I think sponsorships are your best bet. The only problem is that with 80 ppl per month, you still have a pretty limited audience that might draw sponsorships. I would not recommend charging for regular events as that will likely depress attendance. Offering separate speaking/seminar opportunities may be a good idea. I think that in order to increase the value of any of these options you need to increase your regular attendance. The more bodies people can get in front of the more they will be willing to pay for the opportunity to do.

I would focus on the problem you solve more than the "business model" per se. Unless you're talking specifically about how to make money. The problem with most startups is that they don't solve an actual specific problem. It's a mobile app for example that does something, but doesn't really address a serious need. It just does something that isn't already being done. If you add some more color to your question I'd be happy to add some more color to the answer ;)

I'd argue that adding "app" to your domain name *strengthens* your brand by making it more transparent and honest. It's accepted practice; see, for example, bufferapp.com and umergencyapp.com. "Try__.com," on the other hand, is less advisable: it sounds tentative and uncertain. For other URL options--slogans, extensions, puns--see my blog post: http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2014/02/a-pure-dot-com-domain-you-dont-need-it.html

In addition to the great advice that Trishul has shared, I’d like to add that your event is also a business. As someone who produces my own live events (sponsorshipbootcamp.com) and speaks at the events of other promoters (author101university.com, movepeopletoaction.com, etc)... one of the biggest mistakes I see is people not treating it like a business. I would… 1. Create a business plan. 2. Get bids early for event planner, A/V, etc 3. Define the target market 4. Who do you want to speak and, more importantly, what is their reach/ability to help you promote the event and fill the event/room block. 5. Will you have sponsors? If so, how many and what type? Sponsors are a great way to cover a large portion of your expenses while also delivering an immense amount of value and ROI to your sponsors. Let me know if I can ever be of service to you or your team!

I am a firm believer in hiring professionals to do a professional job. We have worked with dozens of freelance videographers and helped brands achieve some sharp marketing videos. So some tips: 1) Hire a freelance videographer and writing team. Developing a story board is not easy and there are brilliant writers just waiting for jobs like this. 2) If you are going the DIY route make sure there is a beginning, a middle and an end to your story board. 3) Use humour where possible. 4) Keep the script short and attempt to get your message out in the first 30 seconds. 5)Speak directly to the audience -so know really well who that audience is! 6) Find the right tone depending on your company brand and mission. 7) Tell a solid story. So you want to start by presenting a problem, introducing a solution, then explain how it works, and lastly create a call to action for your target audience. Hope this helps. I'm here if you'd have further questions. blue skies, Daniela Hope this helps

Use Google Forms. It works well to conduct surveys. They have lot of the functionality built in. You can use it for a number of other things as well.

If I were you I try the following (assuming you know which stores you want): 1. Play dumb and call their support number and when they answer tell them that you dont know why you were routed there when you wanted to talk to the marketing department. 2. Create an email blast to either info@thestoreyouwant.com or support@thestoreyouwant.com chances are if it is a small operation the email will be seen by one of the founders/owners and they might take a peek at your offer. 3. Spend a few bucks and buy InMail contacts with Linkedin so you may reach the right person of the company you are targeting. Or you could spend some big bucks on a tech blog site like techcrunch or get a blogger from a portal like http://www.ppchero.com/ to write a post on your offering

I read your story and I feel your pain, but I have bad news. The problem is not your people, the problem is you. You have a responsibility that goes way beyond developing great products that wow customers; you have the responsibility of leading! Leadership is one of those subjects that most people feel they have covered, I thought I had it covered too until I found myself in exactly the same shoes as you are wearing right now, and boy did it pinch. It took a while for me to realize I was the problem but three things clued me in: 1. I found out that I kept firing and hiring new people and it did not make a difference 2. I met a friend who was building a great company with what I would consider average people and he was really getting things done. The difference was that leading people came natural to him while building products came natural to me 3. I finally came to terms with the fact that I enjoyed being the solution point and the center of the product development universe. Clients loved me, me people stood in awe of me and I loved it and hated it at the same time You need to get into a leadership coaching program. I'm sure you will find some very capable people on clarity but trust me, the sooner you start, the better. Your organization will not change until you change, and there is no better way to say it. Like I said, I know your pain and you are not alone in this my friend.

What the others said about 301 Redirects is correct, but you should make sure nothing is left out. I find it is better to plan ahead as much as possible to avoid errors which could affect your rank. Using free tools like SEO Spider can help you figure out all the links on your site that point to images, css and js files, etc. There is a nice checklist you can use at http://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic that covers it. Best of luck!

This is a tough one. When I started my prepared meal delivery service in Toronto, there was no way to make it legit working from home. I also was a vendor at a farmers' market and the only prepared products that were able to legit be made in a home kitchen were products made on a farm. Otherwise, everything needed to be made in a commercial kitchen. Most small food businesses start out of a home kitchen until a time when they can kitchen-share with a restaurant or it becomes worthwhile to rent commercial kitchen space at a commissary. My gut says that there likely isn't a way to make it legit, but it could depend on what city you live in. If you were doing in-home/private chef services, this is a different story, as the food is being made onsite. This type of service requires a standard business license and food handling certifications. A permit would be required if you had a food cart or truck, as well. I'd be happy to answer any other questions relating to this with a complimentary call. Contact me if you're interested. Jacinthe

In the past 4 years of marketing successful crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo, we've consistently seen drops in consumer traffic to these sites during the holiday months, as potential backers are purchasing products for the holidays that they can gift, not necessarily backing projects/products that will ship next year.

Asking a broad question welcomes suspect advice. It's unwise to apply generic "data" to a specific application. Narrow the focus - who is the typical user? Under age 30? Over the age of 45? Is the application typically used in the office during work hours or mostly out in the field? Is wifi/cellular Internet access generally available or is there an expectation that connectivity won't be available? Based on those demographic questions, what devices are your potential customers using? If it's 60%+ mobile/tablet, lean toward an app right away. If it's under 30%, consider starting web and then add a mobile optimized offering once you understand how your software is being used and how it will be best used on mobile vs a browser based offering.

1. First you need to establish who you are. Your identity. Then you need to create identity for cookies that you are making. What makes them so special? Is there something really different about them? Is it your grandmothers recipe that uses X and Y ingredients? 2. People need to know who you are so you can build that connection to your product. 3. YouTube videos are great to build awareness long as they are not cheesey. 4. I assume you have a website where people could order your cookie? 5. Since you have a Youtube video go down the KickStarter route and acquire customers that way. The idea of going to local businesses is great but people need to know who is behind the cookies. That connection must be there to make it compelling. We have cookies ordered to the office for meetings every week. The cookies are good. Do I know who makes them? No, but would I if I knew where it was coming from? Sure.

I deal with small business owners on a daily basis. Their knowledge of SEO varies greatly as does their competition in the SERPS. I will tell you that it is tough to give complete answers without first knowing how competitive your niche is. Advice: If those 50 domains are to be of any use, you will need to promote each of them first. Setting up a site without any promotion just to link to your main site is a losing strategy and one that will leave you pulling your hair out. It will not be helpful unless those sites are individually promoted first. That can be a monumental task, depending on many variables. My deduction, without the minutia... It sounds like a better investment of your time may be to promote your main website first through other relevant media. All of this depends on many factors. Would be glad to help you sort it all out on a call.

The answer to your question depends on a number of things: what type of entity the company is, what state it is organized in, and most importantly, what the organizational documents say. Generally, it is the fiduciary duty of the Board (if it is a corporation), and in some cases (e.g. Delaware) the majority stockholders, to act int he best interest of ALL shareholders, including minority shareholders, in making decisions for the company, including those that involve significant dilution. And, in some states, there are statutes that require the vote of minority shareholders for some types of actions. However, the organizational documents of the company can often override these protections. So, it would be impossible to give you a reliable picture of your "rights" without that information. I am a startup attorney and would be happy to help you get to the root of your questions, if you would like to provide more info or set up a call.

You might consider using oDesk (https://www.odesk.com/). It is a global marketplace of freelancers with expertise in areas like this.

Always look for the free avenues first before putting down any dollars as you are running lean as it is. Look to on-line forums, groups in your target market that are discussing the subject area and begin engaging and sharing insights to show credibility for your offering. As you move forward, begin to request advice in developing the basic product offering. You can then start providing incentives like entries into a draw to this focused target market, as opposed to general contact lists that get very little conversions (unless it is a targeted e-mail list). This should get you started.

There are many security standards you can "certify" your datacenter with, such as NIST or ISO. You can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_security_standards In addition there are some SSL and Antivirus vendors who provide "security badges" that can be embedded to your website and prove that your DNS domain and SSL certificate are valid. Having said that, If you are serious about security and want to leverage that as a competitive advantage you would probably have to implement deep security measures. You could then publish these measures in a whitepaper that can be shared with your clients. You can refer to what Amazon have published regarding their AWS product: https://media.amazonwebservices.com/pdf/AWS_Security_Whitepaper.pdf Guy

Use the "audience" feature on facebook and import all of your emails. Facebook will match them so that you can ran ads to promote your new startup or service to whoever has a fb profile with that email. Happy to help if you need more info

Social logins are great because they allow you to tap into your user's network. But if your app doesn't have any viral capabilities, a social login becomes another registration form. To identify a potential viral factor in your app, answer the following questions: 1. What is a strong reason that would encourage a random user to download your app? 2. After a user downloads the app, what value will he gain if he invites his friends to download your app? 3. What is a strong reason for someone who received a friend invitation to download your app? Your answers to the above questions should solve one or more pain points for your users. After you have reached satisfying answers, you need to do the following: 1. Modify your business app in order to include any additional features that are necessary to address the issues answered above. 2. Modify your messages and marketing efforts in order to highlight the pain points you're solving for your users. I hope this helps.

How to sell to retailers? As a former Retail Buyer from Target, here's my suggestion. You need to first ready your sales communication and materials to explain how 1) You will drive sales at their stores (best told through sales traction and history in comparable or slightly smaller retailers than the one you are targeting 2) Demonstrate how you will support sales with a marketing plan. Marketing mitigates sales risk and that's a retailer's #1 concern and 3) Prove you will deliver flawless vendor execution. There are many hiccups that happen along the supply chain and it takes an experienced company to flawlessly deliver inventory to the right stores/DC's in the right quantity on the right day. The best way to prove this is by showing that you are currently working with retailers of the same magnitude. So in short, you have to scale up slowly - from small retailers to larger retailers - in order to manage risk, build sales traction, build brand awareness, and manage cash flow. How to contact them and sell to them? Use Linked In to find retail buyers. I have a short video on how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbfUMRHiq0 Trade shows are also effective; you can get the mailing address of retail buyers in attendance plus meet them face to face if they come to your booth. Also, network within your industry. You'll find your peers are wiling to trade buyer lists with you. But in short, don't bother reaching out to a retail buyer until you have talking points that address those 3 things I mentioned above all. I'm happy to do a clarity call if you have follow up questions.

A lot depends on the service you're offering. But I'd definitely include case studies of previous clients. Don't just offer testimonials but weave a story around your previous clients' experiences. Again, I could help more if I knew what you were offering. Another useful strategy is to offer some kind of special/limited deal on your service if they still don't bite after x amount of emails. Just be sure to move people from your autoresponder prospects list to a buyers list when they do eventually try your service.

You can use LinkedIn ads to focus on your specific target audience based on things like: industry, job title and function. Facebook also has specific categories regarding job types, I'm not sure if "hotel managers" is on the list. Best of luck! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Simple: The right investor is someone who wants to invest on standard terms at a good valuation relative to your current stage. Extra bonus points for someone who has relevant industry connections that could accelerate your business and is willing - at the right time - to make introductions for you. But you should have really quite low expectations of most angel investors. Certainly they should have NO operational control of the business. Although I want to be as helpful as possible to companies I invest in, it's entirely for the entrepreneur to drive me, not the other way around. There are very few exceptions to this rule, for example when angels who actually do have very recent and relevant experience want to back someone who is inexperienced and need oversight in order to feel comfortable investing early. But this is a real rarity. Finally, to answer your question about what entrepreneurs do when they receive funding, they should spend it in the best possible way to accelerate the success of the business. I'd be happy to talk to you in a call to provide more clarity on the matter and also discuss when is the right time to accept investment. If you have people willing to back you, that's great. You want to make sure you have a clear plan and set expectations accordingly.

Names are not so useful, emails yes! Export their emails in Linkedin and then upload to Facebook "audience" targeting and then you're good to go:)