I’m Arik, Co-Founder of The Social Club, and we just received $275k in funding - AMA ✨

@ju_mitchell88 Hello Judy, thanks for asking, in our case it involved 5 critical steps. 1. Vision and value alignment for internal founder foundation 2. Comprehensive research to have several output: Business Model Canvas, MVP, and Pitch Deck 3. Networking (at first before going to straight to potential investors) for finding mentors, partners, and insights 4. Invest time on discussing core feature with the right “Product Team”, it’s crucial in our case 5. Sanity check (Always question your belief, this affect the confidence) For the funds, we are currently using for 2 main things; hiring several key positions in the product team and launching campaign for 2-3 quarters.

@serhii_uspenskyi Angel Investments, because we seek a key person that has direct access to companies

@divine_rivers1 Our main traction benchmarks in impact order is, influencer marketing expenditure growth rate, social media user growth rate, and micro influencer traction growth and trend statistics

@ariknazaha We have very similar benchmarks now that we just launched The Marketplace for Everyday Professionals to supplement their Salary today for sign-ups. Check it out at TheCareering.com My Co-Founder and I are looking for candid feedback from other Founders and builders as we are first-time Founders. Would love to hear your thoughts on everything from design, flow, idea, our solution, problem, and Marketing. Learn More Info at producthunt.com/discussions/we-just-launched-and-careering-is-now-live-looking-for-all-the-feedback-we-can-get-thanks

@alec_afforai Congrats @ariknazaha Thanks for asking @alec_afforai I would also like to know @ariknazaha

@andrewdietekoki Hello Alec & Nguyen, thank you for the question. Really pleased to share this. Firstly - Foundation, me and my partners is really focusing on the right value that we can promise and make ‘investor’ believe on us. Our simple method is just brainstorming using Business Model Canvas, Competitor Research Metrics, and Develop a Lean and Clean MVP Second - Curate The Network, based on our company values that we has agree on, we pick several big names or expert in the industry and companies that we think will help us on a bigger scale. Our method is simply as networking, we seek for a very proper meeting so we can do a 5-7 minutes idea pitch. Lastly - Scale The Network, we scale our network starting from our friends that work at big companies, our friends bosses, our parents network, and so on. It took us 8 months to get our first Angel Investor. Luckily, the reason for the investment is because of the vision alignment, so we got the deal. Also, our investor have channels to the big players and company in our industry. I’m going to say that, is easier when you are noticed by a small group of big players at first. Their network is your network too 😅 I thing that’s what can I share, thank you

@ben_boul Hello Ben, personally I don’t really like things that involved social emotion, like dealing with an unreliable or toxic partner or employee is an energy drained. In The Social Club, we are relying on referalls and informal interviews 😅 It’s crucial for a small team like us to be a high performing team first rather than a family, it worked like that for us. But, it really depends on your personality too as the founders. Be patient on finding the compatible ones, it’s really worth the wait.

@ariknazaha really great advice , once we got the team right, it was actually a bit easy to tackle the situations and every founder whether they like it or not they have to deal with this hiring process and how we make the best to stay with us.