Co-founder & CTO at 3D Printing software company, AstroPrint. Software engineer & Founder Institute graduate. Mobile and SAAS platforms. Former developer evangelist at Nokia. Mobile at Chiill.com.
Over the years, I have created and participated in the creation of multiple mobile and web products. The path to distill an abstract idea into a simple, useful product is not easy but extremely rewarding.
Advice on how yo design and develop your website or web app. From choosing programming language and hosting environment to tips on ui design and SEO.
Advice on the 3D Printing ecosystem, technology and possibilities.
Advice on how to take the leap of faith to build your dream company and leave that cushy but unsatisfactory job.
Development and design of mobile applications and cloud services.
It's a bit difficult to give an estimate with the information provided.
I'm not sure if your question is related to adding privacy to an existing server code or you need the whole server side done. The later is significantly more cost and has an unknown scope based on only the info given.
You might also want to look at platforms like Parse and see if you could get all you need done there vs a custom server side system.
Happy to chat more on a call if you want to provide more info or have more detailed questions.
I wrote a couple of articles when I was going through it for the first time:
http://www.danielarroyo.net/2011/08/can-corporate-employees-become-entrepreneurs/
http://www.danielarroyo.net/2011/09/how-to-transition-from-employee-to-entrepreneur/
I hope you enjoy them. I can talk in length about this as it's still relatively fresh in my mind.
I have always used the guidance provided by the Founder Institute. They "open sourced" thier advisor agreement. Don't forget to read the addendum for explanations on % depending on involvement and company stage.
Check it out http://fi.co/contents/206
For software startups it's more common to use a Delaware corporation. It gives you more flexibility when adding cofounders or giving out stock to early employees ( something you'll have to do to attract the best ).
If you are seeking outside investment, you'll end up doing a DE C-corp prior to getting any money, so why not just do it from the get go?
You'll need a foreign corporation in the state you're located and possibly pay franchise tax to both DE ( $450 / year ) and your state ( CA is $800 / year ). Then maintain a register agent in DE ( $100 / year ).
So you save some money with an LLC but I think that structure is not suited for a modern software company.
I would do 301 redirects for the unwanted urls for a couple of months and then 404 then. This would require more work but it'll give you less impact in search ranking and traffic.
404 is too bad for SEO but it might impact your traffic.
I'm going to talk from the perspective of a founder, not a lawyer. I also live in California and your state laws might defer.
I think if you are putting hours into your startup, you are also an 'employee' in addition to a founder.
Your board (ie. your cofounders) can decide at any time that you are not pulling your weight in the project and don't want you involved. Thus you can also be 'fired'.
In most vesting agreements there's a right to repurchase unvested shares that the company has. This is essentially how vesting works. The company decides that they don't want you anymore and they have the right to repurchase from you all the unvested shares at the price they were given to you initially ( not current market price ). You can only keep the vested portion.
I hope this helps
I recently shared this link in another related answer. I think it's relevant for your question too. Here it goes:
http://fi.co/contents/206#
Create a profile at http://dribbble.com and showcase your best work. That's the first place we go to to get inspired and find great designers.
We use github for code hosting, issue tracking system and specs ( the wiki portion ). Dropbox for large files like designs, videos. Basecamp for collaboration and discussion coupled with real time chats over hipchat.
I bought into the appcelerator promise a while back but had since abandoned it for native development. It depends on your app but our app would look and behave significantly worse had we not gone native.
Hope this helps, call me If you need more info.
As soon as you can reasonably afford it ( if you can't pay, go get another cofounder ). The web has evolved from simply working to working seamlessly. Consumers expect a certain level of aesthetic and usability.
Design is one more element of your product, just like solving a real problem and doing what it's supposed to do.
I would prioritize a designer as much as an engineer. I have seen a huge difference I product adoption when the product is complemented with visually pleasing aesthetic and good usability principles.
We use sprout social. They have a free tier and pretty complete.
http://sproutsocial.com
Daniel was to the point, and provided exactly the information I needed. Highly recommended.
Daniel has a great technical expertise as well as a trained sense of project management. He can grasp the context, see the big picture as well as pinpoint the detail. It has been a great experience working together with him and looking forward for more cooperation.
Daniel was managing the technical and project relationship from Nokia and I was managing the technical and project relationship from Panasonic. There were many instances where we had to work together closely to resolve critical issues. I found Daniel to be very professional, knowledable and dedicated to resolving issues regardless of difficulty.
Daniel is a very sharp individual who has been instrumental to the success of a large number of projects involving a complex mix of hardware and software architecture, systems integration and technical management. Furthermore Daniel is a great communicator who can transfer his knowledge very clearly. I highly recommend him.
Daniel is in the top echelon of his field. He is widely recognized for his deep architectural knowledge of Symbian and S60, and is a hot programmer as well. However, he also has a deep interest in, and good intuition for, the business side. Daniel communicates effectively with people ranging from the deepest technical experts to marketing managers. He is an invaluable partner for a product manager/business developer like myself.
Daniel has many excellent qualities to be a leader in his field: knowledge, confidence in his abilities, patience and good humour. He is an excellent resource to be able to draw upon for our project and a top guy to know. He has a full understanding of the technical details which may or may not have a direct effect on a project and is very well hooked in to the many R&D parts of the Nokia business.
