Most Popular
-
How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you're building a two sided marketplace, especially when "network effect" and "critical mass" are the two main focuses?
-
Take the market and break it down into smaller chunks. Much like Facebook did with Harvard initially, and opened it up one school at a time – you could use that same approach. It’s called the bowling pin strategy – it’s how Foursquare did it, Yelp, Craigslist, etc.
-
-
[Philosophical] I have the idea. No, I have many ideas. I have the knowledge in tech to implement it. I love startups. Why don't I just go for it instead of waiting?
-
Cause your scared. Scared about failing, what others will think about you, and not having enough resources to succeed. Listen to me … this is big. You already know everything you need to know to succeed. You just have to decide. There’s a great quote that I love that goes “Ask not if you’re worthy of your goals, ask instead, are your goals worthy of your life?”. Start today.
-
-
How do I stay motivated?
-
Surround yourself with motivating people. Help others stay motivated. Read great books / especially business biographies. Talk to your customers. Exercise every day – even if it’s for 20 minutes .. walk, bike, run – anything but everyday.
-
-
When opportunity knocks, is it best to jump into the game head first and learn your way around, or sit back and learn the depths of an industry before diving in?
-
Dive in, especially if you’re young and only have you to take care off. There will never be a better or right time – follow your gut.
Sounds like your guts saying jump in.
-
-
What are 3 things that make a startup team successful?
-
- Crazy passion for the solution
- Ability to hire top talent (A+ talent)
- Persistence
The specific skillz don’t matter .. you can hire for those.
-
-
I'm part of an early startup made up of four friends, we're all motivated and really dedicated to our startup. However, one of my co-founders doesn't seem to be as motivated as the rest of us. He's supposed to be our technical lead but takes a lot of time and much pushing to get things done and easily gives excuses. That said, he has contributed a fare share to our startup so far. Do you have any advice on how best to deal with this? Thanks
-
Talk to him, explain how you feel and give him options. Here’s what’s fair based on normal startups.
If it’s been less than a year – he can decide to stay and shape up – or leave and gets 0% of the company.
If it’s been more than a year – then if you feel he’s 25% of the company – then give hime ¼ of the 25% of the company + 1/36 fo the 25% for every month thereafter.
If he decides to stay and doesn’t pull his wait and it’s less than a year .. I would tell him how you guys feel .. if things don’t change – let him go and then try and find someoen to fill the void.
Don’t wait to fill the void before letting him go (but obviously get all the code / usernames / password).
Startups are fragile and just cause you were there in the beginning – that doesn’t mean anything since it takes 7-10 years on average.
-
-
No funding and you are trying to get exposure, you have exhausted Twitter, Facebook and a blog. What would be the next 3 strategies you would pursue? Also how affective are clean, well executed promo videos?
-
I would go back to the blog – it’s the #1 ROI if done right. However, since you asked – next would be making a list of all the speakers at the events for my industry and personally reaching out to them for advice .. ensuring I also added a bunch of value to their lives.
As for videos, don’t know – I’ve never created one.
-
-
What is your advice for dealing with criticism when starting/launching a new business or coming up with an idea? Should the idea or business be kept secret?
-
No, never keep it secret. The key is to ask the right people what they think – not your friends, parents or partner. The right people are potential customers – ask them if they have the problem. Don’t sell your solution, first validate that they feel the pain of the problem you’re solving. Once you’ve confirmed there is a pain, then discuss the way you think it could be solved and judge their reaction. #1 thing, don’t keep it a secret – tell the world.
-
-
Dear Dan, when I grow up I want to be just like you. I've heard that people need to move to a 'Valley' to succeed. Is that true ? Do you really feel it's necessary ? As a fellow Canadian, what advice would you give to a first time startup guy that likes Montreal ? Thanks, Phil Up North
-
Ask twitter.com/#!/mgingras – you don’t need to be in the valley. I built a multi-million dollar company (and sold it) from New Brunswick Canada. Radian6 just did the same thing. If you’re an Entrepreneur, you can do it from any place in the world. Just start today, cool?
-
-
I own a website that EVERYONE gets excited about when I explain it, and then they love it when they log on.....however, people who have never heard about it go to the site and don't register, I know this is because my landing page is weak, any helpful hints to better my landing page?
-
Ask your existing users this question via a survey. “How would you explain Site X to your colleagues or friends” then extract the words they use on your home page.
-
-
What is the best advice you can give for finding a business partner? Especially if you need to quickly choose someone.
-
Don’t quickly choose any business partner. That like quickly choosing a wife. Instead, find someone and work with them for a month. Do something together .. figure out a project with a goal and end date and see how that goes. Date before you get married. Just like finding a girlfriend, go to where the all the hot girls are (the best club in the city). If you’re looking for business talent – go to the business meetups. If you’re looking for technical talent – go to the dev meetups.
-
-
What % of available time should I put into these 1.Building Product 2. Building Metrics / Usage Reports / KPI 3. Raising Angel Investment ?
-
It all depends on where you’re at. Here’s my high-level approach for startups. * Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly. Those are the only 2 metrics you need initially.
Once you have that, then you have traction, then spend 80% of your time raising a round (if you actually need it – longer response on why you may not). Pick a date 6 weeks out, and hustle to close on that day (close = money in the bank).
Good luck.
-
-
I'm a newbie just starting off with my first venture, making websites for clients. However, I am also into making ERPs and CRMs for other institutions. Would it be a good idea clubbing all the other products / services under 1 venture, because some of them are totally unrelated. Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? Thanks.
-
I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit.
Once you’ve done that – then .. maybe .. do something else.
If you don’t focus and learn how to create a company that makes real money – you won’t create anything interesting / lasting / meaningful.
-
-
what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing "product development" eg new social media website project?
-
I think it’s a huge mistake to outsource technology as a startup. Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing. Outsourcing is something a big company, with a known customer / problem (that has revenue & traction) does to save cost.
-
-
How important is education when I know I want to be an entrepreneur?
-
I don’t have any formal business training and I actually think it’s served me well. Instead of spending 4 years at university, I spend 4 years starting 2 internet companies that failed. I learned a bunch and eventually (on my 3rd try) it worked out.
When you start making $$$, no one will ask or care where you went to school. This doesn’t mean you don’t need to educate yourself, you just do it differently. Books, mentors, advisors, entrepreneurial friends, conferences, dinners, meetups, etc and it’s usually real time meaning you learn what you need today to solve your biggest challenges. Non of this academic stuff.
My goal is to some day get an honorary degree for kicking ass in business.
-
-
Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup?
-
The same way you find a girlfriend / boyfriend. Find a location that has a target rich audience (aka Bar). Talk with them, find out if you share similar passions, work together on something small, see if there’s a fit. Ask. If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to.
-
-
Is creating a business plan for a bootstrap style startup necessary?
-
Nope. All you need to do is create a canvas www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads.php
-
-
I have two major ideas I know will be really big. I have the vision, model and the core elements of the ideas established. I need a good reliable developer and also a mentor to help guide me through the process. How can you find and assemble a team I can trust? Should I require and NDA?
-
Spend 10K on elance.com having someone build it for $20/hour. Then launch. With that live, you’ll be able to show other smart engineers and advisors that you’re willing to take some risk and build something. Also, pick 1 idea and focus 110% of your time on it.
-
-
What is the first step in creating an internet-based business (After planning) ? Finding a team of developers, finding funding, or beginning the creation of the site and services with whatever resources are available?
-
The way I do it.
1) Get 10 people to pre-pay you for your solution 2) Build something you can show them.
You kind of want to do both at the same time.
-
-
What's wrong with advertising as a business model?
-
Nothing.
There’s 2 way people reward you for building a great site. Either money $ or time.
If you focus on increasing engagement (time on site) and visitors (uniques) then you’ll do fine.
One more piece of advice that I recently heard from @jason is to insure you create a site that has high CPM’s. No point in build a generic content site / social network), when for the same effort you could pick a high paying category.
-
-
The minimum viable product is launched, now how do I get users and feedback moving? I've had minimal success with social media.
-
Email everyone you know – everyone … send them something simple / short and sincere. That’ll get you some users .. from there – talk to the ones who’ve signed up and try and learn if you’ve solve a problem. Also, recommend reading this: davidcancel.com/data-driven-startups/
-
-
What are the steps to an effective onboarding process?
-
Try and add value before you ask for signup. This shows them that there’s real substance (ex: timely.flowtown.com – we provide a free study). Then you’ll want to figure out the single path a user should follow to get to gratification – meaning they’ve felt value. Whatever that is, build a wizard that walks them towards that goal – nothing else matters. Don’t try and show off, highlighting all the geeky stuff you offer, just get them to some level of gratification and make sure they keep coming back to learn about the other stuff.
-
-
How can I find a good sales person?
-
Read the book the Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes goes through the steps and process. It’s what I’ve used to hire any sales person.
-
-
as many successful companies have started due to a need for themselves, what is the best way to implement one's curiosity into a successful business?
-
If your curiosity is also a problem you’re having and you haven’t found a solution, then just build the minimum amount to solve it – then share that with 10 of your friends. The key is to find others that may have the same problem as you had, show them your solution and see if they would $ it? That’s how www.square.com / www.twitter.com were started (both by Jack Dorsey). He spent less than a month building a prototype for each and then showed it to his friends.
-
-
How do you feel about incubators? We just applied to every incubator we could find. It took a couple of weeks to do all the work, make all the videos, build demo sites, etc. In that same time I could have added a few new features and been out talking to customers. Are they really worth it? Especially given today's funding environment?
-
I’m bullish on techstars and y-combinator due to the network you get plugged into. If you live in a city outside of the valley, then I also think it’s a good idea. All and all, hanging out with a bunch of other crazy entrepreneurs for 3 months is a great thing.
-
-
I have a fairly well developed company (<a class="www.thrillsleds.com">www.thrillsleds.com</a>) I started when I was 14 with our product and business model in place, however funding has dried up. Current investors have pulled the plug until they see some type of progress, an improved management team, perhaps new investors as a vote of confidence. How can we move the company forward with no $? Or, perhaps generate awareness in order to raise more $? Its such a fun and cool idea, we cant allow it to sit idle much longer.
-
Simple. Sales. It seems the product it well thought out .. you should know your ideal customer type. The only thing you need to do is sit on a phone for 30 days trying to get people to buy it. Spends some times understanding your most successful customer, how much $$$ are they making and what made them buy from you. Then just present those case studies. People buy into the dream, sell the dream.
-
-
Initial developer: partner or hired?
-
Contract maybe, and build the first prototype. There’s no formula however I do know … the more you build before you need to hire / partner, the more equity you can keep. Co-founders are the highest form of dilution to a business.
-
-
Is there a magic number that you have when deciding when to make changes to customer request? Basically, do you wait for 20% of your users to mention the request, etc.?
-
There’s no magic number, it’s all gut. I’m always a user of the product so I use my own needs, metrics we are trying to move and strategic decisions in regards to product roadmap. You should be trying to improve retention and activation, so figure out what features will help move those metrics.
-
-
I'm a web designer but I need to find a dependable software developer to team with. Would I be better off working with someone I can trust, who I've known for a few years, and is adequate at programming, OR finding the best software programmer available, and paying a lot more money to someone I don't know at all for the best skills?
-
Hire the person you know for now and keep looking. Maybe by the time you find that great person, you’ll have a need for 2. If not, do what’s right for your business … it may mean keeping your friend or not.
The key is not to wait .. start now and build/fix while in flight.
-
-
What is the best way to find a team to help you deliver your idea? I have no-one in my close network who is suitable so simply doing that won't work. Are there any forums or websites to trawl?
-
If you’ve got a bit of money, use www.elance.com/ to get something going fast.
The other way is “hiring” a consultant, but negotiating payment upon success of your company. If you hit onto something great, you might find yourself a co-founder.
For me, I believe in finding the best people who’ve already solved the specific problem I’m solving, and asking them. Once I create a list of 25 people per specific area of expertise, I figure out how to get a warm intro, then persuade them to join my team.
You need to learn how to sell.
If you can’t, no one will do it for you.
-
-
Many say that to be in a startup, a "jack of all trades" is pretty much a requirement, but do you think that's actually the case with people in startups, or most people simply think they are capable of everything but really aren't?
-
I think they’re good enough at most things .. if anything, they’re willing to do the work, even if they suck at it. That’s probably the most important thing. The beauty of startup life is JIT (just in time) learning.
-
-
Whats the best way to market on a tiny budget?
-
If you have any $, try Facebook ads. For $5 / day – you can actually get 8-10 clicks from qualified users. If you have $0 money, then create great content. The trick is to talk about the problem your solving, not your company. Ex: If you sell houses, don’t talk about your homes, talk about the industry, how to get mortgage approvals, etc. Content marketing is “free” and VERY effective. It’s how we get most of our users www.flowtown.com/blog
-
-
When is the right time to launch?
-
Yesterday.
-
-
What are the best resources available to prepare my start up pitch to investors?
-
Angellist
Dave McClurre Prez on VC Viagra
Travis Kalanick post on Raising Skillz
Tim Young blog post on 5 dec slide
Google for the links.
-
-
Dan, thanks for the response! My question now is, sure we can sell sleds, but to whom. Our target customer has been mountain resorts, not general public, to buy a fleet of 10+ sleds to run guided tours.. This has presented a problem of the decision makers at resorts balking on spending 50K+ on an unproven idea, although we did a beta test around 2000 with 3 mountains that went well. So, do we focus on mountain resorts or retail customers. Im open to selling to both, but which to focus on?
-
That’s your call. Either way, it’s a sales thing. Selling retail sounds way tougher and requires selling to distributors. Mountain resorts are identifiable and there’s only X amount. I like focused efforts. Spend 30 days on the phone selling to resorts – if no one bites, then try retailers. If you can’t sell any – then maybe you should do another company / do something different. There is opportunity cost that should always be considered.
-
-
Three years into the growth of a successful company and my partner is slacking off....he is not completing tasks, appears distracted and is losing credibility with our employees. And every time I bring it up, it denies it and tells me that I am being too controlling. What do I do?
-
If you have specific company goals that you’ve both agreed upon then his performance should be clear. Start there .. that’ll provide him with the rope, if he decides to hang himself – that’s his call. If that occurs, then ask him what it would take to buy him out.
-
-
What problems to you see with companies like sponsoredtweets.com? If none, what do you think they can do to improve their experience?
-
I think advertising and intent have to be aligned. SponsoredTweets doesn’t work for me and never has.
-
-
We're launching DuoDater, a site that makes online dating less awkward and more social with double dates. What's the best ways to acquire our first 10K users?
-
Work on a press launch and ensure you get in front of the right bloggers and writers before you launch. This should be done by the founders of the company – and be sure to pitch a “story” not just the launch. Why are you different, How are you going to change the dating world, etc. Make a list of 100 media outlets with the corresponding writer, email, info, etc – then start making calls / emails. Don’t blast them a form email – make it personal and short.
-
-
Hey Dan - We're going to be launching a new iPhone app that is geared towards the outdoor lifestyle and people who ski, snowboard, mt bike, road ride, etc. (expensive gear). The app aims to provide an easy registration/documentation tool and if something is stolen, the user can submit an alert that is broadcast locally and via social sharing. We're thinking of launching it for $1.99 taking into consideration many of us have a lot of high $ gear! Thoughts on app price for release? Thanks!
-
You can always change the pricing to meet demand and optimize for pricing yield. $1.99 seems fair but you may want to keep an eye on it.
Another strategy you can use monthly is to do an exclusive 6 hour window where the app is free – you can create a bunch of press around this. You get a bunch of traffic and increased rankings, then when the app goes back to paid you still get a bunch of run off from the campaign.
-
-
Dan: If entrepreneur's have a great idea is there a place where they can go to bounce their idea off of a professional entrepreneur or one that has many experiences, like yourself or other veterans? Many entrepreneurs are in fear of their product/service or internet based concept getting stolen but could use the advice and mentor ship of people like you. Thanks and have a great day! J
-
It’s best to go to where the entrepreneurs hang out. If you don’t know where, ask them for your specific city.
- Startup events (TechCrunch Disrupt)
- Business organizations (YEO)
Don’t worry about anyone steeling your idea.
-
-
What skill/persona does your company need the most at this time?
-
A+ engineering talent. We have a rule to continue hiring smarter people than the last .. it really keeps the bar high and recruiting extremely hard ;–) but worth it.
-
-
How do you know when you've achieved product/market fit?
-
Survey them using www.survey.io and if 40%+ answer “Very disappointed” to the “How would you feel if you could no longer use [Name] App?” – then your there. The trick is to only survey users that have been “gratified” – meaning you expose them to the feature you hope they would like. Don’t survey users that didn’t activate, etc. Also, best to do it in 2 week cohorts, so you can see if you’re getting better (assuming your app is changing weekly).
-
-
How many investors are too many?
-
I think 6-8 is a good number. Typically it goes one lead: $200K+, couple medium pro’s: $50-$100K, then strategic guys at $25K (sometimes $10K for ultra strategic / domain expertise / distribution / etc). I do know folks with 60 investors, and although it’s not optimal, they still got their funding raised – and that’s #1. If you’re oversubscribed – congrats – not typically the case.
-
-
I have a prototype of a product complete but need to drive some initial beta traffic. What is the fastest way to attract testers to the site? Also what are the best tools to use for gathering and encouraging user feedback?
-
I like using Facebook because it’s relatively cheap. You do need to test a lot of the ads for copy and image, but you can usually get a visit for 60c. Once you get signups (be sure to get emails) use www.survey.io – typically 25% response rate. Send the survey 7 days after they signup.
-