I help clients leverage and monetize their patents in a variety of ways. One of the best methods is to attend and exhibit at trade shows in your field. Targeting startups may be one approach, but that's not the only market for your patent. I'd be happy to talk with you about identifying the best trade show and working the direct solicitation angle as well. Let me know when you're ready to get started!

If you are going to lead the workshops: Start with personal branding. Workshops and coaching are by experts and I'd recommend building a personal brand first. People should build trust in you. Then your offerings. Each offering that you have - a workshop, a coaching program etc. - should have it's own branding. You may even have separate websites for each of your offerings. If you are only organizing the business and not going to lead the programs yourself: then you got to do a corporate branding. So people relate to the organization more than individuals delivering the programs. The coaching / self help / personal development / health industry is full of examples of both branding strategies. If you study a few cases, and their business models, you will gain better insights on why they chose their branding strategy. And you can even question if the strategy worked or not. I hope this gives additional perspective to what you are thinking. Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss this further.

Do you know how your best customers are finding you through adwords? If you have a big enough data set there's likely some commonality. It's a gross oversimplification but if you can track them from start to finish, there's no reason you should have to continue acquiring the $30 customers.

If you are based in the USA the Small Business Administration is an excellent source. I have found excellent literature on their website. They also have a group called SCORE which will provide free business consulting and startup classes. I have read a book "Start Your Own Business" by Peter Shea is an excellent source. It is part of the Entrepreneur Press series. There are several automotive aftermarket associations in the USA that have a lot of excellent information on their website. Check www.autocare.org and www.sema.org. The USDOC has a great website called www.export.gov. Worth looking at. I have worked with a client based in Southeast Asia who worked in a similar field, expanding into some specific markets. I hope this helps.

Hi, you can find some open articles from Euromonitor (although most are not open), internetretailer.com/trends/consumers/ , Forbes, https://blog.vendhq.com/ or BCG reports.

Have you talked to a Salesforce rep? Seriously. They would be best and most knowledgeable to tell you whether their software can do what you want. Business-wise, your post frightens me with the impression of unbridled, "The customer wants it? Let's build it--who knows or cares if it's profitable!" That's great if you've got a giant pool of money to draw on and are specifically looking for the winner solution that will take off and hit mass market success. Which highlights the real problem I see here: your firm seems like it is doing far too much custom work. Without some repetition, using work you've done before, you're reinventing the wheel every time. Unless you're getting paid highly to develop these custom solutions, you're blowing cash and sinking towards debt every time you "buy a customer." From what you've shared, it looks like there are critical issues with your business model. Yes, you need some kind of analytics backbone to give you the data you want. But first, you need to identify what measures are important to you--and buying customer and playing with apps is not where money is made. How long have you been in business? What's your average cost of customer acquisition? And fulfillment? Are you making a profit? Do you know? From your post, it sounds to me like you understand the *technology* of your business, but not the *processes* of your business. It sounds, honestly, like a snarled-up mess of day-to-day firefighting. I'd be curious what your accountant has to say about cashflow. Have you mapped these processes out? Developed some KPIs to figure out what's going on and what needs to be kept tabs on? Figure those out first. Processes flowcharted and measures determined first, tech to manage them last. Technology (your CRM, software etc.) comes last. Technology is glue. What do you get if you apply glue first? A mess. I think you need more than a CRM consultation.

If you're CAN-SPAM compliant, showing unsubscribe links, physical address etc, you don't have a policy problem. You have a relevance problem. Frequency and chasing prospects are not bad, as a matter of fact they can be quite good. But you have to be relevant to what the customer expects to get this to work. Let me go through a purposefully ridiculous example: let's say I run a pet store that sells dogs, cats and fish. You're in the market for a puppy. So you click on my facebook ad for the puppy owner manual (or the google ad, or the list drop, or whatever) and enter your email. You get your puppy email but you also start getting cat and fish emails. 2 out of 3 emails are about litter boxes and aquariums. Worse yet, it's international cat week and I'm hitting you every day with a liquidation sale offer for kittens. You unsubscribe. And you hit SPAM. Because you never asked for that. On the other hand, if you happened to get dog emails, you would probably be interested in them and stay on the list. In fact, since you're in the market you would probably take as much as you can get. Same frequency on the surface, totally different story with relevance. You don't have to have multiple products to take advantage of this. You always will have multiple customer motivations and often will have separate avatars. It boils down to marketing strategy and is implemented throughout your customer acquisition process from inbound/outbound lead gen all the way through marketing automation.

Hi there! This is a great question - I actually started an apparel company that sells through Etsy about a year ago. We looked in to quite a few different fulfillment options, and, because of that, I've developed a really extensive list of resources and companies to do this. The answer to this really comes down to how much you want to spend per shirt, as well as the quantity of each design you want to order. Some companies use a process called Direct to Garment which allows you to order one item at a time as orders come in. This process is usually more expensive overall, but you don't need to order a bunch of the shirts before you know if they will sell through. Your margins are reduced though, and you need to wait for the shirts to be printed before shipping them, adding to the turnaround time after each order. Another option is Screen Printing, which can get you much lower costs per shirt, but you need to order in much higher quantities. This method is great if you have only a few designs that you are trying to sell, but becomes less feasible with more designs. As I said before, I have a really extensive list of companies that I've tried, so I know which ones really provide great quality, which ones are lower cost, and which ones do direct fulfillment. Let me know if you want to talk more!

You’re asking some great questions, and beyond the fact that there is no teacher as great as experience, it seems tragic how common this experience is, and making great investments is hard even for seasoned professionals. But it’s incredible how often the only two factors used to assess an investment are how much it will make, and how much they like (or know) the people running the deal, when just a few additional questions can often make all the difference. When looking at a new opportunity, the first thing I do is ask if I believe management’s story. This is really about getting a feel for whether you believe the people running the business or opportunity are qualified to exploit whatever inefficiency they have identified in the marketplace. If they can’t express in simple terms what that opportunity is, why they’re qualified to take advantage of it, and exactly how what they do will generate returns for the investor – run away. This is different than asking if I believe in the management, or like them – it’s about their ability to state in plain language their investment thesis, and back it up with the skills and tools needed to execute. Next, put it in context - consider the size of the opportunity and this investment’s place in it. Is it a big market, or small? Lots of competition or not? Does this investment bring something new to the space and will gains come from new business or is the plan to take it from existing competitors? If there are no crisp answers to these sizing questions, consider it a big red flag. The next bit is about understanding the risk of the investment. The single most common mistake made by investors is mis-pricing risk. Markets are pretty efficient, so there has to be a reason someone else isn’t already doing whatever this investment proposes to do and understanding what this dynamic is can be the single difference between good and bad investments. It may be that nobody has thought of it, or no one can do what this will do at the same low cost. Or there is an asymmetry of information, where you know something others in the market don’t yet know. Whatever it is, trying to understand the risk of the investment is key: understanding the timing of the probable returns, appreciating what could go wrong and how management will respond if it does, what change in the environment (like new laws, new competitors, new technology) could turn the deal on its head, and what assumptions need to remain true through the course of the investment. I’m not sure there is any way to get all of the right before making an investment, and surprises always happen, but the more work done to figure this part out can help determine whether the investment is worth making based on what its expected to return, and it often highlights something just plainly wrong with an investment. Finally, know that there are very few great investment opportunities relative to the number of absolute junk stories out there, and finding ones that make sense for your risk tolerance and timeline just takes work. And experience. And even when you get everything right, sometimes good investments still go bad.

It's good that your app has some traction. I have a classifieds ad site too (targeting Canadian market). Initially I was wondering if I should use WordPress or created it using MVC I picked the MVC approach. The thing is when doing the MVC you have to implement most of the functionality yourself (or your dev) which is time consuming. In hindsight I think I should've used WordPress and then bought some plugins to add to the missing functionality. I'd say do the incremental improvement approach because the things you listed would take time & cost a lot. By 7.9M do you mean 7.9MB ? The app can be 50MB in size but what is important is what the HTML it is generating. About the monetization you can do some contextual ads and some affiliate links. You have to be specific when talking to your dev what you mean by analytics. Say when a user does this I want this and that to happen. You can list some scenarios and how the reports should look like. Good luck! Slavi Marinov, Orbisius

I wish I could give you the perfect answer-- we are using Infusionsoft + CustomerHub, which is NOT the best solution given they don't have a forum feature-- we have had to tack on "Tender" which is built as a support ticket/help desk engine and we've had to modify it quite a bit. I think it's ridiculous that CustomerHub doesn't have a forum given they are a membership site platform--!? Anyway, I can speak to Infusionsoft-- yes, it is expensive and yes, it is complex, but I am happy with their ability to handle VOLUME and their ability to customize and refine to infinite possibilities. There is a lot of power in that and it's built for growth and seems very sustainable. I have had a membership site for 9 years, and believe me, you don't want to move your entire platform when it becomes obsolete-- that is a huge job. You do need some assistance setting it up, but after that you can maintain on your own. I also love the way I can run multiple businesses/income streams all through one Infusionsoft account. That is valuable too. Hope this helps.

Others have addressed social media here. Sure, that is important, but is only one piece of the puzzle. A comprehensive --- and tested --- marketing plan is the key. As a former CMO for an international higher education student-centric nonprofit that depended on direct/integrated marketing for 80% of its success, I suggest that looking at any and all channels is imperative. If you do not have a quality direct marketing list, then going to where potential students --- and their parents --- are going will be the biggest key. On the web, that will be the most-visited relevant sites that enable you retarget via companies like AdRoll. The other concern is the ever-expanding use of ad blockers. Therefore, simply "advertising" is not as powerful as it once was. Becoming a resource that will draw people to your site and blog will naturally increase your exposure via Google and other search engines over time. This is just a cursory overview, since I do not know your exact product and business plan. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to further discuss your challenges.

Are you pursuing a for-profit or non-profit model for your school? Do you have an education background? Are you certified to run Montessori school? Initial recommendations: •Investigate the California Department of Education requirements for operating an educational institution. •Investigate the requirements for the two accrediting bodies for Montessori: AMS <http://amshq.org/School-Resources/AMS-School-Accreditation> and AMI <http://amiusa.org/>. While not required, private schools are reputation-based and accreditation plays into your brand equity. •Investigate the requirements for the regional independent school accrediting body. While not required, many Montessori schools struggle to keep enrollment through elementary and middle school as parents expectations shift to college preparation, which Montessori does not have strong brand recognition for, and adopt a academic rigor / progressive education model of education accredited by a regional independent schools association for credibility. While starting with kindergarten frees you from the state early childhood childcare regulations, which can be onerous, it also cuts off your funnel. As a school brand, Montessori is precisely strongest at the very early ages, so you may have a challenge attracting families who already started their child with a Montessori school that has a preschool. Many Montessori school start with 18-month infant & parent programs. Best regards, Keith Gillette

One of your big opportunities is positioning yourself in the B2B rather than B2C space. I've consulted for a bow tie e-commerce retailer and one thing I know from that is just how competitive the B2C space is for men's accessories when looking at SEO/SEM etc. as a promotional method. One major opportunity for you as a manufacturer though is in the positioning yourself as a distributor and even dropshipper if you have the capacity. Suppliers and manufacturers are notoriously poor at promotion and hence a lot of e-commerce startups looking for quality suppliers will have difficulty finding them. This presents you with a great opportunity to acquire customers that are going to give you far higher lifetime value of customers than pure retail transactions and without the immense competition of the B2C space. As I've had a lot of experience in both the e-commerce side and in working with distributors and manufacturers, I'd be more than happy to discuss further with you a strong go-to-market strategy. Cheers, Mike

To build on what Sarah said - you can also look within channel if you have access to someone with the technical chops. Some ad groups or campaigns could be driving "worst" leads and others could be driving "best" ones. To cut off the channel is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. UTM tags in adwords (or any other platform these days) will be key to figuring this out. If you get leads on the phone, there are awesome solutions out there as well.

Hey there; I've helped quite a few tech startups (mostly in travel & SaaS) nail down their value propositions, especially as it relates to copywriting & conversions. Just a guess, but could it be that you're focusing too much on differentiating based on your website's "features" or what it does? If the core of what you offer isn't all that unique, try looking at other ways to differentiate. For example: - customer service (Zappos) - world view or business POV (Tom's one-for-one strategy) - personality (Mailchimp) - product design - the audience you serve (niche out) - how your website is created/run Not all of these type of differentiators will be "game-changing." But if what makes your service/website unique resonates deeply with your target audience, maybe you don't have to be a "disruptor" like Uber or airbnb. Tough to say without knowing what industry you're actually in. If you want to chat, feel free to contact me. Hope this helps. Dustin

Great question - I have worked on several projects relating directly to what you are describing (based on my initial understanding) including providing software interfacing for mobile/PC/TV for large-scale hardware manufacturers as well as for mobile devices connecting to sensors and translating/reading data sent from equipment buried several feet under the ground to track eco changes for contractors. Assuming by device we are referencing mobile/smartphones (and possibly connectivity with hardware on two different platforms?), in which case I would imagine Bluetooth connectivity should be able to get the job done for you. There are really a lot of factors that could go into either how to utilize Bluetooth, or if an alternative path towards connectivity would be required (the device types you're connecting, their congruence/similarity, if there are prompts on the push/pull pinging, where the data from each activity is being housed once completed, geo-relevancy and latency requirements to name a few.) I'd be happy to set aside a few minutes to talk about the details of your project and provide any additional insight I can on how can you connect these devices and build out your system.

You need to be analytically strong and understand financial concepts. The basic building block is understanding time value of money, discount rates, cash flows etc. Essentially, that will be your main job, to understand a firm's value. You'll have to say more on what you know so far (educational background etc) for me to dig deeper in this field.

Few things to consider here, definitely would want to be looking at vesting the equity, good article on that here to get you started: http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/2013/02/equity-basics-vesting-cliffs-acceleration-and-exits/. I'd also be looking at a technical gun to be reviewing him from a technical standpoint, if you aren't a developer yourself it's difficult to review him from a code standard type standpoint, so I'd get that checked off also. Regarding salary, % of equity and all of that, it's just what is the expected increase in business value through his contribution and then work back from there. Performance and bonus structures work well to incentivise without risking a large salary portion. Also be wary of your fixed costs basically doubling if you're used to only paying yourself a salary and all other costs are variable i.e. development costs based on customers etc. Few points that hopefully help out!

Unfortunately you have to file your taxes for every year even if you do not have any business activity as well as to comply with your state fillings and the filings for your Secretary of State. You cannot add the activity of 2 years together, there has to be a filing for every year, in this case $0 revenue for 2015 but you still have to file it with $0

It depends on the source of the leads for the B2C. It is a very personal experience and also depends on the relationship level you have with the clients. I have clients who are very successful with a more moderate approach. We have worked out a pattern where they contact them within 5-7 business days. Their clients will not even talk to them before a minimum of 5 business days. A solid CRM system will allow your team to work towards finding a good average response time. Personally, and as a business owner, I do not want to hear back even further out. I also believe that it depends on the maturity level of your team. Age and maturity make a difference. I hope this helps.

What are you currently using to track conversions? Google Analytics? There are a number of ways to accomplish what you are speaking about and it will depend on how robust of a solution you desire and also what your sales cycle looks like. One simple solution is to use the Google Analytics "Multi-Channel Funnels - Top Conversion Path" feature to track source and medium of each touchpoint throughout the conversion process. Select "source/medium path" as your primary dimension and then "campaign path" as your secondary dimension. This should give you a basic Idea of how people are engaging with your site prior to a conversion. You can also use the Attribution Model Comparison tool to discover which channels have the most impact at certain points during the buying cycle. If you are in a more complex situation (IE, b2b lead gen with a sales team and long sales cycle) there are more robust solutions such as creating a UUID that can push to your CRM and back into Analytics upon sales cycle completion to give a more clear idea as to which channels, campaigns, keywords etc are resulting in actual sales vs which ones created leads. Hope that helps. Let me know if you want a have a quick call to discuss further.

The short answer is "it depends, but more than likely yes." Investing in a managed an scalable SEO strategy can be the kind of marketing effort that pays dividends slowly (but surely) over time. If the validity and value of the organic traffic you are generating is high, and these customers are qualified buyers ready to make a purchase, then focus on growing the denominator (i.e. the pool of traffic from this source) is exactly what you should be doing right now. Generally speaking, as you increase in size the overall ratio of value to traffic size will diminish, but again you make up for that in the aggregate of a larger pool from which to drive purchases. It's not so much a function of should you or shouldnt you, it is really more a function of to what extent you should be. I would say that (generally) investing in your SEO growth is a plan that will more likely generate medium-term results; if you need an immediate boost in driving sales then I would consider other campaigns such as looks-alikes on FB (if you have a good following there) or perhaps re-targeting for abandoned site visitors. Are you utilizing and growing an email list from the people who visit your site? you might want to consider ways to monetize more of the numerator as well - in that if you can get email addresses with something like a lightbox roadblock pop-up form or something when visitors first hit the site you can set them up on a drip and drive re-capture opportunities back to your site. happy to hop on a call and discuss further if you want to get into more details/ideas.

I would suggest checking out cofounderslab.com. They have a great service with a free tier that allows to to mingle with other people interested in starting like minded businesses. Through CoFoundersLab you can actively look for people in specific regions or people with specific skills.

You should be looking at both your overall CPA from all sources and also CPA for each individual source. Your goal should be to get the most out of every dollar you're spending on your paid advertising campaigns, which means figuring out which channels give you the most ROI and putting more budget toward those. In other words, if your Adwords campaigns have a very high CPA, that's making your overall CPA higher than it needs to be. Because your overall CPA here is $30, that indicates that you have other channels that have a CPA much lower than that. If you focus your efforts on those channels, you should be able to bring your overall CPA down. That said, your non-UTM traffic may be coming primarily from organic search (ie you're not paying for it, so it brings down your CPA to include this traffic in the calculations). You could choose to focus on SEO, but I'd also recommend calculating CPA for all the channels you do have UTM parameters for so you can see how everything compares across the board before deciding where to focus your efforts & budget. Hope this helps - let me know if you'd like to discuss further!