bsims

Ray Kroc got his start with McDonald's at the age of 52. Never too old to think new.

http://franchises.about.com/od/mostpopularfranchises/a/ray-k...

I'm working on a credit scoring related project and would be curious if you know what your credit score is? Any chance you'd be willing to post scores from CreditKarma.com and Creditsesame.com?

I'm curious to see if this strategy is sustainable.

Thanks for sharing this. I found these comments very helpful. A few thoughts from what I learned at my first company, and from someone possibly a bit more revenue minded.

-First, I recommend doing some personal strength tests such as the Gallup Strengthsfinder test. If you have a better idea what you are strong at, this may help how you approach solving the question of how to monetize things.

-Sales will not just appear, you'll likely have to email/call/meet/blog/do everything it takes to get the initial buyers group. I had no idea how to "Sell" something but I picked up a sales book, read it, put on a suit by myself in my apartment while I made sales phone calls (the suit was a confidence booster). Once you get the first sale everything gets easier...at least for a while until you hit Phase 2 which is too many people buying but that is a different Q&A.

-Have you thought about asking people or companies what they need, what XYZ would be worth to them, and then building it for them? This decreases your risk since they have already told you what they would buy. Make them pre-pay.

One of my favorite stories is of the entrepreneur who goes to a company and asks, "What product do you guys really need right now?" They inform the entrepreneur and he responds, "That's interesting, I make that!" He hadn't even built the product out but did it under their specifications. Once that was complete he went back to them and said, "What other product do you really need right now?" They informed him and he said, "I make that too." Thus started his business.

It is fairly common to have vesting schedules as someone earns equity of usually 3 to 4 years. So if for example you were giving up 10% total on a 4 year vesting schedule, each year would earn 2.5% of the 10%. Some of these can also be met with milestones.

I think your approach of bringing him on slowly makes sense from what you wrote. I recommend reading "The Founder's Dilemma," before finalizing any of your actions.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Ent...

I think it is great that before the interview people have a chance to talk with others, network etc. to get the nerves out.

+1 for this

My mistake. For some reason I had this associated as being a Marine Corp stationing. Thanks for the clarification.

I had a buddy from high school who was a guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. A very high honor, although I can imagine it would become pretty monotonous. Semper fi.