Will Bunker

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• What's the single greatest trait you look for in new recruits for your company?

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    Ability to get work done with an ill defined problem. A startup is a very ambiguous situation that requires running down many dead ends and dealing with many setbacks. Can someone operate in that environment?

• What should an early stage startup be spending their money on?

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    Getting work done as defined by your idea. Map out the key questions that have to be answered before you know the business will work and spend money/time on getting them answered. The real answer is very specific to your project and skill set.

• Will, you were a part of the original dotcom boom - do you see any parallels from what happened in the 90's to what's happening today? Does anything surprise you about how the internet has evolved?

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    It is great to see old ideas reworked as new models come out. Look at all the old business models such as dating or employment that are adding social graph features to them. It gives everyone a chance to innovate in their own way.

• What do you see as the central role of the founder/ceo in an early stage startup?

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    Getting things done and attracting resources to help get things done.

• Do you think startups should look to partner with bigger companies?

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    It depends if someone on your team has experience setting up the partnerships. It takes skill and experience to navigate this relationship.

• Have you outsourced work at any point? If yes, what was your experience?

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    I have done quite a bit. For technical work you have to have someone managing the work that can evaluate the quality. Also it helps to break the work down into smaller chunks so no one goes dark too long before you see how they are doing.

• If you hire people first for contract only while they're still working on another job, doesn't that mean that their dividing their focus? Will you really get much out of someone who has a full time job somewhere else?

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    I said that I want to work on a trail basis when them initially, not contract, but pick people that aren’t giving up a huge opportunity.

• Have you raised capital for any of your businesses? Do you have any advice on this for other founders?

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    Both of my business took outside money. Initially both were raised from personal contacts. It is much easier to raise money from people who know you personally and believe in your potential.

    You may be able to raise outside money, but it is a harder problem.

• How many people are on the team at vChatter? How do you approach hiring?

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    6 people currently. I tend to want to work with someone initially to see how the chemistry goes, so I tend to hire people who are employed at a large company with a stable job. Then if it doesn’t work out, it is more like a short consulting job, that ended.

• How do you collect user feedback? How do you evaluate it?

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    By building measuring tools to see what people are actually doing on the site. This can be Google Analytics, Kiss Metrics, or many others.

    Also, in the early stage small user group studies with paper prototyping can point out huge road blocks.