2. Use Legalzoom.com and order:

Their basic LLC package with a Tax ID ~$325
A rush upgrade, so it takes 10 days instead of 35, ~$150
Certificate of Good Standing for Delaware. ~$180

How to create a profitable Freemium startup (spreadsheet model included!)

Doing things that don’t scale

I really wanted the customer experience for DomainPolish to be awesome. In many ways it wasn’t: the app was clearly MVP, it had rough edges and there were a few bugs. But for every customer that bought I plan, I recorded a 30-second custom thank you video and sent it to them. I did about 40 videos before I finally ran out of steam.

But the response was awesome. People really seemed to respond to that level of gratitude and (although I can’t prove it) I suspect it had a lot to do with the amount of sales we got even after ceasing all forms of marketing.

excellent advice (with scripts) on finding and buying a domain name

Does your product dramatically reduce costs in an industry with large incumbents and fat margins?
Can you provide a narrowly focused product to a niche of that market who will be attracted to dramatically lower costs?
As your business grows can you find ways to continually lower your costs by whatever means?
I would also think about how you use scale to your advantage to keep margins low.

Are you offering a product where the supply costs will continue to drop precipitously? (think Amazon’s Storage costs)
Are there alternative ways to monetize your product where incumbent are not? (think virtual goods of Zynga, ad supported models, freemium models)
Are there ways to offer super low margins on your product knowing that you will overlay other product offers to the same customers later that will improve your margins?

26 questions you have to answer correctly to get funding for your startup

Instead of that, I recommend that you do what you love because you love doing it. If that means long hours, fantastic. If that means leaving the office by 6pm every day for your underwater basket-weaving class, also fantastic.

To start a good fire, you need kindling. Something that will catch easily.

1. Have at least one very clear, and cool, use case. I.E. have something you can show someone else that makes them say "oh, my, that's freaking useful."

Cure: make a spreadsheet and try to predict the key metrics of your business. Yes, the financial projections that come out of the spreadsheet are probably worthless (or grossly inaccurate), but not their underlying assumptions. Those are the things you need to prove and the first step is knowing what they are. As a side note, this exercise will help you understand how much money you need to raise, if any.

HUGE list of tools for a startup / small business. Worth a look before a project.

If your CEO wore his first tie at the VC interview, drink #startup #drinkinggame

1. Build something you are personally passionate about. You are your best focus group.

Can you help answer this question about 'Tracking Calls Through Virtual Phone Numbers' on HackerNews? #startup

I decided to ask Noah to come on the show so he could explain the “why” behind the document. I wanted to get inside his head so startups could learn from him. Enjoy the half hour interview.

Launch a splash site
Test out pen-and-paper mockups with real users from his target market
Confirm if they would use or pay for what he was considering launching
Get out in front of the other revenue streams and get letters of intent from key stakeholders in his ecosystem (his idea allowed for that, fortunately)
Use a modest test budget to see if people would click on ads around his key messages

The internet kills all middlemen (or why you should join a startup) #startup

SaaS product grows through bad design and makes $500/month. 

Guide on how to get new users for a startup<br />
<br />
• SEO<br />
• Controversey<br />
• Viral Tricks<br />
• Affiliate Programs<br />
• PR<br />
• Celebs<br />
• Biz Dev<br />
• Offline Events<br />
• Get Creative

I knew coming from Boston that Portland’s start-up / tech scene would be significantly smaller. That is exactly why I wanted to come here. When I was in Boston, I went to a few networking events and met some awesome people, however, I was definitely a small fish in a big pond. Part of the appeal of Portland was that the pond in question is significantly smaller. Though I’m still a small fish, it has been significantly easier and more rewarding  to work with a smaller group of tech and start-up people. I’ll give you some examples:

Why not charge for your app?

Sivers on why you should always let customers pay you.

LaunchBit Startup Guide is a step-by-step guide based on lean startup methodologies that teaches you how to find your customers, build your first landing page, and test your first prototype without any programming. In the Startup Guide, you'll find<br />
Simple, actionable steps that you can take today to start advancing your internet ideaLots of resources and tools that help you build an online business, not just a websiteCase studies and articles to encourage and inspire youDon't have a technical co-founder? You don't need one to get your web idea off the ground.

Story of how One Day One Job CEO put together the company. Lots of great inspiration for sole-founders.

Every event, every conference, and every blog post was just another excuse to postpone action one more day.

It’s tough to generate meaningful activity to a point of scale with a small number of employees. To solve this problem, they start as an invite-only community. Because they’re invite-only, they have the time to generate useful content, gain really passionate users (when user’s get invited in when mere mortals aren’t, they’re more likely to participate, empirically). Then, once you reach a point you’re happy with, you can open it up to the public – and bam, massive growth follows.

business models at startup is about acid-testing (as he choose to call it) your core business assumptions.

Analysis of basic reporting to show the flow and metrics (business, web) for a small company. Should be valuable for DropWiki

List of online resources, articles, and threads for entrepreneurship

I've been in the "build->launch->move to next project" loop for some time. My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented in the existing products. Some of the finished projects gone live, tried to sell some, some are rotting in the attic. When i ask about feedbacks about my products, mostly i get "i didn't understand which problem you are solving". I even deployed a localized copy of cnprog as a forum on women's issues, to see if it was me doing it wrong in designing. I got the following feedback several times: "it's too complicated, there's no order, no title in threads, other forums(phpbb style) are better ". WTF? These people are on facebook 24/7, uploading gazillions of photos, messaging their friends each second. They know what tagging is, and still a stackoverflow clone is too complicated?