I can help you with the exact need as I have previously worked, But prior to this, I need to understand what exactly are you looking for. Is it the market scenario, current players, contact info of key companies. I have a big list of all players along with profiles on each apart from the overall the global market condition. Contact me to know more..

It really depends on a lot of factors (i.e. type of business you are in, how much cash intensive it is ...). As a general rule though, I would advice you to BOOTSTRAP AS LONG AS IT IS POSSIBLE. Bootstrapping has a lot of advantages, nonetheless that you get in lean mode and make the best of each possible opportunity (or else you are out). Bootstrapping, while building a set of CORE METRICS around your business, will help you realize the real value and potential of what you are building. As CORE METRICS (revenue, users, ARPU, LT, LTV, churn...) improve, the cost of financing will decrease. So you will be able to get funding on better terms. Also following a path similar to this, will give you a much better understanding on WHAT YOU NEED FUNDING FOR (besides getting a nicer office). Metrics will tell you and investors will know. Can you be bootstrapping for ever?. Probably yes (if this is what you want and how do you want your business to evolve), although most probably not advisable. When the metrics are right and you have a fire burning (as clearly seen in the METRICS), I would say it is time to get some petrol and make it much bigger. Happy to chat about my experience. Pere

Walmart calls it "Pay from Scan." Also "Guaranteed Sales." Sam's Club calls it a "Road Show."

Here is ten ideas of what you can do: 1.- Get a customer. For your app. Someone that will pay to use it, get their actual money in your hand. (That will show you how good the idea is) 2.- Describe to me what your app does in ONE SENTENCE. One that a 3 year old can understand 3.- Tell me what comes after "because" meaning... I must use your app because.... "......... .........." 4.- Speck it out in all details - Google how people have done it before. Do not miss on any of the steps 5.- Outsource the first page and get it done - Do not spend more than 100 dollars on this 6.- Document each step of the way in a blog 7.- Do a video of "what you thought would happen" and "what is actually happening" - every day 8.- Think of 10 other apps 9.- Repeat all previous steps for the 10 other apps 10.- Teach me how to answer the question you just asked from idea to full execution.... and charge for the course

I would recommend that you check out http://wistia.com/ - I use them for all my videos. Public and privately.

If it's just two of you then you need not worry about creating a shareholding agreement. The partnership deed is sufficient enough to cover it in a simplistic way i.e. 50:50 or whatever ratio you two chose. However, if there're going to be numerous co-founders with split of roles and responsibilities then having a shareholding agreement could be helpful down the line. Is there any specific information you're looking at? Feel free to reach out.

There's a fine line between persistence and simply being an annoyance, however I've seen some great examples of people balancing these properly. Usually this comes with the ability to be very human and personal. One way I've seen this done is with old school hand written letters. On a few occasions over the past few years I've had a vendor reach out to me with a hand written letter. You just don't see them anymore, so they really stand out. Within the context of the letter I'd consider making the ask for "feedback", not for the work itself. I would explain your situation very personally around how and why you are seeking feedback, and also make it very clear that you respect their time and understand that no answer is OK too. There isn't a 100% solution that always works. But making it short and personal could be a nice touch.

What about it isn't working right now? Are you getting a substantially bad response?

Facebook ads are not effective and actually far too costly for independent businesses. Unless you have a huge advertising budget, I don't advise it. To break into the hipster market You need 3 things. Great (concise) story, Great branding, and social engagement. Luckily, you have "provenance"----the place of origin or earliest known history of something. Provenance is an important quality to convey in your brand's story especially when targeting the hipster demographic who are preoccupied by the origin of all things----they're generally well educated and like to know where everything that they consume comes from. Great branding: Branding is a combination of visual consistency that positions you as different from competitors. I would consider coming up with a different name. Warmth of Russia, to me, seems long and vague. Maybe going back to the idea of provenance, is there a Russian word that's easy to pronounce and unique? Maybe the particular city where the scarves are made of. Maybe some Russian lore that can be woven into your product's story. I would make a list of 50 different names and then narrow it down to something that you think clicks. I would redesign your site and visuals as well with consideration to photographic styles, font type, colors etc to something a little edgier and different. To me, the colors, font type seem a bit retiring, snoozy. Happy to discuss more because this is a bit more nuanced. As for your site, Squarespace is a great option for making a great, professional looking e-commerce site, and they make it hard to design anything bad. Related to this, excellent SEO practice will bring more traffic to your site. I'm sure there are plenty here on Clarity who can advise you on best practices there. Next, Social Engagement. You need to demonstrate people using your scarves, the making of the scarves, where the scarves come from, the yarn used for the scarves, etc. You can take pictures of all of these things and tell the story visually all on instagram. If you haven't already made an Instagram account, I would do so immediately. It will take time, but you can build a loyal following of people who believe in your brand story if you do a good job of visually telling it, and engaging with followers. Obviously there's more to it than just this but happy to discuss more specifically once you've thought more about what this brand is. Hope all of this helps, best of luck!~

You'll find that looking at top line revenue alone won't provide much value to you if you are asking the question "Is my advertising spend worth it?" Typically, in advertising I want to know the Lifetime Value of the customer or the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). Then, it boils down to : If I spend $100 to acquire this new customer and he spends $150 over the lifetime of his paid relationship with me then, yes--- my ad spend is worth it. On the other hand: I could spend 10K this month in ads. I could sign up 20K in users/customers/top line revenue. But my data will tell me I spent MORE per customer/user than they are actually worth over the average lifetime. So that's what usually answers the "Is it worth it" question in any advertising scenario. 1. How much to acquire the user? 2. How much does the user spend over the avg lifetime? If it doesn't make sense, it's not worth it, regardless of what your top line revenue tells you. You might find this blog post on cohort analysts valuable as it goes into more detail. (I have no affiliation.) https://apsalar.com/blog/2012/01/how-to-use-cohort-analysis-to-improve-revenue/

Those two things are not mutually exclusive (you can do both). Can you give more information?

In my experience, yes. Dropbox did this with great success.

I spent 10 years building a digital agency so I've got some experience with client acquisition. The short answer is - client work leads to more work. One way to start the pipeline going is to pick up small jobs from any number of project sites and to build from there. Chances are if I have a small project I'm working on, there's more work to be had. Most big engagements start with a small project. If you give me some ideas of what you've tried in the past perhaps I can refine the approach a bit. Happy to help.

Hi, I understand that it feels that it makes no sense, but you are right that it feels right in some way. I actually wrote about this, How is SaaS different from MRR? People get confused a lot about it and think they can adapt monetization strategy to the model. Please read https://medium.com/@JDcarlu/how-is-saas-different-from-mrr-9e7a7edd0edb Also I did a small study on a SaaS company called Mattermark, and talked about this too. Maybe it can help you as an example https://medium.com/@JDcarlu/mattermark-for-everyone-b9d92e6a8831 Hope this help you!

Here are some things you should read to start making yourself an idea about it: http://businessofsoftware.org/2011/09/from-0-100million-with-no-sales-people-the-atlassian-10-commandments-for-startups/ http://nukemanbill.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-sell-your-software-for-20000.html Also you should everything here: http://tomtunguz.com/categories/sales/

In almost any business your first clients will come from the network of people you know. Be bold in letting everyone who knows you know what you are up to and why you are good at it . Once you have your first few under your belt you will have a better sense of what makes you unique and spatial. Also you will hopefully start to get some word of mouth referrals from people who like your work. Additionally look for people you know or are connected to who have influence the people who know lots of people with the problems you solve and offer them a free consultation. Have some good materials about your offer and give it to them once they love your work. It's like starting a campfire, one you have a flame it's easy to fan, it's the first flame that takes most of the work.

Myself and friends have had great success meeting technical folks and candidates for co-founders at networking events such as Start-up Weekends (http://startupweekend.org/) and local networking events you find through www.meetup.com such as Hackers and founders, Startup Meetup, Minnesota Entrepreneurs (Check within your state). If you are unable to network at events like this there are other avenues such as co-working space (In MN we have - http://cocomsp.com/locations/minneapolis/, Startup Loft - http://www.svl.mn/ etc) Good luck.

There are tons of Free QR code creators (or low cost). You could create a coupon, assign unique QR codes for each affiliate (place them on cars), and scan them in store to give proper credit to the affiliates. The only problem I see with this is: human nature. We forget things, lose things, and show up asking about "that deal that some guy told me about." Or Personally, I would want email addresses to communicate with the folks. (to really measure the effectiveness of this promotion) I'd do this: -Create a different bitly (www.bitly.com) link for each affiliate. -Place them on a coupon that has a great incentive. -Write on there- redeem your coupon by visiting (the bitly link) -This should take them to a simple opt-in page (to gather email addresses- you can use www.leadpages.net) -They give you their email, you deliver their coupon AND you are able to continue communicating. (since most sales take 7 touches before a decision is made anyway) -AND your affiliates get the credit without error. You'll get the most qualified leads and you can judge for yourself how effective this will be moving forward. :)

Just be frank and flexible. Say: 1. We don't have that stuff. As a startup with customers that love customized solutions, we've tried to be nimble. 2. But I can see that your organization needs a streamlined process. We can deliver. 3. This stuff isn't for us internally. But show us some examples of what you'd like to receive, let us know how it's used, and we'll produce whatever is needed. In other words, treat your big marketing partner as a client. Bring a white board, listen, and produce!

Yes. You don't have to have a location to have reviews displayed as a rich snippet in search results. There are a number of resources you can use. Schema.org can help you learn how to markup your HTML so that Reviews are labeled properly. This site makes it even easier by populating the code for you: http://schema-creator.org/review.php Once you have your code, test it with Google here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets To learn more general information about reviews, visit: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/146645?hl=en Keep in mind that even if your code is accurate, Google might not display the snippet in search.

Depending on Canadian law, you will most likely need to close your business and establish a Non-profit. They will need to be two separate entities if you want to do tax deductible donations. Are you worried about protecting your IP? Your customers? I would need to know a little bit more about what you are trying to do in order to give you a more in depth answer.

Let's be clear that there are two types of angel investors: Experienced angel investors (they have invested in 5+ startups) and people with money who *might* invest in you and your startup. Generally speaking, you should focus your time in getting meetings with experienced angel investors, as they generally follow clear protocols, whereas the other group are highly unpredictable. Whichever group you choose, you ought to filter based on relevancy. Approaching someone whose entire experience has been with games, as an example, and thinking they're going to get excited by a marketplace for construction materials is a stretch. I've found that the more someone can understand the need for the product, the more likely they are to invest. People really don't ever want to be "pitched" They want to build a relationship with someone who they believe in, who they feel they have helped and can continue to help become incredibly successful. So starting with asking for advice is usually a great way to commence a relationship. But of course, you must be genuine in your respect for that advice.

A good name is unique, and stands out but should ideally create a positive association with it, especially your target demographic. When it comes to naming new products, companies will spend sometimes months and go through thousands of options before arriving on the one that they'll ultimately go with. Don't rush this process because its ultimately much more costly to have to go back or change, or ultimately fail because the name did not resonate enough with your target demographic. The name is not everything but it's a huge part. Go to techcrunch or cruncbase and look at any number of new start ups which are probably all great ideas or products but because they have either a dumb name or a not so unique name, they can fail. My personal pet peeve is the stilted and formulaic neologism of adding "ly" at the end of any noun or verb---perfectly hilariously noted throughout HBO's Silicon Valley. At this point, we are all more clever than this. Anyway, when you have only seconds to make an impression on a consumer, the last thing you want is cognitive dissonance caused by the name. Cognitive dissonance occurs when the signifier is not what is signified and vice versa; you're looking at a bicycle but someone insists it's a fish. And you're like, wtf. This happens when you're looking at a great product but then it unexpectedly has a weird or dumb name, a range of slight neorological impressions then occur, effecting the emotional relationship between consumer and product: confusion, annoyance, distrust, etc. All of these slight negative responses are not what you want associated with your product when you only have seconds to make an impression. That's why a good name matters. Now to your name: Dude Undies. Scrap this immediately. First of all, when it comes to men's underwear (I'm assuming this is your product), this is dangerous minefield territory because whether you like it or not, you're automatically dealing with issues of male insecurities involving self worth, virility, potency, etc Some light word association exercises (maybe among your friends) might be helpful in yielding an alternative to "undies" which i associate with: children, bedtime, potty training, etc.Absolutely not what men want to be wearing. You can see why this word next to "Dude" is cognitive dissonance in and of itself, never mind your product. I suggest you go back to the drawing board on this. Think about what makes your product different from your competitors', what value are you bringing to the market? Play with these ideas make a list of at least 50 words (thesaurus.com is very helpful) find a word or words that at least create that same impression. From my own observations, I've found that men love products with as few syllables as possible. If this is too daunting for you, enlist the help of a good copy writer with experience in product naming (I know a few if you need one), they should be able to give you a list of ad campaigns that they worked on. Paying them $100 for a good name is worth it in the long run. I hope this helps, best of luck to you!

Can you explain a bit more about what you are doing? There are a number of established ad servers, but I am unclear on how you are going to work with them to provide a service that is not already provided.

The first place to start is to get out there and meet people especially at local business association group meetings. Any place where people are networking is a great way to find someone for the team. Use the resources you already have like checking your college or university alumni association. Of course you could put out an ad on one of the online job boards, but your best opportunity will be to find someone who knows someone so that you can get a strong recommendation. There's always the obvious resources such as LinkedIn, but you'd be better off networking with people that you know to find the exact person that you need.