Deal Abstract

Invest in Homeroom: Personalized, short-form e-learning for moving up at work. | Wefunder
Personalized, short-form e-learning for moving up at work.
Homeroom on Wefunder

Two tech workers in Brooklyn are planning to build a newsletter/article based professional education service, starting with product managers.

Financials (VRB)

Question Notes
1. Fundraising Target? $250000
2. Fundraised So Far? $13150
3. Pre-Money Valuation? $2000000
4. Previous Year's Annual Revenue $0
5. Previous Year's Annual Net Income (+ Profitable, - Burning Cash) ~$-46965
Source

The 6 Calacanis Characteristics ("Sow Passion, Not easy mediocrity", or S2 P6 N18)

Criteria Yes/No
1. A startup that is based in SV? False: Brooklyn, NY
2. Has at least 2 founders? False: Two
3. Has product in the market? False: Trying to be newsletter education for professional upskilling
4. 6 months of continuous user growth or 6 months of revenue? False: Nothing in the market
5. Notable investors? False: No one I recognize
6. Post-funding, will have 18 months of runway? False: Would need half a mil

The 7 Thiel Questions (Every Time Man Profits, Don't Dismiss Serendipity)

Question Score Notes
1. Engineering? 1 Not convinced it's 10x better
2. Timing? 2 Newsletter/articles are indeed the right thing to build in this time
3. Monopoly? 1 No rev, no users, I'd probably be the target market
4. People? 2 Cool techies, but no product
5. Distribution? 2 Fine distribution through Internet and network but no overpowered advantage
6. Durability? 2 Hard to say since product isn't launched eyt
7. Secret? 1 E-learning is going to be monetized through curated articles and Homeroom will play the curriculum designer

What has to go right for the startup to return money on investment:

1. Ship a product; 2. Monetize; 3. Demonstrate stickiness and solve the curriculum problem at scale

What the Risks Are

1. Not even a million dollar startup yet; 2. Feature not a business; 3. The education space can definitely be messy, see /Viveka

Bonus Muhan's Notes

Made me wonder about how I level up in my own learning. Mostly audiobooks! Shameless plug:

How I Read & Learn in 2019
At the time of this writing, I have 15 books checked out, 24 books on hold, and am still wondering where my copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow and Infinite Jest are. Besides being a hopeless…
MediumMuhan Zhang

Updates

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