To answer this question, I would need to know a lot more (how many other founders, employees, background of the CTO, etc.). A great resource for thinking through founder equity is this post by Joel Spolsky. http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a-new-software-startup-how-do-i-a...
Use marketing as a means to gather more data and test. Marketing is one of the most underrated and undervalued skills in startups. Startups don't struggle with competition but getting attention. Marketing drives more data into the product, thus you can validate your theories. Pre-product mark...
Sounds like you are off to a great start. In order to make the phone ring, you will need to develop a marketing plan that will continue to amplify your reach. Here are 3 things that quickly came to mind: 1 - If you are already on social networks, are you connecting to groups and sharing your in...
One thing you might consider is sitting down with a CPA or financial advisor for an hour or two. They might have the experience to go over your books and quickly spot issues that are holding you back. If you can't find someone like that willing to help you then consider reaching out to a profes...
So you're saying that your business is a service business like auto repair, home buying, or any of millions of businesses that have existed for many many years. This is not a problem. Businesses like yours are bought and sold every day. The secret is a track record of profitable cash flow and ...
Everyone thinks they will be the next big billion dollar company. Ideas are worthless without execution. Part of the equity equation will be based on the founders, their track record and how far along the idea is. Other factors include the market, your timing around fundraising and if you have an...
I would focus on having each page optimized in such a way to serve your target client within each specific geo location. Simply make sure they don't share duplicate content.
The answer: do both. The first thing you need to know about patents is that the U.S. now has a first-inventor-to-file system after the American Invents Act (AIA) went into effect in 2013. I have to disagree with Dan above: for hardware inventions especially, a patent is an important part of th...
Some great suggestions Brandon! And it sounds like you're already using a lot of great insight tools. I'm not totally sure what you are looking for data wise, but what I've found to work in a lot of situations is simply using the Chrome Inspect tool. Essentially; 1. I right click over the objec...
First make sure you are vetting your advisor as much as he/she is vetting you. I would have a personal conversation with other teams that the advisor has worked with in the past. Get to a level of granularity on what worked and what did not. You don't disclose terms here which I appreciate b...