Here is an article about setting up AWS EC2 to run Play and Mongo: http://stevenwilliamalexander.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/amazon-ec2-mongo-play-scala-instance-setup-gu/ and there are also guides for binding to Amazon Simple DB and Dynamo in Scala as well that might be much easier setup than using MySQL. I've used a lot of AWS services for building composite services and I'm available for a call if you get stuck or need any advice on best practices.

I think we are only in trouble is we do not ride the tech bubble for what it is worth and presents. The tech bubble success comes and goes. It blows up and then grows again. I believe there is no other cause than true internet marketing and social media. If people engage others in their social media, the tech bubble will never burst. Obviously, that did not happen in the early 2000s. Bruce

Definitely send them the poll. If you send an introductory newsletter, most people may never read it. People are lazy and do not like reading much. If you send them a poll, you engage them to take action and they actually get into the fun. Also, I suggest giving your audience a powerful incentive if they answer the poll, like putting them into a drawing to mention their website or Facebook page. People only get engaged these days if there is something in it for them and just answering a poll is not engaging enough. Like, on my blog and on some of the blogs on www.LatestBlogPosts.com, some bloggers will blog their clients to their Twitter followers and that is what I do to my 40,000 Twitter followers. It works wonders. I also have other ideas that I would be willing to share with you on the phone. I have implemented several ideas that work to engage my audience. Bruce

That's fine. How can I review your web app? Is there a web address where I can download it or should we do it on a call? I have developed over 50 web and mobile apps, so I can provide the guidance you need. I would be happy to schedule a call with you to review your web app. Bruce

I've heard people buying Twitter accounts with large followings and then migrating their username over. That's one way - although I don't get that at all. Other people have done it with Follower farms .. were they join a follower farm site, and essentially everyone just agrees to follow each other. Both of these are in violation of the terms of service and may get your account suspended/banned. The best way to grow your audience is to share things worth sharing. Either quotes, pictures, interesting / funny insights, etc. I'd rather have 1000 true fans than 200,000 bot followers.

You have to have something worth selling....and position it properly which means clear calls to action. Most sites are informative and miss the calls to action...people are lazy, they won't look hard. Personally I leave if not interested

NASA is famous for writing the most bug-free code in the history of programming. They do it by being fanatics about test-driven development. They write tests for tests. If you want to have a rock solid app, you have to put everything else aside and focus only on quality. Every time a new build goes out, every single member of the team has to test every tiny nook and cranny and write tests to mimic how they're testing it in real life. The goal is to start small with a solid core and get it functioning error-free before building other features. If you hold yourselves accountable to make feature incredible before you begin building others then you'll never have to go back and clean up something later. In short, try to do it "write" the first time :)

There are two sides to that question. One is the mobile app itself and the other is the backend. If I misunderstood in any way and you didn't mean "native" app I apologize in advance. On the backend, there is no clear cut answer to which is the "best". It depends solely on the developers you are able to get. We for example use Node.js , mongoDB, redis, elasticsearch and a couple of proprietary tools in the backend. But you have your pick of the litter now both on the backend api and the datastore with the myriad of options available and touted as the "best" currently on the market. Now on the app side again it solely depends on what you need your mobile app to do. Experiencing first-hand "develop once, run anywhere" I can say it's more like "develop once, debug everywhere" to quote a Java saying. We have tried Phonegap and Titanium Appcelerator and we have switched to native (ObjC and Java) after a couple of months of trying to go the hybrid route. The reasons behind the choice are as follows: - anything that breaks the pattern of how those frameworks NEED to operate is just a huge technical debt that keeps accruing a huge interest. - anything that uses css3 accelerated animations on Android is buggy at best and slow as hell at worst on any lower (< 4.1 I think) versions of Android I hope this gives you some insight. If you need/want to ask me anything feel free to contact me. Mihai

"What was the best part of you day?" Ideally you could ask in the afternoon .. but it sets a positive intention. I ask this to all my friends + wife everyday when I see them.

"What recent work activities have been most fulfilling for you, what has gotten you excited or "lit up"? This question leads into the territory of Culture and Mission. It'll underpin the dialogue to evolve an explicit Mission from the bottom up, and will also serve as a filter for employees to notice whether what they are passionate about fits with the group mission or passion.

Hmmm? This is a tough one because your product is so wonderfully horizontal, meaning it applies to a very broad set of cases. I'd slice and dice in two directions. First, I'd think about the general process of collaboration on a document, for example: a) drafting - are two people actually writing the words together? I personally don't like this. b) first read through together staying on the same sentence or page, c) editing together, etc. Second, I'd think about industries or verticals or contexts, such as in a Legal setting, in a Tech Documentation setting, in a coding or XP dual programming setting, in a social media post drafting setting, and so forth. Check out: https://medium.com/look-what-i-made/fd48c3b412bc Seems to be evocative of what you're doing, but targeted to one specific use case of "pair programming".

I've gotten accepted into two different accelerator programs in the US. Both were ranked in the top tiers (Gold and Platinum Plus). For startups in an accelerator with limited resources, there are a handful of ways to get cheap traffic. Depending on the product, they may find that certain growth hacks like SEO, LinkedIn, Craigslist or Reddit can all be great channels. Its important that the product being marketed is relevant otherwise it will feel like spam. Another method for cheap traffic is to pitch a PR story and try to get coverage from a media outlet. There are many different avenues to get traction and customers without immediately using paid ad channels. If you have more questions on finding good cheap marketing channels feel free to call me.

It depends on the product or service that you're offering. The best way to prove a concept is to take orders. Trycelery.com is a great tool for taking pre-orders online without charging customers until the product is ready. Otherwise, go where your customers are, talk to them, and identify the need that would make them hand over money on the spot.

You should never bring anyone on the team unless you feel they are awesome and will add value. I believe the first 12 team members will dictate the success of the company. That being said, you can bring in team members and give them equity that vest over 4 years, so that there is no risk to your company if they don't workout. So if you feel you need the accelerator to be successful, do what you go to do to make it work, without loosing control of the product, direction or major equity (as you'll need it for future rounds of funding). So if you can negotiate the terms to be entrepreneurial friendly from the incubator, and get their money - then do what you need to to to be successful ... even if they aren't happy - you're the entrepreneur, not them - which concerns me a bit that they are mandating you get people on your team that you don't want/feel you need. Hope that helps.

This sounds as a deja vu to me. I have been in a similar situation back in 2000, we could only solve the issue thanks to a good mediator. However every situation is different and hence your route to a solution might be different. It also depends where you are in the world that defines how an email and/or verbal agreement might be a sufficient ground for legal actions. I am not a lawyer and can not judge that.

Revenue solves all problems. If you want me to be more technical, cash-flow.

I hope this answer will help you in two ways: It should help avoid unnecessary expense being incurred and it should also help you recruit software engineers to build your project. Before you spend a single dime on building, I'd encourage you to validate the idea itself with potential customers. Identify the kind of person you are thinking of solving a problem for, and just explain the high-level concept. Make sure that a sufficient percentage of them are saying "yes, I need this." Then, really distill the idea further into a single piece of functionality that this customer base says they want. There are tools that allow for "drag & drop prototyping" like fluid.io that you can use to create a clickable walkthrough of the user flow you're looking to create. The more that you can do to validate the idea and focus it, the more you can define your "Minimum Viable Product." If you can't find enough of your potential customers to get excited about the idea, I would advise against hiring anyone to implement anything. That said, it's also a lot easier to recruit talent when you can say "I spoke to 100 potential customers and 40 of them said they would use this" or better yet, pay for it. Convincing anyone to work on your idea will be considerably easier if you can show some existing proof or interest around the idea. From there, your best source (assuming you don't have a network of people to draw from) might be local colleges & universities. I would advise against hiring online or working virtually with someone when you are new to building product. I'd be happy to talk to you about your project, how to validate the concept and how - if you decide to pursue it - to hire good talent. Best of luck!

You can call anyone for advice / feedback on Clarity, you're just not allowed to pitch. So technically we support it today and many people already do this. It's call Customer Development.

Pricing for different tasks that require the same amount of time from you tells the Customer (and your subconscious) that you're working at a 5 on task x, but working at a 9 on task y simply because it costs/earns more. That seems to be a disconnect. Your time is your most precious asset, and I would charge for it whatever you're doing. If you build a site, and they are happy with your dev fee, but feel like you should charge less for SEO, simply let them find another SEO guy. That's their choice, but YOU are worth $xx.xx, no matter what you're doing. Also, in general, take whatever you're charging and add 10% to it. If you're still busy, add another 10%. Let the demand level determine how much work you do, and at what cost.

A great team looks like this - 2 full stack engineers. They can manage servers, security, build features and code front end JS/interactions. - 1 visual designer focused on product, information architecture, UX and flows. - 1 front end developer who can take designs and built out killer interactions and can wireup any back end code to the UI The CEO can manage product + customer development and everyone on the team does support. That's 5 people and can accomplish a lot!

No. The only way this could work is by outsourcing the people to other companies. But this would change the business you're in and you might as well just outsource the department to a company who does this already. If recommend reading a book called "The Goal" - it explains things better than me.

The first question cannot be answered as asked. The starting point is agreement on how the investors are to get their money back. Neither you nor your attorney should attempt to value the business. Who you turn to depends on the business itself. There are norms available even for pre-revenue firms but usually not term sheets for specific transactions.

Hi there 1) Define your story I'm not sure who your audience is, but getting users to write reviews means that they need to resonate with your story. In order to do that, you need to convey what you've built, why it's important, why it's likely to work, etc. In other words, you across all your channels, you need to be telling the story about the value you are creating in such a way that it resonates with your target audience so that they take a desired action e.g. writing a review. 2) Attention and trust The problem you have is that you don't have attention. Now it's not about being worthy or not, its about how you architect your communications so that your audience understands the worthiness and value of what you are doing - get this part right and everything will take care of itself. The other consideration is does your target audience know who you are? If not, then it's going to be a tough job and if they do know who you are, do they trust you and your story enough to engage with you? At the heart of every transaction is trust - if you don't have it, you need to get it 3) Ask I think it goes without saying that you need to ask first - if you don't ask they just won't do it. 4) Incentivise it Typically, users won't do anything unless there is something in it for them. Think about what incentives you can offer in exchange for reviews but remember that people are rarely motivated by money 5) Create an event around it People love events and they're a great medium to convey your story and to build a community around your platform. Happy to have a call with you to discuss further... Matt

Without a dedicated advertising budget, you're going to have to put in a lot of man hours with guerrilla marketing at first. I would create a quick 5-10 slide PDF highlighting the benefits of the service and the real value to your clients. This can be at the ready as a followup to actual conversations you have with prospects. Your biggest challenge will be teaching people about this new way to buy and so develop your sales conversations around combating that challenge. Is it easier? Faster? Cheaper? Safer? Think about what the normal process is and then position your product as a much better alternative. A good printed sales sheet could go a long way too!

Hi there Sounds like a great challenge - would love to bounce some ideas around with you. I've been building businesses for over 12 years now and have consulted with numerous global brands on business strategy, marketing programs, business model design, and digital marketing. Let me know? Best, Matt