Founder of Social Magnets Consulting, Idea Ninja, Advisor, Branding, Positioning, Strategy, Marketing, Startups, Small Business, Innovation, Connector, and well...much more. Call me.
Every business and product has strengths and weaknesses. Great positioning can overcome this. There are many business specific tactics that can also control the customer experience so prison is not the focus or an issue that comes up.
It is all about understanding the value items, needs, and players involved. From there you can find many ways to connect them.
For most, curiosity, pizza, and college. I think more people found key people after they got going than inspiration before starting.
Just hang out and network with investors and get them talking about their horror stories. They are part of experience.
I would check out the dummies books as they tend to cover everything from broad to specific and offer many tips. Also I would contact some local developers and buy them lunch. That will be better than any book.
There are many communities and groups that would likely fill your need more than dedicated platforms. Also to get straight to the point you should find exactly the type of or actual people you want to network with and reach out to them. This works surprisingly well.
Much of it starts with knowing your own business. You want a diverse set of advisors. Some have experience, some have fresh ideas, advice needs to come from practical and impractical sources that all offer a strategic value in making decisions and directing the business.
There are many ways to do this, if a person doesn't have money and wants organic targeted traffic you have to put in the work and build it with the right tools and tactics. At the core it is as with all marketing about finding traffic streams, and directing them to you. Creating your own audience is a long term strategy. People who don't have money need to think high leverage long term. Money makes things go faster, smarts and patients is what it takes to succeed without the first.
Good question. The first thing is you need to define what it is you really need. The title is less important and not universal anyway. In general it may be a person with marketing and technical abilities. There is a big difference if they come from one or the other. Other people may just have an ability to create new models that get faster results. If your startup needs this "growth hacking" on the technical side make that clear to attract the right person. For most, I think the strategy and marketing side is more useful since people have been hugely successful with mediocre products if positioned right. Feel free to contact me to talk about your project.
Content curation is a specialty of mine. The fact is original content is not nearly as good as curated content for many reasons. I would still add some original content but the mix can be tailored to your audience and position you to say more while spending and doing less. It is all about the management. Most people misunderstand content curation and the pros and cons and see it as a weak tactic when in reality it can be brilliant. Contact me to find out more.
There are many ways to make this happen and reasons. Some are organic, like being connected, influential, or in the right environment. For the rest, it is a hard road. Many go to services and gates to get new clients, others research, local networking, and partnerships. I like to build systems. When you understand your prospects you can position yourself to be the choice and find places where there is less competition.