Hi there! In few words, the launch date does not matter a lot as long as you are following with a continuous marketing plan all the year. It is better to tune your lunch date according to your marketing campaign than connecting it to the seasonal event. The timing of your launch only matters if your website is already ranked or has a good authority associated to it. Launching a website is not like opening a local shop. The launch date is defined by the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. In other words, your question must be rephrased as: "When is the best time to launch my first marketing campaign for my newly created website?". In that case, you will need to describe in details what kind of website you have and how are you planning to market it. I would be able to give you a more accurate answer if you explain to me what kind of website are you planning to launch or what products mainly are you selling. Hope that helps!

You can split in 2 strategies long term and short term. Short term you need ads. Ads via Google work because you get immediate response, trouble is if your not well acquainted with SEM you may overspend do to the lack of bad landing pages, unuseful keywords and just low conversion rates. But if done properly you will have a machine with good ROI. Facebook has now a deeper level of interests, from special demographics to campaign audiences that can be built from previous lists you may have. Lets say you have a landing page where you said soon to launch and collected emails. You could later ran ads to those users via fb or use their lookalike feature to relate to users that may have the same patterns or behavior and thus promote to a bigger list. Long term you could focus on inbound content, videos, lists that add up to content that people may search if you have a good understanding of what keywords are trending and what is their volume of search. Also how hard it is to get your content to rank via SEO based on what your competition is currently doing. happy to get on a call if you need more guidance.

That is always a tuff call, to take the profit at the start of the project or to make a great profit at the end. Not only is this tuff for you, your customer has the same analysis. I would offer plans that do both, that would give you a mix of the upfront revenue that you need and back end profit that is so nice. Marty

Depends on your objective. If you really just want to know whether the idea is viable, you'll get the most bang for your buck by keeping things email-capture-only or putting up a "smoke test" where you have a Buy Now button that redirects to a "it's not available yet; but leave your email if you want to be notified when it's ready"... and see if you can get anyone to click "buy now" by clearly articulating on your landing page what the product will do for them. This also lets you test pricing sensitivity. If you can't get anyone to leave an email or click "buy now" based on a really good description with images (or even better a video "demo") then building the actual product is unlikely to be worth it.

Yes. Community managers are usually fairly modest, without egos. But that said, everyone wants to feel appreciated from time to time....receiving credit for work done is one aspect of that. I think it's a matter or "credit, in moderation"

Quick summary answer: You must promote this using direct mail to businesses who are in the right geographic region to take advantage. Buy or rent lists from: Chamber of commerce, local business association, local council rates payers etc. Also find organizations that have mailing lists and agree a deal with them to promote to their list. Get each to send a direct response email that drives readers to your landing page which includes these 3 things 1 - re-iterate the offer 2 - give a guarantee of quality 3 - add testimonials Have an on-page registration form to allow you to phone and qualify each enquiry. As an additional benefit you could get firms to refer others to you for an extra discount if their contacts sign up. Note you'll need a strong process for follow through to ensure nobody gets overlooked. Go gettem! This is an awesome promotion and really appropriate for SMEs I'm so glad you have gotten great support. If you need help writing the landing page, or introduction email, please get in touch.

I make a point of introducing myself to people online who are unlikely to become clients. You for instance. That's not altruism. It's curiosity. Learning about other people's business models, industries, unique challenges and goals -- even absorbing their phrases, vocabulary, and style -- prepares me for some other branding client later on. Being attuned to other people is the starting point of real life interactions, isn't it? Business networking is no different from wandering around from the car mechanic's to the coffee shop and striking up conversations with people along the way.

It depends on your charter or mission as well as your long term vs. Short term objectives. If your mission involves a larger more expansive view - then you will need to spend a lot more time on unique problem solving that has a strong potential ROI feeding the fulfillment of the mission. It kind of boils down to ROI (return on investment) vs. risk for me: I look at the ROI and risk (opportunity cost) for almost everything that I choose to do - this helps me compare various choices for what to focus on daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Having clear objectives for the month, week and year also help in selecting what percentage of time as per your question. If the solution of this problem feeds the fulfillment of your objectives vs. the solution of this problem prevents a risky situation: that may be the question to answer. I hope this helps. Feel free to interact so that I can delve into the complexities and nuances that are inevitably there.

Define the point where you can take a breather. Map the route between this here now and that there then. If you can count the steps along the way with confidence, that's good. If you know how you might change direction midway through or even turn back, that's good. If you can decide in advance what cues should compel a change of course, that's good. And if you really believe you'll take that breather when you get to the first predefined goal, that's even better. But maybe -- like Zeno's paradox of Achilles racing against the tortoise -- you'll never allow yourself to catch up. No matter how long it takes you to reach where the tortoise was, by the time you're there the tortoise will have moved farther on! Ask people who understand you and your project (and who won't flatter you!!!) what they think.

I've heard this question asked before: "What is your why?" As in, "Why are you doing this? What motivates you? What are you trying to get out of it?" This isn't a "unique way," but I'd recommend asking people simple questions like that to find out what makes them tick. Once you know, you'll have a better idea about how to motivate team members and how to help them succeed.

I've been involved in several projects that hinged upon this question (generally start-ups or web+mobile apps), and it's not a clean or easy answer unfortunately! Plus every developer you talk to is going to try to sell you their services, but what you need is simply the truth! I'd suggest that you consider shifting your focus away from finding a best language. That sort of premise can eliminate options that are actually quite valid solutions. Keep in mind that any mobile app will require multiple languages working in harmony - all while used in a commercially consistent and standards-based manner. That's the part that determines your technical scalability! Almost every programming language can achieve this functionality with an experienced developer on your team. The best advice I can give you, is to consult with at least two people on this, and three if your app is os-specific. The most important insight will come from a "full stack" developer. One who's got a variety of enterprise experience, and can code at all levels of the stack. This person needs to have experience in leading a team of other developers, which forces the strategy of which technologies to use and why onto their plates daily. Secondly, you'll want to consult with a "front end" developer, who can tell you what's possible using advanced OOP JavaScript techniques (like Google's angular.js), because in an absurdly fast change over the past 3 years, much of the formerly back-end work has made it's way to the front-end, and is driven by JavaScript, predominantly JSON data, and awesome API's. The game has changed and the front-enders are the poor souls dealing with this rapid shift daily. To do this, they're also fantastic JavaScript programmers, which is a language that runs on all mobile devices and all browsers, too. Love it or hate it JavaScript is the most commonly used language in the world. Finally, if your app is OS-specific, you'll want to consult with a developer who works predominantly with the OS your app is built for. This person lets you know what's possible from the device POV, should know what stacks and JavaScript approaches can and can't be done on that OS, and how to leverage the resources of the device for your app as well as extend it's functionality. BONUS - loop back to the full stack developer to double-check the claims of the front-ender and the mobile developers. Always double check with your most senior programmer ;) All of these consults together in addition to your own research and due diligence will get you comfortable and allow you to navigate on this rather daunting but deeply important journey. There aren't any turn-key options. Instead it's a series of inter-connected modules driven by different languages, and all working in tandem. Every solution will have bugs, and no one group of technologies can do everything without proper developers. If you'd like to go further down the rabbit hole, then we should definitely set-up some time to speak. Otherwise, I wish you great luck in research and encourage you to learn as much as you can! :) It's going to seem hard, and might give you a headache here or there, but learn everything you can about how different technologies "talk" to each other, and then you will be able to build a map for keeping your app and business scalable regardless of the changing tides of technology!

Nowhere near enough info provided to give you advice, unfortunately. WHAT is your service? WHO is your target market? WHERE is that target market? WHY would they be interested in your service? HOW can you monetize the value of your service for them? Get in front of your target audience where they hang out. Give them a reason to use your service. Show them its value.

The best way to go--by far-- is to use a Grunt Fund. A Grunt Fund is a dynamic equity split model designed to provide a perfectly fair equity split for founders of bootstrapped companies. It will tell you exactly how much you and your partner and later partners and employees deserve. It's based on the relative contributions you have each made and changes over time as new contributions are made to make sure that at any given time you and your partners always have what they deserve to have- no more and no less. The basic model is this: All contributions of time, money, ideas, relationships, supplies, equipment or anything else, can be converted into a fictional unit I call "slices". A slice is calculated based on the fair market value of the contribution and a risk multiplier. To determine shares you simply apply this calculation: Individual share = individual slices ÷ total slices There is also a recovery framework that outlines what happens to shares when someone leaves the company. I call this a "Fair & Square" split. Fair, in that it always tells you exactly the right split. And, square, because it accounts for all contributions. I wrote a book on this model that provides detailed implementation instructions. There is also an online calculator tool on my web site. If you contact me through SlicingPie.com, I'll send you a copy of the book! You're going to love it.

With PR, it should always be about finding people who are genuinely interested / excited about what you're doing, so I would suggest targeting those people regardless of whether they are nice, hyper-local, or broad. Leave no stone unturned but it really depends on what you can use as a hook, which without understanding where you're exactly at, can't help beyond this general advice. One thing I'd add as a note of caution is that if you're not already trending towards 100,000 installs since US app store availability, it's going to be very difficult to get press coverage absent a very unique hook. Happy to talk to you to try and help identify what hooks you might have. Best of luck!

Great question! My response is based on experience... There's companies you must assume their limited contact info is for a reason. There's companies like startups, local or midsize firms that are more welcomed even if they lacked the knowledge of value in more contact info in their sites.. What i have done in the past is Google a relevant employee and try a variation of their name and email.. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. If you can't get a name then to that general inbox address yourself with as a higher rank title as possible without lying or becoming liable, state that you are requesting a contact number or address so that you can stop by and introduce yourself and maybe drop off some goodies (I have dropped off sweets, donuts, & coffee) aks that if they prefer to give you a call and schedule a visit to please do so by a certain date. This approach very often works for me. Never, even in person, do you introduce yourself for the purpose of gaining something from others and immediately ask for a favor or their business. Build a relationship even if is a thin one... Then when you know your offering is either welcomed or needed do you pitch or ask... This might limited the amount of pitches you do online but the quality will increase. :)

Easily the best tool out there is www.perfectcloud.io/smartsignin. Not only does it make importing employee databases super simple it provides next gen security to profiles and all cloud sharing and it has a top of the line auditing system. Easily a one stop shop that will change how you manage and monitor.

Hi! It seems like you're early on in regards to developing your idea still. (Not saying you haven't thought of it for a while) It appears that the idea might still need more refining. The hardest and most valuable things an entrepreneur can do early on is simplify the business and idea as much as possible. You might feel like your giving up a apiece of the pie that can also be tapped into but you need to focus in one value only. That will help the market entry a lot by having a simpler pitch, marketing, value proposition, and finances. Now.. To your first general question (assuming the core idea is financing) simplify a message and value proposition, conduct simple surveys on both bike owners & banks to really dwell into the financial reasoning of why they don't and also a glimpse of the market share by knowing how many on average would opt for financing a preowned bike vs. buying it cash. With that you could start pitching potential investors who would provide you with your website/marketing, financier insurance, legal fees & obviously the reserves and premiums to finance the bikes... An investor once obtained will have his/her own demands for equity or interest/royalties and that will help you calculate your average interest on loans offered... I really recommend you stick to one valuable offering then as you establish the business and grow your stake in the market that you offer more services like handling the selling and buying,etc.. From what you listed it looks like your bp covers several possible propositions.

I think Facebook is great for really targeting your audience and you’re on the right track. But I think you can have a better funnel than that. I find, for getting better conversion today, it is better to get your Facebook traffic off of Facebook as fast as you can to your offer and into your funnel. It is more effective for driving actual sales. If you’re just looking for social branding etc. then your funnel might be ok. A very effect strategy is to create either a video or report that you give away to your audience in exchange for an email. It should be something that helps solve or bring to light the problems patients are suffering from and how to go about solving them. Then mention how having a great Chiropractor can solve all of that and can be the most effective way to get ride of the pain. I would also have some things in there that would help them in other ways. Then I would send them to an event or webinar with your top Chiropractor and you in an interview / reveal-all type webinar to educate your lead and manage their fears of going to a Chiropractor. You could tell them that the first step is making an appointment for an assessment. You should make it easy for them to find the best and most effective Chiropractor in their area. You might have a discount on the assessment only available to them for being on the webinar to get them to sign up at the end of the webinar. By the way, once this is recorded, you can make this evergreen so you don't have to do a webinar all the time. As long as you are reaching more and new people with your Facebook campaign you won’t have to change the video all the time.

Once you have people signed up to make an appointment, make sure they are also putting a deposit of a 100 dollars or something down. This will increase your show rate for the Chiropractors. Then give them a voucher for that Chiropractor, for more than you’re asking for at the deposit for services, to use with that Chiropractor. Allowing you to prevent cancelations etc. so that their getting their money back in the form of a voucher for services which, by the way, is not a discount and shouldn’t diminishing your Chiropractors Rates. This strategy I have used in several markets that has produced more prequalified leads and patients / customers. Remember to test, track and know your metrics. You’re going to need to make some tweaks in the beginning, but this can be very effective for you. So to recap: 1. Setup a landing page with your offer in exchange for an offer. You can build this in software like Leadpages.net or Megaphoneapp.com 2. Make your offer downloadable if an ebook or white paper or present your video after. I recommend using Wistia instead of YouTube for playback as you will be able to have heat maps of your video to know where your fall off points are. You can also make this page with the software mentioned above. 3. Use an email autoresponder to engage your lead and email them about the event you’re doing after they had time to read or download your materials. Or, if a video, I would just pitch them at the end with a link below the video to automatically register. 4. Put on a webinar with your guest using either GoToWebinar or Google hangouts if you know how to set that up. 5. Make sure you have your appointment getting page with your the down payment created. You can use several different type of scheduling services so you can automatically deliver the lead/ appointment to the chiropractor. To Note: The reason I don’t send the visitor to the webinar first is because it is better to get the visitor predisposed to your information before asking them to commit to a webinar and when you do it the way I played out, you will have a much better show rate. This is it in a nutshell. Obviously there is more to it. If you need another funnel idea I am hear to help. I have used other effective strategies in the past to also make money on the front end to make your advertising free. It just depends on what you want to do and how advanced you want to get. Hope this helps give you some ideas. :) If you need help implementing something like this just let me know.

One word: Royalties This means you generate the idea and develop it enough to look interesting to a larger company who would be willing to pay you a royalty for your idea. This happens all the time. Rock stars, authors and scientists routinely license their creative ideas to other companies who pay them a royalty. Anyone can do it. Your business, therefore, would be a think tank. You (and your team, if you have one) would consider the world's problems, see what kinds of companies are trying to solve those problems, and then develop compelling solutions that they can license from you. You have to be able to sell your idea and develop a nice presentation, a little market research and an understanding of basic trademark and patent law. The nice thing about doing this is that if you develop enough cool ideas you will have royalties coming in from a lot of different sources, this creates a stable, passive revenue stream that requires little or no work to maintain. Start in your spare time and plan on the process taking 3-5 years. Set a goal to have a few products in the market that provide enough revenue (royalties) to cover your basic living expenses. Then you can quit your day job and dedicate more time and increase the momentum. A good idea business should have dozens, if not hundreds of license contracts generating royalties. It's possible to pull this off. And it is a fun job (I'm speaking from experience).

People hate calls. People hate emails. People hate mail. Do you really want your first impression to be that of an interloper and a pusher? Then again, most recipients aren't event going to look at what you send them. What is your niche? Office managers for private family healthcare providers in Peoria? Athletics department directors for NAIA schools? Sales managers at wholesale car dealers that make over $180 million per year in gross revenue? Know your niche and define your buyer (and it better be the CIO or VP). Is your buyer female or male? Older, middle age, or younger? What about her or his college education? What does he drive? Where does he live? Where does he eat his lunch and get his coffee in the morning? What does he read? Etc. Go to your buyer. Find congregations of your buyer. Professional associations. Conferences. Meet-ups. Trade shows. Offer to do free presentations--not on your product but on best practices or trends you observe in the industry. Make your presentation about solving problems your buyers deal with every day. Write blogs or columns for media they read. Again, focus on what they need/want to read. You will have a hard time keeping enough business cards in stock and click-throughs from your byline. This is a true "targeted outreach campaign." Don't waste your money and time with anything less than this. You're going to do great. Please let me know if you'd like to talk about it more!

Boston is an expensive city to live in. Rent alone is going to be $2000+. So figure $3000 for your salesperson. That's 60 sales a month just to pay that person. Two sales a day just to break even on their cost--forget about you, and your overhead. Of course, your salesperson doesn't have to be local. But it sure helps--managing them, making certain they're actually doing the behaviors they need to be doing (making calls, etc.), helping them with the technical stuff. I don't see this being financially viable under such a model. An automated online funnel is probably a better idea, unless you raise your price to pay for the salesperson and additional overhead.

I guess now is the time to start implementing the plan! What does it say there? :) Seriously - need to think strategy and go for the missing pieces ... I doubt you need a lawyer or SBA advise to get started. But the details of course depend on what is it you are trying to do. Happy to chat if you are interested.

At this point, move on from dealing with this. Focus on the business. Grow it. Traction solves most problems.

You can work upon one of the many tools that exist for this exact purpose: 1. You can use aMember to create a standalone membership website. 2. You can setup a Wordpress website and install a plugin like "MemberPress", "Paid Memberships Pro" or a combination of plugins like "Woocommerce + Groups + Subscriptions". It all depends of what sort of interaction you want for your customers. Take a look at those options and see if any of them match what you are looking for. Of course you can create something from scratch but that takes time and usually a lot more money. Make sure what you need doesn't already exist before venturing into a fully custom job. Best of luck! Let me know if you have any more questions!

Mitigate risk. You're asking a store manager to dedicate space that costs money (and must generate revenue) to an experimental (unproven) product. I've seen some cottage industry food sellers here in Detroit work out deals to set up and sell their products at local stores. They get a day or two to show the stores what they can do. If customers respond and buy a lot of the product, it opens the door for more shelf space. If not, the store lost nothing in giving it a try. How do you set this up? Free stuff. Give the decision-maker free samples of your product. If he or she likes it, you're on to the next step. Enjoy making your good luck for yourself! I'm happy to discuss further by phone.