I would love to know what others say in response to this question. I am facing the same challenge. Seems more folks need to know about the potential for growth with Clarity?

If you want help, I can get Marvin Weinberger (founder of patented tools company InnovationFactory.com) on a call - I won't charge extra, since I'll just be facilitating the conversation. Let me know if you want me to set that up. In terms of prototyping, it depends on the product. If you let me know on the call I'll follow up with resources. For example, if you need a simple, small prototype, you might be able to build it yourself in a local facility (ie: NextFab in Philadelphia). If it's more advanced, there are prototyping resources out there, but they vary based on the type of product.

Of course my answer to this is Bias as I am a Greek living in the United States but Greece is my choice. All of the media attention is overblown. Greeks are very resilient people who are proud of their country and heritage. Like the tipping point in the U.S. came right around 2010 - 2011, Greece is about to enter that tipping point likely in a year from now. I would highly recommend looking into it further and if you need more information, would be happy to have a call with you on Clarity to determine how I may serve as a conduit for you in terms of introductions and language barrier.

That's usually the case with early start-up entrepreneurs wherein every one struggles to create a "Happy Equity Index" to be able to decide the right proportion of equity division. In your case, it seems there are too many stakeholders with diverse contribution to the business. Hence, all of you should give some time to the business to flourish than deciding equity division in haste. Though I'm not a supporter of promoting something on Clarity, I'd like to share "Happy Equity Index" write up for your perusal. You can read it at http://366pi.com/one-business-with-multiple-co-founders-happy-equity-index/ Looking for any specific info? Do feel free to reach out.

I would suggest looking into 500 Startups or other accelerators that target developing markets. They will help you get up to speed and make invaluable introductions. After going through the right accelerator a lot of doors will be open to you and then you can expand your network in Silicon valley itself.

This is a very broad question, there's a few experts here that can help you with that. Instead of telling you how here I'll provide you things to consider: Social media is not just updating your feeds on Facebook, Instagram etc is about engaging the person past the post. Once you get their attention how to actually provide value to them through your social account and how do you get them to call you, visit your sales website, share or review a product.. Whatever your end goal for this social strategy is. Have a strategy for each media. And realize that each social media welcomes different types of feed. Toting and promoting for certain products and industries is a fool proof method. If you have great long term sales professionals not someone who cares about quick money rather than ling term relationships. SEO in a website goes a long way, specially if it ties your social media wording/efforts. For certain software based products having an app can be a great way to introduce a product to a market. Not to self promote but give me a call and let's chat about what you can do to get selling & growing!

Rails is a full-stack framework that emphasizes the use of well-known software engineering patterns and paradigms, including convention over configuration (CoC), don't repeat yourself (DRY), the active record pattern, and model–view–controller (MVC)

Hi, from my experience, I believe it wouldn't of been his choice. Industrial temporary or very specific services must be classified as such: very limited to what they sell or serve... Hence the not elsewhere classified. I'm assuming his business is in fact a sort of random one... Sole proprietorship gets its benefits from its llc and lacking management coordination for expenses which is why he probably have you his business credit card to use. Is his money, as long as he claims it on as revenue, biz expenses and personal expenses seperately he should be fine. The IRS regulates these very carefully and taxable revenue is counted on an annual basis after expenses (which is why they don't accept personal expenses on business) not like personal income that gets reported and taxed on the gross margin.

Investors on the East Coast and West Coast are polar opposites. It's a generalization, since there is variation within those regions as well, but here are a few generalizations to help you play to your audience. BAY AREA: Big ideas (with some foundation under them) win, the kind of ideas that can produce 1000x+ returns. If the space is going to be owned by whichever company gets to market with a good product first and/or the value will be in billions if they own a huge market (think SnapChat). PHILLY/NYC/ETC: Great for biotech. For SaaS and other tech, focus less on "hottest" innovations and more on how to displace industry leaders in big markets (like SalesForce) with something that is simpler and solves a major pain point in a way that the industry leaders do not. IMPORTANT: Regardless of which region you plan to raise funds in, ignore what's "hot" and focus on where you have unique insight and experience. If you are an engineer, try Internet of Things or a startup catering to some engineer-heavy industry you're familiar with. If you're a doctor, don't try to start a social network for teens - start one for patients and their family/friends (another hot space), or something else highly related to your experience. If you have credibility in your space, your odds of success are MUCH higher, and therefore investors will be more eager to invest in you. If you want help identifying the right investors and creating a pitch deck that doesn't get thrown in the trash, schedule a call and I'll sign an NDA if we end up getting deep in the idea together.

Think about how other low cost offerings emphasize the discount level. Fiverr, for one. Cheap is a ticket to failure. For many, cheap means "easily breakable, unreliable junk." Although Google guards the information with its life, I also suspect that Google devalues the word cheap from an SEO perspective. Even the most successful three domains with the word "cheap" in them have a fairly low page ranks - between 4 and 6 - and receive a less than impressive amount of visits per month (estimated with Compete.com). I can help you choose a more effective domain name that communicates the same message and is more relevant to search volume, but I need more info on your business.

When marketing in the restaurant industry it's really important to think about what the theme of your restaurant is, and tie that to the community. For instance: karaoke or trivia may not be the right kinds of events to host if your restaurant is a little classier. However, since you mentioned bar & grill, I would say that it could be beneficial for you to reach out to the beer community. Try hosting monthly tap takeovers with local breweries and talking about it on social media. The breweries will help with promoting the events and bring their fans with them. Don't forget about professional communities either! Try hosting meet and greet networking events and collaborating with local entrepreneur groups to host their events at your bar. I would also suggest making sure you properly update your website and maintain an events calendar. You can promote your events on sites like Eventbrite which provide you with easy ticket sale and attendee tracking. Eventbrite is free to use and can easily integrate with your website's calendar. I hope this helps! I wish you luck with your business!

I agree with the answer above on test first. Also, David's advice to have a business strategy is key. I'd start from user needs. Do people need (ok, want) this service in the area you might provide it? As a woman and a cosmetics designer, I can attest that most women want this service, but you need to check the following: Is the climate warm enough to sustain your business though the year? If not, what do you do in winter/off time? Think about diversifying your offer. Since this is a localized service, how about HHI (household income) in your town/city? For those within a middle income bracket, this kind of procedure is a luxury service. Finally, if you're to really stand out among competitors, user experience should be your primary concern. For something as personal as laser hair removal, you will build your business on referrals (personal and digital via review sites like Yelp). Make sure every visit is impeccable. If you'd like to talk more, I'd be happy to dig in with you on crafting the ideal experience.

Choose the platform where your market is. And quickly figure out your cost of customer acquisition so you'll know how much you can afford to invest in marketing so your business model has a chance to be viable. That either sounds obvious (and I can hear certain readers already saying "Duh...") or it sounds confusing. So before you write it off as too obvious or too complicated - let's examine it the statement and I'll show you where the value is. First - WHO is your market? What will you be blogging about? Why should they listen to you? What value do you provide that they can't get elsewhere? Once you figure out who your market is you'll be better able to figure out where they are. And I don't just mean "online"... I mean specifically WHERE the are online (and by the way you really better make sure they ARE online before you even start an "online business"). Do they even have a twitter account? Do they read blogs on linkedin? If they visit linkedin but don't read the posts there - it wouldn't make any sense for YOU to post there. Again - this might sound simple - but rest assured that many new and experienced business owners make this mistake all of the time. The (faulty) "logic" goes like this... "100 million people visit (whatever the site of the week is) every day - and even if I get only 1% of those people to click my article/post/ad - that would be 10,000 click! And if I could get only 1% of those people (100 of them) to spend $10.00 on my entry level product then I'll make $1000.00 per day which comes to $365,000 per year!" If you don't get WHY that's nonsense - you really should find a business coach or mentor ASAP. Bottom line (specifically regarding the question you asked): Deciding on a marketing platform before you know which market you are going to try to serve and how you are going to monetize your business is backwards. I hope this was helpful. Let me know if I can be of assistance. And best of luck to you!

Thank you for sharing this question! The sales usually happen when the ads first run because Facebook knows who the most likely buyers are and once the ads have shown once, you are likely reaching the same people over and over. The ad campaigns I have found that make the best sales are in the format of a post on a page with a lot of social proof. If your ads do not have social proof, then only the early adopters will buy. If your ads have thousands of likes, shares, and comments from a post on your page, then you can count on mainstream sales. If you want to chat more about Facebook ads, you are welcome to schedule a call!

Work. That would have been my 1-word answer, but the site tells me it's too short. Yes, you could invest your money in the hopes of getting a higher return; and it might work. But any investment entails the risk of loss. And that risk is highest early on when a person is less experienced and doesn't know where to invest. I wouldn't want you to lose your hard-earned money or have a bad experience at 16 that sours you on taking risks. Realistically, the way to add to your stash without any chance of losing it ... involves finding paid work. Local jobs for 16-year-olds won't pay a lot. But online you're ageless. If you learn a skill such as web design, video editing, or programming, then you could earn more per hour and freelance as much as you like.

I've spent a lot of time in the telephony, call center, crm space and built a lot of applications that involve incoming phone calls and sms. I don't know of a product that works exactly as you specified but I have constructed things that did part of that for conferences and audience feedback. You should take a look at some of the Quick Start guides on Twilio.com for example SMS applications that are very easy to construct. You might be able to create what you need by combining a couple of them together. I have years of experience with the Twilio platform so if you have any questions about it I'd be happy to do a call with you and help you out.

You might be able to share this and teach courses on Udemy! This is what I do and it works really well! A year ago I was at the brink of losing my startup and now I have transitioned to teaching 18 courses on Udemy full time. You are welcome to chat with me for a few minutes to see where your biggest opportunities might be on Udemy.

You need the terms and conditions. What you can do though is simply changes the specs of the terms and conditions to accomodate this segment of your clients. People who want the license but are willing ( for whaterver reason ) willing to aquire the product on their own dime can still do so. Protect yourself by having the typical "if purhased your agreement of terms and conditions is implied..." With that said is always best if you make them read them... Such as if digital, form is cannot be acknowledged unless they open the terms and conditions form or scroll through it. That way is more alwyas more on them than your company. We cant ever avoid a lawsuit or allegations but what we can do is simply allow people to make their educated decisions and us record such acknowledgement of information.

Adjusting sail midstream is easier said than done. But, when the situation become inevitable, the sail must be adjusted to be able to sail further. Renaming, actually, is rebranding. It's often a case when sales starts going south, and survival is at stake. Yes, renaming always leaves an impact on brand equity and other parameters. It has to be planned and strategically defined to be able to achieve the objective. Revamp in a planned manner, test the taste,and transition seamlessly. From creating a compelling story to triggering emotional reaction; from shift to return to roots to material impact on strategy et al, renaming requires some serious thinking. Looking for anything specific? Feel free to reach out.

Check out my answer to a similar question: https://clarity.fm/questions/1212/trade-show-experts-what-are-some-good-practices-in-pulling-in-some-people-to I am a business owner and have extensive personal experience at tradeshows. Let's set up a call if you'd like to discuss specifics that might make sense for you and your budget.

While there is potential value in your industry databases and reports, that value is worth nothing if there isn't a customer on the other end. In order to viably approach external funding sources, you will likely need to bootstrap and iterate your business model until you show that your product has value in the marketplace. I've been in the market before pitching a pre-revenue business and I can say with certainty that it is an incredibly difficult proposition. The companies that are typically able to raise capital in these situations feature founders with established entrepreneurial experience (ideally, with successful exits) or some sort of proprietary technology. Best of luck, but my ultimate advice is to start small and build slowly. From the looks of it, you are putting the cart in front of the horse. I would imagine offering your product on a free or trial basis would allow you to promote in a cost-effective manner. At this stage, your goal is to prove the concept, so any progress here will also help with potential fundraising down the road.

What I'm going to offer something that is a bit tricky and you need to use it with a lot of caution. It will also require some development. One of the ways of growing fast and get additional users is by having current/ new subscribers to send their contact list a notification that they have joined your app and offer these contacts to join as well. You can add a screen after the first installation suggesting to send an invitation to certain friends (based on location. e-mail address/ Facebook criteria etc.), but you must make sure it is an opt-in option so you won't get your app spamming the current users contact list. This way you generate more users from current users sending them an invitation to try your app. Does that make sense? I will be happy to elaborate if needed, just send me a message. Good luck

By connecting with people, talking to them, building momentum, and investing enough time to explore goodness of fit. Don't be in haste to onboard one as you would encounter too many "Yes-Sir" and "Me-Too" kind of guys. But, in a long run it's pragmatic thinking and synchronization of vision that matters. Otherwise, either you or your partner will end up sitting back home,trying to establish everything around cocooned comfort of home than in right market. Use professional social platforms like Clarity etc to scout for right people. Otherwise, advises are always free!!

Established businesses and/or indirect competitors will most probably not bother getting into a partnership with you, at least until you start having some traction and results. Many startups have the ambition that they will build great partnerships starting from day one and they often get dissapointed. No one is going to do the sales for you. You will have to prove your value first and then ask for permission for partnerships. Having said that, should you have the luxury of getting a big partner on your side from the beginning and they are really committed in helping you, you have to estimate the ROI of their support to you. But that's a different discussion..