You can try here, there will most likely be some 'experts' in the mix of people that check it out. https://www.reddit.com/r/AlphaAndBetaUsers https://www.reddit.com/r/NewProducts Also, I would do a search through Clarity for 'wordpress' or 'video' and book a call with someone that's an expert in the field. Send a link via a Clarity message and they might have time to check it out briefly before your call, and then they can also go through it with you on the call. Other than that, you could google blogs about wordpress plugins and contact them. best of luck, Lee

Here's a good guide to get you started: https://adespresso.com/academy/guides/facebook-ads-beginner/create-first-facebook-ad/

Hi, there are a few different possibilities I’d look into, based on this limited information: First, I’d double check that you set up the ad campaign so that you’re paying by CPC (and not CPM), and that you’re looking at website clicks specifically and not clicks overall (the latter includes, likes, comments, etc). Are the ads in the same ad set? Are they running at the exact same time? Against the same target? Facebook ads are priced on a bidding basis, and the number of advertisers you’re competing against may vary. Second, consider the amount of text on the image: If you have more text on the image, Facebook warns that the cost of your campaign can be higher. Finally, take a look at your relevance score: This is a score on a scale of 1 to 10 for how relevant Facebook thinks your ad will be to the targeted audience, and your cost will be higher if relevance is lower. Get in touch if you want to dig into the details of your results together and plan an effective strategy for your next campaign!

I am not a tax expert and this is not legal advice. But I believe that the only reason to secure a 501c3 (as opposed to one of the designations for a nonprofit membership group) would be to provide tax deductions to donors. If all you need is an entity that won't pay income tax (like a fraternal org), then that might be an easier way to go. Depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Hello, this is Ann. I am a business coach for small entrepreneurs with a lot of experience in business. About your question, I would love to make some suggestions. Scannable or Evernote are developed for this purpose. They are created by verified provider, so you don't have to worry about the quality. In addition, if you want to have a variety of choice, you can log on AppStore and simply search the phrase "scannable pdf". If you have any other question related to business tools or strategies, please remember that Ann is here. Have a nice day!

There are only two ways to do it. Option 1: You could just post an update on your feed saying, "hey everyone I'm headed to [conference] on [date] in [location]. Let me know if you're around and we can meet up!" That will at least get to people that check in on Linkedin occasionally. Option 2: The way your doing it now (manually) Linkedin made it impossible to message multiple people at a time without manually adding their names (or clicking each person), one by one. You can't paste in a list of names like you can in email. You have to put in a single name, click the profile that pops up, then put in the nest name, etc.

Google is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design

You can use WordPress as a REST API, which allows you to read/write data from WP in JSON format. However, this won't be as performant as other database solutions, so you may want to consider alternatives unless there's a strong business reason to use WordPress. I've built apps without WordPress, and also with WordPress as a back-end to meet a client's requirements, so I'd be happy to discuss the pros and cons with you if you'd like a second opinion. Good luck!

Do you have a clearly defined target audience? If so, great! If not, that would be the first place to start. Second, where does your target audience hang out, online and off line? Be specific and create some lead generation strategies to reach them with a call to action. Hope that helps.

I have worked in the mortgage industry for over 20 years. My experience spans origination, MSR, banks and mortgage companies. I understand the current issues with mortgage pricing, servicing, and regulatory concerns. I have a very deep research pool and can provide analysis, commentary, and opinion on the current state of the mortgage industry and the outlook for the players and the industry as a whole.

Most of mine come from being eternally curious about the world around me - questioning how things are done, why things are done a certain way. Ideas tend to strike me when something happens that either makes me happy or excited (which I then want to make repeatable or shareable with the world) or when I see something that makes me sad, or angry (which I then want to make better, or eliminate or prevent). It can be difficult to sit down with the intent to "have some ideas" which you could translate into startups. The other thing to note - most of the ideas I come up with go into evernote - never to return. Why? Were they bad ideas, no not really, some are quite interesting. However, they aren't things that I have a strong interest in or a sustained passion for. No matter what you do to generate your ideas - ensure that they line up with the things in life you can't do without - the things that you'd do even if it wouldn't make you any money. Regardless of the quality of the idea - if you can't stay excited about in the face of all sorts of difficulty, adversity, and struggle - in an environment of extreme uncertainty and instability - it won't be long before you are thinking of the next idea and wishing you'd never started this one. The best ideas in my opinion, are the ones that hide among the weeds, on the foggy edges of the thing or things your mind turns to on its own, when given the chance. Opportunities are everywhere - so look near the things that interest you most - those are the most likely to be suited to you.

This may sound overly simplistic - but I'd suggest just asking a few. Assuming you want to find someone local that you can work on site with - just seek out a dozen or so and ask them. If an individual says no, ask them who else you should ask in the area. They shouldn't be hard to find. Said differently, if they are - they probably aren't busy.

The easiest way that will really hit you is, are you turning away business because you can't handle the load? If that is a yes, then you have to say, how much am I willing to pay a person to do the extra work? Lastly, the business you are turning away, is it enough for you to pay a person, and still make money or at least break even. The last one is the one that should really be the decider. If you can pay the person the salary you set in the second question, and still make money after expenses, then yes, you should hire someone. The trickier part is if you only break even. The reason it is trickier is, maybe based on your current numbers of turned away business you break even, but wit that new employee, you could see an increase in business due to word of mouth and that sort of thing. The only time you say no to hiring is when it would not make you money, or break even after you hire.

One simple way is put them all in a tool like this and ping them http://www.bulkping.com/

First off, I'm sorry to hear of your struggles. Secondly, I commend your diligence. As for which course of action to take... There is no silver bullet and while it may seem frustrating you may very well be right on the heels of success. You never know when it will take place in your life, but if you work hard, smart and long towards a clear goal you will get there. I would avoid bouncing from one opportunity to the other as it is difficult to hit a tipping point if you're spreading your activities too thin. Best of luck to you.

That depends a lot on what assets you have, and what type of business you're trying to create. Do you already have a MVP version of your product? I hope so, six months in! One option is to pre-sell your product (beta version) to your audience, which not only helps with financing but also gets them involved with improving the product you're creating. You do have an audience, right? If not, stop what you're doing or building and go back to that stage. Don't build products in a vacuum.

There are a number of pre-built social media platforms designed to allow people to quickly create their own social networks such as ning.com and Dolphin. The problem is that if your idea is truly unique, then these platforms probably won't have the tools you need to accomplish what you're looking to do. I would suggest searching for a co-founder or perhaps multiple co-founders to join your team. There are sites like https://www.cofounderslab.com/ that will allow you to network with like-minded people with specific abilities and experience. Using this platform you could search for someone with relevant coding experience looking to take on a new project. You may be able to find someone willing to help build your product in exchange for equity ownership in your company. Lastly, if you do have a truly unique idea you will want to protect it. Here is a link to a great article that walks through several steps you can take to help protect your idea/concept from employees, investors, and competitors: http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2013/11/18/7-simple-ways-you-can-protect-your-idea-from-theft/#b883b90707ee.

Hi, I'm not in Oregon so you'll need to speak to a local tax expert to verify the details but here is how it works: When you issue points you're creating a liability. You owe something to someone. It's like a gym which sells a one-year membership, they're only supposed to recognize 1/12 of the sale in the month it was sold. 11/12 of the money actually is a liability called 'deferred revenue.' As each month goes by, they reduce their liability by 1/12 and credit that money to income because now it is 'earned.' In your case you sell points to merchants (who give them to consumers) but most of the money collected is now owed to consumers to redeem their points. This is not income, you're just holding money owed to someone else. A small portion of the money, your gross margin on points sales, would be recognized as revenue and would have to cover your overheads and give you your profit, if any. So your balance sheet will keep growing in cash and an offsetting liability. Your income statement will only recognize the small margin which is your profit from selling the points to the merchants. I hope this helps make it more clear. With this type of business you may wish to investigate whether it makes sense from a liability point of view to hold the funds owed to consumers in a trust account rather than just 'floating' the points. I could see problems arising if you ever dipped into this cash pool to cover your own expenses while trying to argue to tax authorities that you're holding the cash for someone else. If you'd like to learn more about how merchants account for their own proprietary point systems, just book a call with me. I worked in the loyalty field for a few years. Cheers Dave

Without fully diagnosing the market potential of your space it's difficult to say whether to go all-in or change course. It's smart that you're not wanting to the "just another ordinary software", but you don't need to be the best per se. You simply need to be unique - which may prove challenging when providing a utility. If it were me, I would sell what you have like crazy and potentially offer the service at a lower rate to start with based on the expectation to clients that you are in the midst of integrating new improvements. This would allow you to onboard them earlier to generate cash flow, then increase the cashflow once the new features are built in. Since I don't know the full scope of what you're doing I could be off base in that clients either want it all or nothing, but if the latter is not true I would sell, sell, sell and offer unrelenting service which may prove to be part of your uniqueness. Good luck.

For the design? The downside is that you could end up with a very generic looking application/site. It's also not your (or your developer's) code so there will usually be a period of time required to get used to it in order to make any adjustments. In the end, it may not really save you that much time...Depending on what it does or doesn't do. Templates certainly aren't a bad place to start though. They can save time in many cases. Just not all cases.

Lots of different questions here. Volunteers are not considered donors in that they can't really deduct their volunteer-related expenses as donations. Nor can the entity claim them as revenue, unless the volunteers donate to the nonprofit and then the nonprofit buys their tickets. In general, the last thing we need is yet another nonprofit. Why don't you try finding an organization with a similar mission that could partner with you to see if it works? For example, you essentially become a self-contained department within that charity. You then recruit your own volunteers and donors, run everything through them, and… If you actually need to stand alone in the future… You can separate as an independent organization at that time. But this way you will not need to setup all your own systems, file your own tax documents, conduct your own audit, etc

Is impossible to give you any advice w/o any further information. Can you elaborate for me please? I'd be more than happy to help you out on this. Google me and email me if you wish.

Hello Ty, thank you for sharing this with us. I understand how vulnerable you might feel right now. My name is Humberto Valle, I have been helping entrepreneurs for over 8 years now, coaching strategic marketing and contracting for many companies at various phases in various industries across multiple continents in matters of growth, change management and innovation. Anything from evaluating opportunities, pivoting, crafting business models, improving website conversions, brand positioning and much more. I have also helped companies with your very own dilemma – here’s my quick advice for you: First thing first, you have reached 1/3 of your goal – that’s validation enough that your product has value what you might be lacking is positioning for this you should take a look at your commonalities among clients such as industry, common pain points, common budgets, common goals, or final reasons for finally hiring your services, etc. finding these commonalities and comparing them to their alternatives when they don’t hire you can give you insight into what other products to offer, what features to change or remove or improve – not necessarily pivot which is you essentially starting from scratch. Consider if you have lost interest because of the product, the stagnation, or the fact that you are a founder not a long term executive – as the business grows you become more of an admin person and fire fighter rather than a creative startup entrepreneur facing challenges and creatively figuring out how to prove the world wrong. These people exist and you might be one of them, if that’s the case your business might not be growing due lack of effort, or clarity due to you already exploring new ideas. I want to share something with you, those that succeed are those with one focus, one idea. People that think too much and have many simultaneous ideas are the ones that fail. This is a proven fact if you look into traits that successful entrepreneurs and failed startup managements have. Also consider that your model might be built to be scalable, which means that your growth could be stagnant due to lack of resources strategically invested to leverage demand and adding more offerings to your business model. Would a loan be an option if this is the case? Does your business have enough solvency to cover investment expenses for a new feature? A new market? or increase brand positioning? This leads me to my next question, as you have grown your business to over 300k in revenue has your marketing budget grown respectively?? If not why not? Stopping marketing spending to save money is like stopping a clock to save time. It doesn’t work that way. I hope this helps you a bit :) If you would like to hire me for additional consultancy feel free to google me (Humberto Valle MBA), read on me and email me at humberto@unthink.me I am available for long and short term partnerships.

I think the closest I know of to what you're describing is Influitive. Influitive is SaaS software for advocate engagement, including discussion forums. They have a widget that can extend their experience into your app or website.

Products like ZenDesk have a whole system built around help centers and tickets. Discourse and Disqus offer forum-like discussions. WordPress has several forum plugins. And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. My assumption would be that a deeper search on Google will come up with a metric fuckton of options. This is a huge challenge, so I imagine there are tons of companies trying to fill that space. Good luck!