Stop trying to "convince" people. You know, there is power in the testimony. A lot of startup companies use friends and family to test out the product and service and to help spread the word. If there is any way to offer a trial of your service, you might give that a go as well. Work to build several testimonies of folks who have worked with you and encourage them to tell others about what you are doing. Do you have a website? Do you use facebook? Those two areas would be good starters. A site would allow people to get better educated on what you offer, and facebook, in something like this, would be a good tool for word to travel around, especially, if people could put a video or two about their trip. John

Coming from the fashion industry and being connected with so many photographers I know that can be tough! There's no reason you can't make this work. I'd love to hear more about your market and would refer you to Lauren Devon (photography consultant) on monetizing your photography niche. One of my favorite sayings: "niche until it hurts"

Hi, I have worked with, interviewed, and sold to extremely successful people following a few simple principles. It can be scary, but preparation will help you manage the fear. Here are my thoughts: First, consider why you want to work for him. How will you benefit from a job with him? Don't assume that it is a good fit for you just because he is a billionaire. Are you doing it just because you need income? Or do you want mentorship? Get really clear on why this would be good for you. Once you are convinced that this is a good fit for you, think about why it would be valuable to him. Why would working for him be a mutually beneficial situation? Are there any gaps in his business that you would be able to fill? Do you see an area that would be improved if you were working on it for him? Once you have determined that working together would be a good situation for both of you, then ask for a phone or video chat meeting. From here, you want to have some quality questions for him that both demonstrate your expertise and help you confirm it is a good fit. One last piece of advice: The purpose of your meeting with him is not to convince him to hire you, it is to find out if it is a good fit for both of you. This mindset will help you make a decision together instead of you being at his mercy. If you would like extra help with the specifics, I would be happy to have a call with you. I have done this many times, and I know that it can be intimidating. Let me know if I can help in any way.

Hi there! I do work with some Indian clients, advising them on growth strategies and communication plans. While finance is not my expertise, I keep an eye on the uneasy tension between FDI, Indian companies and Government authorities. As of now the word is that crowd funding in India is a grey market, with SEBI not clarifying the regulations as of yet. This has not stopped moviemakers and startups from raising funds, especially from sources based outside of India. As of now, the cautious approach is that the India-based "crowd" of your crowd funding must be institutional or at least registered with SEBI. Happy to discuss more if you'd like!

Did you try http://leananalyticsbook.com/ ? Lean analytics is pretty much a tailored, evolving, improving and living artifact . It needs to be tailored as per your business needs, priorities, stage in business etc.. E.g A validation stage startup and a growth stage needs completely different analytics and metrics. Two startups in same industry and same business may need separate analytics if the funding methods are different .. bootstrap vs angel.. See... so if you can be a little more specific, I can be a little more specific... :-) Good luck ,,,

Social media is a good way to spread the word, but first you need to make sure you're delivering solid content and that search engines see you as an authority. The majority of new traffic to a site comes from Google and Bing. Sign up for Google Webmaster and from there you'll be able to see if you're getting indexed and what keywords people are using to find your blog. You may be surprised to find that you're not attracting the audience you think you're attracting. Good and consistent content is key.

Coming from the buy-side, I'm sure I have a different spin than those sales & marketing gurus who I'm sure will be keen to help you & comment shortly. You're lucky because there are SO many avenues these days. However it is hard to keep on top of them all and there's no one stop shop currently. Having worked in the public sector, I can help provide you with some of their advertised opportunity / tender sites. These tend to be very high value & very competitive but they also are well advertised in advance (unlike the private sector). There's also a few private sector customer/supplier portals around in recent years which link people together to obtain/provide this expertise. I'll be happy to point you in the right direction of some I've used & discovered on a call, if you wish. To find individual projects I might also suggest starting with freelancing sites like Upwork (recently rebranded from oDesk), Freelancer, Elance, Toptotal (for developers), Crew, Get A Coder etc. Whilst they tend to be more bespoke, they're getting more prominently used by larger companies now.

Alibaba.com - great resource with price ranges and minimum orders shown. If you know what you are doing you can usually negotiate to the terms that you desire with the prospective supplier. Let me know if you want to jump on a call and find the right supplier together.

I have built multiple teams including bringing on cofounders, and being brought on as a cofounder. I also once brought on a cofounder who was responsible for doing the legal/financial/accounting. I wouldn’t do that again (we’re still great friends - just not enough value). I hope my experience can help you out. Having a cofounder is like having a business spouse. Accordingly, much of the same aspects of relationship building apply, including the pitch and the subsequent “dating.” As you move forward in your relationship, your goal should be removing as much ambiguity as possible, as quickly as possible. A business litigator friend of mine used to say that 99% of breakdowns in partnerships occur because the relationship developed a high tolerance for ambiguity. 1. What you focus on in your first meeting depends on whether or not that person has been a cofounder and/or part of a startup in the past. If they have, they will likely want to start poking holes as quickly as possible, allowing you to be more granular in your discussion. If they haven't, you'll probably stay higher level at first. Both are fine, just be prepared for both scenarios. 2. You have to capture people's imagination with energy and a great story right off the bat. I have made the mistake of ‘just presenting the facts’ in our first meeting, and that generally doesn't go as well. You have to be honest, but you need people to get excited when pitching before they're able and willing to process the details and logic. This is so very important. Don’t overdo it, be humble and point out your gaps, but be excited! 3. The more you can show progress the better. After you capture the imagination, if you can show off the goods that's ideal. This helps them catch the vision, and it also helps them know you’re not full of it and could pull this off =) 4. Take your time. Don't ask them to cofound things on day one. Just like dating, just keep getting to know each other if things continue to progress positively. 5. Help them see where they fit, and define a clear path to on-boarding. By doing this, you’re removing ambiguity and risk, which helps them process the important things. At minimum, this includes 1) discussing ownership, and 2) defining a trial run. 1) Even if you just say, “I’ll take 60% you take 40% and we’ll dilute equally” and put that in writing, that’s a good start. Don’t wait on that. 2) Then, define a specific period of time that you'll test working together. Put a date on the calendar to address whether or not you work well together, and then be honest about it. Ok…I have lots more to say (clearly) on partnership; but to your other questions: You can grab templates for much of the more lightweight financial stuff. And/or, partner with a company who does these services vs. bringing on a cofounder who does “the business.” A great cofounder needs to be able to dabble across the business. If they’re a lawyer who can also do UX, marketing, customer service, etc. that’s great! Bring them on. But, that person is rare in my experience. A more CFO/accountant/legal type of person may be more of a post-funding/growth hire than a cofounder. So, I generally prefer to pay a one-time fee to get incorporated, get my books set up, and get my financial modeling done rather than take the risk of losing equity on someone who might not add enough value early on. I work with some partners who do this if you’d like more info. Lastly, I have only ever found/been found via word of mouth. I have seen some sites who are geared towards helping find a cofounder, but I haven’t used them or had success when trying to find people online. I’m sure some others will have a different opinion, so hopefully you can get some more advice from other Clarity members. Let me know if you’d like to chat more. I hope that helps!

I've been through this with a lot of clients and there is a very simple answer: Essentially you are always ready. Iterating and validating go hand in hand. You can almost turn this on its head and ask "When should I stop validating and continue iterating?" Iterating without validation is a risk because you are working in isolation and don't know whether your assumptions are correct. So validation should be built in as part of each and every iteration. That includes pre-MVP, when your startup is still just an idea in your head. In the early days that might mean discussing design drafts over coffee, in the later stages that might mean looking at analytics results and A/B tests. Think of it as a continuous, ongoing process, a conversation with your target market, rather than a stop/go affair where you disappear into your office for a few weeks and then re-emerge, ready to validate. Each stage continues until you start to hear the same answers and are not learning anything new. Then it's time to ask new questions and for that you most likely need to move on in your product development cycle. It would be great to hear more about your product, feel free to get in touch. Best of luck - Nils

Compatibility with your vision? Does 1+ 1= 3 or even 5? Personality mix? If you are going to stay with the acquired entity. These might be more important than any of the numbers.

Before staring your Animation Studio, you need to be sure that you will have clients/buyers. Everything starts from a test. You cannot just create a Studio and think that you will be successful. You need to test everything before starting. Here is a short business plan: Find your niche - find out who will be your clients? Small Business? Advertisers? Media? ..... who will be your audience. After you found out who is your clients - you will start a survey - Go to LInkedin and start messaging Business Owners and ask them - (Example of message: Hi, we want to build a great animation studio - but we need your imput. Will your website require animation in the next months? How much will you pay? .......). After you had received around at least 100 replies, start creating a landing page prototype. The landing page should contain an overview of animation - what you do, how much will cost and ask users to sign up for a free animation consultation. Advertise your landing page to SMB owners and get at least 100 form filled. So at this stage, we have 100 replies, 100 forms filled. Now that we know the right direction, you start building the website based on data you received from your emails and consultation. After you have your website ready, start bringing clients to your website thru marketing or organic. Now - here is the main answer to your question: DO NOT HIRE AT BEGINNING - find another animation studio and work with them to complete the animation. Do this for at least 10 animations. Doing this, you are risk free. IF everything works fine, and you are happy and your clients are happy, then - freely - start hiring. But if you hire someone from the beginning, - you will have to do contracts, payments, taxes, office, ..... and what happens if this not works - then you will loose more that you invested. So my main tip for you will be :Start with testing. Don't just jump too fast in hiring. (For marketing strategies: check my account).

There are a few key traits that people look for in a manager, and the reason an employer asks for experience is to try to ensure that the candidate has honed them. Those are: "Big picture" thinking - you need to be able to detach yourself from the details and see the overall aim of your project. Someone with this skill will be more likely to understand when seemingly wacky decisions are made by corporate. Resourcefulness - Budget cuts? Employees got the plague when you have a deadline? Thats not a problem for an experienced manager. Overcoming objections - Everyone giving you excuses? Dragging out contracts? You can sail through this one with ease with the proper training. Resource allocation - Are you putting the right assets in the right places? Are you hiring the right people? Are you giving preferred treatment? The more Experienced you are, the less Likely you will fall into this trap. I am happy to go over your work history, resume and any experience you have had to help you find a way to overcome their objections - I am a CTO with a Liberal Arts degree, so I am a master at this.

I have participated in marketplaces that charge for access (subscription fee) and ones that do per transaction charges. I have found that I prefer the per transaction charges as I am essentially paying a commission for the lead / opportunity, which is much more palatable. I have worked with platforms that charge a fee for leads, which is more akin to a subscription fee. The problem is that you are asking providers to pay for the hope of making money where as on the per transaction you are asking providers to pay for actual revenue. Elance and Upwork have a hybrid model that also seems to work well. You can bid on so many jobs for free and pay a percentage of revenue. They have higher levels where you buy more credits to bid. On Elance I started on the free level and had success so now I subscribe. This is an interesting form of the freemium model. Hope this gives you some insight. Let me know if I can be of further help.

Have you checked out http://www.leaddyno.com/ They integrate with stripe. But I'd need know what kind of business you have. Ecommerce? SaaS? Marketplace? Majority charge a relatively high monthly fee so if you think you'd use it often might be worth just paying a dev a few hundred bucks to build out something quick. Happy to hop on a call to tell you what we did for our startup.

Hi there. I don't know of one but sounds like it would be super helpful if there was one. Curious to see what people include here...

What kind of Culture do you want your company to exemplify? Culture being the shared values - a sense of right and wrong - and principles - guidelines for taking action - of any collective group, what you actually would like to analyze more deeply is...yourself. In the startups I have mentored or consulted for, cofounders vary a fair bit. Usually a decent mix of Type A and B, extrovert and introvert, yin-and-yang of skills to complete each other. What holds them together is the strong sense of mission, orientation towards employees, customers and exit strategy. So those are the things you have a strong and honest conversation about right up front. If the cofounder candidate passes your test, they are fine on internal motivations. Externals? That's another story :) ! Great strategy to look for 'the one' so far. Consider adding LinkedIN discussion groups to the list. Happy to discuss further, bonne chance!

I am the founder of a cosmetic company that bootstrapped from nothing to a 7 figure business. It sounds like you are really at the beginning stages of business and there are a lot of opportunities for you. You've got a lot of work ahead of you and you need to build some infrastructure. Your brand is going to be one of the most important things to establish and you won't be able to sell to distributors, salons, or consumers without a clear message of what your company is about. When it comes to distribution of your product, you can either work with a distributor, sell directly to resellers, or sell directly to consumers. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. You'll have the most margin with direct to consumers - but you need skills on ecommerce. When you sell through a distributor you lose tons of control, but you can expand your reach quicker. You also have the slimmest margins; but you don't need to invest as much into sales. Selling direct to salons is a time consuming process; but you have more control of how your product is displayed, and the perception the consumer has of your products. So much of cosmetics is where your product is currently sold. If it's sold in mass market retail, no salon will want to carry it. But the direct answer of your question is you simply need to sell your product to anyone who's willing to buy it. Pick up the phone, hustle, and win over those customers.

It's unlikely I'm part of your target demographic for this question. But you've given me the opportunity to vent; therefore vent I shall! Gripe 1: Yesterday I spent hours writing a parser that takes a raw-text output from Bob's database and chops it up appropriately for insert into Bill's database. If Bob would just give Bill access to the database, then such a parser wouldn't be required. Gripe 2: I spend an inordinate amount of time coding up processes that really accomplish nothing but data entry. The tasks are too small for it to be worthwhile to program spiders to crawl the information sources, but they're too significant to neglect. I'd much rather outsource this stuff, but I spend more time explaining these one-off tasks to people overseas than it takes me to perform them myself! Gripe 3: Many of my data-collection tasks are massive and repetitive. Does anyone out there know a good source of trainable crawlers / scrapers? My difficulty is that I need them for a series of unpredictable mid-term tasks rather than a consistent long-term task.

As someone who has worked in pricing for almost 30 years, I know that one of the biggest myths of pricing is that you should only offer one pricing model. Offer two - both subscription & transactional. Customers will self-select &/or the market will segment, and you will quickly find out what is their preferred pricing model. As an aside, another pricing myth is that you can low-ball your pricing and raise prices later. Its successful in ~10% of attempts. By default, the choice of pricing models also states the obvious. Its not about what you want. Its about what the customer wants. And yes, you should have three choices. One choice gives you a 50:50 chance of closing the sale. Two choices forces the customer to make a price-based decision. Three choices, and the customer says "which one do I buy?" not "do I buy from this outfit?" and secondly they are forced to make a value-based decision. Also think about creating a decoy product, and on the pricing page on your website, lay the packages out dearest on the left, cheapest on the right. Happy to chat further about any of the above...or more!

Ramping up a new business is challenging, and there's no doubt that some — emphasis on SOME — sacrifices have to be made. Destination weddings and big vacations may have to wait until your cash flow improves. However, be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that any time spent away from your business is wasted or counterproductive. There's an enormous pile of research spanning better than a century that proves humans need time off. Henry Ford knew it when he cut his factory shifts from 60-hour, 6-day weeks to 40-hour, 5-day weeks. The smartest startups know it (New Relic strongly discourages unauthorized overtime; FullContact pays its team $7.5k on top of the PTO to leave their phones and email alone when they take vacation). Creativity and happiness and productivity are all improved by taking time off. So even when you feel like you absolutely CANNOT take a day to spend with your friends and family once a week, you should. If you're really feeling stretched thin, chances are your schedule could stand for some optimization. This was one of my biggest challenges, and overcoming it has been the single biggest reward of my career: I now work about 10–30 hours a week and get MORE done than when I was working 70–90 hour weeks. If you'd like to talk more about scheduling and happiness, I'd love to help. This is right up my alley in terms of expertise and experience. :) Good luck!

I'll give you the answers that have worked for me, though I wouldn't say you "should" do this. This is where I found the best mix doing similar work. 1 - I would at the very least start with freelancers. There are a lot of great, talented people out there and this is the best way to meet people with whom you may end up having an enduring relationship. I have people all over the world in my freelancer network to whom I outsource portions of jobs. 2 - It depends on how you get paid. If you are bidding project prices then you need to try to match your cash flow planning against how you pay your staff. This take some light financial modeling in most cases. So you don't end up owing someone money when your client isn't paying you for awhile. You can design your terms around this if you are careful about it. 3 - My preference has been to bill the entire project under my name and brand, assuming I have a trusted team. I mark up what they charge me and then make the margin on it to the client. In certain instances I turn over the entire lead to someone in my network and take a kick back or commission on it. Again, it depends. 4 - My way of dealing with this is I control the project management platform through which everyone communicates. That way the "real" names are out there, but it's not all done on email. You will want to have non-solicitation agreements with your team members as part of your deal with them. I'd be happy to discuss all of this with you in more detail. I've been using variations of this model for all of my consulting for more than a decade.

As someone who has built TAM models for various industries - I can attest this isn;t always easy. Many analyst firms (former analyst here) typically do some surveys and research among public company revenue reports for the year and then do some pixie dust extrapolating. The hard thing about a market where startups like Datameer play is that it is a) a nascent market and b) not a "zero sum" game. This makes it difficult to a) fully understand WHICH companies actually are in the market for this flavor of BI and b) know how the space is developing in terms of white space AND disrupting the entrenched BI giants. You might want to look at the press published versions (read: free) of analyst market share reports, and extrapolate from their. Also, back-channel gossip may give you some revenue numbers on these players - and if you assume pipeline is 3-4x revenue, build a model from there. Hope this helps.

Here are my thoughts: "Offering stock options to the first 5". We tested this and it turns out this isn't viable. Not only will you administrative overhead managing your cap table, you're going to turn off investors that may not like the structure. My advice is: keep it simple. 1. Define your customer persona 2. Contact them and find 10 of them to say yes 3. After you have validated demand, find the supply to fulfill the demand. 4. Create a few success stories. 5. Rinse and repeat. Bloggers/writers primarily want to have a dependable source of supplemental income. If you can do that, while making the experience enjoyable, you'll be on to something.

The better question may be why can't you find startup co-founders? I can see two main reasons why this might be the case. First, no one else sees the same opportunity. If this is the case, you may be on to unique value that no one understands, but that could also include the potential market. If no one else sees the same market opportunity you do in your startup, you will want to do more research to ensure you truly have a marketable idea. The second reason is that you don't have a big enough network to find co-founders. This will also be a barrier to launching a startup. For a startup, the network of the founders is essential for both tapping into experience / skills the team does not have as well as for helping develop the market. If this is the case, building your network should come before building your startup. I hope this gives you some useful things to consider. Let me know if I can be of further help.