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Perfecting Your Startup’s Operations Stack

startup COO

For the non-techies among us, the word “stack” is commonly used when describing website infrastructure. It encompasses components like the Linux distribution, server, background job processor, web framework and javascript framework. A “full-stack developer” is someone who is at least familiar with the entire set of tools. That is, he or she can dive into any part of the stack and fix things.

Modern startup office operations demand a similar agility from the COO or office manager. Most companies rely on a series of interdependent services that independently don’t do much, but together support a large and complex enterprise. Since we raised our Series A financing last June, I’ve had to become a full-stack ops officer, putting together 14 interdependent systems over two years and troubleshooting along the way.

I want to explain how our ops stack evolved and the rationale behind our choices, so that anyone in charge of opening or running a startup office can start creating a framework for their own ‘stack’:

First — the Money

Although not every startup makes money, they all spend it. The easiest headache to avoid is the tax reporting one. Open a bank account for your business. If you don’t have a tax ID for your company yet, then open a separate personal account. Make sure that all expenses flow through that account. Every ATM withdrawal, credit card payment, debit card purchase, and check should be tied to that account.

Related services are payroll and accounting. Don’t skimp on either; if you do, I promise you will regret it.

When it comes to money, my philosophy has been to hire professionals. Check references, read reviews, and then purchase these services. Although $100/hr may seem high for bookkeeping, the cost of not doing this is even higher. We went with:

Silicon Valley Bank. Nice team, favored by our investors, and with a wealth of connections and other services as you grow. Although smaller than Wells Fargo, Chase, or Bank of America, they feel startup-friendly and built for small business.
ADP. The other headache to avoid is payroll. There are some really interesting payroll startups coming out like ZenPayroll but limitations in the banks they can deposit into and the states they work in led us to the market leader.
Ravix Group. Like I said, buy accounting help. Even if you aced finance, put that prowess into analyzing the statements that a credentialed accountant will run for you each month. Ravix Group was a referral to us, and we use them for both accounting and HR support.
Braintree. When it comes to collecting credit card payments, don’t mess around. Braintree was recently bought by PayPal and I see that as a strength. Braintree is going to be around for a long time, and they’ll provide two things PayPal is not known for: easy API integrations and phenomenal customer support.
Bill.com. Every company and contractor we pay gets routed through Bill.com for two reasons. First, they pay by check and wire, making it easy for our vendors to be paid quickly. Second, they keep a copy of the original invoice so we always have a record of what each amount was for. Granted, it takes a little bit of time to get used to this and if you don’t use it correctly, these features are moot, but I love it. The Quickbooks integration is great too.
Expensify. For employee expenses, there’s nothing easier. We don’t couple reimbursements with payroll, so we can run reimbursements as quickly as we get them. Like Bill.com, Expensify tags every expense with a receipt and saves it for us, reducing our paperwork and saving the paper trail. Plus, they have a terrific iOS app, allowing employees to build expense reports on the go.

Second — the Office

My cofounder and I followed the Silicon Valley lore of working from coffee shops (we preferred Peet’s over Starbucks) before we had an office. Once we could rent an office, though, we always found it on Craigslist.

This bit of advice, granted, could be very San Francisco-specific. So I’ll speak generally: the best deals are the ones you find on message boards and through your network. Often, and I’ve seen this many times, the best office (with the most light, friendliest landlord, and best location) is also the cheapest.

Other major decisions you’ll need to make are office furniture, supplies, and food.

We went with:

IKEA. Obviously. But we loved this pine Ingo desk. It’s only $69 and looks much better than the typical Ikea office furniture. That’s why they don’t put it in the office category. Instead, it’s in the kitchen section. For employees who want a standing desk, I found an easy way to make a standing desk riser for under $50 using Ikea wooden legs and their cheapest table top. No matter how you slice it, Ikea is still the winner for lightweight, easily-assembled startup office furniture.
Amazon Prime. The $80/year we pay for Amazon Prime is brilliant. Often, deliveries for everything from computer monitors to toilet paper arrives the next day. I can no longer imagine spending my time shopping in a real office supply store.
Safeway.com. The one thing we can’t get on Amazon is food (although I understand that may change soon). Rather than make runs to the grocery store, we have the store come to us. We love Safeway.com for remembering what we ordered last time and filling our cart with it. We keep a whiteboard in the pantry so employees can tell us what else they’d like. With almost no exceptions, we’ll order it, and Safeway comes to our door to deliver.

Third — Your IT

At your startup, you probably don’t have an IT guy (or gal) to troubleshoot problems for you. If you’re at all like me, you’ve had to learn hardware and Internet networking on the job. Here’s some more advice: again, don’t go cheap. The few hundred bucks you might save on lower powered, less flexible web hardware will be lost after the first bug. And when it goes down, it’s not just you affected, it’s the whole office. That’s an office full of people that can’t work, and piles of money are burned with every second of downtime.

Here’s our office IT stack:

Webpass. We started with Sonic.net (again, specific to SF Bay Area) and pay about $100/mo for 20 mbs DSL speeds and 2 landlines. We’re going to keep Sonic for our landlines and as backup Internet, but the office is going to run on Webpass, a direct ethernet service that uses radio signals from a receiver on the roof to get asynchronous (read: same speeds up and down) Internet to the office. It’s a significant installation fee but the monthly costs are on par with any other business Internet service, and it will scale with our business.
Meraki. Apple AirPorts are cool, and were great for our first small office. But then we discovered Meraki, and it was all over. The control over your network, combined with the ability to create multiple wireless SSIDs (including one for guests!) and throttle them so you don’t get squatters is a very helpful service. The cost, relative to what your rent probably will be, is negligible. Get the best routing hardware for your office.
Google Apps for Business. Here’s a great solution that doesn’t break the bank. At $60 per user per year, it’s an unbelievable deal for the quality of service Google provides. All of your email, calendaring, chat, and document storage for that low, low rate. If Google Drive existed when we first got started on Dropbox, we’d probably have avoided the next point.
Dropbox for Business. I love Dropbox because it’s so easy, but with SkyDrive, Google Drive, and Box all right there too, there are many good solutions to choose from. One thing you don’t need to do is spend tens of thousands of dollars on Microsoft Sharepoint and a fancy VPN. Share with your employees the beauty of modern self-syncing file storage systems. Dropbox for Business is inexpensive and makes it easy to manage your users.
Apple. My mom couldn’t believe that we buy everyone a new MacBook when they start. The engineers get 15″ Retina MacBooks, and everyone else gets 11″ or 13″ Airs. These are company property, not gifts, but who wouldn’t like to start their day with a new MacBook? We do this because 99 percent of their day-to-day Scripted experience is on a computer. The few hundred bucks more we spend on Macs than comparable Dell or HP laptopss are negligible in the long run and make our staff happy. Also, always buy Apple Care. You’ll at least break even, promise.

These are the 14 solutions in the Scripted headquarters office stack. Just like an engineer, COOs and office or operations managers need to be well-versed in today’s SaaS solution landscape to continually improve and optimize the office experience for their employees.

So, what’s in your ops stack?

Ryan Buckley is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Scripted.com. Ryan holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Still and always a Cal Bear, Ryan graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in economics and environmental sciences. He likes to dabble in PHP, Python, Ruby, Quickbooks, and whatever else needs to be done at Scripted HQ.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Overwatch Brings Video Gaming to Real Life Paintball

Okay, I’ll be honest here. I’m neither a big gamer nor avid paintball fan. I don’t love the graphic violence on video games, and paintball–well, those things hurt!

But, both pastimes are obviously very popular, and players of both are often not just participants but avid fans.

One of those avid fans is Josh Moody, who realized that real life paintball and airsoft could be greatly enhanced by the features of online combat games. So, he created Overwatch, a smartphone app that incorporates GPS, Bluetooth, and other technologies to provide a more digital experience to real life.

Josh gave me a quick education in gaming and what Overwatch can do to enhance real life games. Check out our chat below.

1) What does your company do?

Overwatch brings the futuristic technology of combat video games to real-life games of paintball, airsoft, and laser tag. See the location of teammates and opponents through an overview of the entire playing field, communicate with teammates via voice chat, and activate perks and unlocks to gain an edge on the opposition during any game—all through your iOS or Android device.

2) Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The company was founded by Joe Saumweber, Michael Paladino, and me. Joe and Michael are the owners of RevUnit, an independent software development firm based in Bentonville, Arkansas. Joe has an extensive background in digital and mobile strategy, large enterprise solutions, and consumer facing applications. Michael has over ten years of experience in software development and developer management across web, mobile, and social platforms. As for me, I am a self-taught programmer and web designer, with experience designing and building electronic hardware. While I am only eighteen and have not had years and years of experience like my co-founders, I pride myself on being able to learn quickly and constantly improve.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

Three years ago, just as most teenage guys are, I was an avid gamer. Specifically, I played quite a bit of “first-person shooter” games—titles such as Call of Duty and Battlefield. While I enjoyed gaming on my console, I also enjoyed playing airsoft and paintball with friends.

—Most people are familiar with paintball but not airsoft. To explain, airsoft is a similar game, but with much smaller, plastic BB projectiles instead of paintballs. Airsoft guns also provide a much more realistic, tactical feel and experience.—

Interested in both the digital and real-life versions of combat gaming, I realized a substantial gap between the two. None of the features of combat video games were present in real-life combat gaming, and thus, the Overwatch concept was born. Using the Overwatch app and hardware, gamers now have real-time GPS radar to track the location of teammates and opponents on the playing field, bluetooth voice chat to communicate with one another at all times, and even perks and unlocks that provide special abilities (such as Radar Jam). All of this and more is displayed right on the user’s smartphone, mounted directly in front of them, during any airsoft, paintball, or laser tag match. Overwatch is interactive gaming in its truest sense.

4) How as being part of the ARK Challenge helpful for your startup?

Without the ARK Challenge, Overwatch would not be where it is today. Not only did the ARK provide the funds our company needed to start up, it also provided invaluable mentorship and advice from experienced entrepreneurs, and the knowledge necessary to continue onward even after the 14-week competition had concluded. I am incredibly grateful for each person who worked to make the ARK Challenge the great program that it is, and hope to see many more companies emerge from it.

5) What milestones have you reached, and what are you working on next?

From our founding, we’ve built the Overwatch app from the ground up for both iOS and Android, as well as designed the perfect hardware to incorporate a player’s smartphone into gameplay while providing adequate protection for the device. At the close of the ARK Challenge, Overwatch secured a partnership with the largest airsoft manufacturer in the world to ensure that our products have a strong presence in both online and retail stores worldwide. The iOS app is complete and will be submitted to the app store in the coming weeks, while the Android version is soon to follow. As for the hardware, the armband, essentially a running band for your forearm, will be available in the coming months. The rail mount, similar to the heartbeat sensor in Call of Duty, will be available later this year.

6) Where can folks find out more?

To find out more, we encourage people to visit OverwatchApp.com and sign up for our email updates. If anyone has any additional questions after checking out the Overwatch website, feel free to email me at: josh@overwatchapp.com

How to Get More Done During Your Summer Travels

Question: How do you stay productive and get work done while traveling?

Practice the 4-Hour-Work-Week Mentality

“The most important thing to consider when traveling is the need to have a team who can take care of tasks that you won’t be able to be on top of 100 percent due to flights, meetings, etc. Plug in for a few hours a day to focus on tasks that only you can do. Also, practice the “traveling” schedule a month before so you can see potential issues and train employees to avoid any issues. “

Derek Capo, Next Step China

Set Up a Dedicated Time

“There’s nothing you can’t do while traveling if you have a laptop, iPod and smart phone. Try to set up a certain time during your days of travel to really focus on MUST-DO priority tasks.”

Pablo Palatnik, ShadesDaddy.com

Focus

“Airplanes are one of my most productive work environments. Prep in advance so you can work on big projects that require large amounts of time and focus. And don’t buy the Wi-Fi! Keep yourself cut off from the world to avoid distractions.”

Robert J. Moore, RJMetrics

Capitalize on Quiet Time

“I’ve found that some of my best, most focused work happens when I’m on a plane. There’s something magical that happens when you can focus on tasks without the distraction of fast Internet. I try to prepare some projects for every plane ride that can be done offline, such as writing.”

Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

Sync Emails Offline

“I fly almost every week and have found it very productive to sync all my emails offline. I type more thoughtful responses on the plane or train when there aren’t other distractions. I also keep a second battery for my phone if I’m using it for emails (versus my laptop). To stay connected when traveling, I also keep a wireless connection card to get online anywhere at anytime. “

Shradha Agrwal, ContextMedia

Plan for Technical Difficulties

“Virtual working is fantastic and can be a seamless experience for you, your team and your customers. But there is nothing worse than being abroad without the proper working communication technologies. Before heading out for travel, run through your inventory and assess your needs. MiFi devices may be a good investment. And if you’re traveling internationally, stock up on the proper converters.”

Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

Set Your Goals

“If your goals are set and your priorities are in line, you should have no problem getting work done while traveling. Everyone always asks how I am productive from exotic locations like Bali, Costa Rica and Nicaragua when I could be surfing. The answer is simple: I need to hit my goals to continue the lifestyle I choose, and if you constantly remind yourself of those, you will simply not slack off.”

Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

Look Into Coworking Spaces

“Whenever I’m traveling, I contact a local coworking space about working out of the location while I’m in town. Having a place to go helps ensure I actually focus on work and gives me a place that’s conducive to working (which hotel rooms rarely are).”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Work on the Plane

“I like to write blog posts/do long-term roadmap thinking on the plane. There is something about trying to do work on a plane — your work either turns out incredible or you fall asleep. They are both good outcomes. “

Jordan Fliegel, CoachUp

Group Tasks by Location

“When I travel, I try to group to-do items in the “Getting Things Done” fashion. For instance, I’ll have a list of items I can do on a train or plane, issues to think about while I’m waiting in lines and projects to work on when I have a larger gap in my schedule. By being ultra clear on what I can do when, I’m quite productive. “

Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E®

5 Steps for Giving Your Mobile App Exposure on a Global Scale

Flags Of Countries Around The World

Transcreation: The process of adapting a message from one language to another, while maintaining its intent, style, tone and context.

If you’re a mobile app developer or have a business with a mobile application, you’ve likely already put hundreds of hours into building, testing, and launching your app(s). With all of that time and energy invested into your application, why aren’t you translating your application in order to maximize your global exposure?

We are in the midst of a mobile app explosion. Here’s a look at what the research firm Gartner is projecting in the mobile app market:

Table 1. Mobile App Store Downloads, Worldwide, 2010-2016 (Millions of Downloads)

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Free Downloads	57,331	92,876	127,704	167,054	211,313	253,914
Paid-for Downloads	6,654	9,186	11,105	12,574	13,488	14,778
Total Downloads	63,985	102,062	138,809	179,628	224,801	268,692
Free Downloads %	89.6	91.0	92.0	93.0	94.0	94.5

Source: Gartner (September 2013)

When drilling down past this global data and looking at specific countries, more nuanced trends emerge. App Annie reports that Japan has surpassed the U.S. as the number-one country in app-generated revenue. Simultaneously, the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—made formidable gains in app downloads, setting the stage for strong future revenue growth in multiple languages.

At the end of last year, Google Play announced translation services for Android developers. Here are three highlights from Google:

Zombie Ragdoll combined app translation with local marketing campaigns. In doing so, they found that 80 percent of their installs came from non-English-language users.
Dating app SayHi Chat expanded into 13 additional languages and saw 120 percent install growth in localized markets and improved user reviews of the professionally translated UI.
The developer of card game G4A Indian Rummy saw a 300 percent increase with user engagement in localized apps.

When parsing through the global data and looking at these three examples, it becomes clear if you’re only distributing your app in one language, you are missing out on a large portion of potential consumers. Here’s how to take your app global and ensure that your hard work is getting the respect and recognition it deserves.

1. Set Clear Goals

Before you dive into the world of translation, figure out what your goals overall are. Mobile app developers generally want four things:

More downloads
Better app store rankings
More revenue
Continued user engagement

There are hundreds of ways to get to these goals, of course. Translating and localizing an app is only one of them, but it’s an increasingly important one. Once you’ve weighted how important each of these categories are — i.e. we’re only focused on downloads or we’re predominantly focused on revenue — you’ll be ready to start setting clear consumer targets and build strategies to have consumers find you.

2. Set the Strategy

If localization is on your goal list, the next step is to set a clear strategy in terms of target market. Ask yourself these questions:

What markets do we want to enter?
What languages are needed?
What content within our app will be translated?
Who will handle the actual translation?

Certain apps fit into certain markets better than others. The Wall Street Journal reported that China was the largest market for Fotopedia, a company that makes photo travel magazine apps — representing 20 percent of visits (compared to just 14 percent from the U.S.). Just three years before, China was their 10th biggest market. Today they operate in 10 languages, including simplified Chinese.

3. Get Found

By the end of 2014, ITU predicts there will be nearly 3 billion Internet users worldwide. Between English, Spanish, and Chinese, you’ve covered more than 50 percent of the global online population. Add in 10 more of the world’s most popular languages and you’ll have 90 percent of the world’s online spending power covered.

To boost your chances of tapping into these growing online markets, consider appeasing search engines and app stores by taking these four steps:

Generating quality content that is culturally sensitive
Utilizing relevant key words in the local language
Gaining positive reviews that are relevant to the app store reviewers
Listing all relevant languages and app features

Once you’ve found your consumers and they’ve found you, you’ll need to have your app translated and localized to ensure you maximize user engagement and don’t lose users.

4. Streamline Your Translation

Updating any app can be challenging. Updating a multilingual app can be an even larger challenge — one that requires adaptability and integration. When transcreating app experiences for our clients, we focus on three things: the strings and remove the executable code, the context of their app, and delivering clear instructions to the translator — nobody is a mind reader.

We did this for Baby Chords, an app that arranges notes so that music is very easy to play. By helping them expand into more than 10 languages, Baby Chords is now gaining customers from all corners of the globe.

5. Don’t Settle

Whether you decide to translate your app internally, through a translation agency, through crowdsourcing translation platforms, or through machine translation, you’ll need to revisit your initial goals and determine the level of quality you’re looking for — and how much you’re willing to pay.

Remember that app localization is just the tip of the iceberg. When you’re selecting a translation provider, be sure that they can help you translate other modes of communication — confirmation emails, fulfillment for in-app purchases, translation of newsletters, localization of websites, etc. — or at the very least advise you on how to navigate ensuing language barriers, so that you can truly capture the attention of the users you’ve been missing out on thus far.

I’ve written about transcreation and translation pricing in the past, and would interested to hear your thoughts on these two topics as they relate to mobile app translation. Feel free to email me directly at ryan.frankel@verbalizeit.com or leave a comment below.

Ryan Frankel is the CEO of VerbalizeIt, the company that connects businesses and travelers directly to a 19,000-person translator community to deliver real-time quality translation. He is considered an expert on global communication and international customer engagement. Ryan is also a Wharton MBA alumnus, former private equity investor for Goldman Sachs and an endurance athletics enthusiast. You can reach him via email at ryan.frankel@verbalizeit.com.

Former VP Speaks at Southland, Comments on Edward Snowden

This morning the Southland Conference in Nashville, TN kicked off with a bang. Former Vice President Al Gore joined Pando CEO Sarah Lacey on stage, starting the morning right with local Belle Meade bourbon.

Lacey opened the interview with what I assume is Al Gore’s favorite question:

“So, did you invent the Internet?”

It didn’t take too long, though, to start talking politics. When asked about the NSA, the former Vice President got fired up.

“You don’t find a needle in a haystack by bringin’ in more hay!” he said, moving to the end of seat to emphasize his point.

He also pointed out that as scary as government surveillance is, corporate surveillance is even scarier. He called out Google in particular, which is interesting considering his position as a senior adviser to the search giant.

“What about Edward Snowden?” Lacey asked. “Hero or traitor?”

After a little hemming and hawing about it not being that binary, the former politician finally said it:

“On the spectrum of traitor to hero, I would put him more on the hero side.”

He went on to talk about how Snowden broke laws to reveal what he did, but the actions he exposed were so much worse that they justified the civil disobedience.

There’s a ton more to come at Southland. Follow us on Twitter to keep up with all goings on in Nashville.

Online Retailers Can Now Access Better Data With MineWhat

It wasn’t that long ago that people couldn’t conceive of buying anything over the computer. Besides the limited technology, we mostly used cash instead of debit cards and were often gun shy about giving our credit card numbers to strangers.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and it’s tough to find someone who doesn’t shop online. (Even my mother made her first online purchase this past Christmas.) It’s estimated by some that online retail sales will reach $370 billion by 2017.

Obviously, with such a large and growing market, entrepreneurs are rushing to cash in. Online retail is increasingly viable and, even with logistics and inventory, is cheaper than opening a brick and mortar location.

In our data-driven world, the growth of a market also means the need for better and better analytics.

Fayetteville, AR-based MineWhat is poised to provide specialized eCommerce analytics for online retailers..

With a quick install, e-tailers can access a wide array of data that goes far beyond pageviews. MineWhat allows merchants to see what products shoppers look at, what brands sell well together, what products should be showcased, and a ton more data-junkie goodness.

Check out our interview with MineWhat CEO Janakiram Ganesan below.

1) What does your company do?

Think of MineWhat as a platform that enables online retailers to ask questions of their data and get answers to them as well. We help online stores pick the right merchandise whether it’s for marketing campaigns, product strategy, landing pages and more.

2) Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

MineWhat was founded by Pavan Kumar and Janakiram Ganesan.

Pavan spent some time writing code at various huge product firms before starting out as an entrepreneur. MineWhat is is his second startup venture. He likes scalability related problems, data management on the web and is an avid tech enthusiast.

MineWhat is my second startup as well. I’ve worked on machine learning related problems over the years. Of late I’ve been more interested in marketing, building businesses and tech evangelism

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

The initial idea behind MineWhat came out of the Indian eCommerce boom during 2010 – 2011.

eCommerce seemed like a really interesting thing to jump into. Friends of ours had started out building eCommerce stores of their own and we thought we’d rather do something that will help online stores instead of building another one.

4) How as being part of the ARK Challenge helpful for your startup?

The ARK Challenge really helped us refine the product idea. The mentors were awesome, getting to leverage their network and using their product feedback was of great help.

5) What milestones have you reached, and what are you working on next?

We’ve begun our sales push now, we are averaging over two signups a week. Most of what we will be focusing on from here on will be how to acquire and retain more customers.

6) Where can folks find out more?

They can head over to our website or onto any of our social media pages

https://minewhat.com

https://twitter.com/minewhat

https://www.facebook.com/minewhat?ref=hl

12 Questions You Should Ask When Considering an Accelerator Program

Question: “What questions should entrepreneurs ask when considering an accelerator program?”

What Will I Gain Besides Money?

“All accelerators are going to offer some amount of seed money, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Because you will be giving up some amount of equity in order to join the program, you want to make sure it’s worth it. You should look for a program that can offer you strong mentors, access to business resources, connections, important business knowledge and access to strategic partnerships.”

David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services

Which Accelerators Will Teach My Company?

“Accelerators are investors. Some accelerators would rather see you shut down and join another portfolio company’s team if it becomes clear that your company can’t provide a return. A new accelerator opens every day, so it’s important to sort out the contenders from the pretenders. Look for top-notch mentors, investors and cohort companies that you can learn from. “

Heidi Allstop, Spill

Does the Accelerator’s Goal Align With Mine?

“Different startup accelerators have different opinions of what defines a successful program. Some accelerators focus on revenue generation, while others focus on a funding outcome at the end of the program. As you consider accelerator programs, be sure to understand what the ultimate goals are for the accelerator. Compare that with your own goals for your company before committing to participate.”

Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

What Does the Data Say?

“Accelerators are all the rage these days, but most have shown to do a poor job helping startups succeed. Check out the accelerator data on www.seed-db.com/accelerators, and decide if an accelerator is right for you.”

Wade Foster, Zapier

Is the Accelerator Top Tier?

“I think accelerators are like MBA programs. The very best ones (TechStars, Y Combinator) typically pay for themselves many times over. They provide a network, access, education and more. The next tier down might be more of a mixed bag. I’d be thoughtful about exactly what you’ll get out of an accelerator that is not in that elite tier.”

Erik Severinghaus, Simple Relevance

Who Are the Mentors?

“You should join an accelerator program because of the people it will connect you to — not because of the money it gives you. Look at who the mentors are and identify who you need to know. Most of the time, accelerators will have a page with info about all of their mentor connections. Here’s an example from the accelerator I’m a mentor with, SparkLabKC.”

Kelsey Meyer, Influence & Co.

Does the Accelerator Have a Past Rate of Success?

“Accelerator programs are a bi-directional relationship. The partners of these programs are assessing your potential to be successful. You should evaluate their past rate of success because you are forgoing other investment engines in favor of this option. It all comes down to trade-offs, and the most objective determinant is made by evaluating past performance. “

Matt Ehrlichman, Porch

Is It Worth the Equity?

“Before working with TechStars, I wondered if the program and small investment were worth the equity. Now, coming out of the program on the other side, I know that my experience was worth the equity. The mentors, coaching and support that came from a top-tier program were top notch and totally worth it. “

Paige Brown, Dashbell

Can I Speak to Graduates of Your Program?

“There are so many accelerator programs today, and they can be valuable. I have been in one myself, and it definitely helped me focus my idea and get the help I needed to move it forward. You should speak to graduates of the program. Ask them what they really thought of it, what they got out of it and how the program helped them succeed.”

Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World

Am I Ready?

“There are more accelerators to choose from than ever before, and startups are going to these accelerators earlier. Make sure there is something to accelerate when you apply (a team, a product and some initial costumers) so that the mentors, services and investment can make a difference. Remember that you only have 10 weeks or so until demo day, so make them count.”

Christopher Pruijsen, Sterio.me

Should I Earn my MBA First?

“Accelerators are great, but many MBA schools offer them free of charge, and you will graduate with an MBA when it’s over. This is highly valuable in every sector. You also get free advice from a range of experts, and some even offer business plan competitions with prize money. I’d encourage you to consider if you are ready for the program, then decide if earning an MBA would be a better choice.”

Suzanne Smith, Social Impact Architects

Whom Can They Introduce Me To?

“If you’ve got a great idea, plenty of accelerators will take you. But all accelerators are not created equally. To narrow down the pool, you should take a look at their connections. You want accelerators that can introduce you to investors, mentors, startup founders and other people who can help you throughout your career.”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

A Beginner’s Guide to Internet Marketing

“The Valley skill set that should be in highest demand and greatest scarcity is neither engineering nor design, but rather internet marketing.” – Dave McClure ranting about what startups are missing.

Makes a lot of sense, right? Internet marketing has only been around for a little over 15 years while design and engineering have been around for far longer. Given the relative infancy of Internet marketing, there still isn’t a solid training/education available. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of information out there — you just need to be able to find the right resources by filtering through a lot of noise on the net.

Where To Start

The hardest part about doing things is starting. Internet marketing is no exception. The trouble in this space is that there are a lot of people writing content for the sake of gaining search engine rankings or for quick affiliate marketing wins.

The big takeaway with learning Internet marketing today is being able to discern signal from noise – getting the right information from the right people and taking action on it. I’m going to cover the areas that I think are most important in Internet marketing below as well as link to one blog that you should be reading if you want to learn more about it. I’m only linking to one blog for each category so you can focus on that blog and not get overwhelmed.

Blogs To Read

SEO

Organic search (SEO) is still the top growth channel in most cases today. It takes the most time and effort, but if you can execute well it brings the most long-term value.

One blog for SEO: Moz Blog – on top of having “The Beginner’s Guide to SEO,” the Moz blog has a lot of advanced SEO tips plus a helpful video series every Friday called Whiteboard Friday.

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) has evolved quite a bit from just text link ads in search results. Now there’s access to social ads, retargeting, video ads and much more. It might seem overwhelming, but if you have the basics down for AdWords, you should be able to transition into other forms of pay per click.

One blog for PPC: PPC Hero – PPC Hero has great how-to posts that provide lots of utility to the reader — their popular posts are a good place to start. They also have a series of guides and whitepapers. Bonus: I also recommend Brad Gedde’s Advanced Guide to Google AdWords. You can either pick up his book or the video training.

Analytics

If you’re not looking at the numbers, you’re not going to get anywhere. Average order value? Bounce rate? Engagement? Traffic? Conversion Rates? All inside your analytics.

If you’re at a tech startup, you’ll probably be paying attention to lifetime value, churn and more.

One blog for analytics: Occam’s Razor – Avinash Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and really knows analytics. Most of his blog is Google Analytics related, but it’s great for anyone that is just starting out.

Email

Email is still one of the best acquisition channels today. Just think about it — it’s essentially the world’s biggest social network.

One blog for email: E-mail Institute – Includes a plethora of email marketing best practice tips.

Copywriting

Writing great headlines is one of the easiest ways to generate more click-throughs and eventually more conversions.

One blog for copywriting: Copyblogger – Great for improving your copywriting skills. Take a look at the headlines for their posts and try to mold them into your own. They say that the headline is worth $.80 of the $1 you spend on your content because if people don’t click on it, your content is almost worthless.

Social Media

At the end of the day, social media is all about connecting with people that care about what you do. There’s new platforms coming out every year and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on.

One blog for Social Media: Social Media Examiner – Provides valuable, actionable social media posts to emulate.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a new buzzword but the practice has been around for ages. The short explanation is that content that brings utility to your readers helps build brand awareness, likability, trust and more. Like SEO, content marketing takes a lot of time, money and effort to see results but it compounds over time.

One blog for content marketing: Content Marketing Institute – Up-to-date tips and tricks on doing content marketing effectively.

Startup Marketing

Startup marketing is a different beast from typical marketing. It’s very metrics driven and requires a lot of testing through different channels. It’s also a different mindset because there’s a finite amount of time to hit numbers. Most startups need full-stack marketers (re: growth hackers) to help with growth but there unfortunately aren’t many around today. You’ll also learn about customer development, product market fit and driving growth with little to no budget.

One blog for startup marketing: Startup Marketing – Sean Ellis’ blog covers a lot of these different topics well. You’ll also want to note that he’s now blogging on the Qualaroo blog (his startup).

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketers are sometimes seen as shady, untrustworthy marketers, but I have found that untrue. They’re actually some of the most creative marketers because they tend to just make things happen by doing anything it takes to get the job done. Learning how to do affiliate marketing is just one piece of the puzzle. If you’re trying to grow a startup and you start an affiliate program, you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of managing an affiliate program.

One blog for affiliate marketing: Affiliate Marketing Navigator – Geno Prussakov’s blog on affiliate marketing. He’s a leader in the affiliate marketing space and has written a highly rated affiliate program management book.

Video

Let’s look at some YouTube stats since it is the world’s second-largest search engine:

600 million views come from mobile devices every day
500 years of YouTube video are viewed on Facebook every day. 700 YouTube videos are shared each minute on Twitter.
Over 800 million unique visits to YouTube each month

Video will continue to grow as people shift more of their attention online. It’s a good idea to get in now while it’s still the Wild West.

One blog for video: ReelSEO – For video advertising and YouTube tricks.

Start Out With One Channel

Clearly, there are a lot of channels and a ton of information to dive into, so here’s my recommendation on how to actually get started: Choose the topic that you find most interesting and dedicate your time to it. Don’t spread yourself thin.

For example, I started off with SEO and created a few websites to test out different strategies/tactics. Once I started getting a hang of it, I tried running some affiliate marketing campaigns. One thing led to another and I was eventually helping large publishing sites and Fortune 500 companies with SEO.

But that wasn’t enough. I decided that I needed to branch out into other online marketing areas so I could become a well rounded marketer. So I picked up PPC. I learned more about Analytics. Then I learned how to do social media effectively. Then I layered on copywriting and so on.

Keep Learning

A good full-stack marketer understands that they need to keep learning because things move so quickly in the Internet world. Become complacent and you’ll quickly become average. Keep testing, keep reading, keep asking questions.

Although I wanted to keep the number of blogs recommended to one per channel above, I felt that it would be helpful if I shared some of my other favorite sites:

David Skok’s Entrepreneurship blog – Posts on growing a SaaS companies, includes great metrics.
Quicksprout – The blog of KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg co-founder Neil Patel. He covers topics from entrepreneurship to Internet marketing. He also has created some exceptional free ‘advanced online marketing guides’.
KISSmetrics blog – Widely viewed as a the best all-around online marketing blog.
Inbound.org – The Hacker News of Internet marketing. A good place to find the latest information.
And if there’s one post you need to read on acquiring customers, it’s Paul Graham’s essay on doing unscalable things to grow your business.

There’s a lot of information about Internet marketing online and it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to learn everything at once. Start small and then branch out into other areas. Don’t be afraid to take risks every once in a while and you’ll be well on your way into becoming a full-stack marketer.

To me, a full-stack marketer is a growth hacker. But that’s up for debate since there are multiple interpretations about what a growth hacker actually is and isn’t. What do you think?

A version of the post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Eric Siu is the CEO of San Francisco-based digital marketing agency Single Grain. He also interviews entrepreneurs on his podcast, Growth Everywhere.

How to Strategically Alter Your Product or App

Designer drawing a light bulb, concept for brainstorming and ins

Apps, products, and companies evolve over time. As technologists, we seek to improve our product by constantly optimizing one thing and tweaking the next. Although radical innovation will certainly help your product, sometimes little changes, such as introducing new or improved features, can have a great impact.

Mobile app developers often use new features to recapture users’ attention or stay up-to-date with current trends and technology. Many developers viewed the new iOS7 as an opportunity to refresh their products and roll out dramatic new design changes.

Introducing something new can cause headaches for companies and users alike. But whether you’re releasing an app feature or debuting a new product line, a data-driven approach can help you evolve without losing your existing customers.

Why You Should Treat Changes and New Features With Care

While a periodic refresh can help keep your company relevant, instituting dramatic changes without listening to your customers can prove disastrous. Fashion retailer J.Crew, known for its preppy-with-a-twist look, alienated customers when its new collections strayed too far from the classics. This is a good example of a company that confused customers by deviating too far from its fundamentals.

Haphazardly releasing new features can also appear as though your company is losing focus on its core competencies. Imagine if tomorrow Facebook rolled out a Dropbox-like file-sharing system, a professional network, and a video channel. You would probably feel frustrated — especially if the new features weren’t up to Facebook’s standards.

Here is a simple guide to how you can use data to drive the introduction of new features and keep both your company and your customers focused on what you do best.

Gather as much data as you can. You should use real customer data to inform most decisions, particularly when rolling out new features. Every time you add or change a feature, you should gather information about its effects on customer behavior.
Determine goals and conversion metrics. For app development, this usually works by determining a set series of “paths” you’d like your user to go through while using your app. For example, a Facebook-like application could read something like this: “Open the app, go through friends’ photos, ‘like’ a photo.” Your conversion metric to see if a feature worked as intended would then be the number of photos users “liked.” Ideally, you would also have a set of data to use as a comparison, such as the number of photos users “liked” before the feature was introduced.
Tweak until you hit the success criteria. If the current conversion metric is lower, you know it’s time to go back to the drawing board to pinpoint the problem. Often, it’s a simple matter of tweaking the color of a button to draw attention to it. Other times, you may have to scrap the feature altogether. It’s helpful to determine significant drop-offs in the user’s path and remove any obstacles or explore A/B testing to isolate one variable at a time.
Talk to humans and gather feedback. Although looking at numbers is helpful, sometimes it’s best to actually talk to the real humans using your product. Understanding their pain points will add context to the data you’re seeing. Of course, the caveat here is that sometimes the user isn’t always right. In Twitter’s early days, the most requested feature was private tweeting, but this wasn’t aligned with the vision and goal for the product. Take user feedback with caution, and keep your product vision and data in mind.

While you should always launch with care, a new feature doesn’t have to be perfect when you release it. Rolling out something in beta first allows you to gather useful data on what works and what needs improvement before you introduce it on a mass scale, and your power users enjoy being the first to try it.

At the end of the day, you should consider what’s best for your customers. Allow their feedback to drive improvements, and really listen to their pain points. If you keep customer data at the core of new features, you won’t lose them along the way.

Rameet Chawla is the founder of Fueled, a mobile design and development company based in New York and London, and the founder of the Fueled Collective, a co-working space comprised of over 35 startups in downtown Manhattan. Combining a decade of experience architecting web and mobile applications, Rameet has created apps for a wide-range of industry clients from high-end fashion brands to successful tech startups. He is passionate about building and being involved in disruptive technology ventures and can be found on Facebook and LinkedIn.

3 Important Lessons for This Generation of Entrepreneurs

Growing up, most of us still believe in the American Dream – that by getting a college education and building up our resumes with internships and relevant professional skills, we’ll be able to graduate and walk into a high-paying (or at least stable) career. But with nearly half of the nation’s recent college graduates working jobs that don’t require a degree, a college diploma is no longer a golden ticket.

This harsh reality, paired with the “celebretization” of entrepreneurship, turns everyone into an aspiring entrepreneur. But the road to successful entrepreneurship is by no means easier that the traditional American Dream. In most cases, it’s harder — and it takes a lot of time, effort, energy and more often than not, money.

So whether you’re brainstorming how to make it on your own or are a seasoned entrepreneurial vet, here are three tips for today’s generation of entrepreneurs.

The system isn’t built for entrepreneurship; you have to work it.

The system is still not designed for you to be an entrepreneur. It’s designed for you to work for someone else. Once you understand that, you can begin to look at your situation through a different lens and realize that this will be the one of the hardest things you will ever do, and one of the most valuable and rewarding experiences in your life.

Being an entrepreneur is about doing things you never thought you could do and having great perseverance while doing it. You need to have great confidence in your idea(s) and what you have set out to accomplish. Be prepared to work the system to make it work for you. It may not happen overnight, but stick with it.

Learn to leverage new technologies for your business.

It’s safe to say that I’ve had the entrepreneurial bug in me since I was a kid. I started a video game newsletter when I was 11 years old. Back then, I used a Logitech handheld scanner to help me scan images and used Prodigy and AOL to help promote my newsletter on gaming message boards. By using the latest technology, I was able to gain retail distribution in the Northeast and in-book advertising from a handful of national brands. I can only imagine what I could have done if I were 11 years old today.

Moral of the story: Learn how to leverage technology to fast-track your personal knowledge of your industry and your business’ resources. It will allow you to grow fast while keeping overhead low. Here are some great resources for new and experienced founders and CEOs:

Graphic Design: Check out 99Designs.com, a crowdsourced graphic design marketplace that helps you run a design contest open to a community of graphic designers all over the world. The best part: You only pay once you select your preferred design(s).
Turnkey E-Commerce: Shopify.com is a customizable and affordable hosted e-commerce platform.
Legal Resources: LegalZoom.com is my favorite online resource for basic legal document services and legal plans for small businesses. It’s especially good for startups. They have great templates that you can customize for your needs.
Email Hosting + Management: I recommend Google Apps for Business. It’s no longer free, but I think it provides the best bang for your buck. It’s easy to set up (no IT experience necessary) and provides instant comfort level thanks to user login via Gmail.com.
Web Publishing: WordPress is the de facto choice for millions of web publishers, but I recommend that you look atSquarespace as well. The best analogy between is that WordPress is like an Android phone while Squarespace is like an iPhone. The templates are basic, but you can customize WordPress to look and act as needed; Squarespace comes shiny out of the box with little room for customization.

Know where your customer is going next.

Don Coleman, founder, chairman and CEO of GlobalHue, the largest multicultural marketing agency in the United States, recently told me how, as an entrepreneur, his focus is on knowing and being where the consumer is going.

“Whatever we are doing as marketers and consumers, we need to focus on where the consumer is going,” said Coleman.

For Coleman, that meant leveraging GlobalHue’s multicultural legacy and deep cultural insights to offer their clients a total market solution in order to reach the changing consumer demographics in America.

This is a principle that today’s entrepreneurs must apply to succeed — whether your business is service-oriented (like Coleman’s ad agency model) or product-oriented. Identify how your business model can offer a client solution based on where your consumer is today, and even more importantly, where they will be three to five years from now.

Alex Frias is co-founder and president of Track Marketing Group, an award winning brand experience company specializing in live event and social activations. Alex has spent the last decade blending Fortune 500 brands with entertainment and lifestyle programming. Alex also curates young & social, a marketing blog dissecting the convergence of brands, music, fashion, and lifestyle marketing.

How To Take Advantage Of A Custom Enterprise App Store

The App Store and Google Play Store revolutionized the process of installing applications on mobile devices. But these stores adopt a consumer-focused approach to creating apps, which creates challenges in business environments.

That is where an enterprise app store, which follows the consumer trend started by App Store and Google Play Store, is a logical initiative to carter the bring-your-own-device movement in the workplace. It’s what employees should access to find recommended and approved apps for work.

Custom enterprise app stores offer the same value in case of BYOD and company issued devices in terms of securely distributing mobile apps to employees and easing the burden of IT department to migrate apps to public app stores.

According to Gartner Research vice president Ian Finley, apps downloaded via public app stores create security problems, and cause disruption in security strategies. That is why companies are adopting enterprise app stores for greater control over apps and software expenditures, as well as greater negotiation leverage with vendors. The company says 25 percent of enterprises will have custom enterprise app stores by 2017 for managing apps on mobile devices and PCs.

Adopting an enterprise app store

The 2 main steps for adopting an enterprise app store for your company are:

1. Plan custom app types and access

It’s important to access the apps to be delivered throughout the organization. While this list is complied, you should consider the type of app (Mobile app, windows based, etc.), and whether it will be distributed across the entire organization or among specific user groups.

App development services such as Kony mobile applications development will let you design, define, and quickly deliver multi-channel app experiences with cloud-based collaboration. You could even use such resources to share prototypes for approval/experiment between designers, developers, and users within your organization.

2. Define security policies

Organizations adopting the app store must be focused on their fiduciary responsibility to protecting sensitive company data, so it is important for IT teams to take key considerations such as the ownership of the device (is it owned by the organization, or the user) and access location (is the user request coming from within or outside the organization).

Based on these factors, you should create ‘trust levels’ for different access types and develop policies to determine specific actions to be taken with data and apps at trust levels.

More benefits

Some additional benefits of adopting an enterprise app store besides greater control over apps include:

No stringent restrictions
Where public app stores prevent many features from reaching the business environment, enterprise app stores come as an alternative. For developers, the sky is the limit when it comes to building, distributing, and updating apps more quickly.

Flexibility of devices
As BYOD movement continues an upswing, employees will not be keeping separate devices for personal use and work. Instead, there could be separate personal and work profiles for different users. Custom app store wound enable cross-platform flexibility regardless of whichever devices an employee decides to use.

Free up IT resources
According to the mobile app-management company Partnerpedia, 86 percent of enterprises desire a self-service model where employees download apps directly, which frees up IT resources for more important tasks. IT can also utilize these stores for procurement of licenses, and push out updates for different applications.

An iPad POS System Can Solve Two of the Biggest Challenges Small Businesses Face

A Forbes article listed eight biggest challenges faced by businesses and two of them are issues many small businesses deal with on a daily basis: increased selection and competition and marketing and customer loyalty.

Because it’s so easy to start a business these days, keeping up with the rest can be difficult. The competition is tougher and it’s hard to reach out to and retain customers. These issues can be easily resolved if business owners are willing to invest in a reliable POS system.

Mobile POS Systems Steadily Gaining Ground

Mobile point-of-sales (POS) systems are gaining ground especially with small to medium-sized businesses. A mobile POS system makes it easy to accept payments, check inventory, and track sales and customer behaviour. Tablet point-of-sales systems are starting to replace cash registers in many retail stores.

Business owners are now looking at investing in iPad POS system over the traditional machines that are often expensive to maintain. And there are several good reasons to do so. According to analyst Jordan McKee from the Yankee Group, a 2013 survey found that 51 percent of businesses that have been operating for 3 years (or less) are thinking of using mobile point-of-sale in the next 12 months. 34 percent of businesses with less than 20 employees already use mobile POS systems while 19 percent have plans to use one in the coming year. The survey also showed that 39 percent of bigger business (with 20 to 99 employees) already employs mobile POS while 30 percent have plans to use it in the future.

Similarly, another survey showed that 56 percent of businesses are considering using mobile technology for iPads.

Benefits of Using Tablet POS Systems

Businesses that prioritize inventory and time management should seriously consider POS systems for iPads because these can significantly enhance transactions and lead to more sales. Case in point: when Alabama State University first used a similar system on one of its vendors, it recorded 5,721 transactions in just a few hours.

Seamless transactions. Tablet POS systems do something traditional cash registers can’t: process payments AND check inventory at the same time. Think about the last time you walked into a retail store and bought a pair of shoes. It’s more likely that the staff had to check if they have stock before you can get your goods. For those who are in a hurry (or simply impatient) that can take too long.

Now, with a mobile POS the staff can tell you right away if they have it or not. That will only take a few seconds and you’ll have more time to wander around the store and look for something else.

Significant savings. Low cost is another major appeal of these systems. Traditional cash registers are expensive and if they break down, you must be ready to shell out a lot of cash for repairs§. Not to mention the time it will take to fix the device, which means you can also lose potential sales.

Improved customer service. Your employees don’t have to be chained to the register. Many times, customers will need to seek assistance or ask questions. It can be a problem if they’re at the other end of the store because they wouldn’t like to call out to you or walk to the counter. They can simply walk out and go somewhere else.

Having a mobile POS system allows your staff to be on the floor and interact with customers. They can quickly address any concern and, more importantly, take orders instantly. This is one very important advantage of mobile POS because you can minimize the risk of customers changing their minds after wandering inside your store.

Faster training time for employees. It’s also easier to train employees with an iPad. Let’s face it, cash registers can be intimidating. New staff can experience difficulties using them as compared to the iPad, which everyone knows too well. This will significantly reduce the time spent on training and get them on the floor as quickly as possible.
Unparalleled flexibility. POS systems for iPads offer flexibility, which is highly advantageous for those running both an online and brick and mortar shop. Your inventory, orders, and customer data are all synced and that makes it easy to monitor your business performance. There’s no need to track multiple inventories or utilize different payment systems. You can run your business from anywhere with ease.

The Answer to All Your Business Needs

Utilizing iPad point-of-sales systems is beneficial to your business. These allow you to save money on equipment acquisition and repair, integrate inventory control and payment processing, track sales to predict trends and create monthly reports, train staff quickly, and run both online and retail stores without difficulties.

With iPads foreseen to replace many cash registers in the future, a mobile POS system becomes indispensable not just because it makes your work easier but because it lets you spend more time establishing relationships with customers.

8 Tips For Pitching Your Startup to Investors in an Infographic

It only took about six months of deal flow and a handful of “pitches” before I realized that most entrepreneurs are really, really bad at “selling themselves” and “pitching” their ideas and companies to investors.

I cringe every time I listen to a great start-up idea or read a well-written executive summary, and then watch in horror as the founder stumbles and trips throughout the “pitch.” So many good ideas and businesses never get funding and/or fail to receive the benefits of a properly funded startup – all because of a poor presentation during the “pitch.”

The sad part is that as I’m sitting there taking notes, I’m thinking to myself, if only I could have spent a few hours with this poor guy or gal BEFORE his/her presentation. We could have highlighted “this or that,” deleted a whole section here, added more about “this” and not talked about “that” –then they probably would have at least gotten a second look and due diligence follow-up.

This is not the only way to give a “pitch,” but hopefully it will help improve your presentation and increase your chances of obtaining funds. By following these eight simple suggestions you’ll be setting yourself apart from the other poor “pitches.”

Click-to-Tweet Infographic

1. Tell us what you do in as few words as possible.

Maybe it’s me, but it seems like most Angels and VCs are people with type “A” personalities. We have short attention spans and don’t like to waste time. Give us the “short version,” and if or when we ask questions, then you can provide us with more details. The first thing we want to do is understand what it is that you do – in plain and simple English. Next on the list, we want to know what problem you solve and why your solution is important to your customer.

2. What’s the plan? How does it scale?

As investors, we aren’t always interested in your product, but we are interested in “returns.” Your mission statement is important to me, but what is really rolling around in my head while you’re up there giving us the “pitch” is: Will this work? Is this the right guy/gal for the job? How much money will we be able to make when we sell our shares? Does this thing scale? Explain to me how you are going to market and grow the business. Most investors are in it to make a profit, and if your business doesn’t scale, it probably won’t be very profitable. I’m not interested.

3. Talk about the team.

This is very important to investors. Don’t just put up a slide of your team and their past job experiences. Tell us why you’ve assembled this team for this opportunity and highlight your expertise. We know everyone has to start somewhere. Personally, I like to see and hear your passion about the product. Because, I know that passionate people find ways to get things done when they hit the “bumps in the road,” and there will always be “bumps” along the startup highway. Startups are hard; passionate people can make it over the “bumps”.

4. What’s your go-to-market strategy?

Your great idea is useless if no one hears about it or knows it even exists. So many people spend time developing a great product, only to find out no one wants it. How are you going to get it into the hands of your customers? What is your Marketing plan? What is your customer acquisition cost? Do you have any sales channels besides your sales team?

5. What is your competitive advantage?

Chances are that you’re not the first person to see this problem and offer a solution. There are probably about 28 people working on the exact same problem in some form or another. As VCs, we have probably heard a “similar” pitch within the last several months, if not weeks. More often than not, it’s not about the idea, but about “execution of that idea” that we are all betting on. Tell us “what it is” that your team brings to the table that can help you out-execute your competition – your IP, your marketing advantage, your knowledge or your network?

6. Let us touch and feel your product.

A short demo or actual product sample is really key. I want to use it, at least see it. Is it simple? Does it solve your customer’s problem? Is it easy to use from a user’s point of view? We don’t need to understand all the features or really any of the code – I just want to know that it’s clean, works and is simple to use. It’s hard to invest in things that look too complicated and things we can’t fully understand.

7. Expose your weaknesses before we do.

Successful people understand their strengths and weaknesses. Go ahead and acknowledge your weaknesses because I guarantee that everyone in the room is asking themselves: What is it that I don’t like about this? Where are the holes in this plan? What’s holding me back from investing in these people? Does this team have what it takes? Let us know about the risks you see moving forward and tell us how you plan to handle them. Be honest.

8. Show us the FINANCIALS.

It’s hard to forecast projections for an early stage company, but show us what you’ve got; we know they’re probably wrong anyway. Explain what it will take to double or triple the sales and what kind of timeframe you will need to accomplish this. We also want to know your “breakeven” numbers. Plus, as investors we don’t particularly like to see the funds going to Founder salaries; we want you spending money in marketing, development, and sales. Oh, and make sure you tell us how much money you are trying to raise. What’s the Ask?

This isn’t the only way to get funded, but I hope it helps. If you nail these 8 key points in the “pitch” and can answer some basic questions about your product, valuation, and your competition, you’ll have a much better chance of raising funds and building your awesome company.

Dr. Tony Ratliff is a dad, dentist, entrepreneur and investor in the Indianapolis Start-up Community. He practices dentistry throughout the week, but has a passion for angel investing, business strategies, technology and start-ups. You can follow him @drtonyratliff or check out his blog Venture Capital, Start-ups and Dentistry.

5 Tips to Make Your Conference a Success

Everywhere Else Tennessee is a startup conference we host here in Memphis. This year featured a robust lineup of speakers, including Chris Lyons of Andreessen Horowitz and Josh Miller of Branch. The event also featured a “Startup Ave” pitch contest, where companies came together in events to pitch their products before moving on to the “finals” of pitch competition.

Hosting a successful event means more than just putting butts in seats. It has a lot to do with how these people interact, and what brought them there to begin with. Here are some ideas to give your event a networking jump-start.

Location

The first thing you should do is hammer out the location where you plan to host your event. Your gut instinct may be to rent a hall for your event, but those with a large office can sell the idea of working for your company by hosting the event from your office. You should also plan for designated “networking spaces” around the venue so people can mingle, and include a limited number of chairs in your floor plan to keep people moving too.

Think about ways you can use location to your advantage, like an after party or a “field trip” to some other relevant location that is close by. Time is also important. Thursday evenings seem to work well, but Wednesday mornings are also sometimes open.

Secure Sponsorship

Any good networking event relies on a lot of people and brands coming together to meet at your venue, so sponsorship is crucial. Give your sponsors plenty of booth space to exhibit their products on the floor, and then work on pushing foot traffic toward them. A conference app with a splash page can subtly remind users who is at the event, or you can just schedule demos as part of your conference agenda. The application is a nice bonus because it pushes those notifications to your attendees and tells them where to go.

crews-site

Plan Activities

Speaking of agendas, you should have activities planned for your gathering. Speeches and lectures are helpful, but you don’t want to over schedule these events. This forces your attendees to sit still and listen. Instead, use specific tactics to get people chatting about common interests. Get on the microphone and announce a gathering of a certain industry in the center of your venue, have attendees choose names or numbers from a hat and pair those people together by alphabetical order or industry, or just keep a large space open for guests to exhibit their services.

Promote Your Event

Promotion is the only way to get people to come to your event, so it’s important that you allow yourself plenty of time to get the word out. It’s a good idea to give eight weeks advance notice and send formal invitations to everyone in your contact list. Set up some kind of RSVP list (apps can help here, or you can use a simple email signup form), and then email those attendees reminders as the event draws closer. Designate a social media hash tag ahead of time and make sure that your audience knows what it is. If possible, set up live streaming of your important talks and host it for those who cannot attend your event.

Follow Up

After the event, send a small follow up to the attendees that got the most benefit from your show. Thank you sponsors, give out door prizes to your audience, and provide pictures of the event on your Facebook page. This is also a good time to respond to Twitter messages you may have missed on the event’s hash tag. Record all of these interactions and use it to form a database for your next event by inviting those same people back to your venue.