guidoanselmi posted:If you're curious about what my goal is in all of this, feel free to ping me at info at nanaya dot co. EDIT: Nevermind. Reading comprehension.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 06:24 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 21:37 |
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guidoanselmi posted:
No need to go all the way to Silicon Valley. Chicago has an awesome startup scene. There are quite a few tech incubators that have sprung up in the last 5 years and several big players in the VC arena. http://www.pritzkergroup.com/venture-capital/ http://www.lightbank.com/ http://www.hydeparkvp.com/ http://www.1871.com/ Some additional reading material http://technori.com/ http://www.builtinchicago.org/ You should make a trip up here and attend a few startup events. I hope to get more involved in the next year when other aspects of my life have settled a bit. Chicago has a nice balance of East and West startup culture. Not too extreme in either.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 18:45 |
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So I finally got off my rear end last March and founded a company with my old boss essentially helping mobile games launch (which is all we did in our normal careers). http://mobilegamepartners.com/ First 6 months were tough as we got it up and running and scoured for clients but now it is extraordinarily successful. We now represent some of the top independent mobile games, which is nice as we take a revenue share typically. Actually about to do our first press release next week.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 20:23 |
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Comrade Flynn posted:So I finally got off my rear end last March and founded a company with my old boss essentially helping mobile games launch (which is all we did in our normal careers). Looks like you guys have hit the ground running! Congrats! Can you share some tidbits from the early stages of forming the company? Did you guys quit your dayjobs right away, or did you work on it in your spare time while working full time? Did you bootstrap or raise funds? What was your initial budget like before you got your first client?
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:17 |
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lunatikfringe posted:Looks like you guys have hit the ground running! Congrats! Sure. I'd started two successful mobile publishing arms for mobile game companies, so I always had it in the back of my mind that I could do this on my own. My boss then quit the company we were at, and about a month later I ended up in an argument with the CEO and quit in the heat of the moment. Since we were both trying to decide what we wanted to do, we decided to give it a go as we'd always discussed how a lot of mobile game companies were kind of stuck in a limbo of being too big to work with a traditional publisher (and the 40-50% revenue share that usually comes with them) but too small to keep a full time business development/marketing team around when they only launch 1-2 games per year. We started talking to a lot of people (including Apple and Google) and the feedback was universally positive, so we decided to make the plunge. We had planned on it taking 18 months to turn cash flow positive, so I had a lot of savings and a very supportive wife. Our first two clients were duds (we fulfilled our part of the bargain but they had grossly misrepresented how well their games performed) so we were actually really on the fence if it was going to work when we had our first huge hit. We ended up turning our first profit after 7 months and it's gone up substantially every month since. We've been offered funding numerous times now but have always turned it down. The irony of course that people are offering to invest now that it's hugely profitable. I've raised money for a company in the past and hated all the strings that came along with it. It's a pretty lean operation. Just the two of us. Our main expenses are going to conferences and legal bills from the contracts. EDIT: The coolest part has been seeing how well our clients have done partially due to what we've done for them. One of them is moving form a 1600 sq ft office into a 12,000 sq ft office. Comrade Flynn fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 11, 2015 |
# ? Feb 11, 2015 21:35 |
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Comrade Flynn posted:Sure. Awesome stuff. Have the both of you discussed where you want to go with the company? Strings from outside investment can suck, yes, but it can help you scale up really quickly if that is your goal. Being that you are profitable and investors are coming to you, look at it from another perspective: Investors should interview with you to come on board. You hold the cards, not them, in this situation. Counter their offer with more favorable terms for yourself. Bring someone on as an investor who, in addition to capital, can contribute their own expertise and become a valuable adviser on your board.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 22:15 |
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lunatikfringe posted:Awesome stuff. Have the both of you discussed where you want to go with the company? Strings from outside investment can suck, yes, but it can help you scale up really quickly if that is your goal. I'm honestly not sure what we'd do with the capital right now. The only way we could scale would be to make investments in games which takes us down the path of being a more traditional game publisher. There's not anything wrong with that, but it muddles what we are doing a bit. We are both happy with this being a lifestyle business where we just earn a decent living while being able to travel a lot.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 22:21 |
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Comrade Flynn posted:I'm honestly not sure what we'd do with the capital right now. The only way we could scale would be to make investments in games which takes us down the path of being a more traditional game publisher. There's not anything wrong with that, but it muddles what we are doing a bit. That's awesome, congratulations. I own a similar company - two founders and one part timer. We're attempting to do what you do but with web apps. For the first 3 years we just did normal consulting: client wants application built, we build, deliver, and we're good. With one of our newer clients, we're doing a 25% rev share on gross revenue and it seems to be working out so far. Can you speak (anonymously) to the types of rev shares you have set up? Is it a flat percentage, or per unit, or something more complex? After the app is released, how do you handle making updates to it - as in, do you get paid some type of retainer, or do you just use the rev share money to pay for that? How do you go about selecting what apps you'll work on? Do they essentially have to pitch you like they would a VC? And yes, seeing how well the software you've built has helped your clients grow is a good feeling. Thanks for the insight!
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# ? Feb 12, 2015 03:48 |
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musclecoder posted:That's awesome, congratulations. It varies from client to client but it's usually a flat revenue share percentage on all users for a certain time period (ie, 6 months after launch). We usually then will "relaunch" the game after substantial updates, where the cycle starts again. Most games I've sought out on my own.
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# ? Feb 12, 2015 03:56 |
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I came on as a non-technical co-founder for a live streaming website, StreamShops and would like to get some feedback on site design, usability, and flow. My background is in operations, business development, and sales - I just closed down my own project, a cookie company, called A couple Smart Cookies. Taking a cue from Kickstarter,Patreon and Twitch, he started StreamShops as way for online content creators to be supported directly by their followers. The operating costs are going up for "Youtube" and internet stars, while the margins they are working on are thinning. This didn't sit well with him and he wanted to provide an alternate platform for people to monetize their intellectual property. My friend and I are working hard to drive traffic to the site, are surrounding up with some great technical minds who've done very well with tech startups, online/mobile games, and running large scale business operations. While we are not naive in thinking that we are able to directly compete with Youtube or Twitch, we do want to secure our own robust user base a see whose attention we can get. Right now we want to become another tool for online content creators to use to generate income and grow from there.
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# ? Feb 13, 2015 20:36 |
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OmNom posted:I came on as a non-technical co-founder for a live streaming website, StreamShops and would like to get some feedback on site design, usability, and flow. My background is in operations, business development, and sales - I just closed down my own project, a cookie company, called A couple Smart Cookies. Id like to give some constructive criticism so don't take it in a negative way. Your UI design definitely needs work. You may want to bring in a dedicated UI person to really jazz things up. Working in media you need to have really vibrant but fluid design. As a comparison, look at the Ustream and Vimeo sites. They are pretty good examples of a modern website layout and design aesthetic. http://www.ustream.tv/ http://vimeo.com/ It doesn't take a lot of money or technical resources to design a good UI. Just have to have someone with really good artistic vision and know how. You might even want to explore outsourcing your UI design work if you don't currently have the expertise in house. Your idea is promising but needs better presentation.
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# ? Feb 13, 2015 22:53 |
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lunatikfringe posted:Id like to give some constructive criticism so don't take it in a negative way. Your UI design definitely needs work. You may want to bring in a dedicated UI person to really jazz things up. Working in media you need to have really vibrant but fluid design. As a comparison, look at the Ustream and Vimeo sites. They are pretty good examples of a modern website layout and design aesthetic. I agree with you 100%, coming on late to the project many things were already in motion, so this is what I have to work with for the time being. Being pretty cash strapped a UI overhaul will take some time, most of the design is outsourced, unfortunately my friend really didn't know the right way to direct a designer when he started. It is much better looking than when he first showed me the site design. I put the link up for constructive criticism. Until we get a face lift we need to just get out name out there.
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# ? Feb 13, 2015 23:23 |
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OmNom posted:I agree with you 100%, coming on late to the project many things were already in motion, so this is what I have to work with for the time being. Being pretty cash strapped a UI overhaul will take some time, most of the design is outsourced, unfortunately my friend really didn't know the right way to direct a designer when he started. It is much better looking than when he first showed me the site design. I put the link up for constructive criticism. Until we get a face lift we need to just get out name out there. I don't get what you are trying to do. Are you trying to be a video streaming site with a shop addon? This is a horrible idea, you need to build an entirely new userbase and convince personalities to go to your website instead of twitch/youtube. You have identified a need "Online personalities want to have some way to connect and monetize their viewers". In order to do this you don't have to provide streaming, audio, or even videos. I think a great way to tackle this problem is to make an easy to use online shop. Streamers would link to and advertise the shop in the bio. You'd sell T-shirts, charms, and other swag and streamers would collect their cut. If you give them a large portion of the profits they will come.
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# ? Feb 15, 2015 20:12 |
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lunatikfringe posted:Id like to give some constructive criticism so don't take it in a negative way. Your UI design definitely needs work. You may want to bring in a dedicated UI person to really jazz things up. Working in media you need to have really vibrant but fluid design. As a comparison, look at the Ustream and Vimeo sites. They are pretty good examples of a modern website layout and design aesthetic. Working to drive traffic to the site at this stage is a bad move. This is not a business that will function in an "if you build it, they will come" capacity. You need to identify your prospective content creators, figure out if this is something they would ever use, and then build something to their needs. The fact that you have near zero content in the system suggests that you either haven't done this or it hasn't been resonating. Either way, it doesn't seem that you've validated that you have an idea even worth building yet. The site's concept is a mess: your front page is centered around content discovery, but you haven't built any of the key features that let people get content into the system and get money into their bank accounts. Follow? I'm not sure if you've ever built something in this vein before, but if you haven't read it, please get Steve Blank's book on customer development, and skim through Eric Ries's Lean Startup book. Unrelated, I would also recommend reading Patton's developer-oriented book on user story mapping for perspective on some ways you might want to work with content creators to identify your minimum viable product as you find people who are interested in your idea. Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Feb 16, 2015 |
# ? Feb 16, 2015 05:51 |
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Misogynist posted:Words All goo advice, and it isn't falling on deaf ears. I have read lean start up and I will revisit it. I am gathering all of this information for the founder, it is not my first time at building a business but it is his; I came on to help a friend out and clean up the small mess he's made. There is a bunch of cart before horse stuff going on with the site, I know. He's taken it this far, and is out of budget to do much more at this point. The "Field of Dreams" analogy isn't lost on me either, I threw it at him early on, didn't stick. Since he did build it, we need to find a way to make them come...sounds just a little dirty no? Did he establish MVP before building the site? I don't think he fully grasped the concept. So here we are, site in hand and have to make it work with what we have. At this point I'll do what I can to help him, stranger miracles have happened. There is nothing for me to lose on this but a little free time, I'm not in it for money and I have a night job; but I do want to help my friend succeed if I can. I appreciate the advice, retraction of the advice (which when I passed it to him, I vetoed a push to bring on a redesign before we have cash flow), and then more advice. The was built to suit the needs he perceived the market to have, so we'll work around that for now.
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# ? Feb 16, 2015 08:35 |
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OmNom posted:All goo advice, and it isn't falling on deaf ears. I have read lean start up and I will revisit it. I am gathering all of this information for the founder, it is not my first time at building a business but it is his; I came on to help a friend out and clean up the small mess he's made. There is a bunch of cart before horse stuff going on with the site, I know. He's taken it this far, and is out of budget to do much more at this point. The "Field of Dreams" analogy isn't lost on me either, I threw it at him early on, didn't stick. Since he did build it, we need to find a way to make them come...sounds just a little dirty no? Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Feb 16, 2015 |
# ? Feb 16, 2015 17:20 |
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People wrote things about me today: http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/17/former-z2-liv-execs-form-mobile-game-partners-consulting-firm/ http://www.pocketgamer.biz/job-news/60830/z2live-execs-launch-mobile-game-partners/
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# ? Feb 18, 2015 02:44 |
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Comrade Flynn posted:People wrote things about me today: I think the real story here is that you made peanut butter jelly time when you were ~24, but still managed to strike a chord deep in the hearts of middle schoolers. Seriously though, congrats. I'm impressed that you managed to get a success-based pricing model to work. In my experience clients are super averse to the risk that you'll succeed, even though if you make a bunch of money through a revenue-share agreement, so would they. Do you not get pushback on this, or do they actually prefer it?
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# ? Feb 18, 2015 05:54 |
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Congrats! Also, look at them pug avs.lunatikfringe posted:No need to go all the way to Silicon Valley. Chicago has an awesome startup scene. There are quite a few tech incubators that have sprung up in the last 5 years and several big players in the VC arena. I've been chatting with a few folks at HP Angels. Going to talk to some potential customers soon, too...have no idea how this will go!
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# ? Feb 18, 2015 07:06 |
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semicolonsrock posted:I think the real story here is that you made peanut butter jelly time when you were ~24, but still managed to strike a chord deep in the hearts of middle schoolers. Not a single client has ever pushed back on it. The current publisher model is so nuts (40-50% of revenue no matter what) this is a huge breath of fresh air.
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# ? Feb 18, 2015 07:20 |
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guidoanselmi posted:Going to talk to some potential customers soon, too...have no idea how this will go! It went better than expected. That said, I have no idea what the deal will look like. It's a complicated, (sorta) unvalidated product for a complicated customer. I can opt to try to give equity or keep it and push the product with other incentives. I'd be happy to give them equity for strategic security and connections for growth but I can otherwise maintain complete ownership. Speaking of, doing every aspect of a startup from CEO, PR, software architecture, some law, project manager, sales, product, etc (except coding) is pretty insane (not to mention two other jobs, simultaneously). I don't recommend it! e: obligatory self-promotion, was covered by STL Business Journal guidoanselmi fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 24, 2015 |
# ? Feb 20, 2015 21:50 |
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I have a question regarding LLC formation in PA when it will initially be run from a residence. When forming the LLC, where is the business technically located if we use a commercial registered agent? Is it located at the agent's office, at the home, a P.O. box we set up etc? The business will be exclusively internet retail sales in the beginning so we don't have an office or storefront that makes the location obvious. This is a concern because I'm trying to figure out if the agent we choose affects the businesses location, and what fees/taxes/licenses we'll need.
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# ? Mar 2, 2015 16:02 |
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LogisticEarth posted:I have a question regarding LLC formation in PA when it will initially be run from a residence. When forming the LLC, where is the business technically located if we use a commercial registered agent? Is it located at the agent's office, at the home, a P.O. box we set up etc? The business will be exclusively internet retail sales in the beginning so we don't have an office or storefront that makes the location obvious. Personally, I got a Delaware agent for a Delaware LLC but the physical address is the corporate address is my own home in St. Louis, MO. If you're in-state and don't have an agent, I imagine you can run with a convenient, sensible address. If you have an agent, you can typically call & clarify. The company I used was very helpful.
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# ? Mar 2, 2015 21:42 |
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I have a "what now?" Question A few months ago I identified a need in the daily fantasy sports market, players like me were losing hundreds to thousands a day/week due to player injuries or bad games. I came up with a concept of having each position having two slots but only the higher scoring one counts towards your total. It helps alleviate bad nights for players. I'm not a programmer but I learned ajax/jquery/php/sql to build a beta platform and had a public test. The response was insanely positive and we registered 150 users in the beta, along with bringing on a front end developer that is working on sweat equity since we have no money. We released on thursday of last week and have grown to over 400 users and are starting to fill games by tip off. At this point the business feels validated but we need to move forward. This is my first company and I'm in charge of...well.. everything so I have a lot of bases to cover. One immediate issue I've noticed is we need marketing money. I'm trying all the cheap routes right now but I think I need 5 figures to start making a real impact. I'm bringing in users through offering free games for cash prizes but these games are being paid out of my pocket. I've reached out to a business associate who recently sold his business, we've had a positive call about investing 50k but I feel we can easily blow through that. If I wanted to accelerate our growth, what should my next move be? We're in the new york city area. My developer and I still have full time jobs, I can't consider quitting until I can take at least 100k a year out of the business for my salary but my job gives me a lot of time to work on my business due to the nature of it. website: https://dailydraftstar.com Thanks guys!
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# ? Mar 16, 2015 17:05 |
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Sepist posted:If I wanted to accelerate our growth, what should my next move be? We're in the new york city area. My developer and I still have full time jobs, I can't consider quitting until I can take at least 100k a year out of the business for my salary but my job gives me a lot of time to work on my business due to the nature of it. Accelerators (YC, Techstars etc.) are there exactly for the purpose you need, accelerating growth online, but the top-tier ones are unlikely to be interested in fantasy sports or interested in getting you to a 100k/year salary. It sounds like you could be on the right path on your own, where you can keep the profits as your salary. Is the free money giveaway profitable? And do those users stay active after getting free money? If the answer to those is yes, then take the buddy's money and off you go.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 17:00 |
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It's only a loss if players withdraw the money which a few have, the rest have been reinvesting it back into the site which I am recovering 10% of each time they enter a game. I'm not sure he will be in but if he's not I can grab 20k for marketing from someone else if need be, but he is a close friend and I'm apprehensive about mixing a large sum of money with close friends. He understands the risk but I would feel too guilty if it failed. Edit: and to address the salary, I am unfortunately very aware the salary thing is going to be an issue, I expected to have to do a lot of this on my own due to my cost of living being so high. I suppose we will have to grow slow Edit2: And of course as I type this my original interested investor got back to me, so it looks like we may be receiving 300k - 1mil if all things go right in the next few weeks. Sepist fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Mar 17, 2015 |
# ? Mar 17, 2015 17:06 |
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Sepist posted:Edit2: And of course as I type this my original interested investor got back to me, so it looks like we may be receiving 300k - 1mil if all things go right in the next few weeks. I came back to say that the news is showing I was wrong: http://recode.net/2015/03/18/draft-raises-3-5-million-to-bring-fantasy-sports-to-the-casual-fan/ Good luck with the fund raise!
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 17:20 |
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Guys who have done start-ups with multiple partners with different interest levels, what type of business formation did y'all use? Are there weird ways to set up a company that would allow for things like equal ownership of a company but with different levels of voting power on business matters? for example, you sell the company and everyone gets an equal portion of the sale but one person ultimately gets to decide whether the sale goes through. My situation is I'm starting up a business with two friends and one feels they need a way to control the direction of the company without having a vote on every matter, fine with me and the other dude but we don't want to split a minority stake in the company to give him the largest financial stake in the company.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 21:57 |
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Voting v non voting shares. Eg preferred.
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# ? Apr 9, 2015 22:03 |
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Can you do this as a S-corp or would we need to form as C-corp to have different classes of stock? edit: Apparently, they can have different voting rights but only one class of stock, which is pretty much what we want since we want it to continue being a pass-through entity. Texibus fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Apr 9, 2015 |
# ? Apr 9, 2015 22:05 |
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Dunno if this is really the right thread for it, but are there any standard recommendations for small business bank accounts?
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# ? Apr 28, 2015 16:37 |
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I'm interested to hear how people have validated their ideas, and thoughts on this one. I've got a day job where I know it is useful but that is a sample of one. I've created a survey that I am going to start sending out to people within my network but I still feel this is a selective bias. Any ideas on how to widen this? I've started looking at Google AdWords and Twitter for specific keywords as well.
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# ? May 2, 2015 10:52 |
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I think the best way to validate is to actually launch a product or service. Doing surveys and researching the market only gets you so far in my experience. The real valuable information comes from seeing how customers actually react to your thing.
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# ? May 2, 2015 14:31 |
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Seriously, don't lift another finger until you've read The Four Steps to the Epiphany. This is the Holy Bible of customer development for startups. http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507
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# ? May 2, 2015 21:28 |
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A Flaming Chicken posted:I'm interested to hear how people have validated their ideas, and thoughts on this one. Make a landing page which looks like a "buy this" page, buy some google ads or otherwise publicize, and measure clicks.
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# ? May 4, 2015 14:42 |
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A Flaming Chicken posted:I'm interested to hear how people have validated their ideas, and thoughts on this one. I took an unorthodox approach and validated an education site with a series of Udemy courses. I wouldn't recommend it. While it did answer the "do people want this?" question, it has created a series of enduring headaches between SEO and Udemy's business model messing with our revenue.
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# ? May 13, 2015 05:39 |
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I am toying with the idea of starting a small business. I have ideas, proficiency in the technical skills I think I would need to build a product, an OCD-like focus on projects I'm interested in, and a bit of seed money to get me going. The area I feel like I'm lacking is business fundamentals; accounting, marketing, etc. This is obviously a big deal, and something I need to confront before I decide to go down this path. Can anyone recommend books that would set me in the right direction to gaining a preliminary understanding of these (and other) skills? So far I've got: The Personal MBA; The Four Steps to the Epiphany; The Art of the Start; and, The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company.
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# ? May 27, 2015 21:09 |
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Pfox posted:I am toying with the idea of starting a small business. I have ideas, proficiency in the technical skills I think I would need to build a product, an OCD-like focus on projects I'm interested in, and a bit of seed money to get me going. The area I feel like I'm lacking is business fundamentals; accounting, marketing, etc. This is obviously a big deal, and something I need to confront before I decide to go down this path. Those are pretty solid. I particularly like The Art of the Start. I also recommend the writings of @patio11 (see him on Twitter or HN; blog at kalzumeus.com), especially if you're partial to bootstrapping rather than seeking VC funding. Get some familiarity with lean methodology to help you focus on the right things. You could probably watch The Marshmallow Challenge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_yKBitO8M) faster than reading any of the official Lean books. As soon as you're not hopelessly lost on the fundamentals, start building the thing. Business is mostly applied common sense.
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# ? May 29, 2015 05:32 |
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Catching up on this thread is great. Currently I'm a Business Analyst a tech firm in SF, and I'm looking for a better understanding of the way I should approach business problems. My company is sometimes scaling so fast we're racking up a lot of technological debt and encountering resistance when trying to fix problems. I'm also looking at changing jobs, potentially a career in consultancy, particularly in smaller businesses. I recently met with a club owner when I was in L.A., and offered some suggestions and methods for improving his customer experience and technology issues. I have the confidence to understand and scope problems but I know I'm lacking in actual experience solving these problems or communicating efficiently. Are there any good guides or resources to solving business problems or patching holes in teams/businesses with limited people? I still feel that sometimes I don't know enough to ask the right questions and need to learn how to professionally communicate if this is the role I want to adopt. I just purchased that Four Steps to the Epiphany and I'm definitely hungry for knowledge and recommended literature. Thanks for any help.
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# ? Aug 12, 2015 23:11 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 21:37 |
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I can't speak to literature but I will say whatever tool you read, instantly start using it. You really don't know what works for you until you try. Also get super good at PowerPoint and Smartart, you can make some pretty effective presentations. I use a lot of MECE(mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive) diagrams/process to break down issues into discrete chunks. I learned from my manager when I was a business analyst, so I can't recommend anything but looks like its a McKinsey staple. Along that train of thought I've never failed when I've closely partnered my solutions with the concept of Alignment. I am at a large company so it can be so broken that we figuratively make people take a test and then score them on something different. When you think about solutions you need to make sure tools, metrics, organization, etc. Are all incredibly well aligned with each other AND your vision. Also horde scratch paper and sketch out everything...diagrams, slide shows, process breakdowns, whatever. I'm not a super visual person but sometimes really cool concepts can pop out. Anyways I won't say I'm the best analyst (hell I don't even work in the field) but the principles I've picked up through basically 2.5 years of working poo poo out in my head and on paper put me in a good spot so I wouldn't spend too long trying to amass knowledge without putting some to practice
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# ? Aug 13, 2015 01:45 |