Here are the main alternatives to AdMob divided into tiers based on scale: Tier one: a) MoPub b) Amazon Publisher Services c) Facebook Audience Network Tier two: a) Verizon b) Smaato c) Fyber d) MobFox e) InMobi f) AdColony g) Rubicon h) AppNexus i) Pubmatic j) OpenX k) Chartboost l) Unity Ads m) Vdopia n) IronSource o) Adtoapp p) AdinCube q) Appodeal r) PubNative Let me explain them one-by-one: 1. MoPub: MoPub is another industry leading SSP option. It was an early entrant in the space, and it was acquired several years ago by Twitter. Since then it has continued to develop and it runs one of the largest exchanges for mobile app inventory, tapping into the advertiser base of Twitter. 2. Amazon Publisher Services (APS): Amazon Publisher Services is one of the newest options available to mobile app developers. Amazon has been rapidly developing their advertising capabilities and they have their own massive demand source because of all the merchants advertising on their platform. They also run a product called Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) that allows you to mediate other demand sources as well. It's not as easy to use as AdMob, but it's a very potent competitive option. 3. Facebook Audience Network (FAN): Facebook is the only other demand source that truly rivals Google AdMob in sheer size. FAN is not a mediation service, but it is so large that many apps would not need anything else, so it is an AdMob alternative. It is possible to use it as a demand source in other mediation solutions and if you can, you should. 4. Verizon (aka Nexage and Oath): The name of this one keeps changing. It was originally known as Nexage, which was another older exchange and SSP. Nexage was acquired by Millennial Media, which was acquired AOL and marketed as a product called One Mobile, then AOL was acquired by Verizon. Verizon deals in all digital ads, whether desktop, mobile web or mobile app. They have a full-featured SSP option and they are also providing header bidding to publishers. 5. Smaato: Smaato has traditionally been more internationally focused but has started to perform well in the US too. They have a sizable exchange of their own. 6. Fyber: Fyber is a roll-up of a few different companies, one of which was Inneractive which has a good-sized ad exchange for mobile app traffic. Fyber is a game focused SSP but they can and do operate on a variety of other types of apps. The mediation platform HeyZap was also acquired and rolled into Fyber. 7. MobFox: MobFox is the in-app monetization arm of the Matomy group. 8. InMobi: InMobi has long been a large ad network in international markets and a while back they acquired Aerserv. Aerserv is a video focused SSP with a mediation platform and exchange that performs well in the US, making it a great addition to InMobi. 9. AdColony: Many of these SSPs were formed through acquisition, and AdColony (formerly known as Opera) is a successful public company that was created through several acquisitions. Their SSP offering is underpinned by a mobile ad serving and mediation layer called AdMarvel. That platform is augmented by demand from a performance network formerly known as Moolah Media and a brand network formerly known as Mobile Theory. All of this has been combined and they have created their own proprietary exchange as well under the brand AdColony 10. Rubicon: Rubicon is a long-time player on web inventory. They grew rapidly and ultimately went public a few years ago. Rubicon operates a large exchange, and they have an SSP offering for in-app inventory, but their roots are in web inventory. 11. AppNexus: AppNexus runs a large exchange that traditionally was focused on web inventory. Again, their roots are web, but they are moving aggressively into app inventory as well. AppNexus is a more robust platform than other SSPs, which is a pro and a con. It can be used as a platform to run a whole ad network. However, that large scope of features can make it daunting to use as an SSP. As part of that platform, it has a very robust direct ad serving offering. 12. PubMatic: PubMatic is a large company running their own exchange. PubMatic acquired mobile ad network Mojiva a while back and Mojiva's ad serving counterpart Mocean, so they do have a robust direct ad serving system that can be used to operate a whole network, like AppNexus. That acquisition also gave them some technology that was developed specifically for mobile. 13. OpenX: Yet another large SSP from a private company with web roots. OpenX operates an exchange that is large and worth accessing. OpenX started as a direct ad serving platform and that is still one of their core offerings. They are one of the few SSPs that has a robust direct ad serving option. 14. Chartboost: Chartboost focuses exclusively on game apps. They run interstitial and video ad formats only and offer cross promo and a direct deal marketplace so you can coordinate with other app developers. 15. Unity Ads: The Unity platform for game development has an ad platform called Unity Ads woven into it. This makes it extremely easy for apps developed on Unity to use, but it focuses on rewarded video units exclusively. 16. Vdopia: Vdopia runs an optimization platform and video ad exchange called Chocolate. 17. IronSource: IronSource is a full-featured platform with a variety of ad units available, but they tend to focus on game apps and on rewarded video. If most of your inventory is rewarded, do NOT skip over this one. It is one of the leaders in that space. 18. Adtoapp: 20+ demand sources and monthly pay-outs. 19. Appodeal: 60+ demand sources and flexible payout options. 20. AdinCube: Ogury acquired this product and turned it into their publisher solution. 21. PubNative: Native ad network and good mediation add-on for other SSPs. Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath

I would probably look at a course on udemy for that specific case https://www.udemy.com/getting-started-with-php-programming/?dtcode=MzjhAx31ASRH

When the cost to acquire each additional paid user: -is less than the prior user you are in viral growth. -is equal to the prior user you are growing. -is more that the prior user than you are starting to reach maturity (but possibly not there yet). -is equal to what you are willing to pay then you are at maturity. -is greater than what you are willing to pay then you are in decline. Define your potential customer segment and ask them (Would they purchase your product at $X? How many/often would you purchase? Etc.). You can do a statistically significant, +/- 4+%, marketing research survey for about $500 at SurveyMonkey.com. The survey results should help to answer your other questions. Cheers and good luck!

As the host of 'The App Guy Podcast', I can introduce you to a few good developers ranging from inexpensive locations to $100 per hour top rates. As a quick guess, this type of app will start from $900 using a cross platform solution (Like Titanium Studio) to $5000 for Objective-C apps written on xCode Let me know if you want an introduction by contacting me through my website or podcast Paul Kemp - The App Guy Podcast http://TheAppGuy.co/

This sounds like an exciting project! There are certainly a lot of points to consider when putting together anything involving memberships, especially something like you've described. However, I won't go into every possible course as I believe the most likely route that will bring you success will be leveraging WordPress' multisite capabilities. Essentially, I'd be recommending you setup a multisite where schools can sign up for their own subsite on your network. It is possible to pre-configure your new sites so that upon signup, each school gets a site with the theme, plugins, content, settings, etc. which you wish them to have. You can assign each new user with specific roles on their own site and your main site so that they will be able to participate in things like site specific or network wide forums. To facilitate this, I'd envision using several plugins including: http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/pro-sites/ http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/new-blog-template/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/join-my-multisite/ There are a number of reasons why I'd recommend this approach but I'll just mention a few important ones: - This approach would allow you to bill the organization rather than the individual user (if desired). - Allows for the simplest management of groups of users for active/inactive accounts. - Organizations can have their own environment, complete with private groups, forums, content, media, etc. Those are just a few reasons why I think this approach would be effective and appropriate. That said, I would say with certainty that a site like you've described could be built on single install of WP, simply taking full advantage of plugins like BuddyPress, bbPress, the many complimentary plugins for those and/or potentially some of the many other powerful membership plugins for WordPress. I hope this is helpful. Please indicate if you'd like more details on any specific point. I'm happy to help.

It really depends on the nature of your business. Revenue can actually be a deterrent to early stage venture investors if the revenue isn't growing at a fast-enough pace. So your rate of growth will either open or close opportunities to you. If your business is not yet growing fast enough and your revenue is predictable, your profit margin and personal credit rating is good enough, I'd suggest looking into debt options to increase the rate of growth and top-line. It's hard to tell based on the lack of detail in your question whether selling equity to a group of individuals or a VC makes sense but a good VC is never ever a silent partner. If you book a call, I'm happy to dive into your business and let you know what I think your best options are. I help a lot of people on Clarity with fundraising advice.

The existing answers are good, and I agree with most of the price ranges that are mentioned. There is a huge range in rates and they are most affected by the region and the type of organization you are dealing with. For example, a small shop in E. Europe that is exceptional in Ruby and has professional management, great communication skills, and the ability to work agile (for real) is going to cost in the high 30's. A company in the same region but with less mediocre communication skills will get you into the 20's, but it won't be the same experience. In India, it's similar but the entire price range is a bit lower. In order to understand how much you should pay, we use a simple approach like this: - we figure out what kind of client you are. are you a bootstrapped startup? are you techy? can you manage it from your end? Do you have time to take on a lot of QA? are you experienced with this? - knowing your client profile we can determine what kind of vendor will be successful with you. if you are an experienced client, have outsourced before, and know the ins and outs of software development you can work with freelancers, boutique shops, etc. if you are inexperienced with software and haven't managed this kind of thing, we might look for more of an agency type shop that will provide really good PM and awesome communication, etc. If you are pretty experienced and going long-term, you might consider an ODC model, too. - Knowing the type of client you are and thus, the type of vendor you need allows us to recommend a region and specific development shops for you. When we know what/where we're looking for, it becomes easy to answer that magic question ,'how much should I pay?'. This is basically the process that our entire business is based on :) Check out this video series that explains the process in more detail (complete with 2014 pricing numbers). Good luck, and feel free to reach out if you need any help choosing that perfect development shop. They are out there.

Extremely difficult question to answer. It will mostly be justified by traction in a certain amount of time. If you receive a huge number of users in a year, this will add multiples to your valuation. On the flip side, if you are ten years in with steady growth, the multiples will not be as high. Industry matters, as well. I'd say $50 million a year in gross revenue will definitely get you a $100 million buyout.

If you create a website and use responsive web design (the website automatically changes the way it looks on different screen sizes), you can have your cake and eat it too. :) The website would be usable from a large screened device (like a laptop) and if it is accessed via a small screen (like a smartphone), it will "reformat" the way it looks to make it usable on a small screen. You can go one step further and create a mobile app which will create a "webview" of the website. Thus, when people open the mobile app, they "see" the website and interact with it the way they would with an app. I have experience in responsive web design, smartphone development, and implementing webviews in smartphone apps. Please give me a call if you would like more information about these subjects. Cheers, Jordan

Assuming you have actually identified someone in this role and you're asking about the legal side of things, I'd say that beyond a legal entity by which to enter into an employment or contractual agreement that has the standard assignment of rights, confidentiality, etc, you're probably fine for now. Depending on where you're operating from and whether you actually have an actual office or not might impact your need for a business license. But if you're asking how you would actually identify this person, that's a much different answer. The reality of it is that unless you have already raised or can self-fund a full-time salary of an iOS developer (which will range $85,000- $140,000 for just salary anywhere in North America depending on experience and location), you're better off looking at a mobile development agency. Also, many great iOS developers lack strong back-end skills, so in order to publish an app, you're likely looking for two engineers, not one. Those that pass themselves off as "full stack" are usually marginal at both. So either you have to be able to show that you have raised or can self-fund two people's salaries for a year, or you won't be able to attract full-time talent. Also, I haven't mentioned anything about design, which depending on the nature of the app, would require a third person at least on contract to design and iterate the user experience. In most cases, non-technical founders that want a product built should find a reputable mobile agency to build the first version of their app. I know of several and am happy to provide further information, if you're serious about building your app. Beyond the cost of building a single platform app with a contractor (I would budget $50k at a minimum), you should also be sure you have at least $50k in customer acquisition budget comfortably allocated and that's just to take a "realistic shot" at having an app get any traction. So if you can't raise or spend USD $100,000, I would say that as a non technical founder, you're better off pursuing a different line of business. That's just the reality of the mobile app marketplace today.

You have a lot of options to market to boomers and seniors. That age group is facebook's fastest growing segment. Build ads that target that age group and think about having a facebook page to supplement your efforts there. Older people search just like the rest of us as well, so build an adwords campaign around keywords that might align with your product. Contact me if you'd like to chat about some options or need some help building your campaigns. Good luck!

A whole lot more data is needed before anyone can answer this question. "Some people want it"...have you identified a target market? Are there similarities in these people? How many? Did they tell you what they'd pay for it? Why didn't they pay you for it already (before you wonder about this, people do it all the time: it's called Kickstart)? Do you know how to reach these people? What are your costs? Can you charge a price that gives you a profit? Will people pay it? Have you locked in a steady source of supply (manufacturing) for your product? Do you have a backup manufacturer in case this one flakes out or implodes? Do you have a sales team? How are you going to reach the market and generate revenue? Do you have the budget to do so? Do you have the cash to fund the startup? Can you replace your own income safely to "fully pursue it"? I recommend you get the Amazon/Kindle book "How To Quit Working" by Jeff Steinmann. It will give you the roadmap on how to make this transition, and is the #1 business book I have found.

It can certainly be tough to build up a substantial follower base, starting from nothing or very little, especially if you haven't launched your product yet. But here are a few tactics to help you get in front of more people pre-launch: 1) Start sharing tons of useful content. Before you bother sending people to your Twitter feed or Facebook page, you want to make sure they'll find something valuable once they get there. If you have the time, create original content that ties into your industry, your product, or your company in some way (without directly promoting yourself, though). If you don't have the bandwidth to create your own content, find other articles from bloggers you admire or experts in your industry, and share their content. Just make sure you're putting out information that's highly relevant and valuable to the audience you're trying to attract so you can engage them once they find you. 2) Create conversation. The people who aren't following you yet aren't seeing your tweets, so how do you show them value and get them to discover you? Start a conversation! At Change Collective, we're rolling out our first course on Becoming an Early Riser. So I'll do a Twitter search for "need to wake up earlier" and find a bunch of people who are tweeting about the exact problem we're setting out to solve. By favoriting their tweets or replying with -- "That's great! We think we can help - check out our newest course & let us know what you think!" -- I'm getting our product on their radar and simultaneously providing value to them. 3) Ask for help. Start with your fellow team members, and ask them to share the company's Facebook posts or retweet some of your tweets. You can even create lazy tweets for them to share. What about your board members? Advisors? VCs? They all have a stake in helping your company grow awareness and adoption, so find an easy and appropriate way for them to help by leveraging their networks. And if you have friends and family who are excited about your business and supportive of what you're doing, they probably won't mind a friendly request to help spread the news every once in a while. Hope this helps! I just joined an early-stage startup and I'm currently building up our marketing from scratch. Happy to jump on a call and offer some tips from the trenches if you'd like. Best of luck!

I respectfully disagree with Lane. I don't think that his suggestions are going to to yield results for this site. A 200,000 rank on Alexa isn't actually traction. Sign-ups by themselves aren't worth much until you get to the high tens of thousands, and even that number isn't worth much in a sale. If you have over 10,000 monthly active users, you *might* be able to sell it to a similarly positioned business for a small amount of cash, and at this point, I'd suggest that if you have that kind of user activity or better, you focus all your energies on selling. Happy to talk to you about how to research and identity potential acquirers but I wouldn't invest *any* more money/resources in trying to grow it. Happy to talk in a call if you've got minimum viable traction to sell.

Some of this is stage dependent and all of it is highly dependent on the team above the product manager. The simplest answer of course is to find PM's from companies who have had exemplary success where the Product Manager candidate either led prior success or was exposed to it in a meaningful way. A simple starting point is to ask them to give you examples of conflicting opinions on a feature and how they evaluated the conflicting opinions and made a decision and tracked the success or failure of that decision. AirBnb actually gives PM's homework as part of the interview process where they have to actually present a unique idea (from scratch) to the interviewing team. Happy to talk to you about best process based on your stage and existing team.

If the problem is vetting, really the best way is to get someone technical you trust (or with good reputation) to evaluate them. There are plenty of technical people whom you could hire for a day to give their opinion of any candidate. However the real problem is usually finding the candidate and convincing them to want to join you. The people who you really want as a technical partner have a lot of other opportunities vying for their attention. You have to figure out how to stand out from the crowd.

Convertible notes are by no means "earned." They are often easier to raise for early-stage companies who don't want to or can't raise an equity round. Equity rounds almost always require a simultaneous close of either the whole round or a defined "first close" representing a significant share of the raised amount. Where there are many participants in the round comprised mostly of small seed funds and/or angel investors, shepherding everyone to a closing date can be very difficult. If a company raises money on a note and the company fails, the investors are creditors, getting money back prior to any shareholder and any creditor that doesn't have security or statutory preference. In almost every case, convertible note holders in these situations would be lucky to get pennies back on the dollar. It would be highly unusual of / unheard of for a convertible note to come with personal guarantees. Happy to talk to you about the particulars of your situation and explain more to you based on what you're wanting to know.

I very much disagree with Mark's assessment. You shouldn't compensate this person for the COO role until they are confirmed into this role and working full-time in this capacity. If they are a part time medical advisor, they should have a very small amount of equity to begin with. It would depend mostly on how much (if any) you've raised to date, but it would be unusual for an advisor to have more than 1% of the Company. Happy to talk to you about the details of your situation to come up with a fair offer that doesn't hurt your chances of raising capital in the future.

I would suggest you search for and read out blogs. I can't think of any entrepreneurs who aren't also blogging. I have two blogs: brightideas.co and http://groovedigitalmarketing.com

Music curation is something that greatly interests me as well, and one of my projects slated for 1-2 years out will be in that area. Don't forget that -- apart from being united by musical taste -- fans usually have MUCH else in common as well. Musical taste is a great predictor of other demographic features such as age, nationality, race, gender, region, economic class, and a million much subtler social characteristics. Fans of Steely Dan or Yo Yo Ma are different overall than fans of 50 Cent, Garth Brooks, or Lady Gaga. That's obvious, and you know it already. But keep in mind that sites like Facebook are valuable for advertisers, yes, for the eyeballs but partly because they can CHARACTERIZE those eyeballs and predict their behavior as consumers. You may be making a site that's laser-focused on music as such. But monetizing music has become notoriously difficult in the post-CD era. So you may want to look at non-musical ways to monetize music, based audience characteristics that various fan groups happen to share. If you're wondering about a brand name or domains, call me.

(I'm a small biz attorney who helps people with copyright, trademark, and other IP law, and I'm answering per U.S. law.) As soon as you take your idea and put it into a tangible format (write it down, create an infographic, record a video), then that writing/infographic/video is automatically protected by copyright law. You can record the copyright on it too, which makes it easier to protect and get damages from other people taking it. But the formula itself would be probably protected under trade secret law or patent law. Patent law obviously takes a bit more effort, because you have to apply for the patent and get your application examined by the USPTO, which takes years and $$$. Keeping it protected under trade secret law means you have to make an effort to keep it secret (which may not work if you are disclosing it as part of your marketing efforts), such as keeping it confidential and requiring NDAs. As someone else said, the other terms you use might be protected under trademark law. If a member of the public would use those terms to link your products/services with the source of the product/service (aka, your company), then they could be trademark-able. There are some state law protections for trademarks, and you can also file to register the trademark with the USPTO and get more protection. Hope that gets your started!

If you're not seeing this feature in your Facebook account (in Ads Manager or Power Editor) it's possible that facebook hasn't rolled out this feature yet in your country. They roll out features on a country by country basis but typically start in the UK or USA in my experience. What country are you in?

There is nothing more harmful to a good idea than other ideas. By that I mean, the inability to decide which idea is worth pursuing over others, causes each idea to suffer when trying to distribute resources in support of more than one concept at a time. Your question presumes that the most important aspect of launching an online business is to have a site built. That's only where the hardest work begins. In order to achieve any traction whatsoever, a daily focus is required to optimize a site's messaging and conversions, optimize customer acquisition tactics, and iterate based on customer feedback. The idea that a single founder can achieve by having to do what is a full day's work for one site multiplied across 3 different sites is fraught with problems. You may wish to check my recent answers as I answered a question earlier this week about how investors perceive multi-product companies and their founders. The bottom-line being the idea that this is going to produce a more attractive outcome to investors is also one that has proven time and again to result in failure. Happy to talk all this through in a call if you'd like to dive deeper.

There is no such list and that's not the way you'd make a connection with a great advisor anyway. First, your best advisor won't care that your company is based in Southeast Asia. Focus on identifying people who have significant expertise and credibility in your business area. Make your own list based on relevant experience and as a second filter, experience in building traction internationally. Then, start reaching out to them with very personalized appeals, relating what you do to their experience and why you think they might be interested in meeting you. As you get interest, you're next looking for personal chemistry. Do you build off of each other in your exchanges and do you feel inspired by and supported by this person? Once you go through this process as above, feel free to message me as I have a template I have shared with other clarity members that has standard equity offers against various levels of commitment for advisors. If in the meanwhile, you'd like to discuss the process of finding advisors in more detail, happy to do so in a call. Good luck!

This can be tricky. Generally I recommend paying commissions on revenue-generation events only. The reason being, if it is free to generate a lead then it makes it really easy to take advantage of the system. That being said, there are some ways to go about it. Calculate (you should already have this) your cost of acquiring a lead (CAC). That's your baseline. You can now set your referral commission at or below that CAC number. Since you only pay a commission based on the generation of a new lead you guarantee a positive ROI. A prize/sweepstakes is not a bad idea. Make sure to create a prize that really resonates with your target demographic (YES: set of All-Clad pans, NO: an iPad) I would run the program the first time based on your best estimates; if you expect to generate 100 new leads, and would normally pay $10-$15/lead then you can afford $1,000-1,500 prize. You can then adjust the process during future iterations based on: 1) The quality of the leads you received. Referrals are generally more valuable, but scam/spam leads are not. 2) The number of leads you generated. If you want to work through details in your specific case let me know, I'd be happy to set up a call to discuss further. Good luck!