First, congratulations on your recent funding/recruitment successes! This is an excellent question, and a transaction I have been directly or indirectly involved with numerous times before. Each circumstance can be unique, the two most important considerations to look at as a starting point would be 1) what is the current status of the technical product and 2) what is the current funding or capitalization status of the organization. Generally speaking though, the type of range you could be considering here could be in the mid to high single digits all the way to a nearly equal share in the venture as what you (the original founder) have. My gut reaction, based on your brief description, if that you are looking somewhere on the higher side of the range here (given the candidate, venture status and other data points you offered.) Getting to a firm and real number though will require some more analysis. So our challenge now, in order to answer this correctly, is to dive deeper into a few other details we need to uncover. To name a few: - Are they participating in an initial capital outlay/investment? - Are there any expenses of them joining the venture (moving etc) that they will incur? Who absorbs those costs? - How much familiarity do you have with this person prior to joining your venture? Have you worked with them directly? Have you spoken to anyone who has? - How critical is the tech stack they are supporting to your overall ecosystem now? - Is this CTO going to spearhead and participate in day-to-day development, or just own the roadmap/vision? o Are they a full stack developer? - What is the near and long-term vision for participation from your other employees? Are they going to be moving to FT status at any point in the near future? - What participation, if any, will this person have in the fundraising or sales process? - Beyond the current $40k investment and upcoming cash flow, what other capital inflow and outflow are expecting in the next 12 months? - What are your alternatives if this candidate didn’t work out for delivering the application? Would you pause this priority altogether or need to aggressively explore a new option in order to meet client demand etc? Once you establish these and other pieces of data, you can start looking at comparable plans out there and piece together what your starting/ending point is as far as comp terms you’d like to offer. It’s as important to remember that in addition to extending a number here, these are in fact negotiations and it is in your best interest to know what your strategy is with this candidate so you know how aggressive or passive to be in terms of making adjustments along the way after your initial offer. I would also highly encourage you to research alternative solutions and even engage other candidates right now in the process so that you can have a better sense of what is available in the market to you and also have an advantaged negotiating position since you’ll know to what extent this person isn’t the only game in town to consider. As I said before, there are several details which may dictate or alter precisely how you approach the offer and negotiation process with this new hire. I'd be happy to hop on a quick call to discuss further so we can dive into detail on 1) how important this particular candidate is to your overall scope so that we may 2) identify the appropriate starting point and end point for negotiation purposes and 3) consider alternatives to this plan as your backup plan in case the conversations with the candidate do not go as anticipated (or inversely, so you can have a clearer understanding of how advantaged or disadvantaged of a negotiating posture you need to take.) Reach out and request an appointment so we can connect and discuss further.

Felicidadeds on raising $50k so far! Before you pitch to VCs, it's important to perfect your presentation with a clear ask, a compelling story and a unique value proposition. I'll bet each VC in Silicon Valley has heard from 20 people this week claiming to have a product that will "revolutionize" some part of an existing industry. Whether you're coming from Argentina or from California, you have to highlight what is unique about your product, what is your business model and what evidence suggests there's a viable consumer market. I'd then of course advocate networking and researching each VC in advance to determine what their pitch or solicitation practice is. Start on LinkedIn and see who you're already connected to. You can add me and then my network becomes yours. You may also want to attend some pitch events if you have access to those in Argentina. See how others are pitching apps and what you can learn from them. Most importantly, don't schedule any meetings until you have a great pitch, a professional presentation and a clear "ask" prepared. As you pitch and you receive feedback, adjust your approach to incorporate the best and most common notes you've received. Call me any time so I can provide additional guidance for you. Hablo español tambien, (though admittedly, my Spanish is nowhere as good as my English!) y es un placer assistir a clientes en Sud America!

In my experience with the platform in your demographic (we sold apparel to men and women ages 18-25), we see a great deal of traffic converting through the use of great imagery. We saw an average conversion rate that was 10-15% greater than our Google campaigns or our media buys on various websites. Ads anywhere can be tailored to your specific goal, and Facebook provides excellent ways to reach each of them. If you have any questions, let's set up a short call and we can talk through the best strategy for you from a brand story perspective.

I know this moment all too well. I've been on both sides of this one, and let me say - it's not as scary as you think. If the new hire comes to the table with more to offer than previous hires, then it shouldn't be something you have to "sell". If you think you need to "sell" this new hire to your team and make great strides to prove his/her value to the team, you may not have the hotshot you think you do. If your team is in it for the product, the vision - your vision, then they shouldn't be as concerned with the fact the new hire will be taking on more equity than they have. They should be on board with the idea that if this is THE guy to get things done, that they're that much closer to hitting the goal. If you want to hop on a call and chat through the scenario and not talk about it in a semi-public forum, let's get on a call.

If you're asking about processing point-of-sale payments, have you considered using the smart phone tools available from Square, PayPal or QuickBooks? You don't need to have a formal business entity structure to use these. A sole proprietorship is a viable business model to conduct some sales and test payments.

Hi. I am not a lawyer in the US so I cannot offer you a legal answer her, BUT try approaching the EFF as their Staff Attorney Daniel Nazer is "Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents. See here: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/staff-attorney-daniel-nazer-becomes-new-mark-cuban-chair-eliminate-stupid-patents. Good luck

Consider doing an invention evaluation study. This can help you gauge overall consumer interest in your hardware, if indeed it's consumer facing. If it's not, then a full market study might be the way to go. However these studies are significantly more expensive. I'm happy to talk with you about managing either.

They're a Russian company organized in Estonia. I did a quick search of the USPTO, Estonian and Russian patent databases and that didn't turn up any of the inventors' names nor the name of their company "Magnetic IP OU." If you're interested in licensing their technology, which they claim is patented, I'd be happy to liaise with them on your behalf through their American office. Let me know!

You should include the new job on your resume. Honesty is essential as you begin a relationship with a potential investor or lender. Be realistic with yourself and with the lender regarding your time commitment. Starting a new job and a new company at the same time seems overwhelming. The projections should be realistic. At some point the business will grow and you will need to work there full time or hire someone to work full time to run it. Make sure you do include that costs as well. I have seen a number of mistakes with entrepreneurs working on a business and not handling projections and/or compensation correctly. Please feel free to set up a call if you would like to discuss further.

Its really tough to mention the best. I have a long list of US/UK based M&A, PE and VC firms list with direct contact information of key personnel. If you are interested, I can send them over to you for quick research. Thanks

Hello, investor! I am a real estate law clerk, and have worked in various aspects of real estate over the last 15 years. Answer: Not anymore. Depending where you plan to invest, I know properties are hot in the "greater golden horseshoe", basically Toronto - Niagara, which is the most densely populated areas of Ontario. The government recently imposed a Non-Resident Speculation Tax - if you are not a resident/citizen of Canada, you pay 15% tax on the purchase. Now, even though YOU are not a non-res, your company sounds like it is a non-res of Canada. My suggestion would be to incorporate a company here in Ontario and link it to your Irish holdings, - see tax lawyer and/or accountant - and find a way to keep that tax in your pocket. I can tell you more about the non-res tax, feel free to follow up with me.

This is a really good question and one I ask myself all the time. I also am an entrepreneur and have owned my own businesses off and on for the past 15+ years. During the times that I was looking for work, I also found myself pigeon holed because I was not the "cookie cutter" Enterprise Account Exec for Salesforce then Oracle, etc. It seemed to me that it became a detriment as potential employers see you as a flight risk. I would steer away from being overly entrepreneurial. HOWEVER, with that being said, I wear the entrepreneur title as a badge of honor. I am battle tested, been in the trenches, worked for no money at length and can walk the walk. At the end of the day it is a monetary decision. Good Luck!

I would not try and code these ideas yourself. You may be able to find a developer that would work with you if they believe in the ideas, but that means you have to give up equity, and run the risk that they are not as passionate about the concepts as yourself. I would suggest you start reaching out to smaller development firms with your concepts and meet with people in the industry to bounce both the concepts and the approach off of. You will more than likely have to find some initial funding or partnership arrangement that can get you to a MVP, (Minimal Viable Product) that you can then start promoting and marketing to build some cashflow, or further investor interest, depending on the concepts and direction you wish to grow.

I love this! So I am a marketer by trade, web developer and MBA. I don't know about getting users being the main issue. Consider things such as your target market, often times businesses i work with strive and invest in one group to only reach marginal success, then after some evaluation and pivoting to another (better) group the business just takes off. So target and how you approach them is key. As far as growth hacking - well, I have growth hack a few platforms and the main thing is that you have to have some traction. GH is not a replacement strategy for traditional/digi marketing. You need to already have some traffic to grow it..the hacking part is simply expediting the growth. With that said, GH is a combination of efforts from PR to press releases, to the flow design of the websites, having perfectly crafted landing pages (one for each possible target customer you might have) running AB testing, finding out who your personas are and targeting them through social networks (not all social networks are right for all personas - hipsters are better found on instagram than FB, while your demographic is probably on facebook & facebook groups but you can leverage both insta and fb) and measuring your bounce rate, among other little things... Growth Hacking is about focusing on a lot of little things at once... Is relatively cheaper than marketing because you have to hire one person and or pay for that one person versus paying for the service time on top of the print/marketing materials etc... so GH is cheaper as well but not completely free either. Think of it as a colander you need to get as many targeted individuals, each person gets send to a custom message landing page with just the right content for them, some will seep off some will give you what you want (email, subscription, referrals,etc - landing pages shall have just one goal) if you make it past that phase, they are followed up with emails or phone calls or are directed to your site or fb, etc.. some will engage there some don't - seeping off through the colander...lol. once in your page you might have an email subscription again just in case. Ads on google can be placed and be used to direct to landing pages or a specific place in your site - same as FB ads. One thing on instagram is to not post pitchy images all the time.. have people like and follow funny non-intrusive posts with just the right tags (again, your target demographic there) then once they are already following you once in a while you post a sales image or comment. There's more to it but I hope this gives you an idea on how to get started. If you would like to hire me for either landing page creation, web modification or GH services message me :)

Web marketing tends to be very time consuming, especially when you consider how vast it is. Pulling together all the components of SEO, content, website architecture, analyitcs and social media, you can be looking at 5-20 hours per week. The larger the site the higher that number goes. Social media itself can be particularly time consuming to do right, since that involves not just content generation but spending time engaging online with your potential audience and online thought leaders. I would say, however, that on a skill level, that's the easiest to achieve, if one has the knowledge that is required. But every area of web marketing requires a good deal of knowledge and a great deal of skill to ensure success.

What exactly are you looking to accomplish? What type of business segment are you in? do you have any capital? Do you have experience in said field? What makes you want to start "this" type of business. Let me know~

Are you looking to build a volunteer test group or get professional feedback on the actions of your beta testers?

There is no "one-stop shop" that will do all of these things well, there are a collection of tools, however, that will do this very easily. I'm happy to help; I've helped hundreds of businesses boost their local SEO presence. -Shaun

You're on the right track. I'm glad to see you getting the steps in the right order. WHO are potential users of your product? WHAT problem(s) will your app potentially be solving for them? HOW much do these potential users value the solution of these problems? Find your user group of people who would pay for a solution to a problem your app will solve. Get their input. I would do this through a couple stages...the first involving live talking, and the second usage of a basic version of the app once you and they have figured out what its purpose is.

The job description of your ideal person is pretty vague. You've told us about YOUR background, and some of your marketing tools, but we don't know a thing about what you're looking for. -A Killer -Startup Experience -Industry Contacts -Act with Urgency But who are you looking for?

Very unique question !! Haven't heard anyone raising this !! I do strategic IT initiatives and teach Intra-preneurship in corporate IT teams. We have Lull times too - Christmas, Thanksgiving with vacations and low loads. The best activity to do in this period is "IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE GROWTH" 1) Improvise process 2) Build systems of functions that are already missing it and not on priority 3) Data Analysis and testing your guts 4) Improve operational efficiency 5) Upgrade resources and systems (includes training) TOP LINE GROWTH ACTIVITIES 1) Test your hypothesis (related sales and marketing) that are high touch and resource intensive. 2) Build communities around your product and engage your top talents that are otherwise too busy and occupied in your best seasons. There is a ton of activities you can do... But everything starts from data. I assume that (because you asked this question), you already own/run a business that is data driven... Feel free to call me. to have a candid talk. Don't worry about the $$. Depending on what part of the world you are $$ could convert to a big figure.. Let me know if you need a free pass !! 30 mins . More than happy to share some of the metrics I use to identify opportunities. Please do share more details about the business if you wish to talk (for a fruitful talk)

That question can only be answered by taking your goals to a marketing company. As a web marketer we try to understand not just what the prospect is looking to achieve (leads, branding, increased profits, etc.), but by what means they feel is the best way to achieve those goals (social media, content messaging, SEO, etc.) It also helps to know how aggressive they want to tackle it. Most companies understand that despite wanting it all, their budget limitations might prohibit an all-out web market assault. With these considerations we develop a proposal that we feel will produce a successful web marketing campaign, providing the best value within whatever limitations they set. In terms of raw numbers, a web marketing campaign itself can be as low as $1000 per month (not very aggressive, even for a small, niche site) up to $10,000 per month, which ultimately may not be aggressive enough for even a large site.

I've worked on large civilian and defense projects for the Federal Government while working for two top-tier management/technology consulting firms and one smaller technology consulting firm. Have you considered approaching some of the big management/technology consulting firms that do most of their work with the federal government? I'm thinking about companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, CSC and SAIC. I'm pretty sure these companies have the contacts within the federal government agency you'd like to speak to about your project. The Partners at these companies usually have a pretty good idea what the agencies are looking for, so you may want to think about validating the idea through the companies, leveraging their network of connections. Many of the Partners have come from the Federal government. If the companies see your product as a valuable service, they can then help you get in front of the right people at the federal government agency to speak to about it. I have a pretty strong network within companies like this and would be happy to discuss further on a call. Either way, best of luck to you!

If you need instant revenue, a PPC campaign might be the best approach. I would always suggest hiring a person or agency to manage that unless you have someone on staff that focuses on that alone. Doing PPC yourself is easy, but it's rarely the most profitable way to go due to the nuances that are required to really squeeze out the ROI from a PPC campaign.

There are many things to consider, and nobody can advise you on everything. 1 thing I would emphasize is this: Brand names outside China are VERY different from website or company names inside China. In order to communicate effectively with a global audience, you should be careful to choose the right name (and domain). It should be memorable and have positive associations in English AND in the languages of other countries where you expect to do business. Also, your website content ought to be written by native speakers for your target languages.