When I was starting my company we used a platform called FundersClub in the US. We had to go through a pitch and get formally accepted in order to work with them. We went on their platform and proceeded to raise $100K. Our company also received some great publicity from being on the platform. Another option is Republic Labs which is similar and also based in the US. Call me if you have any questions on the equity platform process.

Sounds like you are trying to get insights as to what business to start. I can help you find clarity and hone in on your goals and best possible target market. I have helped others in the past and can definitely help you find a product offering that you are good at and passionate about and help get you started on your right target market.

From what I understand, you are trying to help an SEO agency sell to other agencies that themselves sell to dental/medical companies? It's tricky without knowing more details, since this question keeps coming to mind: Why is the SEO agency interested in white-labelling their services to agencies instead of selling direct to clients? It seems oddly specific and convoluted. However taking the question at face value, I would say consider the following: * There is likely a very small pool of agencies who specialize in medical/dental. How do you know the ones that do don't already offer SEO services? * If you can pull together a list of agencies you think would make good leads, the simplest thing to do is just cold call and try to book a meeting with their owner or account director to show how you can white-label your services. I wrote a blog post about agency lead generation for targetted niches: https://www.proposify.biz/blog/lead-gen-system hope it helps. Feel free to book a call.

I've set up a number of online courses, and also supported other business owners in their online course creation and hosting. This is a huge topic with a number of variables. You may decide to host your course on your own Wordpress platform, in which case you'll need: - a website (if you don't already have one) - a member plugin - e-commerce plugin or means to accept payment There are lots of options within each of these, so a lot of decision-making to do! What's often considered simpler and easier is to use an online training platform. Again, there is a huge range of options and the choice will partly depend on your budget and the features you're after. There are a number of online articles that compare and contrast the features, but I've found the reviewer usually recommends the product they're affiliated with - or the one that suits them best. That doesn't mean their preference is best for you, it depends on your needs and resources. One product that seems very popular at the moment is Teachable. Prices range from a free plan to $39-$299 a month depending on the volume and features. Teachable has a stunning builder, a huge range of features and powerful marketing and analytics. It also integrates with MailChimp, Ontraport and a range of others. You'll need either a Stripe or a Paypal account to accept payments. If you want to give me a call I'd be happy to discuss your specific requirements further so you can have a clearer idea of the best course of action for you. I hope that helps. :-)

It's got three pins, connect + and - to power and ground, and connect the signal pin to an Arduino I/O pin (e.g. pin 2). If you need to read fast data transfer refer to Adafruit's great page on it: https://learn.adafruit.com/ir-sensor/using-an-ir-sensor

The common approach is to use the RXTXcomm.jar but the main issue is this jar is not well maintained in maven repos. Looks like a good option is to use is http://fazecast.github.io/jSerialComm/

Checked your website; very very cool. I used to have an advertising agency, responsible for sales & client strategy. I'll cannibalize an answer I gave on Quora for this one: About getting clients, do: - charity work - hackathons and Startupweekends and such - design competitions - direct work for customers you’d like to work for (show them how you can make them look better) About direction: - observe which content categories are on the rise (check trends on Google searches, Twitter, etc), focus on those Hot in my view right now: animated gifs, infographics, video of all kinds.

I think that's a hard question to answer in the abstract without knowing the extent of your IP, the relative market potential for the product, your desire or need for institutional investment, and the relative contributions of your future potential partners. Have you considered a dynamic equity split arrangements for the partners you wish to attract? I recommend taking a look at SlicingPie.com as one well thought-out dynamic equity split alternative.

Assuming each sales person is carrying a $1,000,000 quota then that works out to 2084 new users per year. That translates to an annual bonus of $125K USD on target earnings. If you are looking to motivate more sales, then I would suggest a sliding bonus structure that increases as reps sell more. I would also include a mechanism to prevent sales reps from sandbagging (defering deals for higher bonus). Assuming a monthly quota of 175 new users acquired per month. Example: 175 or less new users per month = 30% of value of first five months value If attained quota from previous month (over 175 new users): 0 to 175 new users earn bonus of 30% of value of first five months value 175 to 350 new users earn bonus of 45% of value of first five months value 350+ new users earn bonus of 60% of value of first five months value. I would also not underestimate the competitiveness of sales people. Run sales contest for your reps, and give the top rep for the previous month perks for winning. It could be as simple as a prime parking spot, or gift certificate for dinner. Have you considered a reseller/partner program/affiliate program? These programs are typically commission only and are very scalable as they do not require the same labor costs as a direct sales force. I've had great success growing international partner programs & affiliate programs for various SaaS companies. Cheers, Mick Kitor

I have been in the app and gamification business for the past 6 years which is an eternity in digital years. You mention that mini games and activities do not emphasize the outcome you are hoping to achieve, and I wonder if using a fun chatbot to talk to your patients wouldn't be more interesting in this case. Children ages 8-15 love to do two things with their phones: play and chat. If you say that playing is not working then chat with them and make it playful. Speak their language, have them ask you any question they want to ask, in their own terms and language and have a chatbot ready to answer them all. You can even create a voice chatbot for the smaller kids (4-8) that still don't write very well. Talking Tom was a great success among kids because they felt somebody was actually listening to them. Let me know and we can brainstorm more about this if you're interested

I own a software development company based in Dallas, Texas and over the years have experienced several of the issues mentioned in your post. Never start work with a client before having a signed contract in hand. The contract is the first step to making sure that both parties understand the expectations of the project such as payment expectations, the deliverable, the project schedule. I find it helpful to get a down payment from a client to be sure that they are "invested" in the project. If a client is unwilling to issue a payment at contract signing, then you should have more payment milestones at major points in the project such as; design review, first 10 seconds of animation etc. Frequent payment milestones will help your cash flow and will focus the project on meeting the expectations of the client where possible. Communication throughout the project is key. When a client goes silent that is always cause for alarm. Weekly updates using online services such as Skype or Join.me are essential when working with a client that are worlds apart. There should be few surprises regarding schedule. As the project is progresses, amended schedules should be prepared and forward to the client for discussion during your project meeting. It may be a good idea to engage someone located near your client to attempt to contact them to discuss a settlement. Some may suggest getting a lawyer or a collection agency involved, however there most likely is some way to solve this directly to receive (perhaps partial) payment from the client. I am available for a followup call should you have any additional questions. Regards, Eric Silverthorn

Does your prototype require a flexible circuit, or is your prototype the printer itself? If the former, you can just design a circuit on your computer and then send that design to a service that will print it onto a flexible surface for you. Source: I designed and built an electronic prototype for my past startup which raised over $1.5 MM in seed funding.

Snapchat is definitely not in the same age and situation than pets.com. Look how long it took Yahoo to be forced to sell... If Twitter doesn't start growing soon, it'll be in a similar situation within 24 months. If the table turns for Snapchat and does not grow, they would force the CEO to step down within a year, then give the new CEO 2 years to show results. If they don't want to sell, then they would replace the second CEO within 18 months. Of course, this is pure speculation and considering similar companies in hard situations. You should definitely read THE HARD THING ABOUT HARD THINGS by Ben Horowitz.

Hi, this is Ann, a business coach for small entrepreneurs. Your situation is no longer related to "small business". Instead, you are in the phase of "extension". Hence, I would recommend you contact some outstanding performance coaches. Again, OUTSTANDING performance coaches! If you expect to be outstanding, get around outstanding people :) From my own experience in the coaching network, I would suggest you take a look at the coaches from Evercoach. They are all amazing coaches. Rich Litvin, Ajit Nawalkha or Christina Berkley are among the best coaches right now. They are pioneers in the coaching trend. They have created an extremely strong and high postion for Evercoach, one of the most professional coaching tribes so far. I am not advertising their brand names. In fact, I am one of their clients, who have been fully convinced by the real quality of their services. If you want more information on this, please feel free to contact me. Best regards, Ann

Face to Face will always be better. The reason is because to get to the root of an issue or to what really drives a person, you need to ask WHY 5 times. Only then you can offer a solution that will be irresistible to your prospects. Let's try with an email survey. 1. What is your biggest struggle when you want to expand abroad? __________ 2. Why? __________ 3. Why? __________ 4. Why? __________ 5. Why? __________ You look like a freak, right? Now in a normal conversation, it would go something like: Oh, your biggest challenge is costs? Tell me more about it. Yes, i just don't have enough cash flow to open an office abroad. Where is your cash flow going instead? (that's a hidden why) It's going into our local activities. Why do you prefer spending money locally? Because we get more return on investment. etc etc.. I'm happy to jump on the phone to test this technique (it feels a bit awkward at the beginning but with some training it becomes natural). Serena

Build naming and domain procurement into your process. Letting your startups "wing it" will result in a lot of crash landings.

Ideally these days you want to manufacturer and sell your own products. While I don't want to say the drop-ship model is dead yet, it is definitely dying. Selling someone else's products has become much more difficult and risky for a number of reasons: 1. Amazon - they can decide to sell the product you are selling at any time, and given the volume they can churn along with their low margins you'll never be able to compete. On top of that, customer's user Amazon AS a search engine, so if they are selling the same product as you the customer will never even find you. 2. It is much easier for the manufacturer to sell direct to the customer these days, and when they do that it will be impossible to compete directly with them. 3. Google has made it tougher as they are pretty strict about duplicate content. If you just upload a CSV from the manufacturer using the same title and description as everyone else, chances are Google is just going to list one of them, probably the one on the Manufacturer's web site. If you do want to sell a product from another company, become THE authority on that product. If you want to sell Red Widgets, build a site that is rich in information and advice about Red Widgets and make it a destination for everyone who wants a Red Widget. Another site may be able to undercut you on pricing, but if you prove yourself as an authority you will build up customer trust and repeat business. Amazon may be able to compete on the number side of things, but they are by no means experts on the products they sell. Ideally though, having full control over the supply chain of your product is what you want. You need to either make whatever you are selling yourself, or reach an exclusive deal with the manufacturer of that product.

Quick answer on this one: talk with somebody who has already succeeded in this field (built similar product or company). He/she will be able to quickly get you on track and avoid common pitfalls of your industry. If this person can't help you 100%, he/she will certainly be able to point you other people to talk with among their network.

Well, if you really want people to pay you for ad placements, I recommend adding some value to them first - retweet them, add insightful comments to their blogs, share their content, promote their stuff. This also gives you an opportunity to gauge how your audience reacts to it, which gives you clout when you start asking them for money. But, I'd also caution you around your assumption that paid ad placements will make your business more money. Yes, you get revenue from the advertisers, but if this is a turnoff for your audience, you lose subscribers, no one clicks and advertisers drop off. The money is in the list - so make sure this is something they want.

There are several options available which would work for SaaS. The best one I can suggest is Referral Program. The referral program would need to have Training Documentation well defined as well as marketing material. This would allow you to pay other consultants or individuals to pipe leads or signups to your site to get exposure. This is especially effective in SMB market and tends to be targeted to the customer who would purchase. The second is to be more specific in contacting specific demographic targeted customers (be aware in the US you must be subscribed to Do Not Call Registery to Scrub call list for telemarketing or be potentially be fined by US Government). You can engage Lead generators to accomplish this for you but be careful that they are registered and scrub their list against the US Do Not Call Registery. Email Campaigns are good if you have users who have requested to opt into receiving an email and also have opt out options to remove themselves from the list to comply with US and other countries SPAM Laws. Then there are advertising though multiple media types beyond email and banner advertisements such as radio, TV, Billboards, Magazines and other print media.

Well, ask yourself who would want to get in front of physicians? I know a doctor who likes to go to Las Vegas for continuing education classes. There is a company there who offers this training. I bet they'd love to either sponsor this kind of publication or make you a sales affiliate. Really, the possibilities are endless. Once you've got the audience you can sell access. Hope this helps. David

Because of the nature of your consulting business (web development) you have the advantage of being able to effectively offer your services remotely. I think more important than deciding between a large or small city, is finding a city where you would enjoy living and building a network. Is there a city where you have a critical mass of friends, family, potential business partners? Is there a city you'd simply be happier in because it fits your lifestyle, whether it's access to outdoors or city living? Do you have a more specific market segment you'd like as your clients? Do you want to service just tech startups? Health tech startups? Larger companies? Unless you plan to really narrow down into a specific niche, like consulting just for the aerospace industry where the companies are usually found in a specific city or region, web development offers you a lot of geographic flexibility. More and more companies like Automatic or Zapier have completely remote teams and the trend towards that is only accelerating. Choose a city where you'll be happiest and most likely to be able to participate in the lifestyle the city provides. Not only will you be more productive if you're happy, you'll have more opportunities to grow your network organically by meeting friends through your hobbies or social activities that then turn into clients. I'd caution against being overly analytical or coldly rational when making this decision. Follow your gut. Choose a city you'd love to live in and grow a business in. I know wildly wealthy and successful entrepreneurs in cities both small and large.

Content optimization is about producing content that your audience find valuable. You can start with optimizing existing page content rather than focusing on producing new content on your blog. Here, optimize titles, descriptions, headings and messaging for topical/keyword focus. You can also look at the architectural issues of your site such as spiderability, broken links, navigational issues, etc. These can all get you some tracking with rankings when focused correctly.

You can Validate your idea with free and paid method: Free Method - Post your landing page to forum that related with your product category example:Product Hunt ,Hackers News is ok i think Paid Method -You can run ads on Facebook ,Twitter and google Ads with your Coming Soon landing page or you can run your project on indiegogo and kickstarter to validate your idea plus get your financing if reach your goals

Treat the event like a lean startup landing page. Get people to sign up for a "waiting list" to use your service. Have one or two easily accessible ipads on the side of your booth nearest the walkway, so that people can easily sign up. The ipads should have a nice landing page on it that shows some basic background, a waiting list sign up, and it should say "We're right here to answer any questions!" to draw people in to talk to you. You'll instill confidence in potential customers by how well you present yourself (in conversations with them, in the clothes you wear, etc.) and your booth. You might use a small subset of your sign ups as beta testers that get to see and fiddle with the website before the official release. Don't use them to look for bugs, but have a questionnaire that they answer about what features they like most, etc. Have a newsletter (every week or every two weeks) be sent out to all the emails you collect. Each email should highlight one or two features or progress of your site that has just been completed ("we've just partnered with xyz!", "now completed: feature xyz", etc.). This should be done in a sequence and spacing that presents well, and doesn't have to accurately reflect the exact time and sequence of when things were actually completed. If you'd like finer grained advice based on your actual website and potential customers let me know and I'll see how I can help, Lee