Do not consider this as a fixed and rigid decision. Consider this more like an opportunity to realize that you should test your pricing strategy as early as possible or at least now. Every pricing strategy you choose does work, the question is can you find your optimum? In your position, I'd recommend to make up your mind about your features first. Sit together and think about what features are necessary for which buying persona you are catering to. To simplify this, forget what I just wrote and think about the feature set for your MVP to make it work for your user. The minimum solution fit, a car can't drive without 4 tires - there you have your basic pricing model - features: 4 tires. Now common practice is offering a very low pricing model that is meant to nurture your leads to upsell them to the pricing you want, your basic pricing. This almost free or free pricing tier lacks a certain feature that is "almost crucial" - what this is in your case, I do not know, because I do not know who you are ;) Though, there is a third tier, the all feature tier which is the enterprise model. You most certainly know this, because you see this everywhere. You can read more about pricing pages here: http://conversionxl.com/10-principles-of-effective-pricing-pages/ The problem with making your pricing model highly flexible is that prospecting customers do not know what they want/need or what they are willing to pay for it as long as you do not give them a clear proposal. Though, your SaaS might have a value proposition that might be perfect for a dynamic pricing structure - I do not know that, because I do not know you ;) For example, there are relative pricing models like retargeter which pricing is based upon the number of impressions, instead of a feature set and on the use-case - off- or on-site. Keep in your mind, that constantly testing pricing models might be illegal in your region. Though, you can always conduct user interviews and simply ask about this issue. But be aware, do not make the mistake to lead an answer with a too pushing question. Do not ask blatant questions like "Does the pricing of 8$ appeal to you" "Would you buy the product with this functionality for 8$" instead ask for ranges. Ask for "Would you consider to pay a price between 5-9$", which also doubles as you already have insight in your customers potential maximal buying willingness. I'd also think about behavioural targeting - e.g. users of demographic x get displayed another price than y. This, as a matter of course, needs to be tackled very carefully and thorough. Experience helps ;) Pricing generally is a whole own universe of conversion rate tests and techniques based upon behavioural insight and cognitive analysis. Charm pricing, decoys, reframing the environment of your prices, even the size of the font of your pricing can have an impact. Heck, even just removing the currency sign can have an impact on your CR: http://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/1798.pdf In your case, one intuitive test I would drive would be bundles. Means offering separated tiers, but also a discount bundle (though the discount is still higher than the single prices you offer "right now" - reframed). I am a VP of growth and my focus is on UX and CRO and this is one of those field I am personally excited about. So, sorry for the long text ;)

Luckily, municipalities, community groups, and chambers of commerce are all very visible, easily located targets. The businesses who also want to sponsor a deployment are harder to target, so I'll set them aside for this discussion. Chambers of Commerce can be approached individually, but there is also a National level governing body that you can open dialog with. I've had numerous conversations with the Chamber at a local and National level, and they are looking for ways to be more relevant, as their membership ages, and they find themselves lacking a way to replenish it, as they are seen as inconsequential to the current generation of business launches. The municipalities have a national member organization (more than one I believe) which can also give you access from the top down if the pitch resonates. In both instances, having individual clients among their membership, who can act as champions for your cause will go a long way. Do some hero hunting, determine who the leaders and followers are among the various chamber chapters, and the municipalities. Aim to close some of the leaders however you can, as loss leaders if necessary, and use them to garner interest from the follower cohort. Once you've developed some momentum within their membership, you are far more likely to be taken seriously by the top level organizations, which should give you access to internal marketing channels, with greater reach, low or no cost, and far more efficiency than individual outreach. Look at economic development agencies as well - the SBDC is another organization that has representation across the US and is lead by a National level body, making access at scale viable. I'm happy to discuss specifics of the approach. Ryan Rutan

That really depends on the product. If the aim of your product is to work in third world countries with poor access to technology and internet then you should build something as basic and all supporting as possible. If you're building something without a social edge and it's about monetising from 'richer' consumers then wherever they are they probably have relatively recent browsers. My last startup was focused on high value customers and we only built it to support latest chrome, last two versions of i.e. (which at the time was 9/10) and safari 8/9. This site provides a good set of stats: https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0 If you're going for the high end customer make sure you have good support for safari because mac users may be a minority but they spend the most money :) PS. You should also consider a mobile / responsive version.

We recently did a beta launch of Incorporations.IO which is an international incorporation comparison matrix. The tool aims to objectively answer this question: "What is the best country to incorporate a company" based on user input and criteria that is customizable. The reason this question is (almost) impossible to answer is that for each individual situation, the best place to incorporate may change, and is highly subjective. If you want to raise money in Silicon valley, then a Delaware C-corp is the preferred entity of choice. But not every business has this as a goal. For instance, what if you are a digital nomad that wants to legally minimize taxes on profits - or you want as little paper work as possible (using our tool, you can see how long it is estimated to complete filings on a yearly basis). What if you are starting a bitcoin company, what is the most favorable environment for that? Another aspect of incorporation that is important is tax treaties. If you are trading internationally, oftentimes this is a very important consideration to benefit from certain exemptions, or avoid other headaches, such as with-holding tax, for starters. We have an entire aspect of the application making it transparent and easy to see if the country you select has a tax treaty (either DTC or TIEA). Try out our tool - it's free to try (you don't even need to put in your email) and we'd love to hear your feedback. i@incorporations.io

There's no set right answer. The more people the better the data. Traditionally most sample sizes are 100 people but think about it like this. Which has more power? 90% of 100 or 90% of 1000 all vote in your favor. Which would you pick? My recommendation would be use a sample of at least 100 people. 👊🏽

Don't use leverage. Just simply say, I would need $150k and gently say, that you have been offered that amount by another company, but would prefer to work for company B. They will get the point and at least give you their best offer and probably will not be offended. After all, you are in the Marketing field. You are allowed to market yourself also. This shows that you value your contribution and they should too. Best of Luck, Mike From the Trenches to the Towers Marketing I will be glad to help as my time permits.

Send me the web link and I will take a quick look. Best of Luck, Mike From the Trenches to the Towers Marketing

Generally speaking - having access to more capital is a good thing - particularly when you aren't hemorrhaging equity to get access. Have you talked to the bank about closing on your "need" amount, and having them convert the remainder into a line of credit? Beyond that - this really comes down to a few loan terms, and some math. How does it impact the payment? Are you comfortable with the payment on the higher amount? How does it change your break even point at the cash flow level? Are there prepayment - early payment penalties? If so, are they worth the additional capital in the event you don't utilize it and want to pay it down? How is the loan interest calculated? Is it simple interest or amortized? In the case that its simple interest, you'll pay that interest regardless, because its rolled into the loan from the start. In any event - best of luck with the upcoming launch and solving the marketing challenge! Happy to help you dig into that further! Ryan Rutan

1. Check angel.co and other sites for investors who align with your values, type of business, sector etc. 2. See if you have mutual friends on LinkedIn and if so ask for introductions 3. If not then send a brief email with a one page pitch (I can help you formulate these) 4. Follow up with a phone call if you can get hold of their number

Hi! Since you are good with an .mp3 and don't need a WAV file, I'd highly recommend using a free conference call service to record and download your audio. I like FreeConferenceCall.com, but my vendor of choice is FreeConferenceUSA.com for four reasons: first, no fees or ads whatsoever. Second, you can choose your own conference IDs, which I love, as you can use a vanity number (mine is AUDIO). Third, after you choose your conference ID and host PIN, you can use your conference calling number anytime--no reservations or bookings needed. Instant conference calls any time you need one on the fly. Fourth, you can record audio with no limit to the length at no charge, and you can instantly download an .mp3 file of the recording when you're done. For your purposes, dial in as host and then dial in as a participant from a different phone, and leave the second phone on mute while you record your audio. Then end the conference call and hang up. That's all it takes. If there's anything I can help with, please don't hesitate to ask. Best of luck, Jennifer Wenzel Owner, You Sound Great! http://www.YouSoundGreat.com

aaah. I know your struggles. I have a dating app :) At first we would get flagged and it was profoundly frustrating. What we did after was strictly a content marketing strategy with banner ads to download the application in each post and started seeing subscribers and downloads. Have you tried mobile banner ads on targeted apps? Works like a charm.

First, congrats on getting to MVP stage! Second, since you have a minimum viable product - what you need at the moment isn't investors or cofounders - it's users! I'll strongly urge you to spend your time getting your product in front of your target users, and gathering feedback diligently. Validating your MVP with users will be a requisite step in attracting investor attention - rare is the startup that can raise funds without some user level traction, even rarer still is the startup that nails its product without user feedback and sails happily to market. Gain some momentum and some learnings by getting your product into the hands of your users, your need for funding may be eliminated, or change drastically as you start to steer based on real market conditions and not intuition.

Just a thought from someone currently working on marketing his own firm online: Ideally, your existing customers would be so happy with your product, that they would write about you in those forums. Could you help them do that, or lead their attention to it? Or - if you think that is unethical - could you respectfully recommend your own product in the forums? Alternatively, you could just participate in the discussions and add value like that. You could learn about how your competitors work from their customers perspective, and get new ideas for your own product from the interaction. That way, you would get both visibility and ideas for product development. Good luck with your branding! Feel free to set up a call if you want to discuss the idea more in depth. Best regards Kenneth

It would be helpful to know the sector. I would try and start hyper local. That way you can easily and quickly get deals with small local businesses. You can then grow to small chains and then larger chains for a wider coverage. Small local business are in my experience very up for these kinds of programmes which might drive more sales or footfall. If you're looking at bigger corps or online brands then you should start with reselling an existing affiliate programme e.g affilinet in Europe. Happy to give more specific advice on a call.

Start of by using a site like udemy (https://www.udemy.com), they are a platform for creating online courses and handle payments for you. They may have some users who are in your sector. It sounds like finding 'customers' is your main issue. There is no panacea here, the approach you've taken so far is largely correct, here are some more ideas: 1. How about going direct to large construction companies (an industry you know) and offering them discounts for training their staff? 2. Reaching out to your own contacts to try and find more 3. Start a mailing list giving tips to these people and up-sell 4. The things you are already doing are good, blogging, social media etc. I would add creating meetup groups for engineers (and other target market). 5. Starting local is good idea, at least once you validate a customer acquisition model in the local area, you have something you can role out more widely.

I have used PR agencies and other third party services for my startups in the past. In my experience there is nothing like the founder getting in touch with a journalist directly and 'selling' their product/service with their own passion. PRWeb has done little for me in the past Pitch Pigeon is nothing more than a quick way of emailing a wide variety of blogs, who may be wrong for your product and the email might not get to the right person. It's to scatter gun. This is what I would do: 1. make sure you have a story people can write about, a launch is usually not enough, some types of sites are interested in close fundraising (like tech crunch). 2. ensure you have the story down as easy to digest bullet points, as well as a standard press release (in case they ask for it) and a press pack. 3. make a list of all the publications / websites you want to feature in 4. find out the names and email addresses, twitter handles of each of the relevant journalists (look for people who have written about competitors or similar products) 5. If possible get the phone number of the journalist. 6. In my experience NOTHING beats calling up the journalist yourself, they're far more likely to listen to you if you call them than if you email/tweet them 7. See if you have any mutual contacts on LinkedIn or other networks, if so get introductions. 8. Otherwise, call if you can't call, email and tweet. Happy to give you more specific help, ideas and support on a call. BTW, I recently got coverage in two national newspapers for my own startup.

Tough to answer in full without knowing what your service is, but there are plenty of ways to get in front of college students. A few ideas: - Build a blog with useful/interesting content, share on social, build an audience - Incentivize current users to invite their friends through a referral program or a campus rep program - Find sites where college kids spend a lot of time (think: Reddit), or posts relevant to your service and get involved in the conversation - Are there on-campus clubs or groups that would find your service particularly useful? Try reaching out to see if they'd be willing to give it a try Let me know if you want to hop on a call & discuss more ideas.

Just do it! No, seriously, I'd not recommend to talk to someone, because it basically is more a thing of getting to know the interface and the quirks of doing x and y. I'd neither advise someone to start using a 3rd party if you do have someone who can invest a bit time to learn the platform. However, if serious scaling is a close requirement, then you're forced to either get an in-house team or outsource it. I usually reach <.5$ CPA and I also usually have best experiences with testing myriad of AD sets. Keep in your mind, always testing: copy: tone, audience keywords, actionable keywords etc. image: emotional triggers, quality, visual objects etc. target audience: try to refine your scope to your buying persona, not your marketing persona Here are some resources to begin with and set you up on a good track. This is comprehensive enough to introduce you to most mechanics: https://adespresso.com/academy/guides/facebook-ads-optimization/ This is a short list of what to optimize for beginners: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/optimize-your-facebook-ads/ If you do not yet know what you want to achieve with the ADs (brand-awareness, retargeting, CTR, other actions or conversion types), this post is listing most types and its use: http://www.jonloomer.com/2015/05/05/facebook-ads-bidding/

Congratulations - you're in a very enviable position compared to many startups - you already have an audience. I would recommend that you open a dialog with your readers - it doesn't have to be obvious (it can be), but you should include them in the decision, and find out what they want. You could take a direct approach and poll them. That might seem a bit uncomfortable, but if you believe in the value of what you'll offer them - and give them a say in that offering, it shouldn't. You could also take an "offers" approach - where you test a few limited quantity, limited time offers (via email, banner, inline, etc) - this allows you to test the waters with multiple products before committing to a consistent offering. You can test products (physical, digital), services, affiliate offerings, and the list goes on. What to offer is a hard question to answer without more details - but suffice it to say you should look at what has performed historically among the ads on your site - as that will give you insight on what has captured their interest in the past. Something very important to remember - you've built this based on the value you add via the blog - don't stop doing that. I've seen more than one blog make a commercial attempt - and in doing so stop or greatly reduce their content after getting excited about initial conversions. Once they'd hit their entire initial population of users with product marketing, things slowed down, and then they had to play catchup on the content front to regain traffic.

I'd venture that if you have to ask such a generic question about how to start a startup, you're probably not well equipped to do so. My suggestions are as follows: 1. do 3-6 months interning with a small very early stage startup 2. find someone else to execute your idea whilst retaining a % equity 3. look to find co-founders who can execute the idea, stay involved but focus on your skill set (if it's relevant)

Hi there, Congratulations on your scholarship! I am both a startup adviser and college professor. My advice is based on my experience in the US, so please bear that in mind. Typically a personal statement is a combination of resume, aspirations and suitability. In that the school wishes to see your achievements, life experiences, goals, abilities and how all those make you a great candidate for their school. Most schools like to see your connectedness to their history and culture, and want to be satisfied that you will both gain from their learning and add to the institution. I am happy to get on a call with you to discuss how your startup experience and mindset can be leveraged for this as well as learn more about why you want a law degree in the first place. Look toward to speaking with you! Best, Arjun

Try linkedin.

Being both a Consultant to Startups and an Educator to young people like yourself, I commend you first on getting international experiences of any kind. And it's great you have a good business idea! Here's the beauty of applying to those companies - you can always say no or not pursue the job. And if you're not hired, that's the end of that anyway! Better to have an offer first before you think of this as a 'choice'. As for someone working on your idea - odds are someone already is even if not publicly known. Let's go with that assumption. Remember that being first to market isn't important anymore (remember Ask Jeeves? Google it.) Short answer: apply for the job(s) and simultaneously try to put a team and execution plan. See which opportunity takes root. Talk with me more, as I love working with students and young grads! Best of luck, Arjun

Working in consulting I can certainly see your dilemma. We have often thought about billing like that, but ehrn we have compared our fee to the size of the clients business, the clients do not receive it very well. (Close to "Mind your own business!" to put it mildly). By billing by the hour you stay on your own side of the fence and can motivate your costs, but you do not get a part of the value you create. I have seen it presented by one consultant, and he ties his fee to the performance of the business (increase in revenue, bottom line) after he has been involved. But he is a big shot strategic consultant working strictly with coaching top management directly. On that level it could make sense, as your impact can be more directly measured. I would consider one of the following options: - If your impact can be very directly measured - f.ex. If you are involved in the launch of a new product, business area or similar - it could make sense for both you and the client as you can measure f.ex. revenue generated - Try to package your deliveries into products or components, as they are more scalable and easier to charge by user, revenue or cash flow through your delivery. It can be hard in a lot of traditional consulting deliverables, but try to be creative about it. Software licenses have been priced like that for years. That way you do not have to justify the time you spend, so it is easier to charge the margin you are looking for. - If you have no doubt about your value creation, go all in! No cure, no pay - if the value is not created, you do not get any money. Significant downside, but also upside. Again, you need to be able to measure your success correctly. The good thing is, that you can experiment with this approach without harming your other business, as I assume you work with your clients individually. Good luck!

Regardless of your launch date - keep calm. Having a competitor or twenty is all but a certainty in our new business environment. It has never been easier to discover a problem, validate a solution, build a product and reach customers. But that goes for everyone. I'd urge you to consider a few questions: 1. Competitive Intelligence: If this competitor's offering is very similar to yours - what can you take away from a year (nearly) of their operations? Can you use this intel to modify your own product or approach? What have they learned in a year that you can use as a shortcut? Have they shown success in a particular vertical? If so, can you also focus there? This isn't an exhaustive list of questions on this topic - just pointing out that there is likely a silver lining to this cloud of competition. 2. Product The question of "is this ready to release?" "should I do it now, or later", "if later, how much later, when is the right time to launch" is one I field more than once a week. My opinion always skews to the "as close to now as practical." Watching founders struggle over knowing exactly when to launch as if it's a ribbon cutting ceremony for a bridge is painful for me. There is always a minimum level of development, engineering or design required to get your product into the market - but it is usually well below the perceptions of the founder. Take a minute to step back and ask yourself what will happen between now and whatever arbitrary time period you've determined is "ready". What features will you be adding? Do they matter to your users? If you said yes, how do you know - did you ask users? A lot of them? If not - you may be adding bloat before you even launch, or worse, doing what I call "building a better Yeti trap". Make sure your efforts are driven by the actual, and not perceived, assumed, or gut intuitions about what they need. Conclusion A competitive entrant is always a bit unnerving - but remember that being first to market isn't the race you need to win - that's just the start. Turn this into an advantage by drafting off their momentum. Chances are, your product is ready for some level of use right now, and that users will derive some benefit from it, and that you'll learn a lot from their usage. So, for my 2 cents, I'll borrow from my stiff upper lipped ancestors from across the pond - and suggest that you "Keep Calm, AND Launch Now" Cheers, Ryan Rutan