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MenuLaunching my web app startup next week...any last minute tips?
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Regardless of the industry/website type, use a service like usertesting.com to get some qualitative feedback. It often reveals some of the technical or user experience issues that you can become blind to having worked on the site for so long.
On the day of launch, put some kind of prominent banner or note to users that highlights your technical support or customer service availability.
I assume you had a staging/test environment where you put the site up for some people to test (besides yourself and engineers)? It's important to use a variety of browsers and people to give things a good look over before going live. You have looked at it for too long so you'll gloss over it. Fresh eyes are so very important.
Did you hook up monitoring like NewRelic.com? They have a tool that will ping your site from a variety of locations. They also have insights as to where some bottlenecks might be.
Do you have backups for your database?
Do you have a crash plan? What happens if the site goes down due to load? Are you in a position where you can easily increase the size of your server or add more?
You may want to do some load testing, but it'll likely be difficult now before the launch. It takes a bit of coordination to setup for it...But it's something to think about in the future, especially for capacity planning.
Congratulations on your launch!
As a startup lawyer, I can give you some of the legal checklist items.
First, you should consider forming a corporation or LLC for the startup. If you've already done this then you're off to a good legal start. You should make sure you have a decent set of Bylaws or a good Operating Agreement so that you can document the ownership and management appropriately.
Second, you should ensure that you have a well drafted Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The Terms of Service should contain information about payment and subscription terms, content restrictions, and appropriate disclaimers. The Privacy Policy should comprehensively list every piece of personal information you may collect and should accurately describe how you'll use or disclose that information.
Finally, you may wish to trademark your app name or logo if it is unique.
Feel free to schedule a call if you have any legal related questions about your startup!
Related Questions
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What is a better title for a startup head....Founder or CEO? Are there any pros/cons to certain titles?
The previous answers given here are great, but I've copied a trick from legendary investor Monish Pabrai that I've used in previous startups that seems to work wonders -- especially if your company does direct B2B sales. Many Founders/ CEOs are hung up on having the Founder/ CEO/ President title. As others have mentioned, those titles have become somewhat devalued in today's world -- especially if you are in a sales meeting with a large organization. Many purchasing agents at large organizations are bombarded by Founders/ CEOs/ Presidents visiting them all day. This conveys the image that a) your company is relatively small (the CEO of GM never personally sells you a car) and b) you are probably the most knowledgeable person in the organization about your product, but once you land the account the client company will mostly be dealing with newly hired second level staff. Monish recommends that Founder/ CEOs hand out a business card that has the title "Head of Sales" or "VP of Sales". By working in the Head of Sales role, and by your ability to speak knowledgeably about the product, you will convey the message that a) every person in the organization is very knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the product (even the sales guys) and b) you will personally be available to answer the client's questions over the long run. I've used this effectively many times myself.Vijay Rao, CFA, FRMVR
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How can I sell my app idea, and do I need to get it patented?
This is a little hard to answer because it is so vague. It depends on the area, the market and the strength of innovation. I know that The App Guy has a terrific podcast at http://www.theappguy.co/ and is also trying to organize a community for App developers to sell their ideas. Let me know if I can be of further assistance to discuss patentability in terms of its value to getting a sale or license. What ever you do, don't spend money filing a full patent, just a provisional. Good luck.Tracy HazzardTH
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For every success story in Silicon Valley, how many are there that fail?
It all depends on what one decides to be a definition of a "success story." For some entrepreneurs, it might be getting acqui-hired, for some -- a $10M exit, for some -- a $200M exit, and for others -- an IPO. Based on the numbers I have anecdotally heard in conversations over the last decade or so, VCs fund about 1 in 350 ventures they see, and of all of these funded ventures, only about 1 in 10 become really successful (i.e. have a big exit or a successful IPO.) So you are looking at a 1 in 3500 chance of eventual venture success among all of the companies that try to get VC funding. (To put this number in perspective, US VCs invest in about 3000-3500 companies every year.) In addition, there might be a few others (say, maybe another 1-2 in every 10 companies that get VC investments) that get "decent" exits along the way, and hence could be categorized as somewhat successful depending on, again, how one chooses to define what qualifies as a "success story." Finally, there might also be companies that may never need or get around to seeking VC funding. One can, of course, find holes in the simplifying assumptions I have made here, but it doesn't really matter if that number instead is 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000. The basic point being made here is just that the odds are heavily stacked against new ventures being successful. But that's also one of the distinguishing characteristics of entrepreneurs -- to go ahead and try to bring their idea to life despite the heavy odds. Sources of some of the numbers: http://www.nvca.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ven... https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTP... http://paulgraham.com/future.html Here are others' calculations of the odds that lead to a similar conclusion: 1.Dear Entrepreneurs: Here's How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-odds-of-success-2013-5 2.Why 99.997% Of Entrepreneurs May Want To Postpone Or Avoid VC -- Even If You Can Get It http://www.forbes.com/sites/dileeprao/2013/07/29/why-99-997-of-entrepreneurs-may-want-to-postpone-or-avoid-vc-even-if-you-can-get-it/Mahesh Bhatia (Early-stage pitch decks)MB
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How much equity should I ask as a C-level executive in a new startup ?
As you may suspect, there really isn't a hard and fast answer. You can review averages to see that a CEO typically becomes a major shareholder in a startup, but your role and renumeration will be based on the perceived value you bring to the organization. You value someone's contribution through equity when you think that they will be able to add long-term benefits, you would prefer that they don't move company part way through the process, and to keep them from being enticed by a better salary (a reason for equity tied to a vesting arrangement). Another reason is when the company doesn't have salary money available but the potential is very strong. In this situation you should be especially diligent in your analysis because you will realize that even the best laid plans sometimes fall completely short. So to get the best mix, you have to be very real about the company's long-term growth potential, your role in achieving it, and the current liquidity necessary to run the operations. It should also be realized that equity needs to be distributed. You cannot distribute 110% and having your cap table recalculated such that your 5% turns into 1% in order to make room for the newly hired head of technology is rather demotivating for the team. Equity should be used to entice a valuable person to join, stay, and contribute. It should not be used in leu of salary that allows an employee to pay their bills. So, like a lot of questions, the answer is really, it depends. Analyzing the true picture of your long-term potential will allow you to more easily determine the correct mix.Darwin HansonDH
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What is a good/average conversion rate % for an e-commerce (marketplace model) for customers who add to cart through to purchase order.
There is quite a bit of information available online about eCommerce conversions rates. According to a ton of sources, average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from 1-3%. This does not mean the Furniture conversions will be the same. The bigger problem is that visitor-to-sale conversions are not a good data point to use to measure or tune your eCommerce business. All business have some unique friction factors that will affect your final conversion rate. It's very important to understand each of these factors and how to overcome them. The best way to measure and optimize is to take a conversion funnel approach. Once you have defined your funnel you can optimize each conversion rate to better the total effect. For example: Top of the funnel: - All web site visitors, 100,000 / month First conversion: View a product page, 50% of all visitors Second Conversion: Add to Cart, 10% of people who view products Final Conversion: Complete Checkout, 80% of people who put items in a cart In this example we see that only 10% of people who actually view products put them in to a cart, but 80% of those people purchase. If you can figure out why visitors are not adding items to their cart and fix the issue to increase the conversion rate, revenue should increase significantly because of the high checkout rate. You can use free tools like Google Analytics to give you a wealth of information about your site visitor and their behavior or there are some great paid tools as well.Dan MartellDM
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