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

Arik Nazaha
28 replies

Replies

Judy Mitchell
Congratulations on the funding, Arik! As a co-founder, can you share the most critical steps or actions that helped you to secure this investment and how you plan on using these funds to propel The Social Club to the next level?
Arik Nazaha
@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.
Alec Nguyen
congrats, how did you find and approach your investors?
Andrew Diete-Koki
@alec_afforai Congrats @ariknazaha Thanks for asking @alec_afforai I would also like to know @ariknazaha
Arik Nazaha
@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
well Arik, could u tell me how was the journey of building a strong team and hiring went, it is very difficult to have strong reliable members at the start of the journey what was your story in doing so?
Arik Nazaha
@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.
Ben Boul
@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.
hey, congrats) what kind of funding program you had applied?
Arik Nazaha
@serhii_uspenskyi Angel Investments, because we seek a key person that has direct access to companies
Simon Peter Damian
Congratulations on your raise. There's a big airline in Nigeria called Arik. When I saw your name, for a minute I thought you owned the company lol.
Dmitriy Pegov
Congrats on this amazing result! 🚀
Divine Rivers
Congrats on taking lessons from you and the team. Anything you would do differently if you had to raise again? Also what high-level traction benchmarks did you all have to leverage the funding?
Arik Nazaha
@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
Divine Rivers
@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
Anatolii
Congratulations, @ariknazaha! Hope to post something similar in the near future 😁
André J
Launching soon!
Nice. Congrats! on what terms?
No questions but huge congrats to you and your team.
Eunju Park
Wow, Congrats! I'm really curious about the process you went through!
sri misra
Congratulations Arik! Will follow the growth of The Social Club. For sure it will reach great heights! 🚀
Kunal Mehta
Congratulations on securing $275k in funding for The Social Club! As a cofounder, what are your plans to utilize this investment and drive growth ?