I think a natural choice is large provides like Amazon. However, if you want to sell eBooks on your own and maintain all of the revenue, then WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads would make excellent options. Both software packages are WordPress plugins and they make it very easy to deploy an e-commerce store for digital goods. Both plugins have strong development teams behind them and they have a slew of independent freelancers who can offer assistance if needed. I've used WooCommerce myself for multiple years and we've deployed many WordPress websites that use it. It has hundreds of extensions you can add on to it for maximizing the potential.

You are thinking about it wrong. Don't think of your organization as a pie. Think of it as a house. When you add an extension (say a new kitchen) to your house, the value of your new kitchen now accounts for a larger *percentage* of your house, more than it did before. But something else also happens. Your house is now worth a lot more. I highly recommend you watch the series on raising money for a startup by the Khan Academy - http://robt.co/1u1wCsx

As a tech marketer - I am always looking for the fastest, cheapest yet reliable research in order to create competitive intelligence internal documents, stats for blog posts, etc. Some people live by the "if it isn't on the first page, it doesn't matter" when it comes to leveraging search engines as a research tool. However, often when we are looking for value, we have to realize that anything REALLY worthwhile these days from a content perspective is typically gated behind a web form, or nestled inside a blog post. So, expect to spend a few hours in order to get through all the form gates, and also make sure you're using as specific and direct search terms as possible - then getting more generic if results are not ideal. Some other tips: -Have a few "burner" email addresses setup with gmail or hotmail, etc. - these allow you to get content when filling out forms to get White Papers, Reports, Case Studies, etc. without your primary inbox getting stuffed with marketing emails. -In the form fill process, if available put "student" or "researcher" as typically sales reps pass by these "leads" when the form gets dumped into the CRM queue. -Don't forget specialty search sites and tools like Wolfram Alpha for more "numbers" derived searches. -Also, like your question here - always seek the wisdom of crowds in addition to machine learning algorithms! Hope this is helpful! Search on!

Before building something, did you test your idea ? Life's too short to build something nobody wants ;) You can use clarity, sohelpful.me to conduct some interviews, build a landing page with quickmvp.com, unbounce or launchrock to validate that you solve a real problem. Then when your idea is validated, your can build a MVP (Minimum viable product) that might be for example a website (imho faster and easier to build than an app) to test your assumptions. Then if early adopters need functionnalities that really need to run as an app, you can provide them on pc, tablet or smartphone using your core web backoffice. If you want to discuss with me, feel free to have a free call here https://clarity.fm/laurentroger/white665 or here http://www.sohelpful.me/laurentroger

I don't live in Chicago, but there is a Co-Founders Lab there that provides networking opportunities to find fellow entrepreneurs and co-founders. Here's a link for more info: http://www.1871.com/cofounderslab-comes-to-chicago/

A 0.31 second Google search located this: http://i.cdn.turner.com/nascar/.element/pdf/2.0/sect/kyn/NASCAR_Prospective_Licensing_Application.pdf

I would suggest spending some money and cash hanging out at bars where some of these bands perform, Also, try to find a way backstage to talk to the musicians after they perform to do your research. If you're going after well-off musicians, contact their agents or band managers. They are always looking to make or save more money.

1. You want to make sure that your backlink is a followed backlink. Right clicking on the link and then clicking "inspect element" in the html code, it shouldn't say "nofollow". 2. One of my favorite SEO tools is www.ahrefs.com - they have a free version you can use. The more backlinks that the site has that's linking to you, then the higher quality those backlinks are. You can also tell if the website that's linking to you is trusted and has organic SEO by looking at the countries that are linking to it. If 20% of the websites backlinks are coming from Russia or some 3rd world country it's probably safe to assume that the quality of that website is fairly poor. ahrefs also gives you a quality score for domain authority and page rank. My personal website is www.HippiesHope.com (feel free to look it up in ahrefs), if you have any more questions about SEO feel free to send me a message or schedule a call.

I have to ask why you would start an agency in an area you don't have much experience in. Perhaps you'd be better off getting at least a little experience first?

Hey, A few points (and as someone who has sold a digital agency, I have some experience here) 1) "This is the biggest decision of my life"... No it isn't. Not even close. I mean no disrespect but, agencies are easy to start back up. You build a team, build a client base, maybe take investors, scale it, sell it. Sit on your hands for the non-compete period, then start another one. Don;t sweat this too much, you aren't facing a decision that you can't work your way out of in a year or two. So my tip number one: relax! 2) This investor is taking you for a ride Giving yourself a minority ownership in an early-stage company or startup is a very, very bad idea. You need to feel like you have a "big win" ahead of you. A CEO shouldn't own a minority stake in the company she or he founded until you're doing $Millions in revenue 3) This guy is bringing very little to the table He has no background in your area. If he's bringin money, sure. On £30k run rate you aren't hugely investible but hey, a £20k injection of cash at 20% equity might work for you. But seriously, right now you have a very early stage business and it's too early to see how his flower shop expertise would help. 4) It's really, really early for you Taking investments into agencies is usually a bad idea until you have some solid revenue. £30k is very admirable and you should be proud to be more successful than a LOT of small business owners. But honestly, just keep selling and hustling. Hire SLOW and fire fast. Move your sales reps to a basic and give them quotas. Use contractors to scale out delivery without taking on as much risk. It sounds like you have the beginnings of a great agency. but from the information you've provided and from remembering my very early days where I transition from freelancer to agency, an investor right now would be a bad move for you. Happy to jump on a call to discuss my specific experiences and how I scaled out my team and client base and then moved everything to SWEET retainers so we could sell the biz.

I use the FB Login App to collect FB Verified leads thru an App on my Fan Page. See this video which explains http://youtu.be/5tjVNf9H_Uk. I have mainly offered a free software trial - 7 day ecourse, or registrations for live hangout events which I also host on my Fan Page. It has been very effective, generating over 40,000 leads in the last 15 months for one of my businesses. The best part is that 90% of the traffic is a result to a high viral coefficient. Best, - Jerry

Assuming you are qualified to create this kind of offering, I think you can safely determine that there is need for this service. I know many doctors who struggle with the business of their practice and could benefit from coaching. That being said, if you believe this is an area you want to devote years of your life to, I would consider the infrastructure that will be required to support your success. Over time, you're going to want to build out the following (or a version thereof): Creating your brand identity Building your website Developing your funnel to generate leads Developing your pricing model Inbound marketing strategy and execution Social media strategy and execution Sales strategy Long-form content creation for email capture Short-form content creation for traffic generation SEO for organic traffic Advertising for paid traffic Presentation planning and coaching Possibly a book I would recommend thinking about as much of this ahead of time as possible to give yourself the greatest chance for success.

I admire your ambition but I really do need to caution you against learning to code as a means of building out your app. If you want to do this as a fun hobby to teach yourself to code, then by all means do it but if you seriously want to build and launch an app that you think has a potential commercial appeal, then you need to do it in a way that maximizes your chance of success. I'm happy to refer to you reasonable mobile development shops that do excellent work. You should budget a *minimum* of $25,000 USD to build a single platform app that is fully functioning and launch-ready and another at least $25,000 in reserve for paid user acquisition. If you can't invest $50,000 or find friends, family or strangers willing to support this pursuit financially, I'd argue that you'll be wasting your time. Happy to talk to you in more detail in a call.

You ask the customers, and gauge their level of interest. Better yet, get yourself in front of some customers, and instead of telling them what you make or do, ask them what they need. When you notice that many of them need the same thing, and if it is something you can make or provide, you then have a business idea worth pursing.

If the investor is spending his precious time meeting with you, then I assume he has at least some interest in your event. If that's the case, then in my opinion, yes it would be a nice gesture and appreciated. Good luck with your pitch!

Can you give more information on what your product is? Then we can figure out what you need in it. Sounds like electronics...but what?

The SEC is tasked to monitor, and punish if necessary illegal acts committed by trading in securities. They are the "Watch Dog" of Wall Street. Unfortunately, there are not enough skilled employees, and funds to really do their job, so a lot of unlawful acts slip through the cracks. The SEC does enforce their regs. and will levy huge fines and other sanctions. If you have additional questions, just call me. Thank you, Paul Trachtman

I did not actually have too much experience with bookkeeping platforms before. But we stick with Xero and there is no reason why I should look for another option.

COSTCO AFFLUENCE: You might be surprised to know that 54% of CostCo's Wholesale Club (CWC) members are considered wealthy, or "affluent", with only 15% just "getting by" or "poor". BUSINESS VS CONSUMER: Approximately 24% businesses, 76% individual consumers. Even though business customers drive about 60% of CostCo's revenue, about half of that is for home use, so it's about 30% business revenue and 70% individual consumer revenue. HOUSEHOLD: 35% of CWC members have 2 person households. 56% have three or more in their home. I have a ton of paid tools at my disposal for market research. For much more detail on other demographic data for CWC, along with info from BJs and other wholesale clubs, set up a call with me on Clarity.

Well you should store it in a database, most probably an SQL based database. MySQL is a fine start, free and easy to set up. But, you had best start thinking about security issues, especially if you are planning on storing credit card and other personal information. Hackers go right through the standard fare and many companies do nothing to encrypt their data at all, which in some countries is a criminal offense. Best hire a professional to look at your system setup and see what can be done.

It depends on what your contract says and what you want to do. Ultimately you need to decide what you want and then we can work backwards from that. But no just having the conversation does not automatically oust you.

I've been recommended to speak with Leigh Rowan in the past for iBeacon projects. I haven't had the pleasure of doing so yet but he came highly recommended. His contact information is on his LinkedIn account. https://www.linkedin.com/in/leighrowan

After I sold my 2nd company (to Equifax) in 2011, like you, I was looking for a good way to capitalize on the knowledge I had. I'm a tech guy (i.e. developer). I worked for Oracle in the late 80s, then started an Oracle consulting firm (TUSC) which we sold in 2008. With TUSC I travelled to Oracle Users Groups around the world presenting on various topics. I wrote 6 technical books from 1997 through 2010. So I was interested in continuing to share the knowledge I had. In 2012 I started InteliVideo (www.intelivideo.com) to help provide an excellent way to make a passive income. We help people sell their digital products...from audio books to video lessons and more. We hear stories every day from our customers about how they are making an amazing passive income with our platform. It's SO much easier than writing a book and provides more information and a better learning opportunity for my customers. Best of luck with your passive income journey. It's a great dream that can become reality!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but generally, these are not the types of businesses that venture capital pursues. Due to the risk they are taking, VCs generally want to see a large market (meaning $1B potential) and a significant return on their money (10 times return). However, you can look for an Angel investor. These are generally individuals who are not looking for as large market or a return.Here are some places to start. Best of success to you! http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2013/12/16/20-most-active-angel-investors/ http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/top-angel-investors/

I hate to say it, but Google would have got you a much faster answer than this site. I just typed in "Software life cycle" into google, and there are many great articles.