Deal Abstract

Solo technical founder is building a marketplace to buy/sell digital goods. Will have to solve platform challenges of what the value add is platform-wise.

Financials (VRB)

|Question|Notes|
|---|---|---|
|1. Fundraising Target? |$1070000|
|2. Fundraised So Far?|$81769|
|3. Pre-Money Valuation?|$5000000|
|4. Previous Year's Annual Revenue |$0|
|5. Previous Year's Annual Net Income (+ Profitable, - Burning Cash) |~$-317|

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: Middletown, DE
2. Has at least 2 founders?	False: Two
3. Has product in the market?	True: 🏬 Marketplace is up and running with 3300+ users and 3650+ listings created
4. 6 months of continuous user growth or 6 months of revenue?	True: Revenue sketchy
5. Notable investors?	False: No one that I recognize
6. Post-funding, will have 18 months of runway?	True: Super early stage so no meaningful costs

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

Question	Score	Notes
1. Engineering?	2	Marginally butter than gumtree and other digital goods marketplaces?
2. Timing?	2	Not a bad time but also not a ground breaking time to start this business
3. Monopoly?	1	Very little users, not sure what the small market is
4. People?	2	Technical founder but no experience in marketplaces or monetizing this
5. Distribution?	1	Online marketplace
6. Durability?	1	Unsure how this is defensible against Amazon regifting their own cards, Gumtree reselling their own assets, etc.
7. Secret?	1	There's a massive amount of goods that aren't being served in the digital marketplace and Toffee is going to build a $1bn biz serving this market

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

1. Find a niche and go deep; 2. Build something defensible on the platform; 3. Eventually provide white label services for digital goods producers who want to incorporate second hand selling

What the Risks Are

1. Not a defensible solution; 2. Unsure who the use case is for; 3. What is the value add

Bonus Muhan's Notes

Very, very interesting business.

Updates

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