What you are looking for are SAM. Strategic Account Managers. These individuals are more flexible to conversations that Strategic Buyers or any other purchasing department. SAMs are reponsible for maintaining existing relationships with key vendors or buyers so that would be a good start for you. Same thing when you hire, I think you are looking for a SAM :) Merry Christmas

It sounds like you want all your "new customers" to register with their credit card info so that you can verify that it isn't someone just referring themselves via zombie email addresses. That makes sense, otherwise you'd be giving away a lot of rewards for fake referrals. When people send referrals to friends, they aren't doing it to make rent money, they're doing it for a reward that would be nice to have, but isn't essential, and isn't time critical. Because of this, I don't think that people who actually think your product is cool would hesitate from referring friends if they know the reward could take weeks to come. However, you _can_ get the best of both worlds, by also giving _another_type_of_reward_ immediately after each of their friends signs up. We'll call this other reward the "social reward". It would be an email you send saying, "One of your friends just signed up, thanks so much! We'll send you a reward once they start using our services!" That way the referrer would be getting an immediate reward once any friend signs up by A) seeing that they provided their friend with something useful, and B) knowing that their 'real reward' is imminent. Meanwhile, you would also be giving the referrer feedback about how many of their friends signed up. A) If very few of the referrer's friends sign up they can ask them why they didn't, or give reminders. So they'll be doing your work for you. B) Meanwhile, if many of the referrer's friends sign up, it would be a powerful implementation of a psychological concept called "social proof" , which essentially means that the more people like you do something, the more you do it too. So the more of the referrer's friends sign up, the more committed the referrer becomes to your product too. In summary: - Give the big reward after their friend(s) starts actually paying for your services (i.e. delay of possibly weeks). - Also give "social rewards" via email immediately after each of their friends signs up. By doing those two things you'll be getting the best of both worlds + a bunch of other cool side effects. If you want to discuss these, or other options further, feel free to send me a message, all the best, Lee

Thats a very good idea,i think you should talk with the people in charge.if you need any other relationship advice am here.

Camera should be of high contrast..... And lens should be conversing

Here are your options: You can only compete with them If you're able to either: A) Get a programmer: - Either raise necessary funds to hire one full time. See my answer on ("When is the right moment to approach investors?") - Use your own funds to hire a freelancer. See my answer on ("How do I get my game from Prototype to Demo?") - Or convince a developer to join you as a cofounder for equity. See my answers on that topic ("Where do I find a co-founder to join my team?" --And-- "How and or where do I find a stellar Partner/CEO") B) Learn how to program it yourself, and program it yourself - Either have enough time and motivation to learn programming fast enough (could be very difficult, depending on how far along you are, and what you're trying to program) - Or there are several methods you can potentially use (depending on the complexity of the app you need) to make an MVP without programming. For instance MIT App Inventor (http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/), or Marvel App (https://marvelapp.com/) Otherwise: A) Either see if you can join the competition. If you contact them and can convince them that you have something to contribute, they might let you join the team. See my answer on that topic ("How do I approach a business with an idea?") B) Or come up with another idea, and see if you can do steps A or B before someone else starts implementing the same idea Send me a message if you want to discuss any of these, or other options in more depth. In any case, I wish you the best of luck, Lee

I personally prefer the second two. That being said, given ghat 25% of your leads come through your website you may want to test each variation to make sure your users respond well to the new design. You should also check how much traffic you're receiving from search engines and prepare for a drop in traffic after launch. If January is a busy season for your business, it might not be the best time for a full redesign. Will these new designs be responsive? I would make sure your new site is mobile friendly.

Depending on how many simultaneous users you want the application to be able to serve at any given time (peak), and how much processing your application does when uploading and downloading files (as well as other typically used operations), your hosting specification requirements may vary. But, to offer some basic guidance, you could probably get started with about 3 Virtual Machines (2 for load balancing serving the web application itself, and one running the database). I'd get them with around 4GB ram and 2 CPU cores each. These run at around $40/month each on Digital Ocean. You could also use AWS, SoftLayer, Heroku, and others, each with their own pros and cons. For example, if you use AWS you could (depending on which database you're using) leverage RDS for your database which could simplify your scaling and operations. I'd suggest you store the uploaded files on S3, Object Storage, or similar service (as opposite to serving it from the file system which makes it harder to scale). Hope this helps as a quick guidance. As you can see there's lots of options and details to consider. If you'd like to setup a call, I can certainly help you dig deeper into the different options and which ones would work best for your specific needs.

I think you may be using the word "leadership" with a different meaning. You seem like a go-getter and a potential high performer (do more, do it very well, do things beyond what's expected of you), but these are different than a leader (inspire other people, set direction and governance) or a manager (optimize resources use, human or otherwise) A low-risk, good way to grow and stretch your talent, comfort zone and how people perceive you is to take on special projects. Ideally special projects that will lead to new products and new roles down the line, that way if you perform there is a natural transition towards the new role. The reality though is that a company of 25 employees and a culture such as the one you describe may simply not be one where growth opportunities abound.

Yes absolutely. Depending on the needs of your service and database traffic, some chains are better than others to use. Steemit.com is a good example of blockchain, curation, filtering by users, with a built-in economy.

Having a prototype is essential if you want investors to take you seriously. So good job on getting that. It would be very good if you can also get a designer to also make 1 or 2 sleek representations of your vision for what some key screens of the app could eventually look like. These screens are just to have in a deck, and maybe you could even add some superficial functionality by using something like Marvel (https://marvelapp.com/). Feel free to add buttons, options, etc. to the screens which you haven't implemented yet in your MVP. It's just to show your vision for the future. Then also have at least some data or insights to present from your preliminary user testing. Even info from just 5 user tests is better than nothing, but the more you have the better. You probably won't need anything more than 50 though (depending on what your app does), so you don't go crazy on that before talking to investors. Start by 'pitching' your app to just friends first, then to strangers (maybe your neighbor, whatever), then to investors you're closest to (maybe you're connected to some on linkedin?), then to investors you don't know, etc. At each of these stages you'll be getting more and more confident about your product, you'll be working out bugs, and you'll be perfecting your pitch to get the most interest. By doing it in steps you're not putting all your eggs in one basket, and you'll instead be increasing your chance of getting investment as your approach bigger and bigger investors. If you want to run your current prototype by me for suggestions, inquiries, etc. send me a message and we can set up a call, all the best, Lee

I have found CrossComm in Durham, NC to be among the best. Sean, their tech lead, really helped us at Reveal Mobile. They are reasonably priced with an impressive client roster (Duke, LG, T-Mobile, etc...). See http://www.crosscomm.net/ and just give them a call at 919-667-9432.

Easy: answer questions. I love to focus on questions within my defined area of expertise that don't have any answers already posted. I check this almost daily and jump in on questions I feel that I can add value to. You can also review other questions that have answers already, and offer your insights. Your message may be slightly different than other experts -- but there is beauty in that! Not every user will identify with every expert. Most of the consulting calls I have booked as a result of Clarity come from folks who read my answer to a question, not the original user who posted the question. To see success, you have to put yourself out there and commit to investing time to the community. All the best, -Shaun

Without having further details, I have always been a fan of bootstrapping- that is using your own funds and capital to start the business. If your objection to this may be that you don't have access to the kind of funding that is required through your personal savings but bootstrapping can be done through customer validation (pre-sales), business optimization (existing products) and personal capacity building (earn/save more). I hope this is helpful!

HI! Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you. I would say write it in the language you are most familiar with. If you feel comfortable in Java, then it's a great choice. NodeJS is also a very popular choice for API servers, and Python has two great, slim tools in Flask and Eve: http://flask.pocoo.org/ and http://python-eve.org/. Also, PHP 7 just came out and it's been thoroughly vetted; even if it's not battle-tested yet, it's way faster than previous versions and worth the investment if you are familiar with php. As for storage, it really depends on your data structure, but SQL fits most apps really well, and there is good support for it in cloud hosting. For hosting, I would look at AWS and Google. AWS offers more robust storage options with RDS and DynamoDB, but I bet Google is catching up fast. Both are very good options and offer great scalability, but are more complex to setup than a pair of VPSes. If you're in the market for a VPS, Linode has a managed Load Balancer service that's easy to setup and you can get a good HA setup for webservers with minimal effort. I guess the storage part depends very much on your data. Feel free to ring me up, I'd be happy to explore this further.

Some of those same influencers who turned you down might have written about your service if you hadn't offered to pay them. You should have instead sent them a bag of dicks. If they're a celebrity, you can get their agent's address from http://contactanycelebrity.com/ (it sounds fake, but it's actually totally legit, agents actually send them info). If they don't have an agent, try to look for a 'fan mail' address that they might have posted on a video or something. If you can't get any relevant address, then look up their friends on social media instead, and offer to pay them $xxx cash to send a back of dicks to their friend, and a cut of whatever orders end up being generated by that (if the influencer ends up writing about it). There are more techniques you can use to get influencers to post for free about it. Send me a message if you want to discuss it more, or just to say thanks if any of these ideas work (I'd actually like to know). all the best, Lee

There are an infinite number of ways to do this. Remember that you get paid for adding value to people's lives. Paid webinars, monthly newsletters, selling or reselling via ebay/etsy, ebooks (especially via Amazon/Kindle), digital products (check out Clickbank) as a creator or affiliate. Look for something you're interested in so that your interest won't wane. If you're only in it for the money, it won't last long and you won't have the drive to make it high quality. Check out Pat Flynn's site Smart Passive Income for ideas and resources. A key for any business is to leverage your time and create recurring revenue. Freelancing tends to be another job (dollars for hours). Creating something once that can be sold an infinite number of times (all digital products) is the key to growing your income. Developing a network of supportive people who can help you build your idea and can later help you promote your products/services is also critical. Don't think you can do it all yourself. Leverage (and support!) your connections. It usually takes time to develop the infrastructure and following/tribe/audience/customers. Don't give up too soon. Eighteen months is a good benchmark. After that, if you've put in the work, the business will start to take off. Don't expect "fast cash" before that though. Be willing to put in the hard work, delivering value all along the way (usually for little or no money in the beginning to develop a following who will buy from you later).

A 2 minute explainer video is like being chained to a wheel of injustice. Seriously :) when did you manage to get through a 2 minute video without leaving or skipping? 1min to 1.5mins TOPS. Break the other deeper aspects into short form video explanations or separate the feature set out as a separate video. Homepage video: 1. Help the viewer identify with the problem 2. Ask leading questions (creates a curious mindset 3. Tell them about the solution quickly and the differentiator (now Bob can travel fro x>y 1.5 times faster and cheaper than any competitor whilst Joe, Shmo and Clet get to be drivers without a $1m medallion). 4. Summarize 5. CTA The rest you can explain in deeper pages with feature-set explainer videos(even shorter! Bite size chunks that make you want to watch more... Like eating some small tasty M&Ms)

Here are 3 ways you could find out who the investors are. Internal documents At any AGM (annual general meeting, which you would have a right to attend) this would obviously be disclosed. Also in the shareholders agreement, all parties would likely sign and you could find out then, and without making a stink. Public Filings It depends on the jurisdiction but you could be able to see the public filings. This can be bad because generally it's not advantageous to have your ownership as public knowledge. Introduction Why not just ask the entrepreneurs for an intro? You gave them money, surely they could introduce you to other investors...

There are plenty of experts within the FBA field, you can Google them or seek help here on Clarity. Before you seek help, perhaps you want to look into these marketplaces and check for entry requirements and market research. For instance, you need to register for VAT to sell within the UK. Check out the UK government site for more details: https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates You can seek help from accountants over at ukvat.uk.com instead of the big 4 as bigger firms will take longer time to get back to you. As for EU marketplace is simpler once you have applied and started selling within the UK marketplace. Germany now requires sellers to have VAT as well. Selling within the Japan marketplace is pretty straightforward. Keep in mind you will need to translate your product listings when selling to non-english countries. You can easily hire a translator on Upwork.com and make sure the freelancer is fluent in the native language to avoid any direct translation mistakes. Every country and marketplace that you choose will have different rules and regulations so be sure to check them carefully. Stay laser focus on the marketplace you want to expand to instead of trying to sell within all of them. Get familiar with one and generate sales before moving onto the next. If you need more help selling within the UK marketplace, I am happy to help out as I have clients selling within US and UK marketplaces.

Without more detail it is hard to make a good recommendation. Since I don’t know your exact needs I will share the best AI based chat tool I have seen. It is offered by a company called NextIT. You can see it in use at goarmy.com. If navigate there and chat with Sgt. Star you can ask him just about anything you can think of and you will get a good and accurate response.

I've advised 40+ startups on hiring, org structure, and leadership, and excited to take a stab at this question. The key first is defining in more detail the role you need today and the role you aspire the company will need 12 months from now. Where do they intersect? What hard skills vs soft skills are needed at each juncture? The real important part of this will be whomever you hire, will they have their domain in which they can make their own calls and have the final say while you're still there? Management overlap or disagreement is generally what causes leadership to be a mess. The best talent you'll want to attract will expect to have final say on many matters and not have to run so much by you. As you mentioned, COO's typically have different skill sets than CEOs. COO's run the internal business and allow the vision set by the CEO to become reality. It happens, but not a guarantee than a COO can evolve into a CEO. Your typical CEO is busy setting the vision, meeting investors, building partnerships, brand, working with media, hiring, etc... In the case of many CEOs, they simply don't have the time to meet with their direct reports who lead the other business functions. Although it's prestigious to report into a CEO, most people are frustrated by the lack of time, feedback, and direction they receive. This is where a COO can add a lot of value; by having more time to manage, lead, and guide the rest of the leadership. This way the CEO can spend time with the COO, and the COO then pushes the right framework, expectations, and feedback to the rest of the org. If you have any other questions on this matter, happy to discuss on a call.

Hi Sree, I saved your site as a pdf and have begun annotating it, let's schedule a call and we can go over a couple suggestions, all the best, Lee

Short Answer: Build a deep network. This is why network science is my primary focus and the top companies today Google, Amazon, Facebook, Linkedin are heavily leverage networks. There is no "contact here for partnerships" form for large diversified organizations. Unless it is a very specific program, they don't want an inflow of un-vetted opportunities. So how do you do it? You reach out to one of your advisors or investors(presuming you have some) and ask them if they know the someone at Company X. If they know the COO of Best Buy and can make an intro than that is the quickest way to get to the right department. This is a top-down approach and generally works faster and better than a bottom-up approach.

I have extensive hands on experience in prototyping for startups using 3D printers, micron accuracy computer controlled milling machines, power tools, hand tools, etc. Here are some pointers: You can buy your own 3D printer (I'd recommend Afinia: http://afinia.com/), or you could send your CAD design to http://www.shapeways.com/ to have them print it for you. If your design can be made from 2 dimensional pieces, then you could also get it made by a laser / water jet cutting place, such as http://www.bigbluesaw.com/ If you'd like further information about how to do it yourself, other manufacturers, the best CAD software, the limitations of each prototype manufacturing method, or information on the best materials to use for different conditions, send me a message and we can work out a call, all the best, Lee