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I'm the tech guy and doing a lot of technical development for the startup.

How long does one wait around for the business people to get funding from VC's and Angels? is there a ballpark of how long a developer should wait to get inital funding before backing out of the startup all together?

How long does it take to typically get SOME funding... even if its say 30k and say you need upwards of 300k? Is 6 months too short? Is 2 years too long?

Its safe to assume in this instance that the founder (part of business end) is working f/t on it.

For the record: I don't doubt my current startup, but I'm absolutely clueless about how long to wait since this is my first real startup with a team. Its been about +- 3 months now and we just got a corporate site almost up, but no product development yet. On the business end: there's talks with investors/vc's/angels, but no bites yet... that's been in the works for about 2 months.

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Might be worth seeing this question: answers.onstartups.com/q/27821/8791 – Joseph Barisonzi Jul 21 '11 at 21:48

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First off, welcome to the risky world of startups. Risks are part of the game. Learn to accept it.

How long to wait is a tough question to answer without knowing more about what the startup does and how many key roles it has filled, what it has accomplished so far etc.

These days unless the plan is super-duper-hot (very few are) with a super-duper team (i.e. been there done that) investors expect a working proto/beta with significant customer traction. This in and of itself can take 6 months to 1.5 years

As a rule of thumb - you can expect that ONCE an investor has shown interest it can take 3-6 months to close the deal and get funding. (more closer to the 6 than the 3). But this is only AFTER they have shown some interest. Getting in front of the investor one or more times to pitch the story itself requires time.

Even assuming that the team is raising money in parallel with the beta/traction effort, this will put you at more than 1 year.

This is about as specific I can get without more details.. but hope it gives you a rough idea.

-Siva

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How long does one wait around for the business people to get funding from VC's and Angels? is there a ballpark of how long a developer should wait to get inital funding before backing out of the startup all together?

It really depends on your life circumstances. Do you have obligations and a high monthly burn because of children to feed and a mortgage? Or are you a recent college grad and can stand to live with your parents for a year? It all depends on your situation.

How long does it take to typically get SOME funding... even if its say 30k and say you need upwards of 300k? Is 6 months too short? Is 2 years too long?

If you have a decent idea, and can get some traction (paying users are the best kind of traction) then you shouldn't find it too hard to get some funding. It also depends on what your status is in the startup community. I know it sucks, but there are a lot of politics involved and seed investing usually comes down to whether the investor likes you are not. I would argue that if someone wants to fund you, and you have a reason to take the money and the terms are decent, then take the money. Too long would mean that you ran out of money, and didn't get enough traction to raise more money (you go bankrupt).

In my experience, it's hard to get any sort of funding as a first time entrepreneur if you don't have a product yet with users. You hear about these ideas getting funding on TechCrunch without a product because those founders have done it before or are well connected. It sounds like you're not in that boat (and neither am I!)

Try to build a product and get some users and raising money will be infinitely easier.

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As far as my situation: actually senior in college right now. I dont have a lot from a material-standpoint, but I see MY TIME worth more than any of that could ever give, you know? I could be working with another startup... – user9968 Jul 21 '11 at 19:38
Well, that TOO LONG principle could work here... we haven't gotten ANY investing at all and its been two months for the business end to try to drum up some. – user9968 Jul 21 '11 at 19:42
two months is nothing. – TimJ♦ Jul 21 '11 at 20:08

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