Serial Entrepreneur, Top-Rated Podcast Host @ Entrepreneur Hour, Co-Founder @ nürltec, Partner @ Opticwise, Growth Strategist Extraordinaire, Biohacking Peak Performance Enthusiast, Scaled 1st Biz While in College to $1.2m in Revenue in 36 months
As a go-to market expert, my first launch went from idea stage to 7 figures in less than 36 months. Will help you leverage current assets and relationships while exploring new avenues for growth and revenue.
Terribly sorry to hear of the division between yourself and your co-founder/partner. I've experienced an ugly split with a partner and it's not a fun time. I'm not certain if you have a corporate attorney or not but it would be wise for the both of you to have a chat with him/her. My concern for you would be the debt (specifically to the government). As 50% owner of the firm, you are "on the hook," so to speak, and with the growing dissension between yourself and your partner, I'm inclined to believe that's a sour situation that could very quickly turn sour. If you truly want out, and this is just my opinion, I would check your Buy/Sell Agreement and strongly consider selling back your shares of the firm. Please do yourself a favor and speak with your attorney before this gets ugly.
You're going to want to set up a consultation with an attorney and identify a local HR/Payroll specialist. Most of them will offer free advice and can quickly provide the information you require. Best of luck!
In my opinion, I would consider your long-term goals. If your plan is to build a brand around yourself and become established as a major influencer, it certainly makes more sense to go that route. On the flip side, your low hanging fruit is to build a brand around the concept by which you intend to cover. For example, Start With Why became a household name and Simon Sinek has built an entire company around that premise. It comes down to what aligns and resonates with you and what you intend to accomplish. Hope this is helpful, all the best!
I would recommend building a STRONG LinkedIn network, boosting up your profile, recommendations, endorsements, ask to join relevant groups, etc. In the meantime, I would also develop a simple WP site and start pushing quality content on a regular basis. Would even explore trying to hop on a few trending podcasts for credibility & re-purposing. Check out Viveka von Rosen, she's the Queen of LinkedIn for business.
Congrats on growing your following! Twitter recently changed their requirements and made it somewhat easier to get verified. However, I've seen where people have to apply as many as five times before Twitter finally approves them for verified status. Make sure you are really focused on having your profile look extremely legitimate and keep applying every 30 days!
As far as losing followers, if you're using a tool like Tweepi or ManageFlitter and unfollowing people, it's possible they are utilizing a similar tool and will pretty quickly unfollow you as well. Really can't think of any other reason for that to be happening, quite an anomaly. Keep an eye out for trends and start making notations to see if you can further decipher why you're randomly experiencing a drop off. Twitter Analytics might be worth looking into as well.
At such a low price point, you may want to consider a membership site and charge a monthly recurring fee on your site. It's a tremendous amount of work to build a membership site, I must tell you, but it provides you with MRR and the potential for continued learning. Check out Membership Site Academy, they are major disruptors in the space.
Conversely, you could also consider selling your video as a tripwire offer to upsell a larger offering and running targeted ads. You need to decide if you're a one-off sales type person or if you prefer to manage a community.
Best of luck, hope this is helpful.
I've helped several people with this type of dilemma. The first option is to agree to a contract and ask for installments for payment. Most companies understand you need capital to conduct your operation and will agree to give you a portion up front. Option 2 would be to secure an LOI and seek either a high net worth individual or someone willing to provide contract financing. Contract financing can get extremely costly and I would view it as a "last ditch" effort. My recommendation is to push for an installment. Hope this is helpful, best of luck.
From everything I've seen, 20-35% is definitely the sweet spot. It certainly depends on the price point and some people start lower but build in incentive criteria to bump the percentage up after a certain milestones have been met.
I understand the dilemma. I coached a gentleman that had a very similar situation and eventually opted to bring on a co-founder with adequate coding skills. This allowed him to focus on business strategy while his partner handled development of the site. There are several platforms that help you connect with potential co-founders, if you decide to go that route I would look into OneVest.
As far as protecting your idea, seek legal counsel and have a basic NDA on hand for your discussions. If you find a partner, you can throw in a non-compete that would protect you from him/her running off and competing with your platform. Best of luck.
Congratulations on starting your new venture. I think you have a couple of different routes and I'm a firm believer of finding a platform that "feels right" to you and focusing your efforts on it. For me, my podcast gives me direct access to my target audience of entrepreneurs and I also target followers of major podcast influencers on Twitter with ManageFlitter. This allows me to continue delivering quality content through my show and driving downloads on iTunes while also furthering my brand awareness on Twitter. I use other social platforms but have really concentrated my efforts on exploiting said channels.
Maybe you consider a YouTube Channel, blogging and/or guest blogging for relevant platforms. Facebook is pay-to-play but undoubtedly drives the best results, in my opinion.
Whatever you decide, educate, engage and build awareness. Do yourself a favor and conduct some strategy research before you just dive in. Hope this was helpful, best of luck!
*Build your email list! Can't stress that enough. Find ways to capture emails through your content in the form of quick freebies, resources, etc.
.png?1481658534)