I produce copies to sell locally, you take a cut (or overcharge me for the molds)).

The real point here is that you need to do a lot more work before you can do this. I would THOROUGHLY recommend you sign up for Udacity, and search for Steve Blank's workshop on a successful startup. You need to do a business canvas (which will answer all investor questions) and you absolutely must produce a minimum viable product.

Finally, some personal advice, don't tell people that you are despondent about working a job you hate while you are asking for money. People give money to people that don't need it - you need to be confident, enthusiastic, and driven by passion - not unhappiness.

Hopefully this has been of some value to you, I would more than happily answer any further questions you may have, and sincerely hope you succeed at this.

I wish you the best of luck in the future,

Kieran

kb_lock wrote:
Hello mate,

Congratulations on taking the steps required in moving toward having your own business. It is an excellent idea, and one that I think definitely meets a need.

I do quite a bit of work with start-ups and small businesses, and understand the challenges that are in front of you - the fact that you are actually making a go of it puts you head and shoulders above all the other dreamers that don't dare to.

There are two things you are trying to do here though, one is start a new business, the other is to raise funding. As far as starting a business is going, you are doing a great job. Unfortunately, raising funding requires a lot more work if you are going to get it from the public.

Now, so as not to overly sugar coat this and instead actually provide you with some valuable feedback, you aren't at the correct stage to seek funding, but that is OK. If you want money from anyone, you need to provide value. I don't see any value for me in giving you money, unfortunately, and given the other responses, you haven't addressed those concerns.

So, you have a few choices here. You can CAREFULLY map out exactly where every cent of that $20k will go, as well as determine how you will benefit people that put money into it - you don't need die casting machines for vacuum sealed plastic prototypes, RTV silicon molds and quality resin would likely be just as good for a start, it would actually be rather easy.

Alternatively, you can go to friends and family and ask for that money. You are then banking on your reputation, and if you aren't comfortable asking them for the money, you don't have a good plan.

Honestly, I would recommend you make some sculptures of what you want the terrain to look like - then try your silicon molds and do some casts. Fine tune it, and then sell those copies to people at your local gaming groups or whatever to recoup costs (and maybe make money, even do it as a loss, it doesn't matter at this stage). All in you could do that for less than $1k for a long time, that is an awful lot of resin and silicon. Once you have a few good casts available, and molds and something of a system, you can then come and ask for funding again, now with demonstrated knowledge and a product, or you can self-invest and either sell RTV molds or casts (or set up franchises - ie., send me a copy of the molds for whatever amount, I produce copies to sell locally, you take a cut (or overcharge me for the molds)).

The real point here is that you need to do a lot more work before you can do this. I would THOROUGHLY recommend you sign up for Udacity, and search for Steve Blank's workshop on a successful startup. You need to do a business canvas (which will answer all investor questions) and you absolutely must produce a minimum viable product.

Finally, some personal advice, don't tell people that you are despondent about working a job you hate while you are asking for money. People give money to people that don't need it - you need to be confident, enthusiastic, and driven by passion - not unhappiness.

Hopefully this has been of some value to you, I would more than happily answer any further questions you may have, and sincerely hope you succeed at this.

I wish you the best of luck in the future,

Kieran

Great advice. I absolutely second the Udacity part, I've watched those series and they are priceless to helping people with startups.

Locked at request.