Well, lets work backwards: Structure is pretty simple: 4 year vest, 1 year cliff, for a percentage of the company that will match their commitment and unique contribution to the success of the venture. Running it by them is pretty simple: Tell everyone you can about the problem, the assumptions you have about a solution, the vision for how your company can make some real money by solving a real problem. For each person you talk to, many will say, "That's nice, congratulations." And maybe one or two will say, "OMG, I want to be a part of that." Pick one of those. So now, it's just down to Locating People: http://founderdating.com; http://meetup.com; http://startup-digest.com; Local University; snapchat. Finally remember, 100% of $0 = $0. Clearly it can get much more nuanced than this, and I'm happy to share some more strategies in each of these channels. But, end of the day, you just need as many at bats as you can find, and don't rush it.

Talk to strangers everyday... anytime your in a lineup, buying something, coffee shop, etc... learn to ask great questions and tell great (short) stories. There's books on this, like Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferazzi + many others.

If your goal is to build a community around the blog, I would focus on creating a strategy on spreading the word. Start by visiting other blogs that are similar and participate and comment in conversations. Offer to write guest blogs and receive link back and credits. Start a podcast that you can use with the Blog, this is something I would spend some money on and set up. Itunes is a great search engine and will help market the Blog very effectively.

Hi! The quick answer is that simple invention ideas are great as they are the fastest and least expensive to develop, yet can still be highly profitable. I run a consumer product firm which has developed hundreds of inventions for home-based inventors or small product firms - Essentially we take it from Idea to Store Shelves. The best advice I can give is to ONLY do what is absolutely required to sell product... There are lots of great services out there that are beneficial; however, if you're on a limited budget, stick to only what is necessary to make a sale, which is: 1. Industrial Design / Engineering, 2. A manufactured sample and a manufacturer who can produce product, and 3. A provisional patent. Essentially what you need is a real, physical, and fully functioning unit of your product, the prices to manufacture that product and a manufacturer who is ready to produce units, and intellectual property protection so that your idea is not stolen. Once you have these 3 items, you can start to present your product to wholesalers, retails, distributors, etc. If someone likes it and the price is reasonable, they can place an order, and your business and dream product starts to grow. From there, there is a whole world of possibilities, but the most important thing for now is to develop your product from 'idea' into 'real'. Whatever you do, do not get caught up in the idea of 'licencing' your idea. An idea is almost impossible to licence unless it is CURRENTLY being manufactured AND being SOLD through stores. If someone or a company says that they will help licence your product idea for royalties, etc., then they should be willing to do that for FREE, no charge, no fees. Many people attempt to charge fees to licence a product idea; however, if you aren't currently selling in stores, it will almost be impossible to get any form of monetary payment, so they usually are just trying to get your fees for their 'marketing' services, which are almost useless for an undeveloped product, and they know this. If you would like more information on some of the details of product development, we have a free Invention Guide on our website, check it out here: http://www.makoinvent.com/free-invention-kit/ Cheers, Kevin Mako President, Mako Invent www.makoinvent.com www.facebook.com/makoinvent www.twitter.com/makoinvent

You can always compete by offering something your competitor does not provide (either different products, different services, different prices, or different target market). Start by finding out what your customer needs - then build a version of your product. Iterate, iterate, and iterate.

One thing you might consider is sitting down with a CPA or financial advisor for an hour or two. They might have the experience to go over your books and quickly spot issues that are holding you back. If you can't find someone like that willing to help you then consider reaching out to a professor of finance/accounting at a local college for help. You may even become part of a case study for their students!

The more important first impressions to leave a VC with are: 1) That you both are credible and inspire confidence that you can execute the plan you're fundraising on. 2) That there is good chemistry and a great relationship between the two of you; 3) That you can adequately address the concerns/objections/questions the VC raises. The CEO is expected to do most of the talking because the CEO should be the best person in the company at articulating the vision and value of the product and company you're building. If your CTO is comfortable presenting part of the pitch, it would be ideal for the CTO to speak to the product slides. The most important thing is for the CTO not to be a "bump on the log" meaning that you don't want them sitting there for most of the presentation with nothing to say. If you feel that's the case, you really shouldn't bring your CTO. Most VC meetings will not get technical and under the hood. Each question answered should be answered by the person best qualified to speak to that question. You should make eye-contact with your partner and use subtle body language to find a way to cue the other person to speak to that question or simply offer "CTO, would you like to answer that?" Bottom line, make sure that the CTO can speak confidently enough about the product and vision, otherwise -unless specifically asked by the VC - come alone. Fundraising is a big distraction to building and a good VC will always respect that in a first meeting, the CTO can be excused from attending in priority of building product. Happy to talk to you both on a call about helping get you feeling a bit more confident and prepared before your meeting. I was formerly a VC associate for a $500m fund and have raised money from VCs as a serial entrepreneur.

This is a pretty vague question, but in general, if you are pricing "correctly" as an expert, it's really easy to change your pricing, because you're pricing based on value. Changing prices can have a huge impact on profit (and quality of life). Take a few minutes and read through these blog posts (there are 4, starting with this one: http://www.mimiran.com/proposals/i-sell-services-what-the-do-i-sell/).

Have you tried AdWords and a website/landing page for you or your business? I know a company in Brazil that is doing exactly this: * They have a website/landing page setup that explains how they charge for the application and has a call-to-action button to ask for an evaluation of the project the client have * They have thought and described a way to evaluate projects roughly so that the client may have an idea of time / costs of the project * Their website has images of applications they have developed before in a portfolio They are doing great, actually they have more people asking them projects than they are able to develop and they started rejecting offers.

There's many ways to help with this, here's what I do at Clarity 1. Build an email relationship with your supply. They should have direct access to you, and you should build an ongoing drip campaign that teaches them how to improve their experience (and make more money) on Clarity. 2. For members, you should define community guidelines (Do's & Dont's) and ensure they all review / agree to them - and enforce them proactively. 3. Create a discussion forum (we use LinkedIn group) but you could use VanillaForum.com or similar, and invite members/experts to join to ask questions about your marketplace. 4. Feature experts & members that have had success or are exhibiting the types of behaviours you want from other members. We do that here: http://clarity.fm/customers Those are the big things ... smaller items would be the copyrighting, design and data you show on profiles to help increase the right behaviour (ex: Search with filter by Last Active, tells experts to be active). Hope that helps.

I don't think it is what you are looking for, but MailChimp.com was created by mistake from a services agency. They were sending emails for their clients and the next thing you know, they were making most of their money from send costs and the rest is history. Sorry I can't be more help.

I can help you with some real downloads that would get you Guaranteed App Reviews (Anywhere between 20-1000 App Reviews) Reviews drive the most number of future downloads. Feel Free to talk to me about this opportunity.

Well, the biggest cost here wouldn't be in the app, but in the server infrastructure. As usual with connected apps, people often forget they have to be connected to servers. The app itself is just a view to what the servers provide, so it's not the major cost. 20K $ to 100K $ should be enough. On server stuff, I expect it to be a lot more, particularly if you aim for a wide audience (several million $). On a Whatsapp clone, I'd consider: - solutions for performing calls through servers, not that easy. Look at what Twilio provides. WebRTC is an upcoming protocol that will ease that (web & mobile). - solutions for API, IM and user accounts management. Look at StackMob or Parse which are MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service). Hope it helps!

You may want to consider showcasing the more narrow, focused application which will be (ideally) your more capital-efficient beachhead that proves the product and market fit. Meanwhile, I would present a few select slides or datapoints from the original presentation as something that showcases the broader opportunity which can be pursued at a later milestone or development stage.

Talk to market first simply dialing and smiling. Can also outsource for someone to call and set appointments for you to speak with them. Have found good affordable people on Elance.

Do yourself a favour & grab a copy of Venture Deals: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118443616

Have been thinking about this for a while.. The answer that follows is based on insights I got from a panel in SF and from discussions with my co-founder Rob Attwell. So why is Silicon Valley/SF the birthplace of most great tech companies? It's about the unique concentration of 5 Cs: 1. Coders (esp with experience) 2. Concepts (new ways of solving things that end up in SV/SF because everywhere else they are deemed crazy) 3. Customers (willing to try things and with disposable income) 4. Cash (investment) 5. Competition (essential to keep you going faster and higher)

Commercial real estate is completely different animal than residential. Loop.net is a popular site where you can review commercial deals. Outside of that you need to find pocket listings and build relationships with brokers and Realtors that list commercial properties. You can also go to http://www.Listsource.com and pull criteria to send out a mailer to a very targeted list of owners.

Response rate depends completely on the effectiveness of your material, quality of your product and site, brand recognition, commissions, etc. Regardless, with affiliates, the more the better. You are paying commission. There is no real negative to having more effective affiliates.

This is a very wide area to discuss and there is no magic bullet. You need to tailor it to the specific market/client.

There's no single "magic bullet" answer to this problem so, instead, there some questions I'd like you to consider: 1. What skills does he have that got him the position in the first place? How can those be leveraged? 2. What can you do to help him navigate through the transition (I'm assuming he's not feeling comfortable, either) and become his ally 3. Would you consider having a heart-to-heart and share with him the affects his decisions have on "the moral of the staff"? 4. What feedback have you given him and what still needs to be said? Sometimes these situations can feel like an us-against-him and leads to bad feelings and animosity. What would it take for the team to take him under their wing and help him settle into his role? I specialize in these situations so I understand the frustration they cause but also know they can be resolved with some effort on everyone's part. Let me know how you make out. Todd.

Four thoughts. First, define what maximum and minimum effort estimate is acceptable - for example, tasks should not take less than 2 hours or more than 4. Second, communicate that contingency shouldn't be included in the estimates so they aren't padded. Instead, have some room in the overall plan for tasks to slip. Third, measure actual vs. estimates to learn how the team estimates - you'll find that some people consistently over estimate, and some consistently under estimate. Show them and have them adjust course. Finally, make sure that the people estimating understand that no answer is acceptable - it is better to redirect a task than have wide guesses.

I have been working in SEO for over 10 years and have built search agencies from the ground up. I've also worked with some big brands on International SEO like Active.com, as well as many US based chains like Extended Stay Hotels. I suggest sub-directories as they are MUCH easier to manage and promote via SEO. You can't have specific local IPs with sub-directories, but you can with sub-domains. But that's not hyper critical, there are WAY more important factors. Plus, you can geo-target in Google Webmaster Tools. Your current structure for sub-directories is perfect: http://drivingtests101.com/Canada/Ontario With subdomains, each will be treated like a brand new site. So you would have to work very hard to get each to gain good authority SEO-wise. Plus managing and hosting lots of subdomains is a ton of work! In order to not get penalized you need to: Implement the the "lang" and "hreflang" tags in the HTML of each country directory and all pages within. Have unique Title tags and descriptions written in each language. Have unique content for each country and state page. Written in each respective language. Yes, its a TON of work but hey, you are trying to take over the world! If you are serious about international search traffic then you will do these things and the costs should be balanced out with the extra traffic you'll get. If you can make the root domain super authoritative then it will boost ALL of the internal pages. This is also key to ranking well for international search. I'm open to a follow up call to elaborate on any of my responses or to answer other questions.

That's a huge question - but in my view it really boils down to four things: 1) A clear sense of the problem they were trying to solve; 2) Crystal clear focus on only the most high-impact things; 3) Relentless pursuit of excellence in execution. 4) Luck. That fourth one mightn't be a popular one to state, but the truth is that there are a lot of companies who try to do 1 through 3, but 4 always comes into play and Google is no different.

Google Analytics is the best free tool out there for this. Make sure that you are focusing your report on conversions - how many/what percentage of website visitors are taking action (filling out a form, buying a product, etc.). If you're interested in paying for help, you should check out Moz or HubSpot, but Google Analytics is your best free option for web reporting. They also provide some social reporting - which social networks are driving traffic to the site and which network referrals are leading to the most conversions. Good luck!