I haven't seen a deal structured this way. Usually they get 6-10% equity I exchange for some small amount of money ( ~ $25k ) and tons of mentorship. 15% for $20k seems high ( you are valuing your company at $133k ) but there might be more to it. Accelerators are great specially for unknown foun...
Convertible notes are by no means "earned." They are often easier to raise for early-stage companies who don't want to or can't raise an equity round. Equity rounds almost always require a simultaneous close of either the whole round or a defined "first close" representing a significant share o...
If you're a service business and haven't been able to make profit, then I highly doubt investors are going to get involved. The beauty of selling your time is you can get people to buy right away, and if they pay anything above $25/hour - then you should make profit assuming you can live off of ...
It all depends on what one decides to be a definition of a "success story." For some entrepreneurs, it might be getting acqui-hired, for some -- a $10M exit, for some -- a $200M exit, and for others -- an IPO. Based on the numbers I have anecdotally heard in conversations over the last decade o...
Carolyn's points are spot-on. Tactically speaking, I would suggest that you make contact with the recruiting partners at the top VCs. Greylock, a16z and others have partners specifically focused on helping their portfolio companies with recruiting. Cold calls and emails with a "I'm an entrepr...
These are tough questions. It may be possible to hire third party marketing companies that would be able to do some testing for you to give you the metrics, but most likely the best option would be to do the testing in house. I think that you would need to set up a few of these alternative sampli...
There's obviously no way to ensure a sale through, but to increase the chance of sale through as much as possible would involve using a combination of several known marketing/psychological techniques. Some of these would require for you to have some control over the text of the mail sent. However...
It really depends on your mission and from where you intend to drive revenues. Asking a guest to create an account and log in in order to send an email to your customers could be seen as a stumbling block. The more you can encourage visitors to reach out to your customers, the more your custome...
People hate calls. People hate emails. People hate mail. Do you really want your first impression to be that of an interloper and a pusher? Then again, most recipients aren't event going to look at what you send them. What is your niche? Office managers for private family healthcare providers i...
According to Sensor Tower volumes Snapchat has no signs of desperation. Rebranding usually has nothing to do with desperation or failing products, more likely with a different market positioning. Snapchat could be sold tomorrow for around 15 billions with just 330 employees. To me this looks p...