Hard to determine best, but how about: * YCombinator - Pebble, Upverter, BufferBox * Bolt http://bolt.io/ * Highway1 http://highway1.io/ * Lemnos Labs http://lemnoslabs.com/ There are probably others.
It really depends on what you're looking to offer, but generally you should allow people to try before they buy, encourage and help them while they try it out and then ask for the business.
Microsoft Azure. For startups they give you a ton of stuff for free, and if you talk to someone there you can probably get even more. And when you're eventually ready to pay, you can just continue with them. Google's cloud offering is also free or cheap, but it's unclear what the future of tha...
If you charge a subscription then I wound't have ads - it breaks the social norm for paid memberships. If it's freemium, then add ads to the free accounts.
Read Tribal Leadership, a great book on culture and Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, a great book on implementing change when it's difficult.
Type of shares are generally split into two: common/ordinary (depending on the jurisdiction) and preferred. The former are granted to founders and employees (most commonly as options with a right to purchase common/ordinary shares). The latter are generally issued to investors and include special...
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...
The best way is to offer early adopters a discounted rate and lock it in for life. Make it a no-brainer for them with the understanding that they are your beta group and that you will ping them from time-to-time for feedback on concept improvement.
There are a lot of tools designed to help "sketch" business ideas and business models. You need to be able to define and refine your ideas with a pencil and paper at the best. Other tools like Business Model Generation are great at sketching and documenting business model assumptions. I'm a huge ...
If you're looking for another crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo has the second best platform and user base, after Kickstarter.