Jason Cohen

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• How do you evaluate the market potential and begin customer development (S. Blank's model) for a new product that you are developing in "stealth" mode in order to maintain competitive advantage (i.e. without having your competition find out what you are working on)?

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    Stop that “stealth mode” crap. It’s crap. They’ll find out as soon as you ship. If it’s so great they’ll copy it in 3-6 months and release it with far more attention than you have.

• I am attempting to write my business plan. What is the best way to complete my Market Research and Financial Projections?

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    Financial projections should be based on the model and not on time. That is, “break even after 145 customers,” not “break even in Q2 2012.” Model the actual mechanics of the business.

    “Market research” in the traditional sense is overrated. The research you need is that the market is big (e.g. people spend $1b per year or more) and growing. The product reseach is that you’ve already spoken with 30 potential customers and 20 say they’ll pay $X if you build the following 3 features.

    Everything else is just invention.

• I believe I have a wonderful idea for a start-up but I am having so much trouble finding a great name for it! Any thoughts on things to remember or do when trying to find the perfect name for your start-up?

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    The most important thing is to just pick something and move on, and rename it later, because this is wasted time. Here’s some detail on that and why: http://blog.asmartbear.com/naming-startup.html

    And more reason why it doesn’t matter: http://blog.asmartbear.com/pick-company-name-brand.html

    Pick a domain name that has keywords you want to be found with. That’s far more important.

• What is the best way to stay focused on a task without any distractions?

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    Quit everything on the laptop that’s unrelated.

    Then use a physical timer to ensure you work for a time period straight. Many people say 25 minutes is the right amount of time.

• Is it normal to have an investor set "triggering events" in order to receive ongoing funding? We have to reach certain milestones or else he won't give us money.

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    Yes. This is good for both of you because it’s clear what the goals are.

    It can be bad if you learn new things along the way and it makes sense to change the goals. Will the investor be OK with that sort of open-mindedness? If no you don’t want them anyway. The way to ask is something like this: “I know just lowering the goals isn’t OK, but what if it turns out we should have different goals?”

    However, this cuts two ways. If you make the goals, I would want the next money guaranteed. Otherwise you can make them and he still says “meh” and comes up with some other reason, and now you’ve chased a rabbit for nothing. And now you need to raise from someone else, and what if they don’t agree with those goals you just met?

    Also, part of the point of this is to reduce the time and effort of raising the next round. That’s great that they want to make that easy, but then you have to know the money is coming, else you need to start raising much earlier.

• How can I test pricing?

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    Set a price and see what happens.

    Set random prices and see who picks what.

    Ask 12 potential customers about a specific price and see what they say.

• I believe I have a fantastic idea: It solves everyday problems It creates convenience, awareness and opportunities It builds win-win customer/business relationships It has large potential for growth and profit (sounds familiar? =3 ) How does one proceed from here? And when building a team, how does one share their ideas without getting into a 'winklevoss' situation?

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    Every entrepreneur has that idea. So in short, it means nothing at all.

    You proceed like everyone else: Go find some target customers and see whether they agree with you and how much they’d pay for it. Or just blindly build it and roll the dice, which is silly but what most people do.

    If you’re worried people will steal the idea, don’t be. Of course they’ll steal it. You have to be better than that.

• Jason....I have a potential startup concept that involves a single site with internal networks for companies that allow their employees to anonymously comment or post items on different aspects of the business/company in order to help foster the spread of internal knowledge....do you think that this is a sustainable idea or will corporations view this as useless ?

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    Yammer is successful as an “intranet chat system” for generally sharing knowledge and commenting on stuff. That implies what you’re talking about is useful too.

    However something like Yammer feels like it could do what you’re describing, but more as well. So I’m not sure why I’d pick yours over Yammer. But maybe you can answer that?

    Bottom line of course is to ASK potential customers: Would you use this, why, and how much would you pay for it?

• Do many companies house an internal wiki to ensure that employees, advisors, investors are all on the same page with how the company services/features operate?

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    Yes, almost all do. The more the better. Google docs is good, secure, and free, or something like Confluence is more complex to set up but full-featured.

• How do you choose a technical Co-Founder?

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    I assume you’re not technical yourself. Have to go through recommendations and networking, because you cannot interview one. It’s like interviewing a lawyer — you can’t evaluate whether they know what they’re talking about.

    Also, as with any cofounder, personal rapport is key and cannot be ignored.