I would go for the direct client contact-approach for several reasons: - It sounds like you are still searching for exact client requirements. You will get those from talking to the clients directly. - You are not sure, whether your clients are enough tech-savvy that redd-it makes sense. This puts a significant downside to approach no 1, where you would let your competitors understand your product but risk having no clients. So unless you need to create cashflow quickly, and therefore need to scale fast, I would go for the safer solution and interact with clients directly. No problem assessing their tech-savviness, so you can move to an electronic platform, where growth will be faster after you have made sure, that your clients will be there as well. Let me note here, that the direct approach probably works best for b2b. b2c is hard work directly, so probably the webbased marketing would work there. But still the clients must be there, so you could start of with a b2c-test directly to gain knowledge. Good luck with approaching your target group. If you would like more dialogue on this, I will be happy to talk more. Best regards Kenneth Wolstrup

The conventional wisdom is to create a minimum viable product (MVP), release it, get customer feedback, use that feedback to improve the product, release again, get more feedback and so on. In terms of releasing to a closed user group, that is fine but when you launch a new website you're probably doing that anyway in that no one will have heard of it unless you through lots of money at online marketing or get lots of PR. In other words, usually it will take a while for your website/web app to get lots of traffic so a public MVP should not be an issue for reputation etc. On the subject of MVP, it should be the minimal amount of time, effort and money needed to develop the product to a working point, the most basic version of the site. Of course if s/he is just re-skinning something else, I'm not sure that is an issue.

I have become a Stripe convert. The simplicity and straight forward pricing is great. The platform works seamlessly. Previously I was a big proponent of Paypal but now after a few months with Stripe I am not ever going back. I have not had one issue at all compared to having at least a dozen issues a week with Paypal. For subscription services, recurring services there really is no comparison to Stripe as they allow you to integrate it and develop custom API's. If you want to jump on a call we can discuss it further. I can definitely give you some tips to getting up and running with Stripe and if you are using Wordpress as a minimum viable product we can discuss a few plugins that you can use in conjunction. Hopefully this helps!

You mention, that you can code and maintain yourself, and at the same time it sounds like your data can be dispersed across multiple sources. And you want to minimise license cost. In my business we use R a lot for both analysis and reporting. It is free (open source), but you will have to build programs. But it will read any format, and also create output to any destination you want. So you could start off with a mix of R, Excel and pdf, just to get things going. However, it could make sense for you to build a database already so you familiarise yourself with data warehouse thinking, since you want to expand with marketing automation. At that point you will need a database for monitoring response, sales etc. So it is important to build the right foundation as ealy as possible. If you don't want to code, but want point-and-click, there is boatloads of software for that, but probably more license cost (unless you can find open source for that). So If I were you, I would start off with something smaller. After all, you want to focus on the value you create for the business and your colleagues, and the time you save, rather than a smooth IT-infrastructure for this. I have lots of experience building reporting and analysis in the areas you mention, so if you want to discuss further, feel free to set up a call. Good look with your development. Best regards Kenneth Wolstrup

First, congratulations! This sounds like an exciting opportunity. However, part ownership/partnership can be tricky. What happens if you disagree down the road? What happens if someone gets sick, dies, or has to leave the company for any reason? What happens if there is a divorce and a spouse who isn't currently involved in the business also becomes a part owner? Have you considered structuring your compensation to be salary plus a share of the profits without true ownership? That could potentially reduce headaches and liability for both of you.

Hi there, If I understand correctly, you want a definitive list of .edu domain names to compare users against to automatically approve them for your service? The most authoritative list would be held by Educause - http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/index.asp but you won't necessarily be given the list. I would try dropping them an email anyway. In the meantime, here are two other sources (but likely incomplete) that you could use. 1. https://github.com/Hipo/university-domains-list 2. http://pastebin.com/LND21t5F If you'd like to discuss more, please schedule a call! Best, Neil

I'm not sure if I understand your question. But if anyone one started something on a budget, the best choice (temporarily) would be leveraging Wordpress. Typically Wordpress is scalable up to about 10-15k total users... By then you should be working on your own platform and bigger programming team. If you're not on a budget the question is almost irrelevant.

It's a tough ask because there are so many people looking for developers to work for free and not enough developers around to fill the paid jobs. However, there are some people who if they love the idea might come on board, more likely as a side project. To find tech co-founders have a look at the following sites: https://www.cofounderslab.com/ https://www.founder2be.com/ http://www.founders-nation.com/ There are also meetups and networking events for founders to find tech co-founders try looking through www.meetup.com for ones local to you.

Regarding US taxation of internet sales. Since you are a foreign entity or person (in regard to the US), and there is an income tax treaty between Canada and the US, you will not be liable for US federal income tax on internet sales unless you have a “permanent establishment” in the US with which the internet sales income is effectively connected. So as long as you do not have a warehouse, physical store, sales office, etc... in the US you don't have to file US returns or remit tax to the US. Amazon should be charging to the customer and withholding any sales tax due to a state in which your products are sold. If you sell through other merchants or directly you may have to deal with this yourself. Regarding incorporation Incorporation is almost always a good idea from a liability standpoint as it prevents a judgement for damages from taking all your property and limits the collection to what is owned by the business, With the facts you have given I would suggest incorporating in Canada unless you have a business reason to establish a physical presence in the US. This will eliminate US taxes and related compliance costs. Once you establish a US presence you will need to begin filing returns in the US even if you are running a net operating loss. If there is no benefit to having a physical presence in the US then the related compliance costs and tax would be an unnecessary expense. Feel free to setup a phone call if you would like to chat for a bit regarding the matter. Thanks

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.