Here's what I don't see so far: executive (buyer) INVOLVEMENT by your target customers. Go to them. Show them what you've got. Get the testimonials from your employee-level advisors to show them the need is legit. (Use these same employees to start going up the chain and finding out who are the decision makers you need to talk to.) Find out if they are interested. If they are, say that you want their help with compliance issues (they already employ highly experienced experts in this department, believe me; and you can leverage this). In return you'll give them a deal in licensing the use of the software. I want you to understand something: User Adoption is key here. Right now, you have nothing. But get ONE user, one client, one recognizable name in your target market using the software, and now you have something. So be prepared to basically give that initial license away--at least for the first year--if you must. That's your Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement (time for you to read up on negotiation, I think). Because after that, you can go to the next whale and say, "Yeah, ABC Oil is using our product and they sure like it." If Customer #1 wants a guarantee of exclusivity, like this software is going to give the user a competitive advantage, then guess what, the price goes up. You cannot protect your idea from being stolen. So quit worrying about that (if you are.) Frankly, most firms and their staff are too darn busy with their own daily firefighting and are only too happy to outsource something like this to someone they can delegate out to. If you want further detailed strategy help like this, wording for conversations, and more, book a call.

There's obviously no way to ensure a sale through, but to increase the chance of sale through as much as possible would involve using a combination of several known marketing/psychological techniques. Some of these would require for you to have some control over the text of the mail sent. However, if you are not allowed to change the text in any way, there are others techniques that you could couple with their mail to enhance sale through. A discussion of which techniques to use, and how, would require further knowledge of your limitations, and the type of mail you're sending. If you'd like to discuss your options in relation to your specific problem let me know, I'm be happy to help, all the best, Lee

I can immediately think of several NYC-specific hacks. For instance, some that would be immediately deployable in Jackson Heights, Queens. I've lived in Brooklyn NY for over 10 years, and I had South Asian roommates for 6 years (college and after), which has led to having many South Asians in my circles of friends. I also have a lot of personal experience in NYC-based promotion 'hacking' (I've successfully promoted a lot of my own events/classes in the past). Send me a message if you'd like to brainstorm on a call, all the best, Lee

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I've never played one on TV, and it has been ages since I've stayed at a Holiday Inn. However, it sounds like you've stated clearly that your need is a lawyer who SPECIALIZES in contract law, with EXPERIENCE doing so for Digital Agencies. A great way to find someone like that is to ask other agencies that you have a good relationship with. For critical professional services like legal representation, I've always had a strong preference for a referral. Preferably from someone I know who has enough similarity in business and principles that I can reasonably expect to have the same good outcomes they've enjoyed. I'd say this is a matter of asking a few friends in the business for referrals - and then interviewing them. If you don't have friends in the business - consider searching Clarity for people with digital agency experience (rather than legal experience), and request a call to get their recommendations on counsel.

Ask, Ask, Ask, then Ask again. Bonus: Here is $10,000 worth of information for free and in a nutshell. Concentrate on the 3 M's. There are actually 7, but 3 will do for now. These are Market, Message, and Media. They come in that order. Who is your target market (customer, clients, buyers, users, etc.)? Tailor your laser focused message for this target market. What is the best media mix to get your message to that market? Here's what you do...first, make it an offer that is so incredible that they cannot resist. Secondly, do all the work for them. Make it so easy to make the purchase now that they can do it virtually without effort. Thirdly, give them an incentive to act right now. Fourthly, offer an almost unbelievable guarantee. Fifth, offer a bonus for acting now. There are many other incredible steps, but these steps should help the novice to the professional sell anything. Whether you are selling B2B or B2C, you have to focus on selling to only one person. You can actually sell to one person at a time while selling to millions at a time. They are one and the same. Don't get off track, what we call digital marketing selling is just selling in print. And that has not changed since Cluade Hopkins wrote "Scientific Advertising." Really long before he wrote the book. The secret to success: I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with some of the biggest names in business, celebrities, actors, entrepreneurs, business people, and companies from startup to billion dollar operations. The number one reason for their success is doing what they know and love while doing it in new, creative, and innovative ways. Ask, Ask, Ask. Have thick skin and learn from each "mistake." In a short while, the market will tell you what you need to do and who and what you need to ask. But get started now even if that just means asking a contact on LinkedIn. While you are thinking, think big and think of something at least 1% better, newer, or different. And being cheaper is not a winning strategy. Make decisions quickly and change decisions slowly..unless you are actually going off a cliff. Remember these two 11 letter words...persistence and consistency. They are two of the most important tools ever invented. Treat everybody you talk to and everybody you meet (including yourself) like each is your number one million dollar customer. Best of luck, Take massive action and never give up. Michael Michael Irvin, MBA, RN

The biggest thing you can do is spend time prospecting. If you're deal cycle is 6 months, you need to be filling up a +$10 million pipeline in order to close $4 million over the course of the next 10 months. That means lots of prospecting, keeping prospects engaged while they make their decision and handle internal processes (typically a marketing automation system handles this) and ideally partnering with companies that can bring you leads through referral to drop down that deal cycle from 6 months. If you look at it as a funnel, it would look something like this: Cold call/email/traffic >> lead >> prospect >> segment >> sales process >> deal cycle >> close/re-segment Typically this would look something like this in a well oiled company: Cold call/email/traffic >>10%>> lead >>20%>> prospect >> segment >>15% qualified>> sales process >>20%>> deal cycle >>30%>> close/re-segment (this close could take 3 months or up to 12 months) If you reverse calculate it, to get 1 closed deal in this funnel, you'd need 555 leads. Assuming your average deal size is $50k, you can spend $90 to acquire a lead in that scenario or $9 per click/hit on a lead capture page. To scale to $4 million in that funnel, you'd need to drive 44,400 leads, assuming the $50k average deal size is an annual license. Your numbers will be different, but based on the initial scenario, the key for you will be having sales people out there prospecting and driving some serious lead volume through marketing. So you'll need: - A solid cold sales process (script/email/funnel) - A REALLY good qualification process for prospect to sales process - Some good lead gen focused marketing setup (Facebook/Linkedin/Google ads are your best bet in conjunction with software directories like Capterra) - A good lead capture landing page to convert people into leads that you can try to prospect

I am an early investor in a company that was lucky enough to be selected to Y-Combinator back in summer 2015. First of all, the process is very competitive, so you should a) expect that despite following all of my advice, you will more than likely not get accepted into the program b) have a solid and robust plan for your company to succeed without Y Combinator (plenty of startups are able to hit the big time without going through Y Combinator). What impressed me the most about Y Combinator was that they looked at -- and accepted -- a company that was completely outside what I would've guessed to be their "sweet spot". The company I was invested with was not a technology company (they were in the retail space) and they were not based in the SF Bay Area (or even in the US). What became apparent to me from speaking with the CEO is that Y Combinator looks for startups that a) show a demonstrated track record of "exceptional" traction b) have the potential to satisfy an existing need better/ cheaper/ faster and c) have a large market that can be satisfied. So what does this mean in practice? The company I invested in was able to show "exceptional" traction through a few proof points: - They had received a grant from P@SHA Social Innovation Fund. - They had been recognized as "Innovation Heros" by Google. - They were Acumen Fund Fellows - They launched a Kickstater campaign to raise $15,000. They reached $28,000 in less than 48 hours and were able to raise over $100,000 over the course of their entire Kickstarter campaign. - They were informally asked to apply to the YC program from a YC alum, but even then they were put through the wringer during the interview process. Apparently several other firms which had been informally asked to apply did not get selected to join the program. These are obviously very high hurdles to jump over and even more remarkably they were done with capital from only one other angel investor (luckily, me!). If you want more details, I'd be happy to discuss. If you are fortunate enough to be selected to the YC program, I certainly salute you, as it is something that I will likely not achieve in my lifetime. However, please recognize that YC should not be the end goal of your startup dreams. You should have a plan to build a product, market it, serve your customer base, and generate revenue without YC or any other incubator. If you need help in that space or with one particular area of your business, I'd be glad to help.

I am assume you're talking about equity crowdfunding. There are several sites available now for accredited investors, which would be looking for a higher return than you are probably expecting. After May 16th this type of investing will become available to the general public. The SEC just opened up the window for new websites to register as "intermediaries" so you'll see a lot more coming on line between now and May. Given the description of your business idea, I'd suggest using one of these and trying to attract investors looking to invest in small businesses that are seeking acquisitions. The SEC guidance is complex (about 685 pages). I would be happy to walk you through it and help you find a site that will work well for you.

This is indeed a tricky challenge, and you've articulated it well. However, without knowing the missing element ("brand name" / "mother name"), it's hard for me to give you specific guidance. Does the brand name itself suggest health and wellness (as, for example, "Hygieia Wellness" might), or is it arbitrary (as with Oscar Health, the insurance company) or even fanciful/coined (e.g., AbbVie)? Each of these directions might dictate a different naming architecture. I'd also want to know how the sub-brands will be identified and promoted. How much interplay will there be among the five verticals? Finally, how were the five verticals identified under the old company name? Is there an advantage to maintaining the prior sub-brand naming system? Without that knowledge, I can only comment that "Wellness" has general, umbrella-brand connotations and does not sound "too much like just another one of the five verticals," which are quite narrowly defined. One last thing: I would caution you and your client about #5 ("health"), which does have a semantic overlap with "wellness." Perhaps this vertical deserves a more clearly commerce-related name -- XYZ Wellness Store, for example. Happy to chat on a call if you'd like to go into this further!

There is not much background information when it comes to what your company is doing, but will try to provide some tips. Assume you are working with customers and have some kind of ticketing system in place, so for: 1) I would be sending a very short survey with every single ticket just asking customers to rate the service they have received. Extremely well, Very well, Moderately well, Slightly well, Not at all well. This over time will give you very good indications on how the team is doing and how changes you apply impact customer satisfaction. There are many other important metrics when it comes to support but this one is key. 2) Again, no idea on what your product is about but i.e. in our case we monitor plenty of backend metrics. Successful/failed servers, successful/failed applications launched and so on for most important operations on the network. 3) Don't think that there is really a metric for that. You want to measure impact of new stuff you do in already present metrics and correlate success. Letting people innovate is more a culture related thing and how your organization embraces success/failure (as innovating implies failing many times and people will not innovate if they think they job is at stake) In any case, for any metric to have any impact, it must be OBVIOUS to every one working for you. Make it AS EASY AS POSSIBLE for everyone to check metrics, try to make this a habit for key people in your organization if not everyone. We send a daily heart-bit to everyone with most important metrics and we have a grafana dashboard for each team, accessible to everyone with all historical metrics where people can thoroughly examine trends and see impact of everything we do. Building a metric based culture, even if difficult is worth every drop of sweat it takes. Pere

Require payment up front, either in full or as a deposit. During your onboarding process, make it clear that your policy is to pause future work if the client becomes past-due. And then follow that policy if it becomes a problem—be polite but firm. Concerned you don't have the reputation or track record to require payment up front? Look at the social proof you're using in your marketing. Mention U.S. brands you've worked with (if you have permission to do so). Share testimonials and case studies. The goal is to reduce risk to your prospective clients, so they're less likely to push back on pre-payment. In the U.S., I see independent agencies doing primarily Net 30 as their payment terms. If you're doing that now, shorten terms for new clients to Net 15. (Don't do "Due on Receipt" since no one pays on receipt; you should have a real due that that's some point in the future.) Here's more on preventing this long-term: http://sakasandcompany.com/clients-who-keep-paying-late/ Onshore agencies struggle with this, too, so you're not along in facing this problem. Good luck! Background: I led business operations at 2 digital agencies, have worked in digital marketing since 1997, and advise agencies about operations, strategy, and leadership in (so far) 15 countries. If you have followup questions, request a call here on Clarity; I'm glad to help!

If retention and monetization rates are healthy, and you want to focus on acquisition, I would go with the following: - Niche or vertical focused landing pages on your website, to build and grow a list of emails/phone numbers for your sales team. - An Adwords search campaign targeted at your competitors, to try and steal some of their not-so-satisfied customers. - Social. This is an obvious one, be on the social networks your customers spend the most time on, and engage them with valuable content (Do not try to sell them anything through social, at least, not at this stage). - Offline marketing if you have the budget to do that, if not, focus on local barter deals and partnerships. Best of luck :) Mohammad Lafi Lafi.me

You don't need a hotel license. You run your business as a lead generator and leverage the licenses this the owner already pays. The dues are already being paid for the rest of the units so you don't need to compensate the owner additionally for the licenses. You however are a contractor who simply provides closed leads to the hotel. Your service is "Marketing" ;) My name is Humberto, Arizona based MBA and true strategist. For further help in developing, growing, etc. google me and contact me. Best of luck!! You're onto something.

I'm not sure if this is how you imagine this world to work, but at least according to the order you wrote it "raising funds" was first. In reality it should actually be one of your final steps of the stage you are at right now. It may even come after a year or two! So you have this great app idea, and you're looking for a place to start... Don't! Don't start yet before you decide whether you have what it takes to get into a roller coaster that can ruin your life and make you miserable! Not trying to scare you but I think most people only hear about these great success stories. They have this dream of maybe, possibly, becoming the next big thing... Because they have the best idea for an app... You don't hear about the failures so often. And even if you do, you don't hear about what the founders of these failing startups had to go through. Truth is you are most likely gonna fail. And I'm saying that without even knowing what your idea is. There are so many barriers on your way that even a great product with a great team is likely to fail. Some people would say "I'm not afraid of failing", "It's good to fail cause you learn", "Failing will make me stronger for the next startup". That's somewhat true but it doesn't mean that failing is easy. As oppose to what people sometimes say - you do not want to fail! It's very painful!!! You have to understand what failing in a startup means. You can work your a$s for 2-3 years, have little to no salary, waste other people's money (most likely your friends and family first), lose friends, fight with your partners, your family, your spouse, devote 20 hours a day for your startup all this time, forget about the little and big things you used to enjoy in life, and only then, after debating 100 times whether you should quit or not, you finally decide that it's not gonna work and you've failed. Disappointing your family, your investors, yourself. Trust me it is painful. Are you sure you wanna do this to yourself? If yes, give me a call. I have the experience you need! From idea stage, to proof of concept, to running beta tests, getting millions of millions of users in ways you can't even imagine, creating features and experience that will make these millions of users completely addicted and viral, raise money in a smart way, hire the right people, find a great co-founder, succeed, fail, be persistent, and enjoy the ride! Good luck, Roy

Pricing anything is a little bit of science and art. It really depends on what you are selling. You'll be looking at cost plus or value pricing. If you're selling goods in a highly competitive market, you're stuck with pricing to beat competitors and product differentiation. If you're selling a service or you're lucky to have little competition, you could price based on the value your customer receives. Any pricing strategy will have to start with an understanding of the market. If you'd like, we can find a time to talk and discuss your product and market.

I have been involved in building and implementing systems - both SaaS based products, custom services. I have seen that it pays to smoothen the process of on-boarding by offering controlled and curated access to potential customers. Seed the environment with contextual data and help the visitors get the aha moment early on. Simple examples - if it is an LMS (Learning Management System) that you are offering, load a course with some videos, quizzes etc and let the user try it out both as a teacher and as a student and show the interactions involved. This strategy is more likely to help the potential customers understand the features and also makes the experience memorable.

I would bootstrap as long as possible. As long as you're able to engage engineering resources for continual product enhancement; the customer support team to ensure customers are churn-proof happy; the marketing team to generate awareness, leads, and optimize the sales process; and the sales team to close business, keep going on your path. Where things get tricky is in terms of competition. If you're bootstrapped, it's harder to compete against a well-funded adversary (or adversaries) because they can do much more in terms of generating awareness. Their marketing team can attend many conferences. If your sales cycle is aided by in-person contact, conference and trade shows could be important. They are not cheap. Your marketing needs may also require a huge amount of demand generation. This can become really costly. (See the Fan Duel sports betting marketing campaign in Q3/4 2015. Mega expensive!). Depending on your product category, investment can also play a role in how prospective customers perceive you. If you're selling to the enterprise, having Blue Chip backing from Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia will impress those who look for this external validation. (You've surely heard of the “No one ever got fired for buying IBM” statement?). VC funding also helps with publicity, and media coverage if you care about that and need TechCrunch clips. There are many successful startups that never took any money. The vast majority or startups, in fact, don't. Based on your description above, though, it doesn't seem as if my thoughts apply to you. If you already have partnerships that are working for you, global customers you can leverage in those regions, a product that is clearly providing value to your customers, and you can fund growth from cash flow or other options (debt financing, perhaps), I'd keep to your path. The larger and more successful you become, the better the terms you can negotiate if and when you decide you can't live without outside investment.

I am a corporate attorney and have advised clients of protection of the intellectual property integral to their operations. In the intellectual property world, there are three types of federal registration you can pursue - patent, trademark, and copyright. Patents secure ideas, trademarks secure brands, and copyrights secure written product. If you are looking to protect your idea, you may think about filing for a patent. The first step is securing a provisional patent that sort of holds a spot for your idea while your actual patent application is pending or your idea goes into development. The patent process is complicated and lengthy, so I would recommend getting the advice of a patent attorney if that is something you want to explore. Not all ideas are able to be patented, and you may find that a patent is not an option for you. The other option is to maintain your idea as a trade secret. This essentially means that you are careful about who you share it with, and when you do share it with anyone, you have an Non-Disclosure Agreement in place that prohibits them from disclosing your idea to anyone else or misappropriating it for themselves. If you had a company built around the idea, you would establish an in-depth trade secret program designed to prevent disclosure of your idea outside of the company. (e.g. Coca Cola has a trade secret program built around the recipe for Coke.) As an individual, you would just need to be careful and, to be extra thorough, get people with whom you share your idea to sign NDAs. There is no federal registration process involved in maintaining a trade secret, just common sense and consistency with your protective practices.

If you're looking to build a service like Xero that imports users bank transactions and balances, you've got a few options. Xero uses Yodlee on the back end to power their bank feeds. As I understand it, it's rather old school and often errors out, but supports a huge range of banks through scrapers, private APIs, and all kinds of proprietary technology. You can also check out Plaid - you can think of them as the modern version of Yodlee. They support a more limited number of banks, but have an excellent API and SDK, and I believe are much more affordably priced than Yodlee.

As you may suspect, there really isn't a hard and fast answer. You can review averages to see that a CEO typically becomes a major shareholder in a startup, but your role and renumeration will be based on the perceived value you bring to the organization. You value someone's contribution through equity when you think that they will be able to add long-term benefits, you would prefer that they don't move company part way through the process, and to keep them from being enticed by a better salary (a reason for equity tied to a vesting arrangement). Another reason is when the company doesn't have salary money available but the potential is very strong. In this situation you should be especially diligent in your analysis because you will realize that even the best laid plans sometimes fall completely short. So to get the best mix, you have to be very real about the company's long-term growth potential, your role in achieving it, and the current liquidity necessary to run the operations. It should also be realized that equity needs to be distributed. You cannot distribute 110% and having your cap table recalculated such that your 5% turns into 1% in order to make room for the newly hired head of technology is rather demotivating for the team. Equity should be used to entice a valuable person to join, stay, and contribute. It should not be used in leu of salary that allows an employee to pay their bills. So, like a lot of questions, the answer is really, it depends. Analyzing the true picture of your long-term potential will allow you to more easily determine the correct mix.

Start here: http://www.ehospitalitytimes.com/?p=82548

Contact both the customer and BBB to clarify the complaint and confirm it was intended for you. You can delight both parties by accepting responsibility and expressing empathy, even if you are not at fault. There is a long-told customer service story about Nordstrom accepting an faulty car tire because the customer claimed she bought it here. Turns out, the site used to house a tire shop prior to Nordstom moving in. To your success, -Shaun

License them the idea. Retain ownership. Did they flat out SAY "Yes, we want this; if only we or someone else would develop it?" You can hire support teams, you know. I wonder if you are letting a few shadow issues stand in the way of a good order.

I can answer generally because I'm not sure which NLP algorithms you are analyzing (metadata, etc). First, you must identify the target audience for your possible new offering. You may already have this. If you do, then the best way to find out what the market wants is simply to ask. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see the mention of a particular vertical or target audience in this post, so I'll make up an example. Let's say you are targeting criminal lawyers who want to have real time information on crimes and crime statistics using the model you describe above. Develop 10 questions you would ask this group - then ask them. You can do this online, through social media or some people are comfortable picking up the phone and asking the questions "old fashioned" style. Once you have identified this audience and gotten some feedback, you can then begin to understand if there is a "gap" not only which the industry might be facing, but for which they will pay to close. Hope that helps. Stephanie

Your Main Problem: Lack of credibility in the US market. Nobody knows you. They doubt you'll stick around. They're afraid they'll send you money and you'll disappear. This is *after* they manage to notice you exist! So you have a double challenge: first to reach your target market, then to assure them you're legitimate. No one is going to hand you orders. Either you need to partner with an existing US firm so you can gain the North American toe-hold you require, or you must qualify exclusively for companies that consistently hire off-continent outsourcers. ASAP, get your marketing to include stories of helping people in North America. Be ready to jump on a plane if necessary. Face to face gives a lot of credibility. Work on what differentiates you from the zillions of other Russian devs out there. Why should someone hire you instead of...say...the next Russian dev? And finally, learn how to sell. People are not going to come knocking, even if you do have the better mousetrap. If you're interested in learning more about what you can do to mitigate these issues and go on the offensive, book a call with me.