The funding of a non-profit can be a bit more complicated than banging on the doors of a bank. First, you will need to set up the corporation, next file for non-profit status with the IRS (1023), and lastly receive tax-exempt status from your state of incorporation. At the point of submission t...
I took a quick look at 500px who reported 1.5-million users in 2012 (source: Techcrunch http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/28/gorgeous-photos-in-your-pocket-500px-arrives-on-iphone/) with 10% as professional photographers. The article also mentions monthly growth of ~100,000 users. If your targeting t...
Mark is wrong. I personally know of a handful of companies in that exact same situation and most importantly that have good traction and the cap table NEVER came up once, and each of these companies have raised in excess of $1m in seed funding from great investors this year. Especially if your ...
No, it's not a good idea. Every successful or even somewhat successful venture I know of was started either because the entrepreneur had observed and then confirmed a specific pain-point in a market that was unaddressed or that entrepreneur was "scratching their own itch" solving a problem they ...
I think it is a good start. From my experience, people don't really know what they want -- they only think they do. An example of this is when Steve Jobs announced the iPad. There was collective confusion (more so than any other time Apple has done something). Now, we couldn't imagine our world w...
There shouldn't be any tax consequences for the founders if you've made 83b elections--the election meant you paid tax already on the full value of the stock at the time of the election (presumably zero) even though it was subject to future forfeiture. If you sell newly-issued stock there should ...
I vehemently disagree. I would recommend not following-up with any angel investor who asks you for a business plan. You yourself should be able to credibly articulate how you envision the next 12 months unfolding and especially how you intend on spending the money you raise, but that's about it...
A good deck doesn't sell a terrible story, but a bad deck can ruin a great story. Your primary goal should be to distill your story down to 10 slides max, with as *few words as possible* on each slide. Images, product shots and graphs are all more impactful than words. A good outline is as fol...
Google could be a good place to start searching for the information (s). Just be careful about the authenticity of the data that pick for your business plan. One way to ensure authenticity is to pick data published by established brands. However, given my experience working with plethora startu...
Stop thinking you don't have the skills to do something. You can learn anything if you decide to, but assuming up front that you can't (forever) is dangerous. my2cents