Their phone system works really and simply delivers what is expected. I think having an availability time calendar would be very beneficial so that scheduling matches our availability. Being able to record calls and charge clients an additional fee for that would be great. Also, screen sharing would be good too.

In short yes. In medium term, depends. In your case probably not. Most investors look for viable options that show that you can get real cheap production/sourcing of goods or services offered, actual market reach to capitalize on goods (example could be a stack of POs or preorders, or substantial email requests) and skillful team in place to pull it together. Im an MBA business coach and entrepreneur, I've also invested in a similar startup like the one you mentioned and they failed 2 years into it. Hey lacked one of the 3 I mentioned and just as a bar stool with 3 legs, you need all 3 to have a sustainable business. Savvy investors look for this... They look for your sounded and balanced approach, realistic forecasts, actionable plans, actions to date, financials, team and your leadership... But none the less i think all investors are also driven by their emotions- how good of a pitch man are you? How can you connect them to your product idea? Etc.. Etc... As you can see the more you dig into getting investors but depending on how you present the 3, to the right investor for your idea, the idea might be enough to give you a try. I would suggest to not waste your time pitching and burning bridges until you have a prototype, but I wont! I will instead tell you to go research your area, pitch your idea to valuable people who could help you implement something rough, create a landing page to capture emails, create social accounts and promote the idea there, it's values, etc. garner a community... Then once you have a community of supporters of your "what if" go get yourself a Kickstarter campaign going... And promote it through your community. Ask for support... Get some funding.. Then if that's not enough.. Go look for relevant business individuals who would be interested and could invest. Convince by showing off your community size, campaign support, effort, and your drive to do and maybe then you can get investors without an actual product. :) #unthink

I've done fundraising for two of my own startups, and advised 4 others. The only answer to this question is "now." As soon as you think you have product market fit, you should be getting in touch with seed investors. It takes time for these relationships to develop; and in the startup world, time is always running out. Your pitch may fluctuate and adjust while you're out there shaking hands and building presentations. But don't let that uncertainty stop you from meeting people. You may be tempted to try and perfect your pitch before you start talking to potential investors. But nothing polishes a pitch like repeated failure and feedback. So I'd recommend starting the process as soon as you have a firm enough concept to describe it in a meaningful way. Also, it's important to distinguish the start of a funding "campaign" and the beginning of a "round." Meeting with investors (the campaign) should be continuous activity until you exit. Once you secure your seed round, you immediately go into series A mode, and so on. The reason being that each funding round has longer and longer lead times. Each relationship gets more and more difficult to obtain. Actually issuing shares or convertible debt (the round) should , in most cases, begin only when you have lined up more investors that have said yes than you need to complete the round. Put another way, start collecting checks when you have more commitments to than you need to reach your funding goal. That way, you can use your momentum of receiving funds to motivate investors that are on the fence. The best case scenario is that you oversubscribe your round. But the moral of the story is starting campaigning for investors yesterday. It always takes longer than you want. So the sooner you start, the sooner you get funded.

This is actually kind of a funny question to answer on Clarity. Not sure if you're aware, but we (Startups.co) actually own Clarity, Launchrock, and of course, Zirtual! Zirtual has an amazing product and great people. The company ran into problems around how it managed utilization of folks, which is common among highly staffed businesses. There wasn't anything "broken" with Zirtual as a business, which is why we acquired it. It's a great company, just like Clarity which we also purchased this year. If you have particular questions about the level of service or the company behind it, you can simply ask me directly - wil@startups.co. I can give you any kind of insight that you'd like. But don't worry about the service - we have great people and we're a happy, profitable, growing company.

You can use a convenient online legal service site such as legal zoom. These online legal services will be able to help you register in any of the 50 states, and you will also be able to file taxes and annual reports through them. The services fees will vary by state. If you are considering converting your LLC to a C-corporation or S-corporation, it is recommended that you consider Delaware. Else, if you just want an LLC, your home state is fine. You can also consider Texas, Wyoming, Nevada, Washington, and South Dakota, which have no state corporate income taxes.

We have built a product on Twilio that we sell to doctors offices. To my knowledge, what you're asking for is not possible as-is. What you could do though: When someone calls, have the system text message you "Hey, this number called, click here to call them back" ... and the "click here" is a URL that hits your server and initiates the call from your server, creates a call conference, and then drops you and the person you're calling back into the call conference.

For a successful crowdfunding campaign we need two or three things to work - you must express the campaign as a mission and cause, this mission must be one that your team believes in, and hopefully some or all of the team has some experience (personal or professional) that not only prepares them for success but emotionally makes them hungry for that success. So the types of questions you could ask include "why does this research matter?" "How would you feel if the project succeeds?" and "how would you feel if the project fails?". I'd be happy to list your questions in a chat and more importantly to discuss how to make their answers matter to your donors - how they can tell a story! Warmly, Arjun

After looking at your site, I definitely belive that you have something that is extremely valuable and can definitely be popular in tech communities. Yes, your copy needs to be more focused. What is it? I would have a landing page (or a cover page) that makes it really simple for a visitor to understand what it is and why this will help them. Include an email field and offer a free eBook. I would highly suggest that you use Optimizely or Unbounce to A/B test your copy and call to actions. (Side Note: Keep in mind how much traffic you have when calculating test significance) Since you are focusing on a developers/engineers, I would reach out to 10 of your most passionate fans that have contributed or have shared your GitHub repo. Ask them if they would be willing to contribute to the site sharing their thoughts. The more influential these people are the better. Instead of assuming they have a login ask them to create an account right on that page. Also, include Twitter login. One point I would make regarding SEO: Include the name of the articles in the URL of the comment pages. This helps with sharing and rankings on SEO. Use Twitter as a growth engine and tweet out all the latest posts that you are curating to your sites Twitter account. Then if you have an active twitter following start engaging fellow engineers asking them questions about these posts. This heightens engagement and starts getting your audience engaged (some of which will convert). To take this one step further find the author of the posts you are sharing and mention them in the post saying that their article has been curated on your site (better yet you could say their article is being discussed on your site). The author will be inclined to retweet and share their post with their following. Have some variability in using this tactic, variability makes it more valuable. Use SumoMe as a really simple way to add email capture popups on the site. In regards to strategy, you may find it more sustainable to use the closed/invite only model for commenting like Product Hunt used. This creates a higher perceived value for those that access to commenting which in turn increases engagement. This strategy would go nicely with the initial outreach I mentioned above. I hope this helps. I would love to chat further here is my Clarity VIP link for a free call. https://clarity.fm/lipmanb/vip/t

There is an old phrase "you get what you pay for." If your app is simple and you expect someone >20 hours to complete this app, then yes, you can find a dev to do build this app. But it's more than likely that your application will take some effort, if you need guidance, give me a call. I know developers and can give you a basic estimate on how much your app will cost to develop.

https://dev.twitter.com/overview/documentation Everything you'll need (or whoever your programmer is) will likely be contained in the above link. Now, to answer your questions: 1) yes there is a Twitter API that can be accessed; 2) the API for Twitter does allow users to post tweets directly from their own account in a different app. Hope that helps!

Well this totally depends what your MVP is? What's the functionality? I'd suggest something like http://www.squarespace.com/ our designers with very little technical knowledge have had great success with this. Another option if it's just for demos/feedback is to use something like http://www.invisionapp.com/ for rapid prototyping.

There are few online tools which allows you to analyze competitor ad space. I would suggest 2 tools SEMrush.com and Adgooroo.com.Both tools will provide very specific information about their organic search, paid search, backlinks, display advertising, top keywords, and main competitors. There are various way you can promote with small budget but again it depends on various factors which depend on what you want to get out of it. If you are looking to increase your brand awareness than a quick solution is to have display ads on Facebook and Adwords with targeted segment. If you are interested in discussing more about it than feel free to book for a call to have more personalized solution.

It's sort of an own vs. rent question. You can get advice on demand from someone on clarity whenever you want, but it's not likely they will go to bat (or go to bat for free) in the same way someone with equity will. I viciously defended equity in my first company but my partner and I were responsible for all growth. The big upside connections, etc that can a good mentor can bring (especially one with relevant industry experience and contacts) are not something you'll be able to get on an hourly rate. It kind of backs in to the old 100% of a grape or 50% of a watermelon question that comes up when raising VC. Except in this instance it's 100% of a grape vs 99%+ of a watermelon because advisory roles usually don't take a ton of equity.

100+ unit Apartment Buildings. With the ever increasing mortgage lending guidelines disqualifying an estimated 80+ percent of the U.S. population, America is fast becoming a renter nation. This is why guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Grant Cardone, etc., are bullish on apartments. Ridiculous financing can be negotiated with Fannie Mae on non-recourse loans to maximize leverage and cash flow. With the right properties, cost segregation can immediately increase cash flow and ROI. 100+ unit apartment buildings can offer a great return on a collateralized investment and fantastic tax advantages. This is why our current posture is looking solely for these types of properties.

Without knowing a lot about your company, the fact that innovation is one of your core strengths, leads me to believe that you have a transformational mindset. There are "Transactional" CEOs and "Transformational" CEOs, and few companies in existence these days will go far (or even exist much longer than 5-10 yrs) without a transformational CEO. While transactional leadership is needed to maintain the normal flow of operations, transformational leadership is what will help your company evolve, and transform the brilliant innovations you have into competitive advantage and business value. So ensure your potential CEO can articulate their approach to "business transformation". Ask them to talk about how they see innovation and digital technologies contributing to business transformation. Ask them to explain how they envisage involving your staff and freelancers in the transformation process, in the company's strategy and to tell you a few stories about how they have already successful done this. Cultural intelligence is critical, and it is important that your prospective CEO understands the Eastern European business and social culture. I have known too many American execs come to live in Eastern Europe (Prague & Katowice) and work against the culture, and not last very long - with both the company and the country! Aside from the good free advice you can read around the net from Harvard, McKinsey, etc; I have tried to give you a few recommendations that are particularly relevant to your unique circumstances.

It looks like you can do this with Cloudflare so if I were you I would email them to ask. See this article here: https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl If that doesn't work I would contact your web host. Your web host will be able to provide a solution for you that will be simple and easy.

I think that it would be important to answer the following questions. * Who comes up with the "thoughtful questions"? And are they new every week? * Who is responsible for the answering of these questions? * What is the pace of the start-up? * Will every team's concerns / progress / roadblocks / setbacks be relevant to management? * How much time should each team spend on developing its response (related to point 2)? * "...help employees feel heard, ..." - How do you plan to measure this? * Is a weekly cadence the right pace? ** Can teams align their "wrap-up" with their natural development cycles (this is more relevant if the company is a technology company)? * Will these wrap-ups be relevant to other teams? Answering these questions can help develop how relevant these emails are both to employees and to management.

I am British and have lived in many countries around the world. I now live in a small town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraira (which I call my little piece of paradise). Moraira is an affluent area where many Europeans like to holiday, but there are only a handful of hotels due to planning restrictions. This leaves rental properties highly sought after and 3/4 bedroom villas (houses) costing EUR 300K-400K are often rented to tourists for over EUR 1,000 / week during the summer. Be VERY careful when buying. There are countless TV programmes showing foolish Brits who took shortcuts when buying in Spain, which have cost many of them dearly. Right now it's a buyer's market, but I would suggest only dealing with companies that come with first-hand recommendations. I live right on the coast in what is one of Spain's hidden jewels. Go north, south along the coast or west a few miles and you will get even more for your money.

Lot of ways 1. Target their fans on facebook - if they are big (20k+) you should be able to select them as an interest 2. Bid on the same keywords as them on adwords search and/or display - this requires some technical chops but there are ways to find your competition's placements. If you can get there and present a better ad and/or outbid them, you can get the clicks they are used to getting. 3. Find where their customers are spending time online - another thing that will take some chops but you can find out what blogs, facebook pages, etc your competition's fans are looking at and get in front of them there. This is an indirect method. Most of the other options you will have are some variation on that theme. Make sure you have a way to stay in front of them (like retargeting or email marketing) if you want to make your investment go as far as possible! Good luck

I have been involved in C-Level positions in the global trade shows and conferences industry for over 20 years. Planners like myself are very involved with convention centers of all levels and sizes and locations, hotels and smaller venues, in order to place and launch events there. There are literally 850+ line items on our internal project management sheet and timeline. Questions that we would ask a company like yours include: 1) What markets do you want to approach? 2) Who will be your target audience? 3) Will a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city be the better location? 4) Who is in your current network? 5) Do you prefer a venue or pure conference center or hotel? 6) What is your budget and financial support to launch this program? 7) Who will handle your business in this market and be your contact and management group? Then there are the operational tasks, marketing, sales, networking with industry leaders, associations, media, multipliers, etc. These are just the very "tip of the iceberg" topics and 843+ more to go. :-) I don't mean to take the fun and your energy out of it, but I just want to be direct and upfront. Let me know if you want to schedule a call and discuss further. All the best, Dirk Ebener

Message me, I live in Shanghai, China.. If I understand better maybe I can assist you.

I don't think there is one source for this. I found many starter lists in my google searching, and this Quora post: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-list-anywhere-of-all-publicly-traded-SaaS-companies

great questions - we see this situation with our clients pretty frequently at my firm. based on my own years of SaaS/tech sales, marketing and project management experience, I would say the path most likely to get adoption is actually discovered before the demo is delivered, rather than after. that is to say, your way into the client should start with you thinking back on your initial conversations about their goals and their challenges. just as you likely did during the initial conversations, now is the time to connect what your product can do during the demo with how it addresses or responds to those challenges and goals. Curtail your demo to speak specifically to the things they have (directly or indirectly) expressed. If you're unsure, there are several good leading questions you can ask that will give you indicators as to which problems your product might he able to help them solve. Beyond helping connect the dots, the value proposition you're offering here relates to what exactly you mean by a "beta" product. Beta can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Are you Beta in phase only (i.e. is your product debugged and more or less v1.0 full launch ready? Or, are you are just testing with a small group? Or, is Beta really a means of you finalizing your testing/debugging on the system prior to a larger launch?) so, how you get them to adopt (and how much or if you charge for this access) is driven by what it is your beta product is capable of doing at that point in time. There is a pretty simple selling strategy that can be developed here - you need to make sure to create the appropriate checklist and evaluate your in-roads to a potential deal based on their stated or passively observed needs, curtail the demo to meet those needs, and then evaluate your own product so that you can build a plan for getting the "close" in from that potential client once you have completed the demo. If you would like some help writing out your 3-phased plan for converting demos into deals I'd be happy to help. Schedule some time to connect and we can talk through the details then.

1- Find in-flight customer experience managers, cabin supervisors, flight attendant, take them out for lunch/coffee. 2-Talk about your project and ask if they want to be involved on a success fee basis, or consulting fee 4-find the manufacturer and interview them 3-book your next flight in front of the baby board, take pictures and understand 4- talk to your family/friends traveling with babies.. and find out what is the biggest pain....

It's isn't just you. Adobe reported that "over $21.8 billion in global ad revenues have been blocked/lost so far in 2015." largely thanks to mass adoption with the AdBlocking software :) 21 million users in 2009, to 198 million active global users as of June 2014-likely overtaking the other comps entirely.