We are a bootstrap startup, and recently another company has approached us to acquire a company in our space. How should we price our company?

Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Local-Advertising-Insider-Secrets-ebook/dp/B00B5KPMRA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433335127&sr=8-1&keywords=advertising+claude+whitacre (not an affiliate link) I'm a sales trainer, but Claude has put everything together in this book already so why reinvent the wheel?

Just because two people are connected to each other on LinkedIn, doesn't mean that these two people have a strong connection to one another. So first, ask your Mentor directly whether (s)he knows this person well enough to make an introduction. Also, I'd suggest that instead of asking that the introduction be made via LinkedIn, that the introduction be made directly via email. The way this best happens is to email your mentor with a two paragraph email explaining why it is that you want an introduction to this person and explaining why you think this person would want to meet with you. Then your mentor can forward this email directly to this person with a request for an introduction. If the person replies to your mentor, your mentor will then connect you two directly. If the investor is interested enough to accept an intro, then you'll likely get a 30 minute to 1 hour in-person meeting or call scheduled. In terms of what that investor will be looking for, I've written a lot of answers to questions around seed-stage financing that I encourage you to review. I'm happy to schedule a quick call to give you some specific feedback on where you're at and how investors might perceive your progress to date. Best of luck with this connection!

Back when I started LinkedIn wasn't as huge as it is now. I wish it was. I didn't have a large network and those networking sessions NEVER brought me any clients. I used to go to all sorts of them hoping to get clients. There were a couple of nibbles here and there, but never anything serious. The only thing that helped was reaching out DIRECTLY to people in my target market. That meant cold calls and cold emails. I'd sell myself while thinking about their needs. Once I got a few bites I'd build good rapport by keeping in touch, asking questions, repeating back what they were saying so that they knew I was on the same page and kept my promises. If I said I'd call them back next Tuesday at 2:15 I'd do so. Eventually I built trust with them without having a network, or an insane amount of experience. Oh and the most important thing about consulting is to LISTEN. When those first clients notice that you're truly listening and you're not selling the cookie cutter solutions everyone else is trying to sell them that's when you got them hooked. You start to understand their problems, fears, and see through their eyes and not just yours. A network will help, but in the beginning just good 'ol salesmanship will get the ball rolling.

Yo are talking apples and oranges. Capital gains are related to your basis not the form of payment. If you are a cash basis taxpayer, you pay taxes when you receive cash beyond your basis. We can help you with structure.

In my experience, every step you take to complicate your company's structure and ownership rights reduces the likelihood of investors providing your venture with seed funding. To attract seed funding, investors expect a single-minded laser focus on the entrepreneurs' assessment of his or her best path to validating their business and growing it into a very large business as quickly as possible. So the very idea that you are reliant or considering taking multiple paths to success is likely to act as a red flag for most experienced early-stage tech investors. Also, until there is significant traction achieved, an investor is expecting to own everything generated by the business. There are rare occasions where a particular asset, brand, domain or other component of the business can be spun-out (usually in the case where it's a distraction from the core business but there's inbound demand from a buyer), but when I say rare, I mean this happens so infrequently that it's not anything that should be reasonably expected in the course of planning. Speaking candidly, this entire strategy creates a perception (accurate or unfair) that you are undecided on a number of the key questions you need to be sure of before you have a good chance of raising seed funding. I'd be happy to talk to you about what you're doing and help provide some clarity based on what I hear. I encourage you to review my references as I have been helpful to many other Clarity members on these types of issues.