I think the key is actually measuring the KPI's that matter. It's not total users its total active users. If you just report on total active users weekly, then you get to the same conclusion.
54 karma · joined May 3, 2010
All these questions impact your decision. It seems like you are only thinking about the technology but if you are a technology company then choice of platform has wider impacts.
That is why customer development is so important. You need to understand what your customer does and show them that you can make that part of their life easier. For enterprise software its the same, prove to a company that you can actually reduce or eliminate a pain point and BOOYA you have a sale and once you have sales, you get press when you get press you get more sales and the cycle continues until you exit gracefully.
The most successful people in the world own their businesses, people work them, follow their vision, listen to their words.
Today's startup entrepreneur will support the middle class of tomorrow. The reason your mother has a job is because back in the day someone decided to start a financial institution and with a shit load of hard it has become a big business. The creator of that bank (most likely his/her children's children) enjoy the success of his and others hard work.
Taking your idea and turning into a strong business is the ultimate in success in my eyes. And you cant do that working for someone else.
Can you track which sites embed the widget? What else can tracked?
The only challenge i see is (like mentioned in the post) there is no consistency between VC's. Each feel that a certain report is "The Most important" What happens when there are multiple VC's or a mix of VC's, angels and governments.
For a startup reporting to each can be really time-consuming....and wasteful especially if the time spent on reports takes away from the time spent on making the product better.
I would love to be a cofounder but i have no programming skill. If you need help with the business side of things, in terms of monetization or selling let me know.
Good Luck!
I would start with something that she is familar with like the design and work backwards into the code. Use as many analogies as possible, try and find similar relationships to things that she is used to.
I think the key in our relationship is that each night around 11 we stop whatever we are doing and just spend the rest of the night with each other, talking about our days what was good and bad then we watch some tv and relax. Another important thing for us is to eat dinner together, especially since we have a daughter instilling family values is the most important thing to do as parents.
I think if you put your family first, then your partner will support you in your startups because they know that when you have time you will spend it togeather.
Lets get this out of the way. IF YOU WANT TO GET A SALARY GO WORK FOR AN ESTABLISHED BUSINESS.
This post is so short-sighted that if Joshua doesn't already have glasses he should buy a pair. I am a little surprised that someone that runs a business actually posted this. Joshua are you aware of all the activities that actually go on in a business? I can enlighten you: - Sales - Marketing - Partnerships - Legal - Design - Customer Service - Business Strategy and yes - Development
The reason this post is short-sighted is that you are forgetting about what ACTUALLY makes a business (not an idea) successful. OPERATIONAL PERFECTION
Some supporting evidence is looking at a business plan or even a pitch deck, how many slides are dedicated to the technical aspect? 1 of 10.
"What you business guys should be thinking about is this: what am I bringing to this business?" THIS IS A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE IN EVERY BUSINESS. If you do not directly contribute to the success of the business then you are not valuable it doesn't matter if you have technical skills or business development skills.
I am not a developer! I said it, i'm proud of it and i never want to be a developer. I could never be successful as a developer and i would be doing my business an injustice if i tried to code anything more then a simple webpage.
Startups need to be higly efficent in the way they do work, each of the team members need to be very focused on what is important and what they are good at. Yes, a smart developer can learn to sell and a smart business development person can learn to code, but WHY would do that business development and technical development are two very different skill-sets.
To improve your conversion rate you should have more information on your site. use a different payment provider (paypal is the choice of spammers. non-spammers too but mostly spammers) try shopify. add some analytics from mixpanel to see where people are dropping off. You should also increase the price of your product, i mean you are offering to fix my screwed up plasma tv, i've never seen that i would pay $30 for something like that. If you feel bad about charging that then throw in a wicked movie for people to watch after they fix there tv.
I had the exact same feeling, at the exact same age, it might have even been at the exact same time of the year. So what did i do about it? I went to Culinary School, i needed to prove to myself that i could actually accomplish something i set my mind too. Cooking is perfect for that, i'm not talking about working from a recipe, i am talking about creating your own recipe, having your own idea for what will taste good together. The parallels between recipes and businesses are amazing. You start off with a concept/idea, you begin to do research (this is usually where people get stuck in business), you actually do something and finally you see if your initial idea was successful. In cooking the definition of success is clear, either your food tastes like shit or it doesn't. In business the definition of success is a little more convoluted but if you look at success from a monetization perspective then its either making you money or not.
So what does culinary school have to do with feeling like shit? Accomplishing something makes you feel great, it builds your confidence especially within a group of peers. Not everyday will be your shining moment but once-in-a-while you will be better then everybody else and you will understand success. From that point onwards you will continue to drive towards that feeling because you know understand what it tastes like.
What can you do? 1. Find something like culinary school. Not a business idea, something else that you think you are good at but haven't really focused on. Something that has a lot of small tangible results. Things that have a lot of tangible results can equal a lot of little victories. 2. Find something where you will compete against others because if you cant measure yourself to someone else, how do you know you have succeeded. 3. Don't worry about commitment, when you start succeeding all the rest of the stuff will go away.
I hope that helps. For me my whole life changed i met my wife, i built an ego, learned how to cook like a chef and finally understood what success really felt like.
For startup jobs checkout the VC firms sites. They have a shitload of jobs posted and you can sort by city.
Where do you get these things printed?
1. Develop a list of your potential customers. Keep this local in the short term, so it doesn't overwhelm you.
2. Create a 2 page business brochure that has stats about the industry, the problem you are solving and stats about where the industry is heading. Think infographic. On page 2 describe how your product meets all those needs, include some scenarios and a lot of screenshots. This needs to look good, not too technical, not too salesy. Look at the datasheets from NCR http://ncr.com/products_and_services/self_service_kiosks/foo... a minimum they need to good this good)
3. Take the list you created in step one and try and connections in your network of friends to them, linkedin is good for the bigger companies. For the SME's (small/medium enterprises) you need to think a little harder and maybe even make some calls.
4. Start making calls but DO NOT sell on the phone. People in restaurants don’t have time to talk on phones they have too much crap going on that they can’t be tied to the phone for 30 mins while you pitch. Only ask one question to start "When is the Chef/Owner/Manager in?" If you get the Chef/Owner/Manager on the phone ask them when is a good time to come in to talk to them is. If they ask you why, tell them you want to show them a product you developed for restaurants and you want to spend 5 minutes showing them how it can help. If they keep probing then try and say as little as possible about your product, focus on asking them questions about the need you are trying to solve. So if your product is in a new ordering system then ask them when they do there ordering from suppliers, are they happy with that process, etc...
5. Go there in person, be mindful how you look because before you even say a word they will judge you based on appearance. Don’t dress to formal (so no suit) or too casual (how you would look after 30 hours straight of coding). Make sure your breath and you don’t stink because people in the restaurant business have keen senses of smell (flavours are 10times smell, 1 times taste). Hand them a brochure and ask if they have 5 minutes. Then give them 30 seconds to scan the brochure, you will know based on the look of their face whether you need to continue your pitch or move on. If the face is blank then it’s a 50/50.<br>
That’s just the foot in the door, after that you need to convince them to buy your product or service. And the variability in that is too great to explain without knowing what you are selling.
Hope this helps