Your Questions Answered by Industry Experts

Loading...

Answers from Industry Experts

Startups Failure Analysis Entrepreneurship

Sushant Misra answered: Biggest is probably the product-market fit. Is your product or service helping (enough) people solve a problem or fulfill a need? This is the biggest question a startup is trying to answer. You have to answer this question within a "finite time" and with "limited resources". So it really comes down to how focused a startup is in answering this question. If you lose focus with other stuff (co-founder issues, business cards, spending too much time making the product beautiful or whatever else) you are going to run out of time and resources and you have lost the game. I interview some of the very successful digital entrepreneurs on the web that respond to questions like this. Check out the interviews here: http://treptalks.com

19 answers • almost 11 years

Managerial Finance Finance

Payroll is killing me/wasting my time. What inexpensive small businesses can help consultants manage payments to freelancers/consultants?

Behzad Dehgani answered: In normal cases each subcontracting partner is self responsible for its accounting. Depending on the country you are and kind of business you running, you need to find out what possibilities are possible. For sure there are services you can use, check out payroll.intuit.com for example. There they offer accounting/payroll services for small businesses. Hope I could help you! If any further help needed, let me know! Regards Behzad

6 answers • almost 11 years

Early-stage Startups

I am an entrepreneur in SF who is thinking about starting a business with someone in NYC. Can Cross-country partnerships ever work?

Kelly Fallis answered: Of course! this is the modern day world - people don't remotely need to be in the same place so long as they are good at communicating

3 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship Venture Capital

What are some examples of bootstrapped companies that successfully scaled (to big proportions) WITHOUT VC funding?

Tom Williams answered: I'm the Founder of a VC-backed company and I'm also an investor in a handful of other companies that are venture-backed. I'll answer the meat of your question. If you're building a B2B product, you *should* do it without VC funding. The reason for this is simple: Amongst the criteria of investment decisions for VCs, the most important is the belief (supported by evidence) that the business can become a Billion dollar business. For consumer companies, revenue is currently proving to be a constraining factor in valuation. In other words, in optimizing for selling equity at the highest valuation, consumer companies are best to make no money at all. Enterprise companies are evaluated mostly on their current revenue, their pipeline, and core metrics around the business model and selling model and have a much more constrained set of valuation criteria. Consumer companies almost always require considerable funding to grow because they lack sufficient means to generate revenue until significant scale. This is not the case with B2B. I'm of the view that true B2B startups should be generating revenue from day one. Even if you intend on having a freemium model, it should only be rolled-out after you've launched to serve paying customers. A B2B business has to first have a clear credible path to $100k MRR (monthly recurring revenue) in order to attract institutional seed and Series A funding. Unless you're really on that path, you're best to avoid venture funding altogether. Reinvest your revenue into growth, stay lean and when you exhaust your own resources, raise under $1,000,000 in funding from angel investors and consider that the last equity money you ever raise until you are clearly and credibly on track to achieve $100k MRR. And by the way, achieving this incredibly difficult metric isn't the only requirement. Your Total Addressable Market has to be also significant enough to show that you can get to at least $100m ARR. By the way, once you generate $1m in annual recurring revenue, you will have access to debt facilities that can fund your growth with far less (if any) dilution. So I would posit that the vast majority of great B2B products will fail to achieve VC fundraising simply because most great B2B products don't *need* to achieve these proof-points for them to be fantastic businesses for a relatively small shareholder group. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are getting really terrible advice and being pushed to lie to themselves and others that they are capable of and even want to swing for the billion-dollar outcome. Happy to talk through this answer with you in more detail over a call. The reality of

3 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship

What are the advantages of co-working spaces for new entrepreneurs in SF? How do I choose the right one for me?

Thomas McLeod answered: I think they're great if you're using them for specific purposes. I find working at home almost too easy and it takes a long time for me to really get into "work mode" vs having a space somewhere I start switching gears on the way there and then feel more productive right from jump.' Benefits: Meet peers/friends/teammates. Better work/life balance. Lots of the small stuff is handled for you. A real address for meetings. Learn about other things going on in your sector. Drawbacks: Can't really tailor the details to your specific needs (volume, potted plants, artwork, etc) You incur a substantive cost on the books of your company. Potentially distracting if you're direct sharing space. Rarely do they deliver quality on any extra-stated promises (Money connections, quality events, etc) so you can really only bank on having a desk. I find the best alternative is to try and rent some space from a larger company that is growing/scaling so you get to learn a bunch, meet people who are focused, and usually you sort of join the family and get the benefits of free lunches and happy hours.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship

Should a non-technical founder of a growing business take the time to learn to code?

Tom Williams answered: No. You're too busy doing what it sounds like you are already very competent at. I think that if you work closely with great engineering talent, you will increase your overall product sensibilities. I think that the "learn to code" movement has become over marketed and is starting to take a "7 minute abs" absurdity. While I have no doubt that it's producing people who are able to have some understanding of the languages, it's not the same as being an experienced problem-solver. Furthermore, given the rapidly changing nature of things, maintaining a competency in programming requires a constant learning cycle, one that will inevitably compete with your core competencies. Also, your reputation might suffer if instead of sourcing as you currently do, you take on these initiatives and execute at a lower degree of quality.

6 answers • almost 11 years

Exit Strategies Early-stage Startups

After moving on from my startup, someone approached me with an offer to buy. What are some strategies for successful negotiation?

Tom Williams answered: The less you need to sell, the more leverage you have. The fact that they approached you says that they want it. If 15k was their first offer, you can simply say no thanks. If you can do that with a straight face and resist the temptation to make the move, they are likely to come back with a better offer. The other way to move the price up is to say 15k is an asset sale "as is." You could offer a short consulting contract to provide assistance in integrating the acquisition and probably find an extra 10-15k that way. Happy to talk in more detail in a quick call.

5 answers • almost 11 years

App Development Mobile applications Mobile Technology

What qualifications should you look for in a mobile app dev shop or agency?

Giacomo Balli answered: Tehcnically speaking the only qualification is the type of development you need. However, if you referring to guideline son how to find and assess good outsourcing partners, you should keep in mind: - speed/quality of communication - previous work - payment/delivery terms satisfy your needs More details can be found here: http://giacomoballi.com/how-to-hire-a-freelancer/

4 answers • almost 11 years

Strategic Partnerships

What are some recommended ways to generate leads and establish B2B strategic partnerships to drive sales for early growth?

Zamir Javer answered: Inbound marketing is currently the greatest ROI method of generating demand for your offering. This really boils down to putting out high authority content through Search and Social channels so you can start to engage with prospects and steer them inwards to your automation system. From there lead nurturing takes over to heighten their trust and knowledge to create sales ready leads. Cold calling is a low ROI method and really only works well with highly targeted segments from our experience. LinkedIn is good for B2B and strategic B2C. Partner Marketing can help to create ongoing lead flow of high quality if done right. You may call me if you want specifics on your situation. More detail from you will allow for a more relevant answer.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship

What advice do experienced, women entrepreneurs have for a new mom who is thinking of starting her own business?

Renee Warren answered: The most important thing is to make sure that your immediate network (Husband, family and friends) are able to support you. I have a 15 mth old and a 4.5 mth old and launched my company 1.5 years ago. It was busy, but it worked because I had people in place to help me (with the kids). The ultimate question is to ask yourself - your gut - if this is a f*ck yeah decision. Does it excite you? Are you motivated to pick away at this business when your baby is sleeping at night, napping or otherwise content? Remember what it was like to hold your new baby in your arms; the joy, excitement and nervousness of what you're supposed to do? Well, starting a new business is the same. It's exciting and challenging, but there are resources (like Clarity) to help! Now IS the right time. Good luck!

3 answers • almost 11 years

Online Marketing Customer Acquisition New Business Development

What are good ways to acquire users for an app development company?

Ali Maadelat answered: Just scale up your PPC campaign to get more users. If your PPC campaign isn't pulling a profit for you, then you are doing it wrong.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Domain Names Name Change Name Development

Should I change my startups name, making it more memorable, less generic & better fits future services, but domain will be a .me vs our current .com?

Joseph Peterson answered: I'm not a .COM purist. In fact I own quite a few .ME domains and have sold half a dozen of them or so. However, building a business or brand on a non-.COM extension like .ME requires some additional analysis. It's impossible to advise you on which name / domain to choose in the absence of the name itself. As for the strategy of partnering with someone else just because you want their name ... that sounds excessively complicated, prone to misunderstanding, potentially expensive, and (since you haven't even approached them) a bit pie-in-the-sky. Trademark overlaps might also invite litigation. I think you could use some professional advice. Let's schedule a call.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Social Media Marketing Marketing Strategy

Is there a way to advertise to Facebook/Twitter/mobile users by date and location?

Michael Bal answered: I know that on Facebook and Twitter you can schedule ads and posts so that question should be answered. I know in Facebook you can target users by whether they're using a mobile or desktop device and also by which operating system they're using i.g. iOS or Android You can also target by interests like 'Running' or 'marathons' based on their profile and activity or you can use partner categories to target people who spent money on fitness/running equipment or possibly even registered for a marathon.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Linkedin for Business LinkedIn LinkedIn Trainer

How would you use LinkedIn to accelerate B2B lead generation for a new hire in sales? How to automate and delegate the process over the long term?

Lori Ruff answered: There are many strategies that work for new sales people using LinkedIn, one of my favorite is active lead gen. For high ticket sales, new hires do well to talk to the sales manager about who the company's best clients are. Armed with this knowledge, the sales person can profile the common traits of the company's best clients, and use LinkedIn's powerful search engine to find more people and companies that fit the demographic. Once good targets are found, there are several ways to reach out. My favorite is to find groups that the person is active in. Search the group for the person's name, and from the search results, click on "see activity". This will tell you what activity this person has contributed to the group in the form of discussions and comments. The next step is to find a conversation you feel you could contribute to intelligently. You might even message the member (prospect) and start a personal conversation on the topic that they showed an interest in. This is where the relationship of common interest begins. I've used this technique very effectively to locate people who I wanted to do business with, people I wanted to engage... What if you need a larger quantity of people because you don't have a high ticket item, or your quota requires filling your funnel with more prospects? Use the demographic you have created (see above) to find groups that you'll find existing clients or people like them. Use the group member search with keywords to find people to send messages - not hard sales messages because no one likes to be sold. The best results come from softer messages offering a service to solve a specific pain point, asking for referrals within their network or who to speak with at their company about what you offer, etc. Both methods are effective when approached with the mindset that you are operating in a networking environment. People don't want to be sold, but they love to be the hero in finding a solution for their company's problems. You can't really fully automate LinkedIn. The platform would lose much of its power and their environment of trust if you could. However, once a viable demographic and target is found, a practical solution is to assign an inside rep or sales assistant to the task to generate leads for the account executives. To find more solutions for your sales answers, you can register for free online on-demand training at http://RockLinkedIn.com or reach out to me via LinkedIn and I'll direct you to the most appropriate resource. Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva CEO, Integrated Alliances LinkedIn Training for Sales, Business Development, Marketing and Executives.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Public relations Marketing Strategy Inbound Marketing

My goal is to command the highest rate of any personal trainer in NYC ($300 + per session). Should I enlist a PR firm/agency?

Ron Slavick answered: You will always be your best PR agency. Because if you can't sell yourself, then no one will be able to sell / market you. In my experience, when I start something with money as the focus I fail. However when I work to create something amazing for others, I win and win big. My advice is to focus on creating value (amazing value) and then the money, exclusivity and $300 /hourly rate will flow to you. Imagine for a moment a PR firm getting you XYZ celebrity / billionaire client. If you can't deliver on creating value for that client you will never retain them as a customer. Use price as a strategy to position you (the brand) and then never stop creating more and more value for others. I hope this helps.

7 answers • almost 11 years

Blog Marketing Marketing Strategy Start-ups

I'm new to Mobile App startup. How do I start spreading the word of my App? Development of the App has started.

Tom Williams answered: If you're asking about how to *start* spreading the word, my fear for you is that you haven't done sufficient customer development to validate the need for your app and inform your core product thesis. Failure to do so will almost always end-up in product failure. If this is the case, you might want to slow down on your product building process and refocus on customer development. Building and launching a mobile app that achieves critical mass is one of the hardest challenges one can take-on. Happy to talk to you in a brief call to outline the customer development process.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Domain Names Product Naming Naming

What domain name should I get?

Joseph Peterson answered: Choosing the right domain is what I do for a living. If you'd like to schedule a call, I'll give the matter some thought ahead of time. We should be able to figure things out by phone in 15 minutes or less.

7 answers • almost 11 years

Customer Development Customer Discovery Lean Startups

How should customer development look like after the product is launched?

Tom Williams answered: I'll first answer this from a product and development perspective: This answer is written assuming you have done everything right to launch a product that has already established product/market fit. First, you want to fix the "leaky buckets." Brett Martin wrote a post-mortem of his startup and wrote: "Removing friction from existing user behaviors (e.g. checkins) almost always has a higher ROI than building castles in the sky (e.g. hypothesizing about your API). Find all the dead ends/local maxima in your current products before building new ones!" source: https://medium.com/p/72c6f8bec7df Once you've done that, you'll be making prioritizing new features, metrics movers and customer delight. Adam Nash has a great post on product planning process here: http://blog.adamnash.com/2009/07/22/guide-to-product-planning-three-feature-buckets/ From a business perspective, your primary job is to be constantly talking to your actual users. As Brett explains in his post-mortem, one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is optimizing for people who aren't their customer. I believe strongly that the CEO of any startup should be heavily involved in customer support and, if the business is an enterprise business, in sales. There is just nothing as powerful as hearing from real customers. Also, if you're selling anything, you want to be constantly tweaking the dials and experimenting with everything from pricing to conversion optimization. And regardless of selling anything, conversion optimization is a daily activity, experimenting with new ways to fill the top of the funnel and bring them into the actions required to build your business. Hope this helps. If you're asking because you're prepping for a launch or just launched, happy to do a call with you to provide more specific context.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Domain Names Branding & Identity

What name should I give to my product? (rebranding)

Kent Gustavson, PhD answered: I like the name "Melissa" — but I wouldn't use a website URL like www.melissahome.com because it just doesn't feel "natural" — I would choose something that implies what Melissa means to us... For example: "Ask Melissa" or something like that. Good luck!

10 answers • almost 11 years

Scalability Marketing

How can marketing consultants scale their businesses?

Joseph Peterson answered: Network with people you trust. Sell them your excess leads for a percentage of what they'll derive. Choose other freelancers, whom you might consider bringing on board if an agency emerges. This way you have only enough collaboration initially. In other words, you're not compromising your own position by taking on added responsibility. But you retain the option to expand along more formal lines if things go well.

7 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship Fundraising

At what point should an entrepreneur give up on their venture?

Aaron Vidas answered: I help B2B companies find their most profitable customers. This a tough spot with no cut and dry answers. I would ask the following: - There's a lot of things I could do, why did I choose to do this? Think of this as a gut-check to gauge whether you want to push through or not. - Define 'no traction' with customers. What was the reason they originally bought from you? What problem are you solving for them today? You can find this out by calling and asking. - Can I be cashflow positive just providing them what is of value? If you're getting positive answers to each of these questions, keep going. Not every products needs, or can have, a hockey stick-like growth chart with customers. Finally, I would pretend the $150k investment didn't exist and I still had the customers and product I have today. What would I do with the product? The more you invest in something (emotionally and financially) that harder it becomes to abandon it. This is known as the 'sunk cost fallacy.' Stepping away from it can provide much needed prospective. Feel free to give me a call if you'd like to chat more about your specific situation.

9 answers • almost 11 years

Start-ups Business Development Gaming Industry

How do I attract talent to a startup?

Tom Williams answered: "Just" a startup? Most technical and design talent are more attracted to startup opportunities than working for big companies. So the issue is not that you're a startup, the issues are around how you make yourself the most attractive startup to the talent you're trying to recruit. The best way to do this is to be able to articulate why you're already on the path to being a very successful business. Selling top talent on your company is often the same as selling investors. The more that you can demonstrate that you already have the right ingredients for success, the higher a likelihood that you're going to close your recruiting pipeline. Obviously, depending on the cash you have in the bank and expect to have in the bank will impact what kind of offer you make, and the more that you can mitigate the "going concern" risk, the more success you'll have in getting an offer accepted, but it's ultimately about convincing the talent that joining you and your team is better than any opportunity they can take, including starting their own company. If you can't be competitive in your own backyard, I would look at hiring remote workers or look at relocating talent from less competitive markets to your own backyard and selling the lifestyle advantages of your particular city. Recruiting top talent is a significant part of any startup CEO's job. I'd be happy to talk to you about what I've learned and share some of the tactics I've used and seen others use successfully.

11 answers • almost 11 years

Online Marketing Web Traffic Traffic Generation

I've setup a new site called; www.comparethebiz.com and I'm looking for startup or small businesses to sign up, any advice please?

Tom Williams answered: Totally agree with Andy's answer. But I just went to your site and I think you should really optimize your sign-up flow before spending any money or effort to acquire customers. Your current multi-step process and required information is far too cumbersome to efficiently acquire sign-ups. I would rework your sign-up process significantly before doing as Andy recommends. Andy's advice is reasonable because you really want to test your channels and validate your core offering on a relatively small scale before looking to handle a lot of customers. LinkedIn is actually very effective for you as an advertising channel and though more expensive than other CPC's, it's far more targeted for your initial customer base. Happy to talk you through what I mean about your sign-up flow in a quick call.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Personal Branding

What personal brand-building techniques would you recommend for an introverted, technical entrepreneur?

JP Morgan answered: Forget 'self-promotion'. Stop focusing on your self and start focusing on others. Serve people you meet so powerfully that they never forget you for the rest of their life.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship Work Life Balance

What are some of the 'normal' emotional challenges that new entrepreneurs should expect to feel in their first few weeks? How do you cope?

JP Morgan answered: Scared shitless. Self-doubt. Poor sleep. Waking up with pangs of fear. Doubt I made the right choice to leave my job. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt and doubt. The ups and downs will continue...for ever. The July thing that changes (if you stick with it) is you learn to enjoy the ride.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Venture Capital Legal Advice Start-ups

When an investor is considering making an investment, is the current legal/ partnership agreement important?

Noam Kostucki answered: Never get in business with people you want to buy out. Do not sign any agreement to give away such big chunk of your business unless you are 100% convinced they're the best people to work with. From your long description, it doesn't seem you believe they are trustworthy nor that they deliver the work you expect. You seem to say they go back on their words. By signing this agreement you will put yourself in an even more difficult situation because you will not have enough shares to give to any other serious investors while retaining majority stakes and decision power. Schedule a call to go through all the possible scenarios, the different options, how to talk to the agency that has done this work for you and plan your next steps.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Investments angel investing Venture Capital

What is the best way to get connected to investors? Do I absolutely need a business plan?

Tom Williams answered: Vehemently disagree with Noam that you should spend anytime on a business plan. You should be spending *all* of your time getting your product to market. The likelihood of any investor investing at the pre-product level is low. While it does happen, it is almost always when investing in a proven entrepreneur or team that is very experienced. Once your product is in market, you will craft a deck that outlines the usage data in the best possible light to tell the story of how your product can grow into a viable business. At the time you have your product in the market, you can talk to me or a number of great Clarity advisers on what a good deck looks like, but at the moment, you are best served by spending all your energy getting the product shipped and getting some early traction. Any investor that wants to judge an internet business based on it's business plan is really not an investor an entrepreneur should want investing in their Company. It's a sign of significant inexperience.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Early-stage Startups Legal Advice

What legal precautions can I take to make sure nobody steals my startup idea?

David Katz answered: I've discussed ideas with hundreds of startups, I've been involved in about a dozen startups, my business is at $1M+ revenue. The bad news is, there is no good way to protect ideas. The good news is, in the vast majority of cases you don't really need to. If you're talking to people about your idea, you could ask them to sign an NDA ("Non Disclosure Agreement"), but NDAs are notoriously hard to enforce, and a lot of experienced startup people wouldn't sign them. For example, if you asked me to sign an NDA before we discussed your Idea, I'd tell you "thanks, but no thanks". This is probably the right place though to give the FriendDA an honorable mention: http://friendda.org/. Generally, I'd like to encourage you to share your Ideas freely. Even though telling people an idea is not completely without risk, generally the rewards from open discussions greatly outweigh the risks. Most startups fail because they build something nobody wants. Talking to people early, especially people who are the intended users/customers for your idea can be a great way to protect yourself from that risk, which is considerably higher than the risk of someone taking off with your idea. Another general note, is that while ideas matter, I would generally advise you to get into startup for which you can generate a lot of value beyond the idea. One indicator for a good match between a founder and a startup is the answer to the question: "why is that founder uniquely positioned to execute the idea well". The best way to protect yourself from competition is to build a product that other people would have a hard time building, even if they had 'the idea'. These are usually startups which contain lots of hard challenges on the way from the idea to the business, and if you can convincingly explain why you can probably solve those challenges while others would have a hard time, you're on the right path. If you have any further questions, I'd be happy to set up a call. Good luck.

14 answers • almost 11 years

Product Development Engineering

What is the best way to find full stack mobile developers who are willing to work with me for equity, and what is fair compensation?

Tom Williams answered: It's highly unlikely that you will be able to find competent full-stack mobile developers willing to work with you for equity, but if you do, "fair" compensation would be 50% or more of the equity in the Company. Approaching any developer with just an idea, diminishes your credibility as a potential co-founder. Here's why: If you're non-technical, you must show a "relentless resourcefulness" in moving your idea forward. This means finding the money necessary to get an MVP or even click-able prototype completed to show that while you might not be technical, you have the ability to raise money, and have enough product sense that you can articulate that into a prototype. If you can't raise or spend the relatively small amount of money required to successfully build a prototype, what evidence are you providing that developer that you are going to be able to create value for the business long-term? Full-stack mobile developers (although this is often quite a misnomer) are one of the most in-demand skill-sets of all Silicon Valley companies. That means that you're competing against established companies that can pay top dollar, and still provide meaningful equity incentives as well as recently funded startups who have further along the road in turning their idea into reality. I would suggest that you look at hiring contractors (I know of some great mobile dev shops that are reasonable) to build your first version. Expect to go solo at least until you have some form of early prototype. Then, you're in a much better position to attract a technical co-founder. Happy to talk you through any of this at any point.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Web Design Graphic Design Wordpress Design

Where to find quality graphic and web design leads?

Brandon Krieger answered: If you are going to use Social Media Marketing. I would recommend you create a Pinterest wall of your work and back link them to your site. Try that.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship Internet Entrepreneur

Best advice to start a small business abroad as a foreigner, US, Swiss, New Zealand, Singapore. Research online proves to be really confusing red tape

Corey Russell answered: As a web designer, online visibility is incredibly important when it comes to branding globally. Depending on your business, a lot of your global business goals can be achieved by setting up an online business. You should register domains in the countries you'd like to market to, such as the US, NZ, and SIngapore that you mentioned. Also establish a Business Plan and central brand that includes all of these markets. Try to avoid getting caught in a re-branding process down the road. If your brand needs tweaking in order to achieve scope, do so. I would start by registering the business in the country you mainly do business in, and provide shipping of products/services to all of your other markets if necessary to get started. Then as you establish a foothold in each territory, look into the benefits of setting up locally.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Fundraising Raising capital

How do you raise funding for a small business that isn't a tech startup?

Jared Joyce answered: When it comes to raising money you must remember that risk is a perception. Your job is to drain the risk! Below is a link to a resource I provide my investors. The 50 questions are specific to product design/development but the 15 categories are questions that apply to any industry. If you can answer these questions about your deal you will have gone a long way to "drain the risk" for your investors and get funded. http://www.jaredjoyce.com/freetreats/50questions.pdf Once you have answered the questions for your deal schedule a call with me and I can help you integrate the answers into your investor pitch.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Mobile applications Metrics Venture Capital

What is the generally agreed upon "good" DAU/MAU for mobile apps?

Srikrishnan Ganesan answered: You are right that the range is wide. You need to figure what are good values to have for your category. Also, you can focus on the trend (is your DAU/MAU increasing vs decreasing after you make changes) even if benchmarking is tough. Unless your app is adding a huge number of users every day (which can skew DAU/MAU), you can trust the ratio as a good indication of how engaged your users are. For games, DAU/MAU of ~20-30% is considered to be pretty good. For social apps, like a messenger app, a successful one would have a DAU/MAU closer to 50%. In general most apps struggle to get to DAU/MAU of 20% or more. Make sure you have the right definition of who is an active user for your app, and get a good sense of what % of users are actually using your app every day. Happy to discuss what is a good benchmark for your specific app depending on what it does.

4 answers • almost 11 years

SEO Blogging Content Marketing

What is the best way to write blog articles to maximise SEO benefit? I know the needs of my audience, will address them but also like SEO traffic.

Corey Russell answered: Great question, To get traffic from SEO it must be done diligently. And the best way to do that is from a well structured article. The key things to remember that will help your pages rank well: Keyword Headings Put your most important keywords here. They must be coherent, simple yet descriptive. If your blog allows you to insert H1 headings into your article, do so. Don't cram too much info into keywords though, Search engines are smart and recognize when someone is spamming. Maybe do a bit of research using 'Google Keyword Tool' In Google Adwords and see if your keywords are popular search terms. Links and Back links Include links to relevant info when you can, the more credible sources your website links to, the better appeal it has to search engines. Also include back links. Back links are links to a location somewhere that also features a link going directly back to your site, these also give your article good standing. Duplicate Content Try not to say anything twice, and if you do use different terminology. But the main focus here is to always write fresh content. If the content of your article has been written word for word somewhere else first how can yours possibly be more credible? Also write often, the more frequent you post articles, the more frequently your site will be "crawled" by bots. If you do this well your listing can only rise. Be Unique and have the Best Info This entails just doing what you do and doing it well. It might be difficult to compete with other websites if the topic your discussing is already covered in great detail. The best position to be in is one of having information that everyone wants but cannot find anywhere else. A good tip for this is finding a specific niche that suits you well to draw in traffic to your general topic. Hope this helps you get started. For an in depth look at SEO rankings, take a look at the 'Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors' http://searchengineland.com/seotable

7 answers • almost 11 years

Startups Legal Advice Internet Entrepreneur

What are the steps involved for a Canadian Entrepreneur to launch a business in Silicon Valley?

Tom Williams answered: The most important legal ramification of a Canadian launching a business in Silicon Valley is immigration. You must have a visa that allows you to operate the business (hire and manage employees, etc) in order to be running a business. I started a business in Canada and was able to attract great Silicon Valley angel investors to invest in the Canadian corp. In the early-stages, there is less importance placed on where the business is domiciled than what the business has managed to achieve or who it's founders are. There are significant advantages to keeping the business in Canada in the earliest stages and then moving to the Valley as you look to raise further funds and scale your business. Without a doubt, it's good to be making frequent trips to SF & the Valley so as to build your network but from an actual formation perspective, I would argue that there are more benefits in the majority of cases to staying in Canada in the earliest stages. Happy to talk to you about this in a brief call. Best of luck!

3 answers • almost 11 years

Growth Strategies

What are some high-impact growth marketing tactics for a B2B SAAS startup with 0 customers.

Tom Williams answered: The highest-impact growth marketing tactics for a B2B SaaS startup with zero customers is often direct outreach. When you're at a point where you don't have customer validation, it's incredibly hard to get useful data from very small amounts of traffic. So in a zero customer state, your highest-impact effort is direct outreach. Signing-up customers one-by-one is the best way to get customer validation and you'll learn a ton of valuable data along the way. Once your customer validation is complete and you have at least a handful of customers *actively* using the product, then you have the rationale to start spending and experimenting with growth marketing tactics. Happy to discuss the customer development process with you and share with you what has been successful for me in doing direct-outreach to enterprise customers.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Bitcoin

Is there a place where I can find detailed reports on bitcoin?

Dan Martell answered: I use www.coindesk.com + search YouTube for "bitcoin 2013". There's everything from the talks at Bitcoint 2013 conference to podcast interviews with lead engineer. Also, there's 3 amazing Clarity experts who can shed some light.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Writing Blogging

Where is the best place to find high quality writers to write premium content for a blog?

Dan Martell answered: The highest quality and cost is https://contently.com/ - $200+ per post. Alternatively, I've uses http://jobs.problogger.net/ job board to post an opportunity, and then create a simple "test" for the writers. If they read the instructions and the content is great, try em' out .. if not, then pass. It takes time but you can find great people who will blog for $30-50 per post. Another way - not fast but high quality - is to approach existing blogs in your vertical with smaller audiences ... ask them to guest post or ghostwrite for you .. they already know the subject matter and blogging + if they have an audience you can incentivize them to promote the content via their social channel (by paying social share bonuses). Hope that helps.

10 answers • almost 11 years

Strategic Hiring Web development Graphic Design

To take a loan or not to take a loan? Is it worth taking on debt to hire?

David Berman answered: Though I don't have experience in that particular market sector - I DO have experience dealing with that challenge. Every dollar you borrow increases your risk exposure so you have to factor that into your ROI. Pay careful attention to the terms of the loan (or LOC) and if at all possible your business should be the guarantor (versus you personally taking on that role). That said - Here are my brief thoughts: 1. Unless you need a lump sum - go with a line of credit versus a loan. 2. Consider hiring someone to do contract work versus bringing on a salaried employee. 3. Unless you already have adequate work for them (i.e. their efforts will be profitable) don't bring employees on. (I mention this because you state that "you need the work to feed them" - suggesting that you might be bringing them on FIRST... before there's a need). 4. In many markets - salespeople work on commission. Perhaps you can find someone that will work for 100% commission thereby eliminating your need for a loan to give them a paycheck. Harsh Statement Warning... (don't read on if you are easily offended): The truth is that If you are currently unable to generate sufficient business (i.e. you need someone to do that for you) then you don't yet have a "business". Note that I define a business as an entity that has discovered and successfully implemented a viable business model (and is therefore profitable) and fulfills the criteria of being both repeatable and scalable to the extent required by the owner to be worth moving forward with. If you'd like a more detailed explanation and help deciding next steps, you know how to reach me. Best of luck to you!

3 answers • almost 11 years

Start Ups Retail Business Development

I started an all natural dog cupcake business w/ my sis that gained popularity fast, but we don't know what the best business model is for us to grow?

Shawn Matthews answered: Having 4 dogs and being a former sugar addict, I love the idea of dog cupcakes, kudos! My wife and I are currently solving a very similar issue with her t-shirt business. We don't have a freshness issue to deal with like you do, however we do have a scalability and growth issue that we are tackling. Understand, there isn't really anything that remarkable about dog cupcakes, it's cool concept but it would be very easy for someone to deconstruct and create their own recipe and brand. So you'll need to focus on how you sell your cupcakes. What value you offer your customers? Why your recipe is unique? Is there any portion of your product, formula or service that could be trademarked or patented? Do you have a memorable name, tagline and mascot? Are the health benefits to your product? I know that in some cases pet food can be highly regulated so you may not be able to make specific health claims. Next, I think you should look at a three pronged approach that is scalable: 1. Continue to develop your local market, treating it like a test kitchen. Work on new recipes, concepts, products, ideas and test them locally. Build a unique product line and a unique system for creating those products. 2. Develop a strong network of pet owners, pet shops, boutiques, organizations and so on. 3. Market your dog cupcake system and sell it as a turnkey package. This could be as simple or as fancy as you want to make it. The simple way would be to sell one time "starter package" with upgrades on a subscription model. This would include order forms, marketing plans, marketing materials, new product ideas, training videos, shopping lists, ingredients and so on. The expensive way would be to lawyer up and create an actual franchise but this can be very very expensive. I hope this was helpful and I'd be happy to work with you further on developing your business. Good luck and I look forward to buying Sadie, Charlie, Nixie and Sachi some tasty treats from you in the near future!

3 answers • almost 11 years

Entrepreneurship Web development

I'm about to graduate from a 9 week coding bootcamp. Should I start my company or go work and continue learning?

Cameron Arksey answered: Is it strictly a case of one or the other? Why couldn't you find part or full-time employment in an area that will develop your skill and dedicate the rest of your time to applying what you learn to building your startup slowly? Going full-tilt may be exciting but without savings, it can be difficult and stressful. At some point your startup's needs may surpass your ability and then you may find yourself in a position of giving away equity to get to the next level or even having to call it quits for lack of resources. A third option could be finding work in an environment (like ours) where you can both hone your relevant skills, working on diverse web projects, *and* get full no support building your personal project, which I'm assuming is web development-heavy. We get that people have bigger aspirations than their regular day job. We should talk!

8 answers • almost 11 years

Mobile applications Entrepreneurship Mobile Marketing

What would next-generation apps look like?

Shane Walker answered: Glass will be disruptive. I'm in the first set of users on it and it's impressive. I see a new class of services and products with not only the immediacy of the phone, but the power of first-person augmentation. Think of the possibilities! Developers can help people communicate better, know more, live healthier, become smarter, remember more, do more, record more, consume more, and so on and so on. Glass entrepreneurs have a real opportunity to touch people's lives in a very intimate way. I think there is tremendous opportunity for companies that do this right.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Raising Money

Is it ever a good idea to raise money on the small stock exchanges for a startup company?

Tom Williams answered: No. The ongoing costs are significant, it's very difficult to create liquidity and trading volume, and the valuation is often lower than what that same company could achieve in venture funding. Also, the CEO's time is spent managing investor relations in a very inefficient way.

2 answers • almost 11 years

Growth Hacking Crowdfunding Online Marketing

How would you get 1500 sign-ups for this http://koloswheel.com/ cool hardware accessory over night/week/month with little to no money?

Bronson Taylor answered: Easy :) There are a number of companies that make games which would work with your steering wheel. If those companies have captured the email address of their users (or have the ability to send push notifications to the device) then they already have a direct relationship to your market. Go to these companies (all of them), and create a profit sharing deal that incentivizes everyone involved. If they promote your product to their user base then they will receive $X per conversion. It's a win-win-win. Customer wins because they find out about an accessory that they care about. Gaming company wins because they brought their customers something cool and useful, and they make money from the transaction. You win because you get tens of thousands of pings being sent out on your behalf to a perfectly targeted market, without spending any money upfront, and only spending money on the back end when the purchase has already happened and there is no unknown monetary risk. If you need more growth strategies - give me a call.

3 answers • almost 11 years

Leadership Development Strategic Leadership Entrepreneurship

What are the most important ways that women can cultivate their leadership personas?

Noam Kostucki answered: Thank you for your question. It comes at a perfect time because I have just started mentoring a young woman from Nepal via the WeduFund nonprofit because I believe that the world needs more female leaders: in my opinion the world will be a much better place when we have a 50-50 presence of female-male leaders in all fields. The way you phrased your question makes me want to share two disclaimers before I continue: 1. Any answer given here has to be a generalization: all women (and men) are different. Every single client I work with (man and woman) has a different story and requires to find their own unique path the building their leadership persona. I understand that you're looking for general trends, which is what I will focus on. 2. Your question implies a difference between men and women. To keep this answer relatively short, the only difference I will highlight is that in my experience of coaching, training and mentoring women managers, executives and entrepreneurs is that women tend to have the reverse strengths and weaknesses men have. For example, most of my male and female clients agree with the statement "when men think, they say they know; when women know, they say they think". Please let me know if this was actually the focus of your question. In business as well as in media, most leadership personas are still portrait by men. A direct result is that most female leaders believe they have to emulate the way men cultivate their leadership (which may very well work for some!). The three basic principles will always be the same, however the journey and the way to fulfill these principles will alway be different: 1. Building your brand. I have written a book called "you are your brand" where I describe this process in more details. You have to tell a great story, show your vision, share your values and walk the talk. Your brand must be build within your organization, within your network of friends, within your industry as well as on social media. How does your peronsal brand look like now? What does your ideal brand look like? 2. Building relations up (hierarchic superiors, mentors), side-ways (colleagues at the same level, clients, suppliers) and down (direct team members, junior employees). A persona is an image people have of you: once you have clarity of your brand, you have to create a network of people who know and believe in your brand. Cultivating relations and building a strong network of followers is crucial to establishing your leadership. How are you current relations up, sideways and down? Which ones do you need most improvement on? 3. Continuously grow as a leader: some people may be tempted to build a leadership persona without actually being great leaders. You can build the best brand in the world but if you don't walk the talk, people will eventually notice your persona is only sparks and artefacts. It is crucial that you continuously grow as a leader because the best leader create leaders. In other words, your leadership will be most fully established the moment your mentees / followers have taken your position. This means that you must have taken the steps to grow to the next level up. What are your strengths and successes as a leader? What does the next level of leadership look like for you: where are you going? A good example of a female leader who does not attempt to emulate male leadership is Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook. I recommend to many of my female clients to this her book "Lean In" because it is a great basis for developing our coaching relationship. While reading the book, make notes of what you can relate to and what does not relate to you: we can then focus on the similarities and differences because like everyone... you are unique. If you want to explore how to build your brand, how to build relations and how to grow as a leader, you can get in touch via Clarity or take a look at my work on www.about.me/noamkos

4 answers • almost 11 years

Leadership

How does one become a "charismatic" leader?

David Berman answered: I believe that "charismatic" isn't something you call yourself - It's something your audience / team / followers calls you. In my experience charismatic people do tend to be extraordinarily passionate people. So perhaps to become more charismatic - be more passionate.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Growth Hacking Product Design Entrepreneurship

For an Internet software startup in 2013, what is more important for success: distribution or product? (all other things being equal)

Tom Williams answered: Engagement matters most. Engagement is actually a function of great product and great distribution. Engagement is thought-of mostly as a product issue but in many cases, it also expresses itself as a distribution problem particularly where there is no possibility for a "single player" experience (marketplaces, feedback loops, anything attempting to be inherently social) If you have sustained engagement (a product experience loved by users) you will be successful, limited only by the potential number of people in the world that need the experience you provide and growing at a rate closely correlated to your distribution channels. Inefficient distribution is easier to optimize for then insufficient product. So to this extent, product matters more. But available distribution channels (or more accurately, the unavailable distribution tactics) also can define a company's fundraising options, and more definitively, the overall cultural and corporate DNA of the organization that forms around product & distribution. This is the best, most generalized answer I can provide to your question. Happy to talk to you and provide you a more contextually relevant answer to your own circumstances.

5 answers • almost 11 years

Therapeutic Massage eCommerce Marketing

Want to market massage business with Groupon but we do outcalls and do not have a location. What do I do?

Tom Williams answered: My understanding is that neither LivingSocial nor Groupon avail their discounts to "outcall-only" services. A new suite of services are cropping-up that might be better for you as a service provider. Two notable ones include http://www.mytime.com/ and http://www.prompt.ly Also, I'd encourage you to speak with peers or even book massage appointments via different services and talk with the service providers about their experience before doing so yourself. I have several friends who are body-workers who have expressed dissatisfaction with their experience with "daily deal" sites. The two apps I mention are much more a "personal calendaring" service for people who sell their time, mixed with some commerce components. Hope this helps.

4 answers • almost 11 years

Cryptography Bitcoin Currency

What makes Bitcoin a better cryptocurrency then those attempted in the past?

John M answered: I've been running a bitcoin only e-commerce business for 6 months now. Previous currencies might have involved cryptography, but not to the extent that Bitcoin employs it. What is special about it, is that the cryptographic schemes behind Bitcoin allows it to be DECENTRALIZED. There is no company, or body that can be swayed into changing the allocation of the currency. The bitcoin protocol is truly impressive in the way that it is almost it's own autonomous institution, providing value to humanity, and thus being supported by human activity. Here's a brief run down of how it works, with some shortcuts. 1. "Bitcoin" is a decentralized means of tracking and assigning wealth or economic value. Bitcoin is a software protocol, computer network, idea, community, movement, etc. 2. A "bitcoin" is a unit of the currency that is moved around by the Bitcoin network. 3. Central to Bitcoin is a public ledger, known as the Block Chain. Roughly every 10 minutes, a new "block" is added to this chain or ledger. This ledger records all of the transaction that have taken place in the last 10 minutes, and what quantities of bitcoin currency are now held at different public addresses. 4. A public address is a a 27 to 34 character string of uppercase, lowercase letters and the digits from 0 to 9. AKA base 58. 5. Each public address has a corresponding private key. Whoever has this key, may spend the coins that are held at this private address. Private keys are 51 characters long in the same format as a public address. 6. To spend an amount of bitcoin, you must use your private key to cryptographically sign the transaction, sending your bitcoin to another address. 7. This message or transaction is then broadcast to the network, and the computers in the network begin working to write into the block chain (or public ledger) that your address no longer has the amount that was sent, but that that amount is now held at the receiving address. 8. Each new set of transaction is recorded on the block chain, every 10 minutes as mentioned above. 9. All of the computers that are working to write new blocks to the block chain, are known as miners. 10. These computers are all racing to solve a cryptographic puzzle, which is required to write the new block. 11. The computer that solves the puzzle, and writes the new block receives an award of newly created bitcoin. 12. The reward associated with each block began at 50 in 2009, is now 25, and will halve every 4 years, until an ultimate quantity of 21 million bitcoin are created. 13. This transparency is a large part of the value created by Bitcoin, in that the rate of creation, and current amount in existence is known. That is my best attempt at translating what has taken me months to wrap my head around, and the implications go much further. I'm happy to answer other questions about Bitcoin; the system, the community, or business challenges and opportunities associated with it.

6 answers • almost 11 years

Bitcoin Currency Economics

What are the different ways to make money with Bitcoin?

Brad Mills answered: I've been into bitcoin since 2011, and here's my brief take on where the opportunity lies. - Mining: Bitcoin mining is too difficult unless you invest a significant amount of money into it, think over $10,000 ... and it only becomes profitable if the price of bitcoin does another 10X (which it may. - Mining: Altcoins may be the quicker path to profits (http://coinmarketcap.com/) ... mine some altcoins and then converting them to bitcoin through one of the exchanges like cryptsy.com - Buying: I am waiting for another price crash before I buy back into bitcon, I'm hoping it will drop to $500. I see it rising back up over $2000 if it does drop, however now that the Chinese are into bitcoin, its a real possibility that the price will just keep rising. - Arbitrage: The price difference between exchanges is massive. You can now buy bitcoin at btc-e for $1000 and sell it instantly at mtgox.com for $1200. If you had $100,000 to arbitrage with, that is a cool $20,000 profit. The probem is that these exchanges may go down at any time and you risk losing your money/bitcoins. -Startup: You could build something with real value, although the competition now is fierce to build a product with real value that has not already been built. VC's are getting hot for bitcoin startups, check out press on Ripple Labs, BTC China, BitInstant, Coinbase, etc. There are some other opportunities, like buying a bitcoin ATM machine from a franchise (Robocoin, Lamassus) or something a little more in the grey area like starting a bitcoin casino. There's lots of opportunity in cryptocurrency if you look hard enough, I feel though that the window of opportunity for massive profits and value creation is narrowing due to the eyeballs looking at the bitcoin world right now. So whatever you want to do, take massive action and do it fast before you lose momentum and first movers advantage.

5 answers • almost 11 years