We're very lucky today to live in the "global village" we do. I can't imagine how hard it would have been for a young entrepreneur to find the right people before the world was so connected. Then again, I suppose that explains how so many entrepreneurs are popping up all the time today. Being an entrepreneur is not about going it alone, it's about identifying needs and being able to get the right team in place to get make your vision a reality. There is no better way to make yourself a successful entrepreneur than by finding the right people to help you when you need help. To run a successful business today you need so many skills which draw on so many fields that it's pretty much impossible to do it yourself, and that's ok... As an entrepreneur you should see your primary role as 3 fold: 1) You're the dreamer responsible for coming up with the next big thing and the plan to make it big 2) You're the communicator who has to be able to effectively turn your vision into a clear, communicable plan which you can share internally to help your team get it built, and externally to get your product sold 3) The financier in charge of coming up with the cash to get people paid and to get your idea off the ground. While you're bootstrapping you'll need to leverage any other skills you may have, to try to cut costs where you can, but it's always important to recognize that cutting costs while costing time is a net loss. Only cut costs when you can do as good a job as someone who you can get to help you, in the same amount of time. Find yourself couple of key resources you can afford, you can trust, and who "get it" and understand your communication style and you'll be able to press forward at a pace you'd never imagined.

If it were your own channel, I'd recommend this for WordPress: http://wordpress.org/plugins/youtube-analytics/ Since it is not your channel, though... this should do what you want: http://channelmeter.com/ Also, try this tool: http://www.socialbakers.com/youtube-statistics/ Hope this helps! Book a session with me if you need some clarity on your social media marketing plan. Pete

First thing to do is to research other crowdfunding sites other than the big two as neither was really meant to raise funds for startup businesses. I would suggest something in the nature of www.crowdfunder.com or www.seedinvest.com might better suit your needs.

You don't seem to have any customer engagement and informative work beyond the 10 articles I see on the site. If you are getting 10k UV already, you need to only combine content and email marketing to increase the visits, but if you really want to grow to 500K UV or more, you will need to do a lot of activities, repeatedly for about 6-9 months.. Then there are other things you can do.which will result in more downloads or purchases for you. (You should not assume that traffic means business, there are other methods such as Performance driven marketing, which is something you can easily qualify for...) Anyhow, if you just need traffic and links, here is a brief summary list of things you can do and it will generate traffic, will not be flagged or getting booted by Google for any algo changes...: Since Content is the KING, we will focus on content driven marketing, here is a rough layout of the activities: 1. Set a Regular Writing Schedule 2. Create a Free Giveaway Worth Wanting (but it should get you subscribers) 3. Create Your Social Media Accounts 4. Join Quora 5. Leverage Rich Snippets & Google Authorship 6. Interlink Your Posts 7. Leverage Your Expertise, do some presentations and publish them on slideshare and such places 8. Get a good Guest Blog done 9. Blog Commenting is important, but only so so... Forum Commenting will help you build up your online reputation 10. Expanding on Social Profiles, Advertising on Facebook, Marketing on LinkedIn, Google+ Pinterest (do checkout tools like hootsuite.com) 11. Create an Infographic, Gifographic at least 1 in a month, this is sure to get you good places and backlinks 12. Look for Interview Opportunities, yup, some PR and Help A Reporter Out (http://www.helpareporter.com/) they need stories & you can provide them, if any... will be fantastic. 13. Don’t Neglect Local SEO 14. Creating Animated & Whiteboard Explainer Videos (cost about 15$ on payperhour type sites) 15. Using Zemanta, a “Content Discovery Network” 16. The Power of Retargeting - yes, check out sites like http://www.adroll.com/ http://www.ebayenterprise.com/marketing_solutions/display_retargeting/ http://www.chango.com/solutions & https://retargeter.com 17. Syndicate your content, case studies through Outbrain.com type sites, that will show your quality posting in probably all top media sites. Hope this helps. Ravi VC

See Joan Stewart's website, PublicityHound.com . Joan was a journalist for years and is also a publicist, so her site will help you out a lot. I think she recently put together a pack of media templates you can purchase. If you don't see what you need, email Joan and she'll direct you to what you need. She's fantastic.

What a great question! You are on the right track. First, lets define Avatar as "An icon or figure representing a particular person." In business application, an avatar is a representation of your ideal client/customer. A business may have multiple avatars representing several target demographics. Some prefer to distill this down to one person as an “avatar.” I recently interviewed super entreprenuer John Lee Dumas of EOfire.com and he has a very clear Avatar he calls "Jimmy" that he uses for business decisions you may want to check out. I hope that you have already gone through the exercise of your UVP, or Unique Value Proposition. If not, may I suggest the worksheet on this page, first: http://bit.ly/1kYTLbf Ok, so once you've clarified the why choose me, then start working on your Avatar, that's the who, or as we marketers like to call them: personas that represent segments from your target market. You have to start somewhere, right? So do. Are you going to first focus locally in your zip code and surrounding area? That can be one piece in helping you visualize your Avatar's lifestyle. Target marketing has to do with breaking your potential global audience into segments, specifically only the potential buyers of our product, service, or cause. As much as we might be tempted, we can’t be all things to all people. We have to commit and put some stakes in the ground. Are you ready to write your personal ad? Who are you looking for? Some of the most basic questions you should ask in forming an idea of Customer Segmentation has to do with what these people want, need, think, and feel. No time is wasted from this exercise because it will ultimately lead you to where and with who they hang out (their tribe.) Why is that our desired end point? Because that virtual or real (coffee shop, tradeshow, website, search engine, twitter feed, health fair, street location, podcast, meetup, traditional media) is where I should be hanging out with my product, service or cause and shouting my UVP from the rooftops as part of the conversation! Taking this thought experiment all the way through will also assist you in the critical understanding of whether the segment is large enough for you to be successful. I like using the Personas app (available on iPad) to put forth a visual representation of my potential target markets, but a white board works too! Literally put in a photo representation of your Avatar with a Name, and start brainstorming out: Think and Feel? See? Hear? Say and Do? Hangs out with/where? For you, offering your B2B services, maybe explore linked in to find where your peeps hang out and get a clearer idea of, let's call her, Samantha. Samantha is a small business owner of a growing service business whose revenues just got in the black. She has two employees and she's looking to hire another. She is struggling with getting her website up and mobile friendly and feels like she needs to be more effective in communicating what she does. She is overworked, in her mid 40s and recently divorced with 2 boys ages 10, 12. She has little time for fluff and needs guidance in creating a system that will help run her business. Can you help Samantha? :-) If you'd like to get more tips that sound like this, I'd be tickled if you let me know if Sell Local. Think Global. speaks to you. It's my first book and I'm feeling very vulnerable putting myself out there! eep! Available now on Amazon: http://bit.ly/olgasbook

The answer is yes, but it always depends. Let me begin by saying that the more knowhow, etc. involved, the easier it is to sell something without any patent protection. Otherwise, you are trying to sell something without protection and you get no protection until the patent issues, which may take years. The acquirer may just run with it (I would) without licensing knowing there is no cost until your patent issues. Then, when you file, they will see your claims and try to modify their product around your claims. It is slightly vicious in nature. That said, I may not act much different if you file first, unless I can buy your patent or the license costs are very inexpensive. Secondly, many countries have absolute novelty and you will not be able to protect your invention there ever, even if a licensee arises and wants to enter those markets. This too, is a serious limitation for licensing. My conclusion would be that you are underfunded to address your IP and that I can get away with murder. Filing the application is your way of telling people that you are serious. That said, it is not necessary and I have a lot of clients that file later or never file.

I would think that they market the you are attempting to target would dictate what the best platform to start would be. Without knowing your market or idea, this is impossible to say. Both mobile and desktop apps have their benefits and traffic/search opportunities, but only if targeted correctly. I am not sure if this helps, but without more info this is the best I can do. I am willing to chat more, if you would like. Take care.

Four years ago, I started a local daily deal site which grew to the largest in East TN & Southwest VA. In that period, we pivoted by learning how to solve the digital marketing problems of the restaurants and spas we featured on our site. I have a number of tips for you on this. First, most small merchants will be lost and not truly see the value of SEO and citations. Those are long term efforts without short term results. Even then, the results are not tangible, at least not readily visible to the owner of a store. Reviews however are an immediate pain point - and also a quickly solved problem. So I use this as the way to prove value upfront to our clients. In fact, I have yet to pitch our marketing program to a small business owner and get a "no" since I began my emphasis on Reputation Management. Why? Because normally only disenchanted customers leave reviews. And the negative reviews seem to personally affect the ego of the business owner (as they should). Especially because they can massively affect bottom-line revenue, especially now in light of new developments and agreements between the search engines and the review sites. Reviews directly power search to a large degree. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk specific cases - I have found that the pain points and need are the same across almost all industries (hospitality, food service, medical, etc).

I like Harvest both for time-tracking and for invoicing clients. It's simple, which I love.

It seems like you have managed to move into the coveted market of Enterprise level SaaS, well done. If your market can sustain a high enough monthly cost to keep using your software then you are set. If so, you have a template for each compnay to follow and also a proven track record to sell from. Now you just need to find more companies and sell them a custom application for their businesses and get them paying a monthly fee for security and support. Unfortunately, if you are in a market where the businesses cannot afford a $2000/month+ application fee, you may need to step back and rethink where you have ended up. Let me know if this helps or if you need further assistance. Thanks.

As an angel, what I look for is founder/market fit. Does this entrepreneur have a fire in their belly to solve a problem and a really unique and inspired look at the market they are attacking? The motivation to angel-invest for me as an active entrepreneur is to build a strong network of founders who can help each other and share commonly applicable experiences.

Are you looking to sell a product? Need more details of the end goal and what value is being offered.

You should retain a lawyer, or another qualified individual, to act as the third party designee for the corporation (if you do not have a partner or co-owner who is a US citizen). The designee should prepare Form SS-4 (Application for Employer Identification Number) and Form 8821 (Tax Information Authorization) for the corporation’s president to sign and return.

Depends if each item is sold individual, why would you need a 6pk & 12pk? I would have one GTIN a 6pk, that way if they order 12 it is just two 6pks.

I have bad news: If friends and family are no longer able to provide funding and you have raised $10,000 or more without having developed a website, then you have close to zero chance of attracting angel investors. Whatever money they have invested is essentially funding a learning lesson around what to do differently next time. Any investor who doesn't have a *pre-existing* relationship with you is unlikely to fund you without seeing the product live. You could try to get into an accelerator but even mediocre accelerators (that provide capital) are not accepting pre-product idea teams except for very rare occasion. A good founder must be *relentlessly resourceful* so sell whatever you can, do whatever is in your power to create money, try to borrow money with a personal guarantee from friends and family. I believe in giving honest and useful feedback. I hope it helps!

I use an awesome young internet marketer. I would be happy to connect you with him. He has had access to all of my personal info for over 4 years and I trust him completely. Any reputable person on Odesk, or in the real world should be able to provide multiple strong references.

If you mean the conversion rate is the same (meaning you're making a lot more revenue with the larger price), then that's the right call. If you mean that your net profit is the same but you have higher unit sales on the first price I would go for the lower price to have more customers (and more chances to have them buy an IAP eventually, or leave a good review).

I have worked with some of the Top 50 Fortune 50 companies for Mobile/Web/Google Glass Development Projects. Never work for free if you don't want to devalue yourself later. If the client is big (read rich) he won't mind paying for some initial Mockups. The whole point of working with big clients is so you can charge them more than you would charge an average client. Let me know if you wish to talk about it. Willing to talk for free :)

I was just talking to one of our team members about this, since some SEO practitioners in our market had clients that ended up wiped off of Google in last December's update. He helped to go in a do a complete audit of backlinks in order to help repair some of the damage done by the other guys. You should do a thorough sweep of the backlinks and see if any of them were torpedoed by the latest Google update. If so, that might had hobbled your traffic and reputation somewhat. I'd also check your analytics of top referring sites now vs. a time of peak traffic, that might be able to lead you in the right directions as well. If I can help you more with this, just give me a call.

I've been working with funded startups for a couple years as a content marketing consultant and my business has grown significantly year over year. Relationships are the king of generating new business in this space. It's important to become a key part of the startup community in your area and attend events whenever possible. Meet people, grab coffees, provide value through follow up emails and speak on the value of content creation as often as conference managers and planners will allow. The second approach that truly has helped me grow my business is the creation of content that helps startups do these things on their own. For example, I've written a Content Marketing Guide for Entrepreneurs (Standoutguide.com) along with a series of blog posts & Slideshows highlighting how content marketing works for startups. Last year, I wrote a blog post specifically about B2B Startups and how content marketing can help them and then emailed it to a handful of marketing executives at a couple startups. I ended up getting meetings with each of them and working with 4/5 of them. Finally, you need to develop a trustworthy brand. I couldn't count on my fingers how many times I've heard of marketers lose opportunities because they didn't manage their own accounts appropriately. Whether it's the language they use on their website or the way they carry themselves on social media - It's the little details that differentiate the best from the rest. If you have any other questions - Feel free to give me a ring! Always happy to help fellow entrepreneurs achieve success.

Hey, I'm a conversion optimization consultant so I can offer some help here. Whether a conversion rate is "good" or not is a relative measure. If you run a test and get it to 35% from 26%, that's good! If if go from 26% to 10%, then you know you could be doing better. Comparing your conversion rate to industry averages rarely tells you anything meaningful or actionable, so the best thing you can do is continue testing and compare to your old baseline. The confidence level is the likelihood that the detected result actually exists. For example, if you flip a coin 10 times it will likely land on one side more than the other. If you stopped testing after 10 flips, you might assume that one side has a higher probability than the other... But we both know that's wrong. The real result (50/50) would only begin to emerge after 20 flips, and even then you would not have 100% confidence. So you don't want to start flipping (ie, testing) too soon because you might draw the wrong conclusion ("the coin landed on tails 6 out of 10 times, therefore tails beats heads by 20%"). You also want to know when to stop and what is the smallest meaningful difference ("the coin landed on tails 49 out of 100 times, and the 2% difference is not significant, so we can confidently say the probability of landing on tails is the same as landing on heads.") The confidence level tells you when you've reached this point. Before you start any A/B test, you need to know how many "flips" (sample number, ie, visitors) are need to reach a result that is likely to be true, and what is the minimum significant change (is a 2% increase significant, or is that just random fluctuation?). Here is a handy calculator to calculate this before you start your test: http://www.evanmiller.org/ab-testing/sample-size.html If you (or anyone reading) would like some help in setting up and running A/B tests to increase conversions, get in touch!

Hi there. It's hard to tell from the limited information. In general - if the conversion rate is measured by purchase vs visits I would say it sounds good. Perhaps you could share a URL to your landing page? In order to maximize the conversion rates you can use A/B testing to find versions of your landing page that is more effective. See some of our case studies and examples here http://conversionlab.no/customer-success/

First, this is such a cool thing you're doing for the sake of serving humanity and the greater good. Don't give up on the media outlets, though, you may be able to come up with a newsworthy angle as your own "Brand Story" develops. Stories are everywhere. I'm assuming you have social media accounts? There are various ways you can capitalize on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest just to name a few off the top of my head. What you do just needs crafted into a compelling story that people can connect with. Things you've mentioned like:Saving a Company 40K in one year, not charging $$, and saving the American Business Money to Grow are all marketable stories. Can I ask, What have you done so far? Anything at all? Have you attempted to use Social Media?