Your Questions Answered by Industry Experts

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Answers from Industry Experts

Marketing Strategy Early-stage Startups Digital Strategy

You're about to release a web/iphone app. Include key features on landing page to entice more beta users? Or worry about competitors who may copy?

Marco De Veglia answered: In your landing you tell the problem(s) your app solves. Make them feel the pain and tell them that signing up will heal it. So don't talk about "our app does this and that", but "do you have this problem? We have the solution"

5 answers • over 10 years

Business Strategy Start-ups

How do I approach a company without divulging my idea?

Kathryn Maclean answered: When you do the interview you can show a mind map to show what you can do for them, printed out step by step, laminated. Just how you can achieve their business goals. If they ask to keep this print out, you tell them no this is "propriety" to my business. (PROPRIETARY 1: one that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something; specifically) Or they will have someone else implement your plan.

3 answers • over 10 years

Writing Resume Writing

I am writing a blind cover letter to the Cincinnati Reds for a social media/ event promotion position. I need help in organization of content.

Jason Kanigan answered: Wish I'd seen this and been able to help you when you posted this 8 days ago. Guess we don't have many executive jobhunting experts available...but anyhow this will help going forward: This is your chance to stand out. Be memorable. Make them say, "We have to talk to this person!" Don't be bland. Don't write what "everyone else" would. Hit the highlights and hit them early. What makes you different? What makes you special? Tie this back to the role. Most cover letters aren't read...but when they are, the opportunity to become differentiated in the employer's eyes is open. All they need is ONE key reason to call you--remember that. And the cover letter can encourage them to read your resume in more detail. If your resume isn't being scanned by an optical reader for keywords, then the employer will be scanning it. This is just as important to know. They won't be READING it. Understand this. They will scan through the top third of Page One of your resume...and if you don't give them a reason to keep scanning, your resume will be thrown in the trash. So use your real estate wisely. People try to pack everything into a resume. This is a mistake. The purpose of your cover letter & resume is to Get You The Interview. That's it. Not to be a full backup of your life. So hit 'em hard up front. "Wait...what? I need to read that *again*" is the reaction we want. Not a nodding of the head...because all that will lead to is you in a pile with a million other candidates. We're not after "reasonable" here...we want "outstanding". I have several times had employers create jobs for me that did not exist before I showed up. http://www.modbee.com/2014/01/30/3162000/workwise-maverick-moves-for-job.html This is not my opinion, or unproven ideas. If I was in your shoes, I would make a small website. A few pages of video and written content demonstrating how I awesomely do what I do. And my cover letter would hit them early with What Makes Me Different...and then link to the multimedia for more. Think about it...if they go to that link, and invest the time to watch what you've put up--and it should take you a day to create--are they going to call you? Of course they are. Who else will have done something like this? Who else are they going to feel they know (at least a little)? People are in "I'll take anything" mode when it comes to employment. This is wrong. Focus, choose what you want and go for it with the killer instinct. Do what nobody else would do. What I suggested here isn't wild or crazy or even difficult...but hardly anyone Means It enough to put in the effort. And that's why someone like me will get the interview even if I don't have all the qualifications...and get the job. Because once I get into the interview, it's a whole new ballgame and anything can happen. So: > Big benefit and differentiator up front > Some "feel safe" content -- bullet points on your skills/experience matching their qualification requirements, for instance > Link to external content that further differentiates you and develops the "relationship" > Closing on why this is your dream opportunity and how you want to meet to discuss it in more detail. NO DESPERATION, though! Add phone # to arrange interview. Keep it brief and punchy, like a good marketing email. If you sound like everyone else, you'll get treated like everyone else.

3 answers • over 10 years

Scalability Growth Strategies

Who are the top 5 thought leaders on scaling companies?

Tom Williams answered: Nichole's list is comprised of people who talk about growth marketing. Although growth marketing is a component of scaling-up, scaling a company is much more about operational issues. Everything from tech stack to culture to legal and compliance and almost always sales. On growth, there are a lot of people who talk about the principles of growth from a marketing perspective and a couple of people on Nichole's list are known for *talking* about growth but I'm generally wary of people who are more known for *talking* than actual notable accomplishments in growing products. Ivan Kirigin (formerly on Dropbox's growth team, now running a company I invested in called YesGraph), Gustaf Alstromer (AirBnb growth team), Elliot Shmukler (helped LinkedIn grow from 20m to 200m members, now in-charge of growth at Wealthfront who has been absolutely killing it), Drew Dillon (an early PM at Yammer, now Head of Product at AnyPerks), are all active on Twitter. Actually Elliot isn't but you can still search quotes he's made about growth via Twitter using his name. If you have more specific questions, am happy to try and point you to the right resources.

4 answers • over 10 years

Apple iOS Mobile applications iPhone Application Development

Can you offer 1-month or 1-week trials on in-app purchases?

Tom Williams answered: You can't offer trials or even easily make refunds accessible via in-app purchases. What you can do is actually make manual deposits or write checks back to the users who ask for it. But the purchase behavior associated with in-app purchases really shouldn't require any promise of a refund. In fact, doing so might make people *less* likely to purchase being that you're telegraphing a weak offering. Happy to talk through alternate ways of testing pricing and willingness to pay in a call.

5 answers • over 10 years

Legal Advice

As a minority shareholder in a closely held prvt co, how can I push for greater transparency and accountability from the controlling shareholder?

Tom Williams answered: Unfortunately, the best answer you can get here is "it depends." On your country and state or province and primarily on the terms of the shareholder agreement / charter and also any documents pertaining to you leaving the company. Your best option is to consult a law firm in your jurisdiction to first review the core documents and then evaluate what your potential avenues are for addressing this. Best of luck. Best of luck.

3 answers • over 10 years

SaaS - Enterprise & SMB B2B Legal SaaS

What's the best resource for drafting a contract between a SaaS company and its clients?

Dan Dobos answered: Start by reviewing everything your competitors do.

3 answers • over 10 years

angel investing Venture Capital Seed Capital

Is a 23,5% share for an early angel-investor, who is not contributing in the future, too much "dead equity" for raising a VC-backed seed round?

Tom Williams answered: Mark is wrong. I personally know of a handful of companies in that exact same situation and most importantly that have good traction and the cap table NEVER came up once, and each of these companies have raised in excess of $1m in seed funding from great investors this year. Especially if your shares are common shares and/or have no particular unique traits about a share class, and especially if you can document the time and resources your firm expended to build and maintain the service that now has traction, this will not be a problem. Investors give many excuses when they don't want to do a deal but those excuses are rarely the reason for not pulling the trigger. The issue is more likely to be that there are two business folks running a company without a technical founder, which is almost always a deal-killer but that has nothing to do with your equity share. Happy to talk to you in a call if you'd like.

5 answers • over 10 years

Banking Management

How can I open a US bank account for an LLC without traveling to the USA?

Arfan Chaudhry answered: I am based in Canada and ended up opening a US bank account with Harris Bank in Chicago without physically visiting their office. This was about 4 years ago. So maybe contact them and see if they could help you.

4 answers • over 10 years

Product Development Gaming Gamification

Trying to decide gamification architecture for our mhealth prediabetes reversal product?

Dan Martell answered: I've never built an mhealth startup, but I have spent a lot of time researching and implementing gamified product experiences. I would suggest the following resources: 1) Anything Gabe writes + videos online http://www.gamification.co/gabe-zichermann/ 2) Anything Nir writes + watch his videos online http://www.nirandfar.com/ On Clarity: https://clarity.fm/nireyal 3) Anything Amy Jo Kim writes + talks http://amyjokim.com/ On Clarity: https://clarity.fm/amyjokim These are the 3 people I turn to .. they're brilliant

3 answers • over 10 years

Social Media Marketing Online Marketing Public relations

For my first job I'll be in charge of Marketing & PR for a 2 year old startup. How do I proceed?

Maddie Grant, CAE answered: What? You are obviously unqualified for this position. You need to quit and let someone else do it.

13 answers • over 10 years

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO Audits

Why we no longer appear in Google natural search results?

Matt Sells answered: This is a very open ended question. I would need to be able to see the website in question and gain access to google webmaster tools and analytics. I can say, if you fell entirely out of Google's results, it is a major error or you were caught doing some aggressive spamming. If it was a minor drop, it may be normal fluctuations.

4 answers • over 10 years

Social Media Market Research Job search

How much is LinkedIn really useful in terms of job search? some information related to success rate or similar quantification will be appreciated!

Pete Moss answered: I am not sure of the specifics you're asking, it seems like a lot of technical data. This might help in your search for these statistics though: http://jobsearch.about.com/od/networking/a/linkedin.htm http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2014/01/21/how-linkedin-is-thwarting-your-job-search/ http://mashable.com/2014/06/19/linkedin-job-search-app/ http://www.cio.com/article/2403150/linkedin/10-linkedin-tips-to-boost-your-job-search.html

8 answers • over 10 years

Growth Hacking Growth Strategies Growth

How can I track the success of posters that I will be creating and hanging to promote my business?

Jordan Skole answered: Tracking offline events is difficult. Be prepared that it will be impossible to track 100% of your offline branding efforts. For example imagine somebody sees your poster, remembers the name, googles your org and lands on your site. They will be considered organic traffic. The old way was to use different phone numbers for each poster, and measure the number of calls that each poster generated using call tracking. This is the same way that infomercials test markets/times/channels/etc... Nowadays we use websites but the process is still the same. You can use bitly codes, or multiple domain names to measure which poster drove which traffic, just keep in mind that rarely does a poster convert right away. People riding the subway or driving etc are in a completely different state of mind. You could try and attach a unique incentive to manipulate that (free t-shirt!). Alternatively you can _infer_ the success of your posters based on what neighborhoods traffic is coming from, how much on mobile, and other analytical cross sections, but you should remain skeptical of the accuracy of this process. Personally I wouldn't worry about which poster, I would just worry about posters total. If you see traffic increase and keep all other things equal then yay! Good luck!

3 answers • over 10 years

Business Strategy Business Development Management Consulting

As an accounting graduate with no money and no connections, how do I start my own consulting firm? And how do I get clIents?

Dan Waldschmidt answered: STOP. DO NOT DO THIS.... I would never want help from someone like you. Don't get me wrong -- you aren't evil (that I know about) but you don't seem have any value that I could pay for. What would you be "consulting" a CEO like me about? How do you expect to make my business better when you don't have a clue about your own business? THAT'S THE TRUTH... Fuck the truth. If you want to get clients then you hustle -- every waking moment. You try an angle and fail and then try a different angle. You can't outsmart your way to bigger results. 2 plus 2 does not equal 4 -- it equals you going bankrupt. If you want to be successful then you need to exert massive amounts of effort to get off the ground. So get your ass out there and start asking everyone you meet: "What is that one big accounting question that's been bothering you for some time now? If I can't help you i'll buy you a cup of coffee" Then just go be a badass...

22 answers • over 10 years

Software Development Acquisitions

I wrote some software. How do I valuate its worth and find a suitable company to acquire the product and continue supporting it?

Tom Williams answered: If it's generating USD $10,000 or more in MRR, then you can try listing if on ExitRound but based on your description, I think a sale at this moment is unlikely. Acquisitions like the one you're dreaming are either motivated by the book of business or an engineering team. Code is thrown away and product discontinued. So the idea that a business is going to buy you to fix the problems of the product is unrealistic. Happy to talk to you to help you determine if the business is potentially salvageable.

4 answers • over 10 years

Growth Strategies Growth Business Growth

What is the best way to attract new customers to a new product or service past social media, email marketing and other forms of inbound marketing?

Monica Coney answered: If you haven't already have a co-host organization or have sponsor that adds to the guest list to grow both networks. Engage a charity to co-host that would benefit in some way plus you reach their audience. Put referral program in place - bring a friend get something in exchange.

5 answers • over 10 years

Marketing Strategy Fundraising Funding

I have a game for iOS named "The Robbery". What can I do find investment to improve the game, and to have a good marketing campaign?

Dan Martell answered: Raising capital for a game in todays world is no different then raising money for a movie as it's a "hits business". Find other people who have raised money and ask them who they got money from, then try and convince them that you'll be able to make them money with your game. It's really that simple. 1) Create a list of all games you know that have raised money 2) Cold email the CEO/Founder (tip: firstname@company.com) 3) Get them on a call for advice 4) If they like you, ask them who invested and if they'd make an intro 5) Persuade the investors you're a good investment. Outside of that, get a bunch of credit cards, ask your friends and family or max out your available credit. If you think $1 invested can generate $1.50 - then invest yourself on credit. That's how many people have done it, including myself.

4 answers • over 10 years

Pitching Ideas Hardware Travel Planning

Would you buy a smart luggage scale that saves you money, by keeping track of your luggage's weight and location?

Tom Williams answered: No. My $0.02 is that you're over-engineering a solution to a problem that just isn't that painful to most people. And besides which, you kind of snooker yourself from a customer perspective. As a frequent flier, I always travel light. So you're not targeting the frequent flier. You're targeting the very occasional traveler who isn't aware of these weight restrictions. The idea that they are going to discover your app prior to traveling and then remember to use it every time they travel feels like a really big stretch to me. Happy to talk to you more about how to do effective customer development and validate/ideate your ideas.

3 answers • over 10 years

Pricing Strategy Pricing Web development

How can I find clients that pay $50-100/h for web/mobile development, while even with huge experience I always get $10-15/h?

Dan Martell answered: The first thing you need to do is believe you can get those kinds of rates. You question is littered with reasons why you can't - but the first question you need to ask is "Is there anyone doing development living in Brazil getting paid $100+/hour for their work" - the answer is YES. So, the better question to ask is "What are they doing different then me to get those rates?" I know I've paid for remote developers + designers at the $100/hour range, and the thing that justified it was. 1) I had a budget and have paid that kind of rate in the past 2) They're past work, portfolio, online profile, and all interactions with them world spectacular 3) They had passion for their work, almost like craftman. 4) I felt I could trust that they could over deliver on my expectations 5) They were focused on doing one thing great (ex: Mobile Design, iOS Dev, Ruby Dev) - they didn't do it all. 6) Someone I trusted vouched for them. You don't need all of them, maybe 2-3, but those are some of the things that come to mind.

7 answers • over 10 years

Venture Capital Venture Funding Stock Market

I've purchased vested options from 2 past employers. What do I need to know & do in the first few weeks if an acquisition & an IPO happen? Specifics.

Todd Tzeng answered: I've been through several acquisitions and a few IPOs. If the company is acquired, you should contact the CEO and the CFO to ask the price per share at which the company was acquired. If you have vested options, they should send you a letter letting you know whether your options are "in the money" should you choose to exercise them (your exercise price is lower than the acquisition price per share). If the company has an IPO, then look up the price of the shares and figure out if your shares are "in the money" (your exercise price is lower than the IPO price) and read through your options agreement and the company's S-1 filing to find out if there is a mandatory holding period before you can sell any shares you may purchase through your options. In an acquisition scenario, you are either exercising or not. In an IPO situation, depending upon your exercise price and the number of options you intend to exercise, there may be tax consequences you'll want to take into account and timing of exercise. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me.

2 answers • over 10 years

Sales Process Lead Generation Sales Funnel Optimization

What is the best way to cultivate intros and leads into Fortune 500 companies?

Richard Lockyer answered: I would look at a startup call Introhive. They have a unique approach to this issue based on personal connections. *Disclosure - I do not work for them but I have friends who do.

5 answers • over 10 years

Start-ups Business Development Team Building

What should be a non-technical founders first steps be?

Tom Williams answered: No one is going to get motivated by a business plan or for that matter, a landing page. Your first step as a first-time, non-technical founder must always be to prove that your idea is not crazy. This means that you must do extensive customer development as comprehensively as possible. This could be that you build a landing page that converts into hundreds of qualified leads, it could be that you have a customer that has provided at least a verbal that if you build it, they'll pay for it or better yet, is willing to prepay. At the very least, it should be 100+ recorded or verifiable customer interviews all indicating that they want the vision you're outlining. From there and only after that has been achieved, would I begin by recruiting a technical cofounder. Search through my past answers on my profile to find how to recruit a technical cofounder. You want only a commitment that if you can raise money within the next 120 days on this idea of yours, a commitment that they will join. Anything more than that, and it's likely too big of an ask. Then, you need to raise money. Enough money to fund at least the cost of your technical founder to live while focusing 100% on this for 9 months. Being a non technical co-founder is REALLY hard. It can be done but I really don't suggest most people try it as their first foray into startups. It's better to join an existing team and learn so much from being with a great entrepreneur that you admire and respect. But if you really want to jump into this, happy to do a call with you.

5 answers • over 10 years

Mobile applications Social Media Marketing Mobile Health

What have you found works/doesn't work when promoting mobile app via twitter? What problems should I avoid?

Abinav Thakuri answered: I have some experience in the past promoting my own services, apps,etc on Twitter. I've been able to build up a pretty good following of around 84.8K followers at the moment. I'm not bragging though because I know a lot of those followers are not targeted because of some mistakes I've done before. But I have been able to correct those mistakes and have very targeted followers now. I used to have 100K+ untargeted followers but I have been able to bring it down to 84.8K followers whose majority is targeted. It took a lot of work and I've been able to learn a lot of things on the way. You will need to have a structured plan on how you will promote your mobile app to your followers. You can't just promote it right out of nowhere just when you're going to launch. Instead give them some kind of value. Understand your potential users and what is of value to them. I can't stress enough how you need to be getting targeted followers who really care. I know it's not possible to have 100% targeted followers. But you need to try your best to have the followers who actually care and understand your niche. There a really simple way to do that and that's to only( or at least 80% of the time) tweet about things that are related and of value to your niche market. You could write a few very valuable blog posts and post that on your Twitter. I found that just promoting your product on Twitter is not enough and you could be turned off when you finally announce your launch to your followers and it just doesn't get the results you were hoping for. So don't rely on it too much. What worked for me is turning those Twitter followers to email subscribers. So what you do is give free high quality value to your followers through excellent valuable blog posts, valuable free short ebooks, etc. Your offering could be anything but just make sure that it's really valuable to your niche market. Now you need to collect their email in exchange of the value you're giving them for free(you can do this using services like Mailchimp,etc). So through this you will have built up an email list of people who are really interested in what you are offering. This is of lot more value than just having the Twitter followers. You can still tweet your launch to them but now you also have a highly valuable email list of people who are more likely to purchase. This way you've filtered your Twitter followers and captured emails from the cream of the crop! There are a lot more detailed and highly valuable lessons I've learned and I'd be happy to go in detail and answer any question you have through a call.

6 answers • over 10 years

Entrepreneurship Start-ups Leadership

What are three of your top favorite entrepreneur posts of all time?

Stephen G. Barr answered: This one by Jason Daley on whether entrepreneurs are born or made is a great one: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228273 Steve Blank is always an enjoyable read: http://steveblank.com/2012/06/04/entrepreneurship-for-the-99/ You gotta love this one by Richard Branson http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/09/screw-it-just-do-it-advice-from-sir-richard-branson-for-entrepreneurs/

4 answers • over 10 years

Mobile applications Start-ups Business Development

19 year old with a start up idea that doesn't really know where to start.

Dan Martell answered: Try and find someone your age that can code and persuade them to join you on your journey. It's either that, or learn to code. I've done both. Learning to Code www.udemy.com www.treehousapp.com + many other. Finding a Co-Founder - Go to meetups - Find a school that teaches computer science - Find someone on GitHub.com The truth is there's 100 ways to solve your problem, but it will take risk and based on your question it doesn't seem like you're willing to take any. If you believe in your idea, it may mean sacrificing school? If you're not willing to risk that, then why should an investor risk his capital on you? It just shows your conviction. Not everyone is suppose to be an entrepreneur. If you are, you'll need to step up and take action. P.S. I started when I was 17. Failed. Tried again at 19. Failed. Kept at it till I was 24. Won. Again at 29. Won. Again at 31. Still going (= Clarity). Just start.

16 answers • over 10 years

Patents Patent Strategy Business Ideas

I have an idea of a hardware product, that has received good feedback until now.Should I fill for a provisional patent or start an indiegogo campaign?

Jonathan Pasky answered: The answer: do both. The first thing you need to know about patents is that the U.S. now has a first-inventor-to-file system after the American Invents Act (AIA) went into effect in 2013. I have to disagree with Dan above: for hardware inventions especially, a patent is an important part of the business plan. The first inventor who "races to the patent office" now is typically the winner. This means if you do not file for a patent on your invention, you can lose the rights to your invention much easier than before the AIA. The next step is to think about how a patent fits into your business plan. A patent application is but a tool in your bag when starting up. A crowdsourcing campaign on a site like Indiegogo can validate the idea. But it also puts the idea out to the public and starts the 1-year clock ticking on when you can get a patent. For hardware startups, however, if you're not thinking about a patent upfront -- you're likely leaving a massive amount of your product's value on the table.

6 answers • over 10 years

WordPress Web development CMS

How much should I charge to develop a WordPress site?

Dan Martell answered: Take the # of hours it takes you to do it and charge $50/hour. That's the price. Eventually you can charge $100/hour but that will require a bigger customer. If the customer is small < $1M in gross sales per year - charge $50/hour If the customer id medium < $1-5M / sales - charge $75 Over $5M - charge $100 The challenge you'll face is clearly defining the expectations and handoff so that you're not stuck doing stuff that you can charge for and always getting interrupted from past customers.

9 answers • over 10 years

SaaS Web Hosting Hosted Solutions

For Initial Users: Sell User License or make it into SaaS?

Richard Lockyer answered: SaaS. Always. I am a founder of a Startup about to launch our first product (mobile app). We looked at this very question. In the end we looked at the impact the decision would have on our company's valuation. Based on my initial, informal discussions with funders in my area (Canadian Atlantic Region) with single point of sale revenue a healthy technical start up is worth approximately 4-6X annual revenue whereas the same company with a subscription or SAAS model is worth 10x and up.

3 answers • over 10 years

Startups Entrepreneurship

Could a PPT deck and interest-based signups be enough for 20k pre-seed fuding?

Tom Williams answered: Probably not but not because it's impossible to raise on a deck. Raising based purely on a deck almost only happens by seed funds backing an established team. In this case, the raise is much larger (usually between 1 to 2 million). Without a technical founder, and without you both having a track-record that inspires a lot of confidence, seed funds are unlikely to invest and they're certainly not likely to write such a small check. That leaves your options as accelerators, friends and family or angels. Most good accelerators (those writing 20k and greater checks) need product in the market to accept so id say that accelerators are likely not an option but you could try. Angels almost always want live product, at least a somewhat functional prototype, so unless you have a close relationship with someone who is also an angel investor, this is unlikely to be attractive at this stage to angels. So your best option for outside money is friends and family at this stage. Happy to talk through this in a call with you.

3 answers • over 10 years

Ghostwriting Copywriting Editing

What are some of the best tools of the trade for managing a writing team?

Rebecca Caroe answered: Focus on having one place for your editorial schedule. We use teamwork.com for our project planning - but other solutions include Trello and Basecamp. Set in place working processes that force users back to the project management app for all their work. E.G. we use Teamwork as the agenda for our update meetings - it is immediately obvious if someone isn't using it or it isn't up to date with their status. Name and Shame works as a motivator. Secondly, the editorial calendar (which can be a spreadsheet of monthly activities) sets out what needs to be done in advance so you can plan. Thirdly use cloud services so there's only one version of any document you are writing. We use Google Docs and from the fall you'll also be able to do the same on Apple with their Yosemite update. One document, multiple users. Fourthly, if you want to be picky - as I am, have a file naming convention on your documents. We use date followed by client name and detail of the document. Note using a YYMMDD date format means all documents sort into reverse date order easily (the US date format does not work). How is that for starters? Get in touch if you want a 20 minute update on what you've chosen and I can try to spot any issues or working practices you may need to reinforce.

4 answers • over 10 years

Finance Small Business Business planning

What is your range for emergencies?

Mark Fackrell answered: One of the considerations to answering this question is the business type, I mention this only because of the tax treatment of earnings. With an LLC or S Corp the owner pays taxes on the earnings of the business regardless of whether they are distributed or not whereas a C Corp pays its own taxes on earnings. Having said that I think the best way to approach this is to set a goal of a fixed amount (and review that annually), in order to build that fixed amount up it usually a good idea to set aside a solid number like 10% or 20% of monthly earnings. I think it's also important to set this amount and be disciplined in funding it, rather than take the approach that you will just put whatever is left over at the end of the month, taking that approach often leads to nothing happening because people often find other things to spend the money on.

4 answers • over 10 years

Marketing Strategy Educational Technology Online Marketing

What strategies and tactics have people used to successfully launch and market apps to college students?

Valerie Pugsley answered: As far as targeting a single high school, I don't know. But, in terms of platforms this audience uses, Tumbler, Instagram, Snap Chat & Vine would be good targets.

11 answers • over 10 years

Entrepreneurship Business Strategy Start-ups

I have an idea for a start up, but I don't know how to code, whats the next step?

Georgio Sayegh answered: Hello, If you have time, I suggest that you learn coding yourself. That saves you money but takes a great amount of time to do. And if your interested, I'm a coder myself. You can give me a call and we'll discuss the details of your idea.

14 answers • over 10 years

Customer Support Technical Support Help Desk Support

In what situations should a SAAS company offer phone support? In what situations should it only be email support?

Andrew Watson answered: In my opinion, phone support is frequently requested but hardly ever needed. I worked at Twilio and as part of my role as a Developer Evangelist I responded to help desk tickets part of the week. We didn't do any phone support and we were able to help people effectively. The key is to be very detailed, thorough and courteous in all your correspondence and also to ask for clarification if you don't understand their questions. You should also have a library of online resources like documentation, frequently asked questions and forums that you can refer people to so they can easily find answers for themselves once you point them in the right direction. One caveat to all that though: I worked at another company that provided phone support but it was something you had to schedule and pay for in advance. At first, I thought it was crazy but our phone support people were busy all day helping customers. It wasn't a lot and it didn't even cover our costs but it prevented your phone from ringing off the hook and people calling to ask really stupid questions. Hope that helps! Also, if you're looking for technical advice on setting up phone support options I'd be glad to help you... over the phone! :)

3 answers • over 10 years

Productivity Online Business Management

Do you know of an online tool for displaying various biz/productivity softwares on one screen like hootsuite does for social media feeds?

John Meyer answered: Try using Geckoboard. There is definitely a time investment in the setup, but you can get a great suite of products/metrics integrated into one dashboard. https://www.geckoboard.com/

4 answers • over 10 years

Investments angel investing Early-stage Startups

When are you ready to go after funding?

Tom Williams answered: I disagree with Sal's answer that you shouldn't be pitching at conferences. I built a good chunk of my early network doing exactly that. To be clear though, Sal is right that most investors hate being "pitched" at a conference and that's because the vast majority of founders do it completely wrong. The right way is to selectively identify people that are attending that conference by screening them for relevancy and interest. It's your job to know who is in the room and to find the people most likely to be excited about what you're doing. The right way to do this is to use a combination of LinkedIn, Twitter, AngelList and Google to map attendees to relevancy of your company. You're looking for prior operational interest or successful investments that have similarities but not competitive overlap to your own business. Approaching them with a relevant and respectful opening line that makes it clear you know what they're about is a great way to start. And then either they will ask you what you're doing or you can find the opportunity to explain what you're doing. If they take interest, say that you'd love to reach-out and talk more in a few weeks time. The most important thing is not to press hard on closed doors and don't waste their time or yours trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. The founders job is to be always raising awareness and building an army of people that are excited about and potentially helpful to the company at all times. As to the metrics that matter, Sal is correct that without knowing what kind of company you have, it's impossible to provide a useful answer to that specific part of the question. Happy to talk in more detail anytime.

3 answers • over 10 years

angel investing Fundraising

Seed raise on angelist via convertible debt note?

Tom Williams answered: There's no downside to raising on a note other than that any fundraising is time-consuming. It is becoming standard practice to raise money from angels on notes with caps adjusting upwards based on key points of the business proving more viable. The worst mistake I see many accelerator companies make is that they don't fundraise enough to really stand-out at Demo Day or whatever the conclusion event is for your accelerator. The reality of it is that there is significant accelerator fatigue and most cohorts from even top accelerators are failing to find much investor interest/enthusiasm upon graduation. Companies must really be striving to be the *most* exciting (by way of traction or evidence of viability) by the time they graduate, so raising additional money now makes a lot of sense.

3 answers • over 10 years

Revenue & Profit Growth Start-ups SASS

What is a normal churn rate for b2b saas company with an average monthly revenue of $850 per customer? Is 10% of the total monthly sales high or low?

Tom Williams answered: 10% of the total monthly sales churning on an absolute basis is near fatal. That means that within 5 months, you have 50% absolute churn per year, which reveals fundamental flaws with the service itself. Anything above small single digit churn is telling you and your team that customers are not seeing enough value in your product. I'd start by doing as many exit interviews as you can with those that have churned out, including, offers to reengage at a lower price-point while you fix the issues that matter to them. Happy to talk through this in more detail in a call.

9 answers • over 10 years

Growth Strategies Product launch Entrepreneurship

What is the best way to launch a private beta for a tampons and pads monthly subscription?

Pete Moss answered: A specific solution just came to mind utilizing wooCommerce. If WordPress is your platform, this could be very simple with a subscriptions plugin.

4 answers • over 10 years

Digital Marketing Social Media Marketing Franchise Consulting

What are some tips for starting to bring more customers through the doors of my franchise using online marketing? (social media, blogging, reviews)

David Berman answered: I own and operate several brick and mortar shops (health related) and have had good success with online strategies. By good success I mean that nearly 50% of my client base finds my business via online search. While I am certainly happy to share my strategies with you - I'd strongly suggest you do some initial work learning more about your market before taking action. If the goal is to build your business and gain more market share your strategy should include the highest probability venues that get you the highest return on investment (ROI). And this may or may not include online marketing. So social media and/or reviews may or may not be the top choices to invest resources in for your business. This will depend on the behavior of your market and your overall business strategy and business model. Of course it's up to you to decide how to build your business... You can take the "ready-fire-aim" approach and just give it a try. Just be prepared for a low probability of success using this approach. Even with excellent execution you'll potentially burn through valuable resources (time and money) that you could have otherwise spared if you were more patient and strategic. A wiser approach would be to invest in learning WHO your market is and where they are looking for your service or where you can find them to educate them about your services. And this will ideally be a part of your overall business strategy and the business model you constructed. Doing this initial work will save you time and money. In my opinion it's one of the best investments you can make in your business as these factors will all other business activities (including marketing) to give you the greatest probability of success and the greatest ROI. I am happy to help you with both approaches (though I'd strongly suggest the latter). Give me a call if you'd like to explore this further. If you are interested - message me and I'll send you a code for a free 30 minute consultation here on Clarity. I wish you the best of luck and massive success!

6 answers • over 10 years

Tax Income Tax Tax Accounting

Do I tax 13% on marketing services in Ontario?

Rushabh Shah answered: The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is applied in Ontario, Canada, to most goods and services, including marketing services. When determining whether to charge HST on marketing services, you should consider the following factors: 1)Exemptions and exceptions: Certain types of marketing services may be exempt from HST, such as services related to printed materials. 2)Client location: If your marketing services are provided to clients who are located outside of Ontario, you may not be required to charge HST. 3)Place of supply rules: The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has specified rules to determine the place of supply for services.

2 answers • over 1 year

Business Coaching

What do you say to people who want to "pick your brain?"

Dan Martell answered: My approach is simple. If it comes from a trusted referal, then I use my free Clarity VIP link and still conduct the call using Clarity. If it comes in cold, and there's no association to a cause, alumni or area of interest, then I just say "I'd love to talk, but I'm heads down with Clarity and other existing commitments - if it's truly urgent and requires my advice, I conduct all these request via Clarity here: http://clarity.fm/danmartell" That works well and sets the expectations. Clay Hebert http://clarity.fm/clayhebert wrote a great post about that here: https://medium.com/@clayhebert/the-new-way-to-say-no-6a7d29282c1d

13 answers • over 10 years

Board of Director experience Board Development

How do I find board members for my Christian non-profit?

Dan Martell answered: The best way to find board members is to find people in your industry (or market) that show signs of being someone who would enjoy being on your board. These are typically people who 1) Are on other boards similar to the kind of organization you're starting 2) Are part of organizations that give back to the community 3) Publicly display that they are charitable and give back. Using those filters, then you'll want to find people who have the right type of experience that will help you where you need. Ex: Operations, Fund Raising, Marketing, etc. The best way to get started is to find someone who's done it before and ask them directly (wink wink). Here's a list of people we like: https://clarity.fm/browse/funding/nonprofit/s/best-match/f/all

4 answers • over 10 years

Startups Early-stage Startups Compensation

I've been offered a full-time role with a low salary at an early stage startup. I want to know the best way to propose equity. What is standard here?

Dan Martell answered: The first thing to understand is if they're looking to be a venture funded startup. Not all startups plan to raise money. If they have in the past, then issues equity is very standard and they should bring it up - if they havent, you can ask. If they aren't looking to raise capital, then having equity won't be that important so you should try to get fair market value for your skills unless you want to work with that company / team, then negotiate. If they are offering equity, then read through this: https://www.themuse.com/advice/getting-startup-equity-everything-you-need-to-know Hope that helps.

3 answers • over 10 years

Startups Entrepreneurship

As an entrepreneur, how do you avoid wearing too many hats by finding what you're real strengths are?

Guy Goldstein answered: We're very lucky today to live in the "global village" we do. I can't imagine how hard it would have been for a young entrepreneur to find the right people before the world was so connected. Then again, I suppose that explains how so many entrepreneurs are popping up all the time today. Being an entrepreneur is not about going it alone, it's about identifying needs and being able to get the right team in place to get make your vision a reality. There is no better way to make yourself a successful entrepreneur than by finding the right people to help you when you need help. To run a successful business today you need so many skills which draw on so many fields that it's pretty much impossible to do it yourself, and that's ok... As an entrepreneur you should see your primary role as 3 fold: 1) You're the dreamer responsible for coming up with the next big thing and the plan to make it big 2) You're the communicator who has to be able to effectively turn your vision into a clear, communicable plan which you can share internally to help your team get it built, and externally to get your product sold 3) The financier in charge of coming up with the cash to get people paid and to get your idea off the ground. While you're bootstrapping you'll need to leverage any other skills you may have, to try to cut costs where you can, but it's always important to recognize that cutting costs while costing time is a net loss. Only cut costs when you can do as good a job as someone who you can get to help you, in the same amount of time. Find yourself couple of key resources you can afford, you can trust, and who "get it" and understand your communication style and you'll be able to press forward at a pace you'd never imagined.

3 answers • over 10 years

Social Media

Real time popularity tracking?

Pete Moss answered: If it were your own channel, I'd recommend this for WordPress: http://wordpress.org/plugins/youtube-analytics/ Since it is not your channel, though... this should do what you want: http://channelmeter.com/ Also, try this tool: http://www.socialbakers.com/youtube-statistics/ Hope this helps! Book a session with me if you need some clarity on your social media marketing plan. Pete

3 answers • over 10 years

Crowdfunding Kickstarter Consumer Products

How do I successfully raise money and awareness for my new company (BoatTests101.com) on Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

Stephen G. Barr answered: First thing to do is to research other crowdfunding sites other than the big two as neither was really meant to raise funds for startup businesses. I would suggest something in the nature of www.crowdfunder.com or www.seedinvest.com might better suit your needs.

3 answers • over 10 years

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Website Monetization Link Building

How can I significantly increase traffic to my website (DrivingTests101.com)?

Ravindran VC answered: You don't seem to have any customer engagement and informative work beyond the 10 articles I see on the site. If you are getting 10k UV already, you need to only combine content and email marketing to increase the visits, but if you really want to grow to 500K UV or more, you will need to do a lot of activities, repeatedly for about 6-9 months.. Then there are other things you can do.which will result in more downloads or purchases for you. (You should not assume that traffic means business, there are other methods such as Performance driven marketing, which is something you can easily qualify for...) Anyhow, if you just need traffic and links, here is a brief summary list of things you can do and it will generate traffic, will not be flagged or getting booted by Google for any algo changes...: Since Content is the KING, we will focus on content driven marketing, here is a rough layout of the activities: 1. Set a Regular Writing Schedule 2. Create a Free Giveaway Worth Wanting (but it should get you subscribers) 3. Create Your Social Media Accounts 4. Join Quora 5. Leverage Rich Snippets & Google Authorship 6. Interlink Your Posts 7. Leverage Your Expertise, do some presentations and publish them on slideshare and such places 8. Get a good Guest Blog done 9. Blog Commenting is important, but only so so... Forum Commenting will help you build up your online reputation 10. Expanding on Social Profiles, Advertising on Facebook, Marketing on LinkedIn, Google+ Pinterest (do checkout tools like hootsuite.com) 11. Create an Infographic, Gifographic at least 1 in a month, this is sure to get you good places and backlinks 12. Look for Interview Opportunities, yup, some PR and Help A Reporter Out (http://www.helpareporter.com/) they need stories & you can provide them, if any... will be fantastic. 13. Don’t Neglect Local SEO 14. Creating Animated & Whiteboard Explainer Videos (cost about 15$ on payperhour type sites) 15. Using Zemanta, a “Content Discovery Network” 16. The Power of Retargeting - yes, check out sites like http://www.adroll.com/ http://www.ebayenterprise.com/marketing_solutions/display_retargeting/ http://www.chango.com/solutions & https://retargeter.com 17. Syndicate your content, case studies through Outbrain.com type sites, that will show your quality posting in probably all top media sites. Hope this helps. Ravi VC

6 answers • over 10 years

Marketing

Need Media kit design for mobile software company. Are there any good resources for free templates we can choose from?

Randi Reed answered: See Joan Stewart's website, PublicityHound.com . Joan was a journalist for years and is also a publicist, so her site will help you out a lot. I think she recently put together a pack of media templates you can purchase. If you don't see what you need, email Joan and she'll direct you to what you need. She's fantastic.

3 answers • over 10 years