A Full-Stack Web Team Will Provide Much-Needed Breadth And Depth To Your Startup Editor’s note: Phil Freo leads the engineering team at ElasticSales. Previously he was at Quizlet and Google. Follow him on Twitter. There is often confusion about the various roles of a web engineering team. In a startup, you can’t afford to have people who are only able to do one thing. The size of the company or startup will determine how many different hats each engineer must wear. In pretty much every case, when a startup grows, people will inevitably start specializing. I’m a big fan of “full stack” people and think specializing too much, too early, is a bad sign for startups. Here’s an overview of the main functional areas on a full-stack web engineering team: Visual Designer Uses Photoshop and delivers PSD or sliced assets of pixel-perfect, beautiful designs.Hangs out in Dribbble, Behance, and Forrst.Should be judged on their portfolios and their understanding of user needs. Frontend Developer Backend Developer Sysadmin/DevOps
How to hire the right developer for your tech startup I’m currently co-founding ContentForest – a content marketing platform – and we just crossed an exciting line: our private beta is only a few days away and I’m very happy with the way the product is shaping up. Getting to this state has been a process wherein we learned really valuable lessons. How to get the right development talent in place is one of these. Since this process was rather tricky for us, I want to share a step-by-step process you can follow to hire the right talent for your idea. Step 0: Preparation, or what do I want? You’ve found a market opportunity, structured your thoughts into a concept, done your homework and the wireframes are in place – great! The very first step is to sort your thoughts. Do I really need a developer? If your are unsure or don’t have a technical background, get a technical advisor on board to discuss the details. Step 1: Sourcing, or where do I find one? You are now ready to spread the word. Freelancing websites. Job boards. Personal networking.
5 Startup PR Myths Debunked There are many common myths surrounding the ideas of Public Relations and in our world – startup PR. The most common myth being that PR is only about media releases and nagging journalists – we recommend not nagging and taking a much more friendly approach. But there are several myths surrounding the idea of startup PR that are less talked about but more rampant - which is why we felt it was our responsibility to set things straight. Here are five startup PR myths we at Onboardly would like to put an end to: 1. Recently, a hot topic appeared on the headlines of TechCrunch when an American PR agency was caught charging clients a fee in exchange for coverage on TechCrunch. The moral of the story? 2. We’ve talked before about the importance of building a relationship with a writer before you ask them to cover your startup. While having a connection or an in at any media outlet is a bonus – it should never be taken for granted. Guaranteed press coverage? 3. 4. 5.
Social Media Marketing: Separating Fact From Fiction : Business 2 Community Webcasts (2 ratings)You must be logged in to rate this webcast. Overview Are you tired of hearing how social media is the best invention since sliced bread? Are you confused about what social media can actually deliver? Would you like to cut through the hype and get to the facts? If you answered yes, this presentation is for you. Learnings Learn proven applications of social media in marketing that bring results.Hear cautionary tales that help you avoid social media pitfalls.You will have the opportunity to ask topic-related questions that are pertinent to your business situation. Speakers Michael Procopio is a Social Media Strategist who blogs at MProcopio.com. Natascha Thomson is the Owner & Founder of MarketingXLerator – a B2B Social Media Marketing Consultancy – with a focus on using social media to connect people for business impact. Watch This Webcast (Pre-recorded) Already registered?
How to Get Startup Ideas November 2012 The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. Problems Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? I made it myself. Why do so many founders build things no one wants? At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. For example, a social network for pet owners. The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." Well When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making—not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. You don't need the narrowness of the well per se.
How do you issue the right number of shares/options to an employee or an advisor? | the drawingboard [dot] me HM Revenue & Customs at Mevagissey Harbour (Photo credit: Cross Duck) Most founders have desire to share their equity with people that helped them along the way, both as a thank you, but also as a motivation tool. However, how to share is always a big question mark for every Founder. The two most frequently asked question is, “How much equity should I assign an advisor?”, which is shortly followed by “How do I know when to issue shares to new employees and how much do I give them?”. So, let’s take step back and look at why we are doing this in the first place. Motivating employees and or advisors is a key part of having a productive workforce. Therefore, the word ‘fairness’ is what’s important here.. how do you define the fairness culture in your startup? Let’s start with advisors: Advisors need to commit some time to your company to ‘earn’ their equity. Then, define a time period for this relationship before you review it for extension. Pricing strike prices is a bit of a pain.
Digital Products Retailer: Affiliate Program & Sell Online - ClickBank Keynotopia: User Interface Design Libraries for Keynote, PowerPoint and OpenOffice Introduction to Growth Hacking for Startups Pintrest, Facebook, Zynga, Dropbox, AirBnb… What do they all have in common? They’ve all used growth hacking techniques to grow their user base from zero to millions (and sometimes hundreds of millions). Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). The term “Growth Hacking”, invented by Sean Ellis, and made popular by Andrew Chen, a Silicon valley marketer and entrepreneur, is a combination of two disciplines – marketing and coding: Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of “How do I get customers for my product?” In a recent post, TechCrunch defined the three characteristics of a Growth Hacker as follows: Growth hackers have a common attitude, internal investigation process, and mentality unique among technologists and marketers. First Steps in Growth Hacking for Startups Acquisition - Get people to hear about your product from press, blogs and social channels. Growth Hacking Resources: Eze Vidra
(10) Startup Advice and Strategy: Do members of an advisory board usually get paid Should Your Startup Have an Advisory Board? This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company. It’s done partly in hopes of gaining their wisdom but it’s also done to portray the company in a positive light through association. So do advisory boards really add value? In my experience most advisory boards under deliver relative to expectations. If you plan to set one up – no problem. Advisory Board Problems: There are several problems that I have encountered myself and in my many discussions with CEO’s who have set up advisory boards. 1. 2. 3. You prepare materials for them the remaining advisers to read through. 4. My view on how to best implement advisory boards: If you do decide to set up an advisory board, here are my tips for how to do it the right way. 1. 2. 3.
How to Configure Your Startup Team I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. My rationale is simple: everything goes wrong and only great teams can respond to competitors, markets, funding environments, staff departures, PR disasters and the like. Final startup grind from msuster How you build out your team in the first few years can have a huge impact on the trajectory of your company. So I naturally spend much time with the companies in which I invest helping them: recruitfigure out rolesmeasure performance / quality of teamidentify gapsdebate the right structure and so forth. There are no “right” answers – just opinions. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. it’s the most expensive dilution you’ll ever face. It’s all in this deck in a prettier format. I’d love to hear your view on the presentation.