Entering business plan competitions (Local competitions, TechStars, MassChallenge) or posting on websites such as kickstarter good strategy to determine if there is/could be investor interest, business opportunity, exposure to mentors? What would you do/not do for someone that has good ideas, wants to them to go to the next level, but struggles on next steps?

Testing your product/idea in market (even in concept) is a critical starting point in the creation of any new company. I highly recommend kickstarter as a means of getting early feedback on a product idea – we’ve had great success with sites like these in the past. If you’re not building a physical product, there are many great strategies (adwords campaigns, test websites, etc) for getting market feedback of an online service. Business plan competitions are also good although they don’t typically help you get product feedback. They are, however, a great way of getting business feedback and helping to tighten your pitch.

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I want to send an invitation to VC/Angel investors and other tech startup people that i've spoken to in the past in hopes of getting feedback on my new online service. I'm...

Answered by David Unsworth – Investor.

That's tough, I generally read the first line and see if there is something there that jogs my memory. You have to at least provide a tag line as part of the invite that ge... (more)

What are the first steps for someone who has an idea for a startup?

Answered by Matt Meeker – Co-founder of Meetup.com

1. Build it. 2. Built it fast. 3. Launch it. I tell everyone this. I've told friends this for years. And yet, only about 1 in 500 people actually do it. Most of the oth... (more)

Shall I make my prices public? Or send them when I offer a service/product to a potential costumer, even before they have shown interest in my products?

Answered by April Dunford – Product Marketing Expert. Posted in Sales

It really depends on what you are selling and the sales motion for that product. If it is a longer sales cycle, it generally doesn't make sense to start out by talking abo... (more)

whats the fastest/cheapest way to learn how to put up landing pages and start testing to see if there is demand for my product idea?

Answered by Dan Martell – Founder & Investor.

Landing pages will not tell you if there's demand for your product - it just test if you can write good copy. www.unbounce.com is what I use. The best and fastest way to t... (more)

I've developed a very simple work processing framework. I've done this by mashing together File Explorer and Photoshop (okay, maybe more like MS Paint). How do I go about...

Answered by Dan Martell – Founder & Investor. Posted in Product Development

Write a blog post about, give it to people (ask for an email) and then follow up and talk to them. Here are some great questions to ask: http://survey.io/survey/demo (more)

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