For a new startup, should we custom build enterprise integrations or use a middle-man like MuleSoft, Informatica or SnapLogic?

The idea of an MVP is 'minimum, viable' ... If you feel you need a "good amount" of funding, I would challenge if you are minimum enough. Obviously, without knowing the details of your product, your ideal customer, or what need you will solve, it is hard to help expose what is necessary in an MVP and what is a Phase II or Phase III feature. I am happy to help you work through this, or answer specific questions, to get you rolling. Just book a call with some times that will work for you. Regardless, I would love to know more about it and how it goes after launch. To your success, -Shaun

Use Mattermark.com to find them. They have a 14 days free trial. The tool will let you filter by founding and type of company, so it will probably give you what you need.

Hi. I'm a Business Intelligence consultant with most of my customers being call centers. There are definitely guidelines you can apply but it will be based on several factors. Your question references ratios, which I assume means you would like to know how many agents per customer. That number will vary greatly depending on a number of other factors including: -what is your ASA target (Average speed of answer)? -what percentage of calls should meet the ASA? -are their penalties below a certain threshold (if less than 80% of calls meet ASA in 24 hours, for example) -how long are calls waiting when they don't meet ASA? -what is the call distribution by day of week, time of day and holiday v. non-holiday. -what is the average call duration? -what is the % of calls requiring escalation or call back versus calls resolved on first contact? To simplify it though, the two most important (IMO) will be call volume and your target for ASA (assuming you aren't answering then putting them back on hold, etc). To simplify though, the top 3 are: ASA, Call length and call volume. Regardless of the size of customer base. A good reporting system that combines live metrics and daily/weekly/monthly analysis will help a great deal. Feel free to set up a call if you'd like to talk about this in more detail.

Yes, I did exactly that a few years back. A friend of mien and I launched a site with minimal functionality that was really just a landing page. We offered the opportunity to pre-buy a year's subscription to the service by allowing users to set their own pricing. Within the first 24 hours of the site going live, we had enough paying customers to validate the business and inform our iterative development cycle. Ultimately, we decided it wasn't a big enough business for either of us to get really excited about but it proves that it can be done. I also did that in my current business with a landing page that generated literally thousands of leads and hundreds of very qualified customers, which resulted in paid pilot contracts before the software was fully built. Build something that people actually *need* and you'd be surprised at what they're willing to do to get early access to it. Happy to talk about it in a call in more detail

There is no valuation until you sell something. An idea or a company is only worth what its sales are. Once you have your initials sales, sales strategy and forecasting length (ie 9 months from first customer lead to close) then you have a formula for valuation. Valuation for start-ups is generally 3.5 x last years sales model should be the growth factor. When you are looking for investors, you will want to have atleast 9-18 months of SALES, not just pipeline and they will be looking at 5x revenue for a 3-5 year payback.