Product guy at heart.
Building a software marketplace for non-coders @widgetic.
SaaS
Product guy at heart.
I don't think you should focus your entire energy on the launch. Instead, a smart cross-selling strategy could do great on the long term. You didn't mention if the same user-base will already be signed-up to the service, or if they would have to make a totally different account. Assuming the latter, you could offer discounts at specific intervals for those that have already signed-up for the second service.
Product Design
Product guy at heart.
This is a good problem to have. We're in the same position with our product Widgetic. My advice would be to go through this article by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html. I did a resume of what you need, here: **Fire** - Focus on a deliberately narrow market (subsets of users). It's like keeping a fire contained at first to get it really hot before adding more logs. **Consult** - pick a single user and act as if they were consultants building something just for that one user. The initial user serves as the form for your mold; keep tweaking till you fit their needs perfectly. As you can see, this also seems the best approach - which not many products are lucky to have - to pick a specific target user group and focus on that initially, to get as much of that market first.
Website Development
Product guy at heart.
There are many Website Builder Platforms. It's an entire industry that seems to be thriving - the top 5 players having all raised millions in funding this year (2014). This list is in no particular order. Some of them offer the ability to create membership type websites (but not in the standard way where your members would access a CMS - that can only be done custom). Website Builder Platforms BaseKit Based Platform (HostGator, SiteJam, etc) - http://www.basekit.com/ GoDaddy Website Builder - https://www.godaddy.com/ Jimdo - http://www.jimdo.com/ Populr - https://www.populr.me/ Readymag - https://readymag.com/ SquareSpace - http://www.squarespace.com/ Voog - http://voog.com/ (edicy back in the day) Webflow - https://webflow.com/ Webnode - http://www.webnode.com/ Weebly - http://www.weebly.com/ Wix - http://www.wix.com/ Yola - https://www.yola.com/ Zoho Sites - https://www.zoho.com/sites/ Moonfruit - http://moonfruit.com/ Biznessweb - http://biznessweb.com/ Aircus - http://www.aircus.com/ imcreator - http://www.imcreator.com/ Cloudcannon - http://cloudcannon.com Webydo - http://webydo.com Sidengo - https://sidengo.com/ Homestead - http://www.homestead.com/ Virb - http://virb.com/ Breezi - http://breezi.com/ Strikingly - http://www.strikingly.com/ uCoz - http://www.ucoz.com/ Flazio - http://www.flazio.com/ Jigsy - http://jigsy.com/ Webstarts - http://www.webstarts.com/ Webs - http://www.webs.com/ Vistaprint - http://vistaprint.com/ Simplesite - http://www.simplesite.com/ SnapPages - http://snappages.com/ Exai - http://www.exai.com/ Site Sumo - http://sitesumo.com/ DoddleKit - http://www.doodlekit.com/ Pikock - http://www.pikock.com/ Gutensite - http://www.gutensite.com/ Flavors Me - http://flavors.me/ Airsquare - http://www.airsquare.com/ Mobsyte - http://www.mobsyte.com/ Pagekit - http://www.pagekit.com/ Goodsie - http://goodsie.com/ Freshcreator - http://www.freshcreator.com/ Oxxy - https://www.oxxy.com/ Cubender - http://www.cubender.com/ Lifeyo - http://www.lifeyo.com/ Froont - http://froont.com/ Mozello - http://www.mozello.com/ Pixelhub - http://pixelhub.me/ Dudamobile - http://www.dudamobile.com/ Unbounce - http://unbounce.com/ Nubook - http://nubook.com/ Zyro - http://zyro.com/ Justaddcontent - http://justaddcontent.com/ Mpress - http://mpress.me/ Livecontrol - https://www.livecontrol.net/ Rocketspark - http://www.rocketspark.com/ The Grid - https://thegrid.io/ Website - http://www.website.com/ Sitezulu - http://www.sitezulu.com/ Sitedity - http://www.sitedity.com/ Nikktto - https://nikktto.com Website builder - http://www.website-builder.com/ Mrsite - http://mrsite.com/ Websitebuild - http://www.websitebuild.net/ Landerapp - http://landerapp.com/ Simplybuilt - https://www.simplybuilt.com Instapage - http://www.instapage.com/ Broadsheet - http://broadsheet.io/ I'm sure there's more website builder platforms out there that are not in my list.
Web development
Product guy at heart.
Another service similar to the one mentioned is https://uploadcare.com/. Being restricted to SquareSpace means you need a widget that would be embeddable in their platform, that would come with this functionality. You should also explore the big video players out there to see if they offer this type of widget (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, DailyMotion, etc).
Fundraising
Product guy at heart.
I'd like to send some good resources we used for our deck: How to deliver a killer business presentation: http://mashable.com/2012/02/03/improve-business-presentation/ How you can pitch for 5 to 6 minutes like a Techstars graduate: http://blog.spanishcurls.com/the-5-to-6-minute-pitch 14 things to avoid in your startup pitch deck: http://blog.press42.com/index.php/2013/01/16/14-donts-startup-pitch-deck/ The popular 10/20/30 Rule: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html Sample Decks: https://angel.co/7-cups-of-tea http://bobbyvoicu.com/always-be-pitching-right.html http://bobbyvoicu.com/saturday-video-great-startup-pitches.html http://bobbyvoicu.com/linkedin-pitch-deck-explained-reid-hoffman.html http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/08/15/how-to-raise-money-as-a-first-time-founder/ http://blog.spanishcurls.com/the-5-to-6-minute-pitch
Technical Hiring
Product guy at heart.
As the CEO of digital agency Vuzum but also the founder of our own startup Widgetic, I can tell you that we've got a lot of similar requests. But we turned them down, and always will. The reason is simple: if we want to invest time into an idea, we'll invest in our own. And we'll get 100% of the equity while we're doing it. And more than that, starting a product with someone involved as a partner, who is miles away, would happen with a lot of legal issues and mistrust. If you're going this route to get an MVP out it's also a bad decision, because if - by the smallest chance - is going to be successful, this initial partnership will follow you across your product's lifetime. See how Facebook paid 60M to the twin brothers for similar reasons.
Growth Hacking
Product guy at heart.
Believe it or not, at the size of 20+, I'm asking myself the same question. How do we grow more. There's just one answer, when you plan to bootstrap (which seems you do): product. Focus on your product, try to reach PMF or at least a healthy cash flow every month, that would allow you to bring more people in your team (as partners, as employees or as a service provider - agency, freelancer).
angel investing
Product guy at heart.
I would recommend you browse the sites that have already mapped these types of companies by categories. Some good examples to start with: https://nytm.org/made http://www.digital.nyc/map http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/members/
Programming
Product guy at heart.
Hi. Parse should do the job ( https://www.parse.com ). We've successfully used them at Vuzum across many native and hybrid apps on both iOS and Android.
User Interface Design
Product guy at heart.
I would build on top of Danny Halarewich's answer. Having gone through a sorrow experience with Dribbble, I would recommend you also check that the work of the designers you contact is live, so that you can require them to send some references. Reach out to those references before deciding on a designer.
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