I agree that leaving the core technical decisions to folks that don't have skin in the game is dangerous. I really like the idea of bartering services. I've done that quite a bit in the past (not for coding but for marketing/graphics/other stuff) and it's an option I think most startups don't explore enough.

Ah, not so curious. He's on the MS payroll now (as he's mentioned a good 4 times in that post).

I didn't read that in this article. I thought the data was showing that even in roles where that were more male or female dominated, there was either no difference in how effective the people were seen to be at their roles (or the women were seen as more effective).

Yes and no. I've been used as a GLG expert a number of times. The only people who seemed to use their service (read willing to pony up for the very high per hour rates) were institutional finance research groups doing due diligence for M&A or similar transactions. That's a pretty specific market with very deep pockets.

I worked at GLG - you are right about the main concentration of their work, but there are also a lot of other groups that use the service.

Yep - this is bookings and not revenue. Ah, takes me back to the good ol' days of channel stuffing...

I think the idea of describing a startup as "like X for Y" is OK for some but in general I agree that it comes across as not being particularly innovative. I think it makes sense to give prospects a frame of reference for an offering but there are other ways of doing it aside from defining your entire company in comparison to another one.

I agree. People want to know very quickly what the idea is and what it's comparable to. I believe that it gets the audience more engaged in the fact they don't need to make the connection while learning about the product throughout the presentation.

Ah the world isn't fair is it? Oh yeah and you're welcome ;-)

I like this post - I think it's really logical and fairly complete. A couple of comments - Firstly I think a completely hands-off approach to market/customer research is dangerous. I think you need to actually talk to prospects to really understand how they think about problems and pains. Surveys can give you clues where to look but they are not enough. Secondly, I wouldn't think of "competitors" as just other products in the space. Other alternatives could just as easily be "do nothing" or "do it manually" and if it is then you will need to differentiate between your offering and those alternatives too. Lastly, when thinking about marketing tactics, it's important to think about tactics that will work for your target markets specifically and not just all tactics that might work for any market.

I think there aren't enough resources for Canadian startups but at the same time, I agree with this post that once you can show some traction, then funding is not as hard to come by. The trick is figuring out how to get to that point and pay the rent.

This bit "Learn what makes her happiest and what stresses her out. See how she responds to difficult situations or murky ethical quandaries. Find out how she treats others (and herself) when things aren’t going well." is really important I think. Lots of people can get along when everything is going great. The difference between just being friends and co-founding a company is how you get along when things are going badly.