I assume you are a non-technical co-founder. In that case I recommend reading this article: http://www.launchbit.com/blog/why-you-cant-recruit-a-technical-cofounder It focuses on making tech people want to work with you. My advice here is to do your homework and look for people who are somehow interested in area of your product/service. Either they work/ed in similar company, are part of a relevant meetup group or so on. LinkedIn advanced search might help here. Next you want to reach out to your personal network and ask them to spread the word. You are looking for peer recommendations because they give you more credit and usually lead to more skilled developers. Use the power of social networks. Besides classic job boards, take a look on this specified websites: http://www.techcofounder.com http://www.founder2be.com http://www.cofounderslab.com Hope this will help you and good luck with your search. If your developer could work remotely, I know really good people in Slovakia. Just give me a call.

I am sorry - I think it should work backwards: you identify your end users and their problems and then design the product and get back to them.... Otherwise it is an old problem on inventors making "solutions in search of the problem".

Sounds like you are off to a great start. In order to make the phone ring, you will need to develop a marketing plan that will continue to amplify your reach. Here are 3 things that quickly came to mind: 1 - If you are already on social networks, are you connecting to groups and sharing your information and/or posting snippets of the podcast to gather interest? 2 - With your current followers, what can you do to have them advocate for you? Use your list to provide opportunities for others to connect you to more coaching clients. 3 - Connect with others in your field that can enhance your coaching offering and develop a mutual alliance or strategy to share resources, lists, create a bundle package offer. I would be happy to brainstorm more ideas with you and develop steps to implement. Understanding the focus material will create more steps. Let me know how I can help.

You want to do something effectively... And spend no money doing it? That's not only impossible but it is the wrong way to think. It will cost you much more money in the long run. Marketing is an INVESTMENT. Not an expense. You are among for the best ROI, not the cheapest initial cost. The cheapest initial cost is often the WORST ROI (normally costing much more down the line).

My focus is business strategy and development, I am also a geek-at-heart! There are a few things to dig into to get rolling. With your strength in tech - tap into virtual resources or even crowdsourcing to get the work done from a marketing and sales lead perspective leaving you to focus on what you do best. I am happy to have a call with you to discuss steps! This is a critical time for your company and your passion is evident.

I like to separate your question into 2 sub-questions: #1 How do we determine which side to charge? #2 How much is the right amount to charge? On #1, my answer is that you can charge the side(s) for whom you add the most value. In your examples, Uber really solves a big problem for drivers, it's that they sit idle for a good part of the day, so are willing to pay a lot for new leads. (their alternative is no work) Consumers are charged more for the convenience of a private car but they are probably not so much willing to pay more for a taxi, even if they can hail one from their phones. For AirBnB, it's a mix, it's a way for landlords to monetize idle capacity which they are willing to pay for, but it's also a way for a renter to pay less than they would normally pay for a hotel. On #2 (how much), I like to triangulate a number of factors: - What's the maximum amount I can charge one side, while still being a good deal for them. - How much do I need to charge so that I can become profitable? (the economics are quite different if you charge 3% vs. 12%) - What are comparable services charging for substitutes/competitive offerings? I will just add that there is no formulaic way to determine pricing strategies (curated vs. open), and it's a lot more about what's the comparable and what the value delivered is. That's how I approached the question while deciding the business model at ProBueno.com (my startup)

Exciting stuff! I see a few questions here: 1. When is the right time to look for seed funding? 2. How do I appropriately talk to angel investors about said funding? As for the first question, consider what your goals are and whether this funding can help you achieve those goals. Hopefully, one of those goals is to step out of your full time job and concentrate on this project full-time. It's perfectly acceptable to be doing this on the side, however, you'll find it VERY difficult to get any sort of funding unless your plan is to "quit your day job" the minute you accept your first bit of funding. If you think some amount of seed funding will help you accomplish your goals short term (perhaps getting to prove out product-market-fit and position yourself to scale), then I would say that you're ready to begin talking to investors when you're able to articulate what your business is, your plan for getting to product-market-fit, AND you can visually show them something. Whether this is your MVP or a visual demo of some sort -- be at a point where you can *show* them your product. In terms of how to position yourself to potential angel investors: I'd specifically seek out people in your area that have something to add aside from just money. Angel investors invest money, yes -- but they also invest their time, knowledge, and connections. At this stage, you need this just as much as the money (whether you realize it or not). Position the meeting as "getting feedback." Meet with as many people that fit this mold as possible. You'll start to get a sense -- very quickly -- for who is a real potential angel investor for you, and who is not. I'm happy to talk things through with you more, if needed. I hope that some of this helps...

I am assuming your question is more pertaining to empowering and motivating (rather than hiring). I can outline some of the practices I have seen really result in high motivation and sense of ownership among engineering teams: * Empathize - Your engineering team will work well and be more motivated if they see you as one of them rather than a person who doesn't understand their function. Show your geeky side to them, and show that you understand their thought process and drivers. * Pick their brain on big and small decisions (roadmap, usability, whatever it is) - Product teams value being heard. The more you position yourself as someone who is WANTS to listen, is keen to have their inputs, you will be surprised at how involved they can get, and also how you can actually tap into a lot of smart ideas/thoughts from them that you can develop on. * Take care to explain - show how you arrive at decisions. Share your research, competitive analysis, and even your thought process on arriving at a feature set or list of things for a release. Its stuff you would have worked on anyway - so no harm sharing with more eyes! * Share customer feedback - nothing motivates your engineers than a positive interaction with a customer. Get them to see customer feedback. Have them sit in and observe some of the usability studies. (B2B - have them see you do some demos or do a successful sales pitch) * Send out interesting articles, insights, business and tech articles with your comments/highlights to them on a regular basis (maybe twice a week?) - maybe even some analysis you did on competition or customer feedback * Engineers like working with people they feel are competent and complement the work they are doing to build a great product. So make sure they see how everyone else around them is also doing a good job and adding value and contributing to the success of the product. * Be transparent about the product/business - Make them feel they are responsible and involved in the business, not just technology. I've seen engineering teams happy about their annual goals having components relating to making revenues, keeping customers happy, or reducing costs. If they are enthused about the business as a whole, they will be more motivated with their engineering efforts * Have a mix of little experiments, R&D, attending to engineering debt, in addition to bug fixes and new features that each engineer gets to spend some time on (based on their interest) * Finally get to know each of your engineers personally, and be aware of what their priorities are. Each of us has different motivations in life, so there is no silver bullet to motivate people. When they know you care for them, they are more motivated :).

If you wanted to get creative about things and keep your costs down try this. Dropbox business for $795 a year / unlimited storage "Embed from Dropbox The second option requires at least a basic understanding of how HTML embed codes work. It’s not complicated, so don’t be scared off, but it’s also not copy and pasting an embed code from YouTube. You’re essentially creating your own embed code. You start with the following HTML5 code as a template: <video width="320" height="240" controls="controls"> <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> </video> Now, follow the steps above on getting the link to the video. Then, where you see “movie.mp4,” you’ll want to replace this with that link. For example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/os60r63ogwfl408/your_video_here.mp4. Next, you’ll want to adjust your width & height. You’ll want to use dimensions that best fit within your site. I use this handy little chart to help me figure out the best size to ensure maximum size compatibility. When you’re all done, your embed code should look something like this: <video width="512" height="288" controls="controls"> <source src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/os60r63ogwfl408/your_video_here.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> </video>" referenced here http://www.lockergnome.com/media/2012/06/26/how-use-dropbox-host-stream-videos/

Since you mention that you have achieved "amazing results", I am assuming that you have some sort of a prototype to show to an angel/seed investor. Also, the fact that you managed to get a government grant (which I assume you didn't have to give up any equity for) is a good thing and shows creativity on your part. That along with a well-crafted pitch about your vision for the product and the reality of the specific problem you are trying to solve might be good enough to start having conversations with some angel/seed investors. Assuming you get some initial commitments, you could then open up a public funding solicitation on AngelList. Please do consult your corporate lawyer for specific do's and don'ts of process of public solicitation. Also, you can try to limit the portion of this $500K going towards founders' salaries by keeping those at a bare minimum. Finally, you'll also need to think carefully about the amount you want to raise. Will this $500K be enough to take you to your series A? Happy to brainstorm more or provide feedback on your pitch deck.

The sports space is certainly crowded, but the size of the market creates plenty of opportunity. This is not a zero sum game. The key to differentiation in a crowded space, is focusing on what it is that makes your product/brand unique? Do you have a story that is compelling? Has your product increased strength by X%, or saved lives, or fill a specific need within an interesting space. Some great new products to review, that have entered into the space recently would be: http://rocktape.com/ http://www.evoshield.com/ http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm What you'll see, is that they have crafted their brand message to get to the core of the user experience. Find your story - one that resonates with your target users. Then tell it loudly!

As your targets are SME companies with 3 or more developers you can use LinkedIn premium search for finding the list of top executives of the companies and send them in-mails for partnership! Another great source for you could be outsourcing websites where US development companies are represented and do testing for their clients periodically for various projects! Please call for more detailed information of the best B2B sources for you! I have got also some availability to the actual lead generation job for you with a reasonable hourly rate. I have been working as a sales manager in this industry for over 4 years and have got large databases of B2B clients that you will be interested in!

Reviews are a powerful capability that gives credibility for transparency. You also have to be prepared for those open conversations - as you know from referencing those three sites. This means committing to authenticity (as cooked reviews are a major mistake some have attempted) and navigating the appropriate moderation of reviews. It really is driven by what your B2B goals are on your business site. Some sites have handled building credibility through questions and answers (i.e. Quora, LinkedIn, et al). There you can allow users to rate answers - and also allow for flagging of those that don't pass the genuine test. I call it the Amazon effect (others use eBay) as they were among the first to offer reviews on a massive scale. It is powerful and influences decision making, purchasing and attitude toward products, services or even the site itself. Having designed policies for social communications, customer service communications and more in B2B environments - I've seen reviews work well and not so well. It can be done - but requires judicious planning for rules of moderation and engagement, and for how readers of reviews can reward or flag them. I'd be glad to hold a follow up on this and talk through those elements.

Not sure I fully understand the question. Q & A's you mean tips/tricks/FAQS? Or do you mean QA like quality assurance testing?

(built Spheric / 30+ person consultancy / sold in 4 years) I'm going to assume you're thinking of starting a service company vs. a product company (even though most service companies do have ambitions of some day having a product, it's best to stay focused on this for now - they are totally different business models.) The truth is, if you time things right - you can leverage new consulting agreements to help jump start revenues and pay yourself from that. You don't need 24 months of capital, maybe 4 at most. Just be sure to negotiate fast payment terms with your clients (invoice weekly, net 0, wire transfer) - that should help reduce your risk. If you feel you need 24 months, then you probably don't have the risk profile to build a company - no entrepreneur I know ever had that much or even have that now as they scale. As for % division in the company - it all comes down to risk. If everyone's going to contribute evenly to building, growing and managing the business - then spit it evenly using a vesting period (4 years, 1 year cliff, monthly vest). That way if anyone doesn't work out, and leaves within the first year - then they don't get anything. This is very standard. As for the valuation of the company, it's essentially $1 until you have someone willing to buy some equity/shares for more than $1 dollar. Again, I'm assuming a service company (not product). Everything above needs to be revisited if you're looking to raise equity funding. Overall, the best financing is customer financing - trying to lock in long term (retainer) contracts with 2-3 customers before you jump ship is the best way to proceed. As for equity, keep it simple .. for now, just start the company yourself and convince others to start/join and see how it goes for 3-4 months before you do anything legal. Many people won't last and it'll save you a bunch of legal money. Just do contract initially for everything. If they can sell, give em' 10% of the profit per deal up to 6 months. Again, keep it simple. Hope that helps. Always up for a call if need be.

Cross-functional, proactive, user focused: you do not want somebody who will stop if he does not have a wireframe to work from or who will not plan for common error messages just because that was not in the specs that were given to him. You need someone who loves the product you are building and not just someone who can write good code.

I've spent lots of time in Romania, though Cluj is one of the few cities I have not yet been to. I am not sure if the intended conference audience is international or meant to be residents of Cluj (though for my answer I'm assuming the former). I do not have a specific name for you, but I would suggest to not limit name choices to necessarily require Cluj-Napoca or Transylvania. The conference itself and its location can help establish and showcase innovation in Cluj. Think of 10 popular tech conferences. Do any of them have the city name as part of the conference name? The city would always be listed right near the title, so anyone who hears about the conference will know where it is. It's fine to include the city, but if you keep your options open it may be easier to come up with a name. Hope this helps.

Try an infographic but if budget/skillset doesn't allow use a word doc and create a pdf. Whatever you do keep it short and sweet and a better suggestion is to use the body of an email for the actual pitch and the attachment/one pager or close too with supplemental info. No one likes reading and this is just an opener so they get a feel - you can answer detailed questions in a call/meeting

I have been in a similar situation with a client recently: a startup with a compelling software solution that needs a large partner to develop and bring it the market. We have done a partner selection together where we looked at strategy, value proposition for all parties (what is the win/win/win?) and evaluated the partners based on 18 criteria. The outcome was an eye opener and led to a great partnership. Partner selection is the most important foundation for your future partnership, don't do it too lightly! The 3-way value proposition is essential for both partners to be of interest. There needs to be real benefit for both partners and for the end customer in the partnership. Based on what you write I can not judge yet if a barter deal is bringing sufficient benefits. Also do a solid assessment of your partner, beyond just the skills assessment. We can go more in-depth in a call if you like.

I work with a lot of startups as an advisor or thru 500S. Figure out what the biggest value offering for your idea is, create the simplest product that only achieves that big value and nothing else (if this means you don't write code, then great). Get out into the real world and start actually charging people for that service. Example is Instacart (3 hours or less grocery delivery on demand) when they were starting out (I imagine in a similar stage as you right now), went around shopping groceries and delivering it and charging customers via Square. Most importantly, the reason you want to do this is to find out or realize that either there are a meaningful amount of people who will definitely pay for your service at which point you develop on custdev and product dev further or there aren't enough and you drop and move on.

If you simply aggregating information than I don't see any issues with copyright. But, I would seek permission from the brokers/website owners to make sure business is protected. It doesn't hurt asking for permission, and if it directly benefits them to get leads/sales than none of them will say no.

sounds like you don't trust whoever you spoke with - go with your gut and move along. You need great lawyers and accountants behind you but there are plenty out there that don't remotely get canadian start up land. The answer to your question is they are trying to understand your setup and those questions are totally fair game as its all related to tax etc.

My experience with the different aspects of confidentiality ranges from military/government, through corporate R&D (at IBM Research) and as an executive in the private sector (as CEO and founder of a tech company). Of course, if the disclosure of any details could do harm for anyone outside yourself or your organization (as is the case in government applications) - then the information should not be disclosed. If the information is an idea, my experience has been that people are too worried about sharing ideas. I've had many situations where I disclosed the details of my idea in full, to people who have the resources to compete with it against me if they wanted, and I have never had anyone do that. To make an idea reality you have a thorough mental image in your mind of what the final product would look like, and chances are only you have that image at the necessary level of detail. Regarding specific product information (when it is not publicly available) or quantitative business data (like forecasts): I have always been very careful with those, and only disclosed after signing an NDA. I also viewed the disclosure as a point of no return in the relationship, and assessed how much I personally trust the person I share the information with. I'd be glad to chat further and provide more input based on the specifics of your debate. -- Ran

I would say don't let the revenue be your deciding factor. Build the idea that you enjoy the most. If you'd really like to try both then go for it. Just be careful to validate your SaaS business idea early and often, as it can easily become a much more complex project than what it sounds like you've put together on the AppStore. Also, something critical to keep in mind here is how you will obtain customers. You mention that the market for this app isn't very used to working with online tools, how will they find you? A benefit of the AppStore is that it can provide a lot of the traffic on its own. With a SaaS app you need to generate traffic yourself.

I asked this question to Keith Rabois (ex-PayPal) once and he said it best "it's because we were started in a downturn economy, and it allowed us to hire great people who otherwise would've been starting their own company, so that meant we had the highest IQ per sq/ft than any other company in the valley". So I think it's great timing, idea, initial team and luck.