Clients before hire/ income before expense BUT start the interview process now too

Ultimately depends on lots of things: - How much you want the position - What the company expects to pay - What others applying for the position might ask for - How much you need to get by - How much you would really like to get paid - How you would stack up against other candidates Your best bet is to get a good sense for what's a likely target range for that particular role, weigh your desire for the job and how strong a candidate you'd be, and pick a value within that range. I don't know enough about the position to have a good sense for the range, and I wasn't able to match your description to one of their listed positions to get a bette sense. I'd probably just end up looking at salary sites anyway, which you can do on your own.

Back when I started LinkedIn wasn't as huge as it is now. I wish it was. I didn't have a large network and those networking sessions NEVER brought me any clients. I used to go to all sorts of them hoping to get clients. There were a couple of nibbles here and there, but never anything serious. The only thing that helped was reaching out DIRECTLY to people in my target market. That meant cold calls and cold emails. I'd sell myself while thinking about their needs. Once I got a few bites I'd build good rapport by keeping in touch, asking questions, repeating back what they were saying so that they knew I was on the same page and kept my promises. If I said I'd call them back next Tuesday at 2:15 I'd do so. Eventually I built trust with them without having a network, or an insane amount of experience. Oh and the most important thing about consulting is to LISTEN. When those first clients notice that you're truly listening and you're not selling the cookie cutter solutions everyone else is trying to sell them that's when you got them hooked. You start to understand their problems, fears, and see through their eyes and not just yours. A network will help, but in the beginning just good 'ol salesmanship will get the ball rolling.

Salary surveys, talking to other people in similar positions are reasonable starting points. In my opinion, getting a competitive offer now and again (by interviewing elsewhere) is the easiest way to make sure that you're being adequately compensated.

There are actually ways of acquiring users just by staying inside Facebook and not spending any money. Have you tried those? I took the Find Me Gluten Free Fan Page from 800 to over 23,000. Let me know if you want to hop on a call. Darin

We have been asked this question before and it really depends on the situation and use case. 1. In depends on many factors. 2. Base64 encoding enlarges file sizes by up to 33% 3. If quality is your focus, I recommend URL/URIs. I would love to hear more about this project and provide some more insight. Let me know if you have any other questions. -Steve

Banking Relationships - For this amount of money in emerging economies, a bank loan (or other form of debt) is your best option. There may be some private equity funds with an eastern european outlook. I may also be able to connect you to some investors, send me a message to tell me more.

I have been in this situation as well as almost every other web application developer and I learned my lesson along the way. You said you and 3 others tested, but I feel that 4 people may not be enough. I think at least 50 to 75 people is a much more sufficient number and here is how I do it with my own web apps: I think that is what alpha and beta versions are for. If an app is just released without it being in beta version, there will be problems, but putting something in beta tells the public that there will be bugs and that those bugs can be tested, so releasing a Beta version prior to your actual release date is one way to go. Also, when testing for bugs before releasing to massive traffic, all scenarios need to be tested and it is possible that 4 people will not test all of those scenarios or even contemplate them. I suggest to companies who release software and websites to test in all platforms including, but not limited to: 1. different web browsers including IE, Firefox, chrome, safari 2. different mobile devices including smart phones and tablets 3. operating systems 4. various times of the day where internet traffic may vary and even different days of the week 5. different screen sizes and resolutions Since every has a different version of all of these factors, testing is needed for more than 4 people. I said that 50 to 75 people is efficient testing and you may think that is overkill, but it really shows you bugs that you never would have thought of. For that many people, give away something for free as an incentive like a free product or ebook. You will get many people willing to help out for just the incentive.Works for me. Bruce

There are many discussions these days about how small business owners struggle to get connected and stay connected with their communities of interest. Whether the priorities are personal or professional, the concerns are the same; where do I go to find and share amongst my peers, relevant and consistent exchanges of ideas, values, interests and market intelligence? Building and maintaining an online community centered on your agenda is the single best way to find what you’re looking for. My thoughts continue at http://mvb.me/s/35d923

For me, and being a developer of mobile apps and websites, it is that most self-proclaimed mobile marketing platforms do not take the mobile target market into account at all and instead, show a regular internet marketing platform but with a "mobile" label. For example, if I am trying to connect to a brand using social media, the mobile version of that website or the equivalent mobile app should make it easy for me to find Facebook with my mobile device, especially for smart phones where the screen real estate is small. In other words, mobile marketing strategies should not just take a regular marketing strategy and scale it down to a mobile device the "Mobile" label thrown on it. Marketers should realize that business people and consumers who travel with their mobile devices are an actual market. What we do for mobile marketing of our clients is create either an app or a responsive web page that detects the mobile device and serves a faster web page that won't kill an iPhone or iPad battery. Also, since the mobile concept is becoming a lifestyle all of its own, marketers should embrace this as a target market, what the marketing industry calls "psychographic" and cater to that target market, but most mobile apps and websites fail to do that. Bruce

Qualifications on the answer: Created the first website to be ever commercially licensed by a ministry of education for in-school use (Brainium 1996). Was a VC associate at a 500,000,000 firm called Knowledge Universe focused on all things education-related that intersected with technology. Short Answer: Yes and no. Longer Answer: Learning analytics is one of those "lightening in a bottle" kind of industries. Everyone knows it's going to happen, whomever makes it happen at scale first, will have a huge advantage, and even more niche plays in this space will still create massive value for shareholders and significant transformation of education as we know it. That's the good news. The problem is that funding startups in the education space that are dependent on "permission" being granted by existing institutions and their employees is very much hit or miss. It's getting easier to raise a $500-800k seed round for a good idea with a good team, but the problem is that getting the next bigger round is very challenging in that the models of most of these seed-funded companies are not growing fast enough to prove to institutional investors that a growth model of the idea being very big in a relatively short time-period is credible. So if you're intent on pursuing this, I'd be sure to focus entirely on how you can get growth and adoption with requiring little to no institutional buy-in which sounds almost impossible on the surface of the area you're exploring but I believe isn't actually impossible. I'm very passionate about this space and want something like what you're describing to succeed so would be happy to do a quick call to hear where you're at and see if I can provide you some actionable ideas on how to reduce the friction / improve adoption of your analytics product.

Stop thinking you don't have the skills to do something. You can learn anything if you decide to, but assuming up front that you can't (forever) is dangerous. my2cents

It depends on the markets you are trading. One well rounded platform is MultiCharts. It is capable of being used in multiple markets, and it is useful to all levels of trading experience. Here is a link with more information - http://www.forex-trading-unlocked.com/MultiCharts.html

I believe that personal passion is the only sustainable way to pursue any idea and / or startup in the medium and longer term. In the short term, there's loads of other things that keep you going: momentum, money, press, great feedback, investor interest, new customers etc. What these things however do is it kickstarts your natural adrenaline making it easy to make progress. Once that adrenaline runs out though and when you reach a low point (of the rollercoaster), you're only left with the things you naturally have. So your own ambition, drive and passion are the things that will help get you out of that low point and kickstart the adrenaline again. And of those things, passion is the greatest motivator to do anything. If you are truly passionate about the idea or startup you are pursuing, I believe that you will do whatever it takes to succeed.

It looks like you're not looking for someone who can scale and become a full fledged CTO (or you might not even need one), so try to look at it as a founding engineer hire instead. With early founding engineers, you can sell them on things like: - opportunity for learning - understanding business practices and models - opportunity for leadership down the road And the equity structure should be something around 1-5% of the business vested over a few years. You'll have to sit down and explain it to them as some people either aren't educated or they want to be assured of exactly what they're being given. I did this a few times last year and if done well, you can get some solid work out of them :) Feel free to call me up and chat about it more.

Some key differences to consider: - Coaching is based most often on a monthly retainer. Mentoring can be as well, but is usually offered without a fee, often based on a personal request or referral. - Coaches rarely give advice, coming from the perspective that the client has the answers within. Empowering yes, but there are times when you just want someone to give you a straight answer or share their experience. Mentors (and consultants) provide this more naturally. I've worked with entrepreneurs who've had both, and I've done so myself. If you're looking for personal development within your business, I'd lean towards coaching. If you're more after advice and experience, I'd look for a mentor. Both are helpful and can make the world of difference in the right circumstances.

There are three questions here: - the strike price of the options - the market value of the company - how much those options are actually worth to the recipient 1. The strike price is the price people pay to exchange their options for shares. You can set any strike price you like: it's just a negotiable contract term. However, if the strike price is less than the market value of the shares, the options are taxable (which people tend to avoid), so you typically set the strike price at or above the market value. 2. The market value of the company is how much the company is worth. The celebrity of the founder is clearly a big part of it. If the company were sold, the acquirer would want the founder to lock in as part of the acquisition. So figure out the value a couple of ways: (1) off standard profitability metrics: X times yearly profit and/or revenue vs. comparable companies (2) off the acquisition price: with and without the founder and add the percentage chance the founder would go with it (3) off recent transactions in the stock (what people pay for the stock is a great indicator of value) These will give three different answers: pick some sort of average number, so you can justify your strike price. 3. What the options are worth to the recipient: remember they are only worth something if the recipient can exercise them for stock, and then sell the stock (or receive dividends) for more than the option's strike price. So figure out the probability of the company being sold above the strike price in the next X years, and what an weighted average expected sale price is for the company in the next few years (noting the founder's importance), and that's what the options are worth. I hope that helps.

A typical rule of thumb would be that an established company sets aside around 15% of the outstanding shares at any point in time for employee options. Those get split up among employees based on their contributions. Depending how key these VPs are relative to other employees you have (remember to give them something also) or expect to hire, you might give them 2-5% each. This assumes that you are an established company. If one of the VPs is going to quintuple the size of the business, they might push for being more of a 'partner'.

Say "NO." It's a complete sentence.

If I had to pick a single efficient and affordable way of getting in front of a targeted audience I would have to recommend Facebook in-stream ads. You control the budget, the target group and the message and they are, right now, offering the highest conversion rates for mobile apps. Keep in mind that your app needs to be amazing - that's the most effective strategy of all...

I was an eBay trading assistant and they still have them. What you can do is access the eBay trading assistant program on eBay.com. The page lets you search for eBay resellers in your local geographic area, but better, you don't have to pay them 50/50. The eBay trading assistants usually make between 25 and 37%, so don't feel like you need to pay them 50%. I hope this helps. I would be glad to take you through the program if you are interested. Bruce

I am not 100%sure what you mean by by no platform, but I will answer as best I can. If you have a website (again I am not sure if this is what you mean by no platform), you could have an email signup list. What I see a lot of professionals do is give away something as an incentive like an ebook. If you have something that you can give away, people would need to enter their email address so it gets emailed to them and voila, you start building your list. I also use social media and as I make connections, my mailing list builds fast. I would be glad to schedule a call with you so I can share with you all of my strategies for building a list. I have 3 main strategies that I use to build my mailing list and can share them with you on a call. Bruce

The 1st thing you should do it to identify 100 potential customers from your group to approach them and to offer them to use the platform to test it out. These people will not only give you feedback on how to improve it but also will give you testimonials for your website. The next thing to do (when you have the testimonials) is build some landing pages and to run some Google AdWords. Do some A/B testing and test different value propositions. I recommend adding some retargeting to your site so you don't lose visitors forever. When you have tested out which keywords work best, you cans tart investing more in SEO. It will take time to rank well but it's worth to start doing it early. Focus on content marketing that is related to your product and at the same time attracts and educates your target audience. Use ebook and webinars to generate leads and engage your audience. Don't forget to focus on blogging. That is really important in your type of business. Share your content on social media during the day. Use followerwonk to know when to share on Twitter and run some tests to figure out the best time for Facebook and Google+. Find influencers in your industry and connect with them online. These people will make the difference in your business. I believe in the first months you should focus on: 1. Getting feedback about your product 2. Generating leads through PPC, SEO, content marketing and social media. 3. Using your first users feedback to generate some publicity If you're looking for a more in-depth strategy for your business, don't hesitate to schedule a call for me. I'd love to learn more about what you're doing and to help you out craft the strategy that will help you achieve your goals. This is my VIP link for a free consultation https://clarity.fm/martinzhel/inbound

10X in 3 to 7 years is home run. 3X is a single. All of it is subject to 35% IRR - anything less is not worth risk.

Yeah they should...user meta and groups also an option