If you're talking about an app-store launch, then it's important to have the core mechanics of the product (from a user interaction perspective) figured out such that the majority of your users are doing the things you want them to do in order to drive continual engagement with the app. Design polish can come later and often slows down whomever is implementing the development of the app. I don't think anything should ever be "ugly" but lacking polish is often the right way to go to get speed to market. That said, to be sure of the core interactions, you want to do as much testing and observing real users use your app prior to launch. Happy to talk through any of this in a call with you.

You don't create a business plan in the traditional sense of a business plan. It's a totally inefficient and outdated way to think about how to start, run and grow an app-based business. The best way to pitch investors is with the app itself. That is to say, unless you and your team have relevant prior success such that you could be fundable without a product, the likelihood you will raise prior to your app being launched is very low. The most important questions are *always* around engagement and growth. The questions and metrics vary depending on what kind of app you're building but people want to know that your target audience is hooked on your product and there's some evidence they will continue to be so and that you have either proven a scaleable way to cheaply acquire customers or better, that there is evidence of strong word-of-mouth (only a few apps achieve this) or a quantified viral effect (a viral coefficient of at least .3). Happy to talk to you in a call. I'd encourage you to read my reviews that other Clarity members have left. The intersection of fundraising and product advice is an area I have a lot of experience with.

The best defence is a strong offence. Said another way, the best companies don't spend too much time looking in the rear-view mirror, and instead focusing on the drive ahead. Most web and mobile businesses are not defensible by true I.P but rather speed of execution, great design, responsive and caring customer support and a relentless concern for the customer. In the case of the example you provided, content quality and regular and timely updates are also key competitive differentiators.

Brita's sheer size prevented them from doing anything. They're not in the business of making beautiful, sustainable water pitchers. They're in the business of making mass, plastic, functional water pitchers. They make millions more than Soma (for now) and it may not even be on their radar. Read: Small Is The New Big from Seth Godin or David and Goliath (Malcolm Gladwell's latest) for more on this. Stealth is bullshit. Nobody steals ideas and makes millions anywhere except in the movies. It's about execution.

GREAT QUESTION! I loved doing trade shows and with our strategies we would get 10% of all the people who attended to sign up at our stand which is unprecedented. We did this WITHOUT any need to give leaflets to people who would just walk past and forget all about you. I have taught this strategy to other exhibitors and am happy to walk you through this in a call so that I can customize it to your business more than I could here because you've not given enough information about the event for me to give a fuller answer. Also if you are at an exhibition it's worth realizing that there are MORE ways to be profitable including strategies to sell to others (NOT JUST the attendees) even before the event date you can line things up so that if the exhibition doesn't hit the numbers that they sold you on - you won't end up losing out. Really excited to learn more about your business and help you have a great customer acquisition event there at the event. Depending on your stand size and ancillary budget there are other ways to make the event more profitable too. If you want to speak then just click "Talk to Marsha" below. I can make some time this week to help you.

I guess it will really depend based on your target audience and how you can make yourself stand out. In all cases you can try with the following: 1. PR Focus on getting publicity from blogs and online media sites. This will help you a lot when it comes to user acquisition (your target is already there, otherwise they won't be reading news) 2. You might try Facebook ads to drive traffic to landing pages to generate leads. Offer educational content that requires opt-in. For example: "How to read all the news in less than 30 minutes per day". In the past personally I spent about 1,5 hours per days readying news so if you teach me how to do it faster, you wont me already. Try with downloadable ebooks, webinars, etc. I hope that helps. Feel free to schedule a call if you need more help with that. I'd love to give you my advice on that.

The two answers here are right in a sense to call to your attention what a challenging endeavour it will be, should you decide to pursue this, but neither actually answer your question as you've stated it. You should begin developing this idea by doing customer development with other peers in your industry (outside your own organization) to see if they share your frustration with the current solution and share your enthusiasm for an idea of how it could be made better. Since you're active in this industry already, it should give you a breadth of contacts to reach out to. I'd encourage you not to ask friends or people who you have a very close relationship with as they are more likely to tell you what you want to hear. After you've validated that you're not the only one frustrated by the current solution, I'd look at building a prototype that is able to illustrate your vision in sufficient way to begin speaking with real potential customers. It *sounds* as if there may be some regulatory or practical IT issues that might threaten the simplicity of a prototype, but sufficient to say, this is the next step in the process. If you've been able to demonstrate demand for your solution as illustrated in the prototype, then you're well on your way. Of course, there is a *lot* of complexity in just these two steps alone and I'd be happy to discuss this. To answer the other parts of your question: It's a waste of time to write a business plan. You can look at "Lean Canvass" as a means to inform your thesis and keep track of it's validation and evolution. Established competitors will not move nearly as fast as you and can't "start from scratch." If you're very successful, they will copy you, but it's likely that it won't hurt your business too much if you get to the point where they are wanting to copy you. I run a venture-backed enterprise software company and have helped many Clarity members through questions of this exact nature. I encourage you to read my reviews and book a call if you'd like to talk through these questions in more detail.

If there are any general similarities or common ground between the two target markets you can accomplish this goal with a single blog using target market-specific keywords and category names. I have a client who is in the home improvement industry, installing replacement roofs, siding, windows, doors, etc. People who need a new roof for example, more often search with keywords and phrases focused on their specific need rather than something general like home improvement contractor. We use recently completed projects as the fodder for content-based marketing. Blog posts include the town and/or neighborhood, county and state where the work was performed for geo-targeted keywords. We then include a generous sprinkling of "roof," "new roof," etc. along with product-specific words like the type and brand of shingles installed. We also include a description of the initial problem the homeowner was experiencing that caused them to contact us initially, such as "leaking" or "leaky roof." We do the same thing with all of his other product areas and get a great deal of traffic. One last trick is to use many of these same keywords as blog categories. I have seen great success with this tactic. If what I've described makes sense to you and you'd like to learn more, please click "Call Frank" below so we can discuss further. To your success, Frank

If you have a wordpress site try one of these: http://premium.wpmudev.org/projects/category/plugins/?s=calendar

I have a business that operates in this space and it can be tricky because of the dynamics. That said, not knowing anything about the sector, size or scope of your business and the question it makes this hard to answer. It's generally accepted that the greatest example of a 2 sided market is the credit card business ... and they're a useful example of how to create market efficiency and marketing prowess in the space. In this kind of thing I'm a big fan of R&D (ripoff and duplicate) what they're doing well ... Watch for the cross-market effects. That is the larger your network side of the market the more attractive and differentiated you are from competition. Secondly, the pricing model likely has a more lucrative side and a more subsidized side. The greater alignment you can bring to those sides around purpose the greater the long term synergy. Finally, these models tend toward a dominant player ... watch out for that (unless you're that player). Good luck.

I would suggest you self-publish. Let me break down the mobile game landscape for you in a single statement: *You can only grow a game if your LTV (Lifetime Value) is greater then your CPI (Cost Per Install).* I assure you, that once you have that formula successful, finding money to support continued growth of your game at extremely favorable terms to yourself is not going to be a problem. If you don't have success with the above formula, then it doesn't matter if you have a publisher, your game's not going to be able to grow and make money with them either. There are only 2 conditions which you should consider a game publisher: 1) You need money to complete the game. (ie, no way will the game exist unless you get the money.) 2) For specific geo locations, such as China where there are people who can properly localize and market the game. That's it. I believe there is no grey area here and I've had experience on both sides of the table, including being the first 3rd party publisher signed by Zynga. The latest game I built is currently in the top 100 grossing chart (Cookie Jam) and it's there because we have successfully cracked the formula above. Its quite simple, but really difficult to achieve. Good luck! -Michael.

To put it simply: their VCs. Take a look at who funded them: Seed (12/2013) $1.43M Google Ventures Initialized Capital SV Angel Brett Slatkin Harry Cheung Fuel Capital Index Ventures Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers S-Cubed Capital Series A (3/2014) $8.6M Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Garry Tan Alexis Ohanian MG Siegler Bing Gordon Megan Quinn Chris Howard Brad Silverberg Vivi Nevo SV Angel Ashton Kutcher David Sacks Bill Lee Pete Cashmore Joe Montana Rob Wiesenthal Google Ventures (from http://www.crunchbase.com/company/secret ) Many from this list are using the app, talking about the app (very often), and creating the air of inevitability. Their social networks are extremely influential. There were apps similar to Secret before, but none with such A List supporters behind it.

Ask them to brief explain their methodology and most important the KPI's that they will track thru your project. That way you can compare different agencies KPI's and see the ones that make sense with your business goals. A few ones to exemplify: General: Traffic, Sources, Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate. Adwords: ROI, CPA, CPC e CTR. SEO: Inbound Keywords, Rankings, External Links (Volume and Quality). Social: Audience, Reach, Engagment. and a lot more... Hope that helps. If you need more info feel free to give me a call.

Here are several: 1. What other sites did you develop? Ask for domains and the actual parts he/she worked on (i.e. design only, functionality of X, Y or Z) 2. What's your background? You're looking for someone with real experience, not someone with just a degree. You're also trying to figure out if he/she "thinks" on your level, because if they don't, you might not get what you want. 3. What other tools have you worked with? A good developer will have experience outside of a particular shopping cart - even if he only works with one cart. Those other tools would be MySQL, WordPress and the likes. This lets you know he can INTEGRATE things, rather than just build on a template. 4. Ask him if he's worked with any other professional people in related fields. For example, if you are also hiring an SEO strategist, he needs to be able to incorporate tags and such. If you're hiring a graphic designer, he needs to be able to incorporate those components. These, of course, are just a few questions. The type of project and preferred language will call for many more.

I believe Appannie.com is what you are looking for.

In order to even attempt to answer your question and a person would need a deep understanding of your business, the services/products offered, your business model, and maybe most importantly your market. And in my opinion discovering a powerful and effective USP can be one of the most valuable assets a business can have... No offense intended - But hoping to get the answer from people who don't have the required relevant information AND getting it for free is a bit of a stretch. I'd highly recommend you find an expert here on Clarity (there are several that are more than qualified) and invest some money and time working with them to help you with this. That call could be the best investment you make this year. Best of luck!

It really depends on whether this is ultimately a top-down or bottom-up approach and to what extent the end-user experience is compelling enough to act as a forcing function to enterprise adoption. A bottom-up distributed mobile app must be both viral and incredible engaging. Without proof that you have that (or absent proof, strong conviction) most are better off attempting to sell top-down. Happy to talk this through in a call

Nothing. Business transactions should be spoken about in the plainest possible way. People using terms like this come across as lacking credibility (at least to me). Besides, a deal is never crafted, it is always negotiated. Crafting evokes a singular emphasis whereas a deal always involves two parties. I would avoid using this term and avoid anyone who describes themselves as having this ability

I think what Frank says is absolutely spot-on with one exception. In healthcare, you might not have as much choice as you think. Ultimately, if you are dependent on adoption of your solution by multiple stakeholders, you should engage early and equally with all stakeholders so as to understand the eventual objections you'll have to overcome and hopefully acquire some early evangelists but focus on where there is least resistance to try and build a forcing function that reduces resistance to the change you're trying to make. I built an online service in the late 90s that was sold to employers and adopted by individual employees. The Company was subsequently acquired so happy to talk to share that experience with you in a call.

The partnership is not likely to pan out well for either of you. Sustainable partnerships need shared visions and goals for both parties, otherwise you are in it for material reasons that can easily dissipate with any sign of trouble. Although it can be much easier and cheaper to partner while starting out, I would not recommend the one you described if they are not taking on costs and risk. For now, I would suggest outsourcing the development and maintenance. It looks like it would surprisingly cost less in the long-run (which normally would be the case for seeking a partnership). Good luck.

Not really. It depends on several factors: how engaged is your audience (how many of your videos do those subscribers watch?), where your videos are watched (US CPMs [the amount you make for every 1,000 views] can be several times of those outside the US), how many of your views are on mobile (a lower percentage of mobile videos are monetized), and how much of your inventory can YouTube sell (YouTube does not usually sell ads on 100% of your views). Aside from advertising (which you split with YouTube), you can also make money through product sponsorships, product placement, show sponsorships (mention a product or wear a particular brand during your shows) - you usually don't have to split these earnings with YouTube. I run a Multi Channel Network on YouTube since 2009. I'm YouTube Certified in Audience Growth and Digital Rights. Feel free to contact me for more info.

My recommendation would be to outsource for as long as possible and focus your time and energy elsewhere. Build the simplest, least expensive solution possible and test whether there is sufficient marketplace demand for the concept before investing one dime more than necessary. Cheers, Frank

In my experience, every step you take to complicate your company's structure and ownership rights reduces the likelihood of investors providing your venture with seed funding. To attract seed funding, investors expect a single-minded laser focus on the entrepreneurs' assessment of his or her best path to validating their business and growing it into a very large business as quickly as possible. So the very idea that you are reliant or considering taking multiple paths to success is likely to act as a red flag for most experienced early-stage tech investors. Also, until there is significant traction achieved, an investor is expecting to own everything generated by the business. There are rare occasions where a particular asset, brand, domain or other component of the business can be spun-out (usually in the case where it's a distraction from the core business but there's inbound demand from a buyer), but when I say rare, I mean this happens so infrequently that it's not anything that should be reasonably expected in the course of planning. Speaking candidly, this entire strategy creates a perception (accurate or unfair) that you are undecided on a number of the key questions you need to be sure of before you have a good chance of raising seed funding. I'd be happy to talk to you about what you're doing and help provide some clarity based on what I hear. I encourage you to review my references as I have been helpful to many other Clarity members on these types of issues.

Pre-orders are always great for testing demand, eliciting end-user feedback and even generating a little revenue! You just have to be sure that you can fulfill whatever product or service the customer is paying for, beta or otherwise. Relative to b2b vs. b2c, I can't really speak to that based on the info you've provided. To you success, Frank

What you want to do is create a relationship with that new potential customer. People can only oo and ah for so long, so what you want to do is create a compelling offer to bring them in. This is why candy and treats often work. Whatever it is, make it instantly satisfying and memorable (homemade cookies, perhaps?). Then strike up a conversation about your product or service. Just remember to always keep the potential customer in mind.