The best way to test a person's talent is to put them to work in the reality of your business. If these folks are all onboard for being partners, promise to give them a cut of all deals they bring in. Structure the plan so that the contract lasts three months. Then, let them prove themselves and...
Convertible notes are by no means "earned." They are often easier to raise for early-stage companies who don't want to or can't raise an equity round. Equity rounds almost always require a simultaneous close of either the whole round or a defined "first close" representing a significant share o...
Congratulations on the entrepreneurial spirit it takes to start a business. The better you can demonstrate the outcome from their investment, the less of a risk you'll be perceived to be. The best way to find any money for investment is to anchor the costs of the investment against the financial...
I would storngly suggest you to consider a 4th optinion which is much cheaper and with a higher chance of giving you return. I've personally used this strategy to start my consulting business from 0 to 12 clients in the first 3 months. Here's exactly what you can do. How You Can Generate 5 to ...
If you're just working on an MVP you can use a freelancer sight like Upwork, but you have to be careful in your hiring. 1) Post a job stating everyone that applies should give you their github / bitbucket username and Trello username. 2) For the top 5 most promising people to apply, give them a...
A recurrent question in the region. Thank you for asking! I've been based in Singapore since 2012 and have contributed to the expansion of the different startup ecosystems in Southeast Asia (more here: http://exitcoach.fyi.to/linkedin), including Malaysia. In 2014 I was part of MaGIC (Malaysian...
Hi, I've helped a lot of entrepreneurs with partner issues. The fact is that equity is divided in whatever way you negotiate. Rights such as first right of refusal are normally dealt with in the shareholder's agreement. Certain clauses or rights can certainly be unattractive to investors but...
What sort of SMBs are you looking for? There are over 5.68m SMBs in the US and you would be hard pressed to find a public list of each one. However, if you know a location and/or an industry, you can start with a place like hoovers.com or yellowpages.com. Hope this helps! Let me know if you ha...
Mobile app that has launched: You need ALL of the following: 1) Trending towards or at 100000 installs within first 90 days of launch; 2) Day 30 retention rate of at least 20% 3) Core "MTM" (metric that matters) healthy (dependent on business model, usage model etc) 4) Evidence that growth is j...
It's great that you have a ton of experience in sales and business growth, and this will likely boost your credibility in many ways. However, startups are often looking to hire folks who can be extremely agile and switch to a new strategy as soon as they learn that the current one isn't working. ...