If your team is releasing updates constantly & there are edits to the list of features to do, Kanban would be the way to go. AGILE is best when everything is defined and would not change. I work in a company that worked on AGILE. But the nature of our team's work would constantly have numerous changes by the client mid-sprint. So, we shifted to Kanban

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Hi Awan I founded and managed (for 5 years) a legal and business entrepreneurship program at a leading university. I also created a unique course on entrepreneurship (how to set up a startup from zero). I less focus on internet marketing, but cover all th rest. Let me know if you want to talk. Good luck

I think what you're asking is how do you know when you've reached true product market fit. There is a ton of literature out there on this and if you search for "product market fit" you'll probably have more than enough information to apply to your own business, but it depends a lot on the product and the market you are in. Some businesses, like those going after B2B, small businesses, have a harder time reaching "critical mass" because those markets are extremely fragmented. Others like Facebook, that targeted small, close knit communities with high k factors and word of mouth virality (colleges), can gain traction over night and can be very apparent. I would look for inflection points in key metrics that you are watching for your business: CPA (cost per acquisition), Organic/Non-paid acquisition, referrals, key retention metrics etc. to see if your k-factor is increasing. This can be a good leading indicator that you have reached product market fit. Good luck and if you'd like to chat more let me know!

Hi! A lot of my customers in the construction industry run into the same problem. The dollar amounts, any legal considerations, and other factors, should all be considered, and I'm sure will make a difference in how applicable these suggestions are to you. I would look into, or test, the following: 1. Changing your receivables process may rely on key Sales Process improvements. I'm happy to talk it through with you, and help you find the right solution. 2. You said it, but the first/best option is to make your customer the bank. Have them pay in draws/milestones/stages (whatever lingo their comfortable with) to cover your costs, and ideally pay you, as you go. 3. Offer a discount for paying the job up front and in-full. 4. I understand the bank offered a very small line of credit, but I imagine you'd do a bit better with a credit card. Estimate the monthly debt servicing cost per job, and charge your customer accordingly. This gives you the option to offer a discount if paid in full and upfront, without affecting your actual price or profit. ONLY exercise this option if you are disciplined enough to use the credit extended to you as intended and responsibly. 5. If you have a way of securing the short term debt, or maybe even if you can’t secure it, see if anyone you know who has some cash would be willing to buy options on your jobs’ profits or keep a running secured line of credit with you. If you don’t have anything with which you can secure a line of credit, see if working with an investor with small amounts at first, will lead to a trust and understanding of your business, that could lead to bigger amounts. Examples- You win a job paying $100K, but it will cost you $50K before you collect the payment in full 30-60 days after winning the job. a) You own a work truck worth $130K - use it as collateral to borrow $50k from an investor at a reasonable rate, for 30-60 days at time, to cover your costs until you can collect the full amount rom your customers. b) Sell an Option on X% of the profits. In this example, the investor buys the option for $50K, and you guarantee, let’s call it 3% of the profit, plus their initial investment. When you get paid the full $100k, they get $1,500 plus their $50K original investment back. If you make more, they get a little more. If you make less, they get a little less. I'm happy to jump on a call to talk through more solutions that fit you best or to follow up. I’m not a legal or tax professional or expert. Do your own research and consult with someone who is a professional before using any of the ideas above.

Hi! Having sold a number of different products and services to companies ranging from one man operations to Fortune 500 companies I believe I can help you get some clarity, despite not being an expert on retreats. First- I'm willing to bet you have more questions than you listed. Is that accurate? Do you think it'd be easier to talk it through over a call? If so, schedule a call, and I'd be happy to talk you through these questions and assist with your whole sales process, your funnel, and goals, as well as the tools and tactics needed. One key strategy is at the end of this answer. We're missing some key info, including - What type of retreat you're trying to sell, what's the price point, who are the target companies, etc... which would definitely help. Absent these answers, I'll do my best to address your questions. - Design the sales funnel after you have a lot more information about your customer and their buying behavior. I’m happy to help with this over a call. - Prequalifying depends heavily on a lot of different factors we don't have just yet, but here's some general sales insight. The two best pre-qualifiers are: A) can they afford your product/service and B) do they have both an actual and, more importantly, a perceived need for it? - Should you cold call/email? YES! That’s an emphatic yes. You can and should cold call/email/follow/connect/DM your target customers! -Who to contact will be something you learn quickly when you get some more info. -As far as what companies look for in a retreat - I have guesses, but I’m sure you know that answer better than me. Better yet, let your customer answer that for you. To wrap this up, I’d say there’s a key strategy that would benefit you greatly at this stage. Do some Sales Dev. Find a number of companies (I’d suggest at least over 100) that you’d believe could be your customers and get the contact info for the key roles that you think would be Power Sponsors or Decision Makers- I can help you with this step if you’d like. The best next step would be to set up calls to get more information (not selling, yet!) and the second best would be to email them a survey/form(I can help you set this up if you need). The goal of this action would be to find your questions above plus get all the extra information that will help you sell. Sometimes just having a contributing voice in a yet-to-be-developed product or service is cool enough to the participant that they don’t need extra incentive. It’s typically best if you incentivize their participation with some type of value add. Examples a % discount off the service when it’s offered, pre-sale discount pricing, access to aggregated information that’s valuable to them, and sometimes even a starbucks or amazon gift card. Please let me know if this helped. This sounds like a fun and interesting business. I’d love to help out.

It depends on the exhibitions. So exhibition organizers only you let you use their stands/stalls with limited options for changes (less common), some refer you to a list of 'approved' stand installers/designers (fairly common), and others let you do whatever you want so long as you follow a few basic safety guidelines (and stay within your stand limits). For the last option, there is a wide variety of service providers. I am in touch with an international stand creator - they create very unique stands, but they aren't cheap. If you have a high enough budget and are in the US or Europe, I could connect you. Good luck

It depends on the exhibitions. So exhibition organizers only you let you use their stands/stalls with limited options for changes (less common), some refer you to a list of 'approved' stand installers/designers (fairly common), and others let you do whatever you want so long as you follow a few basic safety guidelines (and stay within your stand limits). For the last option, there is a wide variety of service providers. I am in touch with an international stand creator - they create very unique stands, but they aren't cheap. If you have a high enough budget and are in the US or Europe, I could connect you. Good luck

This depends on the nature of your business, the requirements on how to develop it and on the locations involved. I'm not aware of your case, but I'd suggest that you are starting in a familiar environment (UK?) and then work remotely from anywhere in the world. This means lesser risks (language, regulatory framework, support...). Of course working remotely becomes rather challenging if you are running a "nuts & bolts" operations like a restaurant or a logistics company. You can then establish a presence outside the UK in a 2nd step, to expand your network but also to show commitment to that new market. Furthermore: depending on where you go, having a "home base" in the UK can be leveraged as an advantage.

I always recommend to continue working on the business in parallel with keeping an eye out for a cofounder. As you continue to move forward, it will become easier to get others interested and passionate about joining you. Keep potential cofounders that you may have already met updated on progress, so that they can see you're not just someone with a good idea, you're driven to implement it too. As they see you continue to make progress they will become increasingly interested in joining and helping you, as they see the potential develop, and what's clear in your eyes becomes more clear in theirs. Also, as you continue to build the startup, you will continue to iterate and validate it, and you'll get better at understanding and presenting to others its core exciting features / values, which will further help you pitch it to potential cofounders. Best of luck, and feel free to let me know if you'd like to discuss this or any other aspects of your startup in more detail Lee

Hi The best method in which to learn how to manage your relationship with the distributors, would be to read as many (at least 2-3) distributor agreements - as this will give you a good understanding of what to avoid/focus on/address when dealing with them. You can find some free examples online. I just recently finished drafting such an agreement for one of my clients and would be happy to give you some pointers if needed. Good luck

Godaddy is pain for developers and technical people, as it is set up for simple things. You can use any good hosting companies or any cloud servers. But if you need to talk to a human godaddy is a good option. Scalability will not be an issue with Godaddy, as they can sell you any infrastructure when you grow bigger.

Most businesses operating within the U.S. are obligated to file federal income tax returns, as well as state tax returns depending upon the state from which the business operates, the residency of its owners, and the business activities of the company. There are also additional filing requirements if you have non U.S. owners within the business structure. Happy to discuss in more detail.

There are a lot of pieces to this, but I'm glad you're asking. This can absolutely be done DIY, but you're right, it's time consuming and there are a lot of pieces to keep track of. An agency will already have a process in place to manage these different pieces for you. My agency specializes in PR, branding and digital marketing, so check us out if hiring an agency is an option for you - https://redchalkstudios.com/. For a DIY approach: - Instagram campaigns are managed using Facebook Ads platform. As a marketer, that's a nice feature, I can manage both FB and IG campaigns in one place. LinkedIn has it's own ads platform called Campaign Manager (https://www.linkedin.com/ad-beta/accounts). - For blogs, it's best to be consistent, but don't write for the sake of writing. Make sure to plan a content schedule that you can keep up with. For blog ideas, there are some awesome resources. SEMRush has a content idea generation feature, there are sites like AnswerThePublic where you can enter a keyword and it will populate common questions around that subject that you can answer with your posts. - Networking is something I'm personally working on, too. Each Monday I log into Meetup, Eventbrite and Facebook and search their "Business" categories for networking events. - Attending these networking events is also a great way to meet the event coordinators and introduce yourself as a possible event host and speaker. Also, if you do a Google search for "call for speakers" you'll find conferences/summits that are looking for speakers for their events. - Producing in-person events takes some planning. Who is your target audience? What are the problems they face with their business that you can coach them on? How big do you want the event? And how much do you want to charge? Where are you going to have it? There are a lot of logistics. Take notes during the events you attend as to what you like about how the event is held before you start planning your own. Hope this helps!

Hi I have personally used Wordpress for numerous projects - both simple and complicated, and in all cases the websites have worked fine and have been easy to manage. A good place to hire someone to build the website for you at reasonable prices is on Fiverr. Just be sure that you have a very clear specification document (description of the project) and that you clearly define expectations with the programmer. If it’s a project that costs more than $3,000, and if you’re using someone in the same country as you are located, then I would consider drafting a services agreement. I can help you with any and all of the above if needed. Good luck

1. E&Y 2. KPMG are big name in security auditing .They are one of the best around the world.

While you may have diverse experience in different sectors, industries and/or clients - your personal brand can be synthesized so that it captures your zone of genius... the thing you are know for. In my case, I worked in consumer packaged goods and consumer brands... but when I went on my own in 2013, I thought the same... how can I get into this entrepreneurial space with what I know? What I found is that strategy is my "zone of genius" and I'm proud to have diverse experience because I bring a breadth of knowledge from Fortune 50 to small business...every business needs strategy. So now back to you... focus on the "zone of genius" value you bring to the table.. the mindshare you capture in your prospect's mind. The goal is to be known for one thing... niche down as a matter of strategic advantage so that you can be known as "the one" to go to for that niche. Create your unique mechanism for delivering that "one thing" and position yourself uniquely in your space. For more information on your personal brand - feel free to check out my "Personal Positioning" mini-course: https://www.prolific.cafe/free yours for "prolific positioning" greatness, Patty

If startups never entered markets with competition, we wouldn't have Google (Altavista was market leader), Lyft (Uber), Zoom (Microsoft/Skype) or countless other darlings that are now large publicly traded companies... It's more important to choose a market where you feel that you have a competitive advantage over incumbents. Could be tweak to their product that you believe adds additional value, could be the strength of your team and your ability to move more quickly, could be your go to market strategy; the key is finding something that separates your brand from others in the space and carves out a piece of the market where you can be successful. There is always room for innovation in any market, even those that are fairly saturated with competition. Find your competitive advantage and exploit it!

Why not offer all three as services? All are so helpful and appeal to a wide audience. Is there a reason you are narrowing it down to one of those options? You should always be learning anyway, so I love your drive to learn more when a project comes in, but create your own projects in order to expand your own portfolio. And if you're good at all three of these things, DO all of these things. Customer need all of those services. You could create bundles or packages and see how that works out. Good luck!

First of all: good luck. Seeing how you have a limited budget, I would select the following 3 strategies: 1. Affiliate marketing: offer affiliates a fee for every referral that converts into an actual ‘sale’. This way, you aren’t really paying anything out of pocket, but rather the payment is coming from the sales. 2. Offer a discount/gift/prize to new users if they ‘share’ the fact that they signed up to Vonza, or better yet: for each referral that they do which converts to a sale (so the new users sort of become part of your affiliate program). 3. Utilize the relevant Facebook groups/pages - don’t spam them, offer them something of value and work with the page managers. You don’t have to have a platform for affiliates. You can use one of the many that already exist, or do things manually at first until you see that it works. I’ve successfully helped over 300 entrepreneurs, and I’d be happy to try help you further if you. Let me know if you would like to schedule a call. The first few minutes (during which we share information) would be free. Good luck

Open a more descriptive question... as in Ideas about what... The more detail you provide, better answer's you'll receive. Also, Experts Exchange is likely a better place to post this type of question.

Experts Exchange or Stack Overflow will be better places to ask this question.

1) Choose a company that understands your language. If you know English, make sure that you are working with folks that are good at it. 2) Do your paperwork. Document everything. Create separate email threads for different things. 3) Use a project management system like Basecamp. It will help you create tasks and threads that will avoid confusion. 4) Whether you are ahead in time zone or behind, there will be time slots that will be good for both. If not, ask your partner how they will figure out the timezone. If they look helpless, just make sure that everything from your end reaches them before they begin work. 5) Meet the core team at least once to minimize the distance element. Fly to their office or invite them over to yours. Trust me, it will make a world of difference. You will figure out whether the guys you are dealing with are professionals or not during the initial communication only. If their replies take too long and aren't comprehensive, give them a skip. Also look at work case studies. This is super important. This is how case studies look like, https://www.upreports.com/free-reports.html I hope this helps.

Generally, no. If you're a U.S. based company, you may outsource the development of your software development projects, or the creation of your intangible property. Payments made to non U.S. persons or companies that are performing the work outside of the U.S., should provide you a Form W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E to evidence their non U.S. tax status. If you don't collect this withholding certificate, you may be obligated to withholding taxes on the gross amount of payments submitted to the India company for their services.

My guess is you're talking about a proposal being sent to prospective clients. If I were doing Leadgen for a cleaning company, I'd read Dan Kennedy's books. I'd also pickup a copy of the book Kennedy + Buck co-authored about referral generation. https://www.thenewsletterpro.com/signup is also a great resource. Get a copy of Shaun's book (free), read it cover to cover (I did the other morning, sitting in a car dealership service department), then startup a newsletter being sent to all your cold leads + existing clients. Good Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Target 20-30... slow drip... contacts before you expunge a lead from your direct mail list.