1. Do you use such services? If so, what do you choose? I used UserTesting in the past. 2. How you choose it? I used it to test new feature ideas and to refine existing UX. 3. What was the main problem of using such services? It got kind of expensive for us (we were a startup) and sometimes the users were not as targeted as we wanted (especially when we were testing b2b stuff). 4. If you didn't use it, tell me please why? 5. Will you use such services in future? I now work at a large company so probably not since we have researchers on the team who do their own recruiting and testing. That said, I find the insights from DIY things like userTesting to be good enough especially if you've done testing before and have some experience with user studies and UX design or product management.

I would be shocked if a company of that size didn't patent a ton of things that involve their Kindle business -- paperwhite is a big selling point to them so if they didn't patent it originally, I'd expect that to have bought it or licensed it from whoever did.

You can do whatever is mutually agreed to by all the affected parties. That said, in general you want to keep things simple, standard, and nothing too exotic. Of course, if your usage and revenue numbers are doubling every month, investors will be a lot more flexible and just happy to get a seat on the rocket ship.

Cool idea. Biggest question is market size. I presume the furniture market is big -- the question will be how many people will shazam furniture and what kind of revenue could you generate from those purchases? Maybe the broader opportunity is to shazam any product you can buy...

1. Make sure you share similar values and complementary motivations for starting the business. 2. Identify your respective strengths, weaknesses, and interests. 3. Be open and honest with each other, always -- especially when it's uncomfortable. 4. Get some wins together. Accomplish some key tasks or objectives as a team. 5. Have a defined process for how to make decisions when you don't agree. e.g. certain decisions are handled by one, others require unanimity, others require input from both but the tie breaker is...

I'd consider finding some middle ground. Be careful of SEM farm agencies where it's a bit more of a factory atmosphere. That said, your current gig doesn't seem to be challenging you. So I'd consider a change but I'd be more picky about where you go so you can find an environment where you can learn but also be happy.