In my experience a technical co-founder's primary responsibilities are to be a visionary first, a hacker second and a manager third. first you recruit a tech co-founder to help visioneer what your product can, will and should do. then you have them support the one key part of the development process (prioritizing around the area of the technology with complexities or is part of your secret sauce) and then that person also manages whatever internal or external developers/technicians that are needed to launch or sale the product. Personally I think the evolution of the IT support model is better positioned as an "AND" play - meaning you find a competent technical partner that is cost accessible, scalable and reliable in terms of experience with similar startups and products. From there you continually look for a good fit CTO/tech co-founder and if you discover them early that is excellent, but do not force the issue (it is easier to scale down or replace a third party vendor, an equity holder not so much.) Over the last 12 years my firm has helped 300+ entrepreneurs over thousands of projects plan, build, launch and scale their applications (all told raising about $700M in venture financing). So I've seen pretty much ever permutation of co-founder/CTO/product manager you can imagine in the startup space through the lens of my software development company. So if you'd like to connect and chat about how best to plan out the road ahead feel free to reach out.

Map the industry down to individual level. Talk. Verify your idea. Have a good pitch ready. Regarding documents: 1. webpage with clear UVP and CTA 2. one liner for the "aha" moment 3. one pager pitch - number focussed. 4. three pager pitch - if the one pager was interesting. 5. blog posts, long content for people to dive in.

You have to create a sorto of demo or a video of how it works, and give a free trial. Then use facebook ads, or adwords, or native ads to do lead generation in order to acquire your potential customers. Use the leads generated by exporting them in facebook ads to create a lookalike audience to reinforce the lead generation strategies. Give to this lead in exchange of their mail a trial of your product, and then with DAILY EMAILS pith che product by showing how this is suitable to their needs, ASK THEM QUESTIONS through a survey and create different funnels depend on the answers they give.

I would absolutely suggest a content-focused marketing strategy. development of white papers, blogs and other SEO-rich materials which are actively managed and cultivated will pay dividends over the long haul along with any offline or other activities you want to consider. A lot of people hesitate to go down the content marketing route because of cost, but there are several "accessible" options as far as rates out there. Start first with having a technology partner do research into your competitive space, make suggestions on phrases/keywords to target, then create a framework and timeline for rolling out this content and how best to deliver it. My firm launches these quick sprint portal/framework engagements all the time and they dont have to break the bank in my experience. FWIW I would avoid Medium and stick with your own custom branded theme. establish your brand as the expert and have your own portal to engage potential clients (plus you can control your conversion funnel much easier that way with cool add-ons like IM chat, email submissions, newsletter signups etc.) There are a few other intermediary strategies likely worth considering as well (targeting connectors or people who are also targeting this group but are not directly competing, like say attorneys who specialize in international corporation formations, or accountants perhaps.) There are opportunities like that which would certainly be good to look into.

After founding one company on my own, and co-founding several others with teams, I've written and spoken extensively on this topic - it's an under-recognized risk and challenge of entrepreneurship. You can read one of my more popular articles at http://lp.co/perspective, but I'll summarize it here... Entrepreneurship can be a very lonely endeavor. Even when you have others on your team, no one else is in quite the same "boat" that you are. Looking to other entrepreneurs for support can be deceptive. Most entrepreneurs are always "on" - showing only the best side of their business - and it's easy to understand why. As an entrepreneur, you're constantly selling yourself and your company to potential customers, employees, and investors. As a result, you compare yourself with others who are only showing their best side (and only sharing the good news), while you know that your own pursuit is a daily struggle. Raising money (if you are going that route) is an exercise in perpetual rejection. It's a real test of your self confidence to be told over and over why your idea won't work and isn't worth an investment. If you're not raising money, you may deal with this same challenge when trying to find your initial customers or employees. I've found three primary ways to counteract these forces and stabilize my own perspective: 1. Find some peer entrepreneurs with whom you can build some truly deep and transparent relationships, where the masks come off. Share your insecurities and vulnerabilities with them, and allow them to do the same. 2. Find mentors, advisors, and coaches who have experienced the same ups-and-downs you are facing. Listen to their stories, soak up their wisdom, and most of all, realize and remind yourself that they survived it, and so can you. 3. Recalibrate your perspective by taking time off to help others who are less fortunate than you are. Volunteer with an organization that supports a cause that you care about. The side effect of focusing on others is that you will be reminded that the challenges you are facing are not the worst problems in the world.

There are a lot of options out there for you to explore when launching your new eCommerce site (ranging from utilizing an open source/self-guided platform to hiring an agency to build a completely custom web experience.) But before you think of the "how", make sure and be spend a considerable amount of time around the "whos" and "whats" of your new eCommerce business. The type of platform, plugins (including dropshipping) and tools you need to be aligned before launching your new store largely depends on the type of product or service you are selling and who are you planning to sell it to. My company has helped launch hundreds of new ecommerce/marketing sites over last 12 years and without fail businesses who strategically and in a detailed fashion map out who their target market is (and calibrate the front end of their eCommerce platform accordingly) as well as think through the nuances of their production/manufacturing/supply cycle (and have their back office tools be congruent with those nuances) are far more likely to succeed. So in order to answer which plugs and which platform/agency i would start with a detailed laying out of all the factors that impact your business specifically and begin to work your way back to start answering some of those questions. With the entrepreneurs/site owners I work with there is a list of questions you can go through and answer as a starting point, but they most resolve around the areas you'd imagine (target market, growth goals, whether or not there is an existing business attached to it, offline sales, digital and content marketing needs, budget/timeline etc.) Best of luck and feel free to reach out if you'd like to discuss any items in greater detail!

What you're talking about is starting a business with the first customer already identified. You could even make the sale and sign a contract before you start. This is a great way to reduce the risk in doing something new. For added advantage, see what you might do to recycle the systems and efforts created for this business to the benefit of other clients. Then you get something that can really grow. If you'd like to brainstorm, set up a call. Dave

One of the tried and true methods for finding a winning idea boils down to finding a common problem and providing or building a solution for it. Step 1: Find a specific demographic of people/businesses. (Ex: Accounting Firms in Chicago, Sushi Restaurants in California, Small Advertising Firms in Nebraska). Step 2: Conduct 20-50-100 short interviews with willing people who fall within that demographic. Ask them a standard set of questions involving their day-to-day operations, their challenges, their roadblock/bottlenecks etc. Step 3: Ask if they'd be open to you coming back to them a few weeks with some ideas on saving time/money or solving those problems. Step 4: Find the most common problems, and decide on one, or a small subset of them to tackle. Optimize a solution, then return to those people you've interviewed with a proposed solution. Step 5: Give them a timeline for when you can have a first demo/MVP (minimum viable product) by. Once you have this, have them commit to 3 months of your service and see how it goes. Step 6: Prepare the roll-out, and build out full functionality now that you have the money to do it with.

The best step is to look at things in your everyday life, and figure out what are the pain points, or what can run smoother. Your best chance to get a business idea isn't from something that you know nothing about (for instance, I'm sure there are great ideas to start businesses in aircraft production, but I know nothing about that industry, so I wouldn't know). What's going on in your world that seems like it could be easier? Think about everything you do on a daily basis and look for improvements. Then think through your head what those might look like. If you'd like to chat through this process, let me know!

The entire point of an expert network is to have the best and brightest answer industry specific, or even company specific related issues. A standardized platform with canned answers may be useful for cursory topics. However, the customers who pay for experts from the expert network community want very detailed information that cannot simply be produced by a streamlined response.

Use Facebook insight. There is a feature in facebook that you can use to identify your potential customer and i'm revealing you a simple trick. Choose a 'public figure' of your niche: as an example if you are a personal trainer you can choose a very known name, then go to facebook insight, in the business manager, and put the name of him. If it's very well known, probably he has a fan page or something, so Facebook will display you the identikit of the people interested. They go VERY IN DEEP: you can see how much they earn, what is the average family, where they live etc Write down these datas. You can use it further also for paid ads.

Would rather suggest you focus on current buyers and either table a deal you expect to them or walk away and then solicit other bids...See two prev messages re soliciting bids.

Surprised PPC wasn't good. What did you try and how long? Did you use things the target market already likes, such as magazines or public figures, as a starting point? One of the most powerful things you can concentrate on as a marketer is bringing around the prospect to your point of view. I do a lot of this with my clients: the prospect arrives with curiosity but does not know what "the thing" is, why it matters, or how they could use it. An educational course entertains and explains, and often gets used as a revenue generator. The product/service is positioned as essential to the prospect. Then the offer is made. Much better conversion rates. Articles and ebooks require people to read. Many don't like reading (I do, but I'm in the minority.) What are you doing with video as a marketing tool? Have you asked in your group what the members would say if explaining the idea to a friend? What the biggest problem it solves for them is? Getting the target market to explain in their own words what's up...and then using those exact same words in your copy...works wonders on marketing material. Unfortunately, most business owners and product creators have The Curse of Knowledge and believe the reasons *they* would use or buy the thing are the reasons everyone else would. Not the case.

Without knowing what you're doing, it is hard to tell you how to improve it. Discounting SEO strategy and PPC because of low search volumes is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, likely, *someone* is searching for your services (otherwise, perhaps it is time to consider a new service). If the market is enough to justify your entire business plan, there is enough to justify a targeted marketing plan. I'm happy to discuss the details and learn more of what you have done, and are doing now, to attract traffic - then offer suggestions on how to improve. All the best, -Shaun

In general, your database has value. Probably very little, but value, nonetheless. It would have considerably more value if you revived it and were able to prove that you had a viable business and active user base. While there are investors who buy dormant businesses, you'll find a much larger buyer pool if you have a turnkey business. All the best, -Shaun

Finding a coach is easy - there are many of them out there. Finding the right coach is the challenge. There are several factors to consider: Working with a coach that has similar experience in their background is not absolutely necessary, but can be very valuable. Having someone that can truly understand what you're trying to accomplish, and can empathize with the challenges you face, will help smooth communication. Coaching skills are equally important, though. Many experienced business people position themselves as "coaches", but they aren't actually very skilled at coaching - they're more likely to tell you what *they* would do, rather than truly help you dig deep and find the right answer for yourself. The result is that you end up pursuing your version of someone else's goal, or someone else's version of your goal. Neither is totally fulfilling. "Fit" is also really important. Personality, communication style, sense of humor... - these all factor in to the quality of a coaching relationship, and are very personal and unique to each coach. Take the time to meet several potential coaches and see who you connect with. Also, don't ever feel bad about saying "this just isn't working". I used to be very skeptical of coaching as a profession, for a number of reasons. Once I found the right coach, though, the experience was transformational for me, and pivotal to my success as an entrepreneur. I'd be happy to have a conversation to determine if there's a "fit". I work with dozens of entrepreneurs, having been one myself for over 12 years. I'm not right for everyone, though. You have to make that determination for yourself.

Unless you are trying to rank for /"country"/, it does not matter for search engine optimization purposes. If you are using a CMS like WordPress, you can actually edit these categories and tags in bulk. It would take approximately 2 minutes. All the best, -Shaun

Through defining that niche community, testing variations of wording that would speak to problems/benefits you can either solve or provide and running said wording as ads with clear selection variables (ie age etc)

One way to do this would be to BUY emails from a B2B database service such as Adenzo. There are also FREE alternatives such as ContactCloud (formerly Elucify) which give you up to 100 free emails a week before asking you to pay for more. Otherwise, LINKEDIN is a fantastic (free) source of emails as it is home to over 500 million professionals (many of whom are B2B decision makers) and they often put their contact details on their profile. You could either get the emails MANUALLY (by searching for a contact, going on their page, copying & pasting down their email when you find it) as many times as you need to to build a decent-sized mailing list. OR, you could do this with Linkedin AUTOMATION tools which will automatically visits hundreds of pages a day and retrieve the contact emails. If you need help with this, please do set up a call with me via Clarity.fm to talk further about mining contact emails from Linkedin with automation. Jonny Rose Linkedin Coach (Win At LinkedIn)

Having been working with and advising companies on how to get great customer feedback for many years, I have a couple of ideas you could try. One of the key assets you have is your customer list. You already have permission to approach them, I assume, so reach out to some to start a dialogue. If you are able to segment them by sales, you can approach your great, repeat, customers with a simple question such as "What is it that you and your dog like most about our brand?" and "Are there items you are looking for that you haven't seen in my shop? If so, what?" or "What were you looking for the first time you found us?" Don't blast them to everyone, don't "survey" them, just ask the occasional probing question to try and understand what the "job" was they were looking to do when they engaged with you. Another possible idea is a have a monthly contest where you ask a question in your newsletter and enter anyone answering into a draw for a small prize. Then publicize some of the best answers and give a shout-out to the winner in the next newsletter. At the end of the day, you want to simply start a conversation with your customers, so you can listen and react to what they have to say. There's only so much to cover in this forum, so please let me know if you have any questions. Steve

I'd recommend talking to a business consultant or coach, preferably someone with experience in your industry. As someone outside your industry, I would recommend that you think more about how you can consolidate into fewer brands. Managing five brands means splitting your resources, time and money to the point where, as you yourself have said, no single brand is able to shine. My advice to you would be to decide which brand has the best opportunity to stand out and consider focusing your efforts on that one brand. If you want to talk further, feel free to contact me.

As an Accountability Coaching for over 15 years I realize this is the most ask question of most startups. It truly depends, on if its mindset or resources related problem with the efficient of your business. The basic keys to managing a business more accurately is a commitment to time management and delegation. You must utilize today's latest business productivity tools such as CRM and project management system to hold you accountable for your day-to-day actions. You must create monthly, weekly and more importantly daily goals in all areas of your business. If you need any assistance with discovering resources or creating a define strategy plan towards your growth connected with me. Hopefully the information I provided, can help!

I cannot tell if you are asking a legitimate question or have stuffed a poorly-constructed answer in the question to attempt to influence website traffic. Regardless, since barbering is a geo-limited profession - meaning you would not seek out licensed barbers in Seattle if your salon was in Denver - you are best to search local barber academies. Social media is also ripe for finding talent, as many professions have dedicated groups on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. All the best, -Shaun

Since Shaun's answer accurately addresses the main question, I am going to address this in a slightly non-technical, business-strategy way that does not deal directly with SEO rankings. As a business, the blog is really to get people to learn about you, your e-commerce store, and your products. I'd suggest that you consider a self-hosting account on Medium so that you get the best of both worlds - your blog becomes more discoverable due to Medium's extensive network and you still have a custom domain name (blog.domain.com). This may or may not fit in into SEO wisdom, but works very well from a business perspective. I'm not sure how your affiliate marketing attribution is done, but I don't imagine that will be impacted whether you use Medium, Wordpress, or a simple HTML page to power your blog. I've seen more and more companies move away from running after rankings through technical SEO manipulation. As long as your content is relevant to the audience coming to your website and they spend more and more time on your website, your ranking will continue to improve. Any short-term "hack" you make to improve rankings outside of content will be short-lived. So do you what you'd do normally to get more business for your business.

I am sorry you've had difficulty finding a reputable designer. As with any industry, there are good and bad players. Fortunately, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of skilled, ethical, and reliable developers out there. You just need to go where they hang out. When you say, "none are able to deliver," what do you mean? I would guess that you've put your request out there on a few freelance sites and worked with the first person to respond - since you do not have the background and experience to know what to ask for, they do exactly what you ask and nothing more. They don't dig for what you really want and you don't know what you're asking for (in their terms). Generally speaking, the high-quality developers are not hanging out on Freelancer.com, they have simply built a business outside of that platform. Freelance sites like that are good for establishing a portfolio of work to then win bigger, more reliable projects. Those who spend their entire career there are generally "pump and dump" - meaning they work on volume; quickly turning projects with low margins. You need a developer who will help you define the entire project, ask questions, challenge your 'why', and be able to describe why something will or will not work. This comes at a cost. To find reputable developers, look at reputable platforms: LinkedIn and Clarity, for example. Reach out to a few of them with a general idea of what you are looking for. They will likely charge you a flat rate for a discovery call - do this. The questions they ask will benefit you just as much as they help the developer. At this point, you're each seeing if it is a good fit. If not, move on. If it is, you have a sense of how they work, their methods, and their skill level. I have a few developers that I would recommend you call - out of respect for the community, I will not share their contact information publicly. Drop me a private message or schedule a call on Clarity and we can discuss further. All the best, -Shaun P.S. I spent a number of years on the design/developer side before transitioning to consulting. If you want to learn more about what to ask, what to expect, and how to protect yourself, schedule a call.