Startups The government shutdown means no SBA Loans and that's not OK |
- The government shutdown means no SBA Loans and that's not OK
- Creating More Brand Awareness
- Company Was Acquired Today, What Questions Should I Be Asking?
- Created team for college company that has too many team members
- Is it okay/normal for an NDA to be in effect for an *indefinite* period?
- I'm an apprentice at YouTube trying to make it easier for us to market. Help!
- Is it too late for me?
- Looking for advice on how to improve page speed on my website
- Is it insane to give non founders ~10% equity?
- Should I use my rewards for travel, or pay cash?
- Can you use my business credit card for my personal purchases?
- Local Jobs Portal
- Where do you even start with a tech startup as a non-tech person?
- Market Validation? What is validating feedback?
| The government shutdown means no SBA Loans and that's not OK Posted: 08 Jan 2019 10:32 AM PST I just read a Forbes article that outlined how the government shutdown means that SBA (Small Business Administration) Loans are on indefinite hold. Simply put, that's not OK. Many small businesses depend on SBA Loans because they don't necessarily qualify for traditional bank loans. With SBA Loans on hold, open/pending applications will be delayed indefinitely and folks who need loans now are out of luck. Has anyone been impacted by this issue yet? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2019 04:42 PM PST I'm currently working for a small startup beauty brand. The problem the brand is having is that there's just not much awareness about it because the skincare/beauty market is so heavily saturated. The people who do go out on a limb to try our product always leave the nicest reviews and have the nicest things to say about our products and brand, but how do we create awareness to attract new people? We've consistently sent our product to a bunch of micro-influencers, but that never gets us many sales. We haven't dabbled in sponsored posts/magazine features because big media is extremely expensive (like thousands $$) and there's no guaranteed ROI. Any thoughts would be amazing, thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Company Was Acquired Today, What Questions Should I Be Asking? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 01:12 PM PST Hey all! I currently serve as the marketing director for a SaaS that was acquired today by a SF-based company that primarily acquires niche softwares with high profitability and reoccurring monthly revenue (hey, that's us). Other than our founder/CTO, all seven company employees are 1099 contractors (including myself). In addition to leading all marketing efforts, I work hand-in-hand with the founder/CTO on direction of all new features for our users, improvements to web + app design, hiring, and more. As a precursor—we had an unreal 2018 (mostly in part to an aggressive content marketing strategy + me landing a seemingly-unattainable marketing partnership with two major networks in our space). At the end of 2018, our founder/CTO scheduled a call with me to renegotiate my contract, which was likely to include a small piece equity for myself. Then, when it was time to have the call, he pushed it. A week later, it was pushed again. Today, he called me and simply stated that we'd been acquired. I do feel a bit burned on having potentially been able to be a part of that deal, but it is what it is and just want to move forward best I can now. At the end of today's call, he mentioned that if I have any questions for him, I should ask. This is my first time going through an acquisition and although I've read a bit on what can realistically happen, I have little to no idea what position I'm currently in and how to best navigate this situation in terms of gaining long-term job stability and perhaps even leveraging things in my favor. He suggested I do not need to worry about job stability, that the new company may fly me out to meet, and that there is a chance I receive a full-time position with an even nicer salary + benefits—but I'm not sure how much faith I can put in any of that, having heard what I've heard about acquisitions in our space. Hoping some folks here may have gone through this and can give me some solid advice, as well as perhaps which questions I should ask him to best inform my own decision moving forward. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Created team for college company that has too many team members Posted: 09 Jan 2019 02:15 AM PST Hey, I'm a college student at a school in southeast US with about 10,000 students. I created a website specifically for the school that thousands of students use, and more students use it every semester. A couple months ago I recognized that I needed more help on the site to help it grow faster. I put up some flyers around campus where students could apply to help with the site. Around 25 students applied. I met with all of them to interview them. A mistake that I made was telling all of them they could join the team. I was just so excited to have so many students wanting to help that I wanted to let everyone who was interested join the team. Positions on the team are not paid. So, I now had a team with 25 students. We had a meeting in person so everyone could meet each other. I introduced them all to the team, and gave them some apparel for the website. Of the students, around 20 are programmers and 5 are interested in helping to market the site. I made a mistake by accepting everyone who applied. 20 programmers is simply not feasible. I don't really need help with programming right now, and when I do, it'll be at most 3-5 students, not 20. So that's my problem. Here are some things I think I can do: I could make the people on the team reapply, but that seems kinda shitty, since they were already told they were on the team. I could just start from scratch, and build a new team with fewer students, and tell everyone on the team that I'm doing that, but again, that's kinda shitty — I wasted their time and maybe some of them are really passionate about helping. What I can't really do is move forward with the current situation. 25 students is just not manageable and not everyone would be able to contribute. Any ideas? [link] [comments]  |
| Is it okay/normal for an NDA to be in effect for an *indefinite* period? Posted: 09 Jan 2019 01:56 AM PST Also, is below NDA okay? Are there any points I should include that has not been included? Non-Disclosure Agreement Date: Parties: and 1. The Discloser intends to disclose information (the Confidential Information) to the Recipient for the purpose of 2. The Recipient undertakes not to use the Confidential Information for any purpose except the Purpose, without first obtaining the written agreement of the Discloser. 3. The Recipient undertakes to keep the Confidential Information secure and not to disclose it to any third party. 4. The undertakings in clauses 2 and 3 above apply to all of the information disclosed by the Discloser to the Recipient, regardless of the way or form in which it is disclosed or recorded but they do not apply to: a) any information which is or in future comes into the public domain (unless as a result of the breach of this Agreement); or b) any information which is already known to the Recipient and which was not subject to any obligation of confidence before it was disclosed to the Recipient by the Discloser. 5. Nothing in this Agreement will prevent the Recipient from making any disclosure of the Confidential Information required by law or by any competent authority. 6. The Recipient will, on request from the Discloser, return all copies and records of the Confidential Information to the Discloser and will not retain any copies or records of the Confidential Information. 7. Neither this Agreement nor the supply of any information grants the Recipient any licence, interest or right in respect of any intellectual property rights of the Discloser except the right to copy the Confidential Information solely for the Purpose. 8. The undertakings in clauses 2 and 3 will continue in force indefinitely. 9. This Agreement is governed by, and is to be construed in accordance with, English law. The English Courts will have non-exclusive jurisdiction to deal with any dispute which has arisen or may arise out of, or in connection with, this Agreement. Signed and Delivered as a Deed by : Signature Name of witness
Address of witness [link] [comments]  |
| I'm an apprentice at YouTube trying to make it easier for us to market. Help! Posted: 09 Jan 2019 01:30 AM PST Hey guys, So I'm doing a bit of research at the moment which will hopefully lead into a free Google led YouTube / Video marketing training course, for young independent brands and businesses. The link is for a survey which I am using to gain insight into how YouTube and paid promotion is being used amongst young brands. SURVEY: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EW-B2tZDOervY53LfmmT0Wl99bTCLImsK_qCp00ajBA Thanks guys! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 01:22 AM PST Guys, I'm struggling a lot lately... I'll try to articulate this as best I can. More than anything, I want to start a business. I don't know what that business is, but I have this desire to start something, anything, that will allow me to actually add value to the world and stop being a wage slave to a big corporation. I'm in my mid 30's, I'm married with 2 kids, and I have a big student loan and a mortgage. I'm very dependent on the hefty salary that I'm paid... so, while I want to pursue something incredible, I also have to question if I made it impossible for myself. I basically have from 4 AM to 5:30 AM, and from 9 PM to midnight to do stuff for myself. Maybe my lunch break, too. I feel so trapped. Like I've prevented myself from living the life I really want because I decided to go to school, work, get married and have kids. I NEED to escape this hell, though. If anyone has any good anecdotal or reading material, I'd love to hear about it. Pray for my ass. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for advice on how to improve page speed on my website Posted: 08 Jan 2019 04:05 PM PST A few months ago I started a small local business (photo booth rentals in the bay area). Having very little technical knowledge I decided to build my website with a drag and drop page builder for wordpress called beaver builder and went with the cheapest hosting package from host gator (shared hosting I think?). Now about a month ago I discovered page speed insights and was enlightened on just how incredibly slow my website loads. This, of course, has me worried about all the potential sales I'm losing due how slow the site is. So I started to research some of the issues and went on a bit of a plug in-spree where I downloaded a bunch of plug ins that supposedly help fix one issue or another, but it didn't really seem to help very significantly and now I'm worried that I may have too many plug ins and that they are now contributing to the problem instead of helping. Here are a few more specifics -
So with that said, any suggestions on what I could do to improve the page speed? And, in your opinion, is it worth the effort? [link] [comments]  |
| Is it insane to give non founders ~10% equity? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 11:26 AM PST I would be very appreciative if I could get some opinions and feedback. My co founder and I have several close people who want to join our start up and begin pushing our product forward. I am a technical co-founder and have already created 90% of the code. My co founder and I were thinking of taking a 40/40 split and then playing with the last 20% to those willing to take no pay and help us get product market fit and eventually a funding round. It would be a 4-year vesting schedule for anything we gave out. Is this still insane? We mainly have three people wanting to join on. The group includes a UX person, and an iOS person and an accountant. I can personally handle the iOS if push came to shove. (I would do a Reactive Native app). All three people have 15+ years in their respective fields. I have worked with them, so I know the level of work they do. Our product can move forward without them, but having them would greatly accelerate us. Again, I am the only one right now developing the software. What are your thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I use my rewards for travel, or pay cash? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 01:44 PM PST We are at the MVP stage of a social networking startup. So far I am the only investor, and I've spent money to a programmer with whom I want to discuss partnership. Well, we've been discussing it, but we want an in-person meeting to hammer out the details with eye contact and a handshake. My plan is to fund it as far as I can with my own money (he will only be contributing labor) which means that the company is accruing debt to me as I spend on it. I hope to one day get reimbursed by profit or investors - the company will hopefully pay its debt to me once it becomes profitable, or possibly out of investor capital if we ever get any (along with putting me and the coder/CTO on salary). I have a lot of travel and credit card rewards accumulated from my day job, and could fund this meeting mostly with those, or I could pay "cash" our of pocket and add it to the company's debt to me, or put it on the company credit card so it's not a loan from me at all. I'm obviously not 100% certain that I will ever actually be in a position to collect on the debt, as there's no guaranty that the company ever becomes profitable. So basically this is a best practices question in my mind. Is it better to do things with the cleanest accounting, where all investment/debt is clearly valued, or use my points and miles to simply minimize cash outlay? This might be a foolishly small question. I am hoping that the venture pays off big enough that I'm not later worried about being repaid for a $1000 trip. But it's not just the one trip - there will be a lot of travel and other expenditures that come up this year and I have to decide on a framework for my financial relationship with the company. [link] [comments]  |
| Can you use my business credit card for my personal purchases? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 07:03 PM PST Hello everyone, The credit card that I opened for my business checking account has an offer that gives $500 if I purchase $3500 in 3 months. Now the question is how can I use this credit card? Specifically, can I use it for daily personal purchases without endangering my incorporation (i.e. piercing the veil)? I remember someone earlier told me that to keep your personal assert secure from the company I need to treat my company and it's related affairs completely separate from my personal assets.I have filed an article of incorporation under chapter S (i.e. S-corp). [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2019 05:57 AM PST So, I've just finished setting up a local jobs board website. It's fully configured and live. Any tips on how to get my first customers? For context: Where I am from, there are less than a handful of jobs boards are my area. Job advertisement is also booking here. I am willing to put in about 200 euro for advertisements at the start. Should I be contacting local job agencies and suggest my website to them? I'm relatively new to this. So be nice. 😅 Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, J [link] [comments]  |
| Where do you even start with a tech startup as a non-tech person? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 07:31 AM PST I have been an entrepreneur for the past 1 year, but i wouldnt call that a startup. Dont think of anything special, I have a webshop that is doing okay. However, i dont want to get stuck on this level, i want to do something bigger, something innovative. But where do I even start as a non-tech person? I know that there are plenty of business people who have successfully launched tech startups, but how did they get started? Lets say i want to do something related to CRISPR. Obviously i start by researching the topic and finding an opportunity. Lets say ive found it. What next? Do I partner or outsource? How do I find the right people? [link] [comments]  |
| Market Validation? What is validating feedback? Posted: 08 Jan 2019 10:34 AM PST QUESTION: The question I'm trying to figure out is, what is good feedback? Is there a baseline or rule of thumb percentage response I should be looking for? I believe I have received great feedback, although, I have ruled some submissions out because of lack of authenticity, but still I'm not so sure and don't want to jump the gun on moving forward. TO SUMMARIZE: So for the past couple weeks I have been using various resources to post surveys about a potential extension of my already existing business, many of you have likely seen it because I have recently posted about on reddit. Its about physical storage of long term documents. To summarize, these just are any documents, usually they have some legal and/or financial implication, which often requires the individual to store the original copy *BECAUSE* the original document will be the only authenticated and trusted version even though you are allowed (many smartly do and id recommend) to digitally scan and store the item in various places for reference, but again, that digital copy will not suffice in many financial and legally institutions because of ease of fraud. My solution, to store the document safely in a secure facility for 1.00 a month. RESULTS: I got a lot of great feedback from reddit, (THANK YOU, YOURE AWESOME!) it was way more then I expected! Although I may not be able to completely say for sure that I should move forward, I learned a great deal of issues and problems people had with the idea, and if anything it refined the process and service! Thanks, JM [link] [comments]  |
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