JS Cournoyer

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• Should a founder that has significantly higher expertise on a product (development and costumer expertise) yield to majority win in a team of 3? I know this is vague however I am interested in examples where this might be favorable. I want the other founders to feel comfortable but feel they are making a wrong decision and I have not been able to convince them otherwise.

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    In a startup, like in any company, everyone should have roles and responsibilities. It’s OK to have discussions and opinions, but whoever is responsible for delivering the product should make the decision in the end.

• What's your checklist when evaluating a potential investment?

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    Big vision, team, market opportunity, competitive advantage, leverage, scalable, step by step go to market with additional validation at every step

• I have an online magazine, I want to provide shares to one of my contributors that has been with me since the begining. I also want to bring on a board of advisors, and provide them with shares as compensation. I was wondering if anyone has a model agreement that they would be willing to share. Or know where I could find one.

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    Advisors usually get 0.25% in options, vesting over 2-3 years.

• What's the first step to turn my successful technical service related biz model into something I can franchise? No IP.

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    Build an easy to use turnkey web based platform that your franchisees can use to deliver the same service as you.

• Can you give me information on the most recent start ups online? Specifically Canadian brands?

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    I don’t understand your question.

• We are currently building an online platform which will enable private carowners to rent out their cars to other people. How would recommend us to handling our advertising with two such different costumers? (owners and renters)

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    I would argue that every owner is also a potential renter when they are on the go. There are dozens of other companies doing this, you can look at their marketing activities for insight.

• How can I judge whether or not I have enough traction to keep going?

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    If you’re seeing growth month to month, have a manageable churn rate and a scalable business model, you should probably keep going. The key point here is: Are you passionate about what you are doing? If yes, keep going. If not, move one.

• What is the best balance of expertise/personalities for an early stage SaaS team?

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    Not sure what you mean by personalities. Saas companies are about product/service and metrics, much more than they are about the personalities of their founders. In fact, the whole point of Saas is to remove as much as possible the human interaction with the customer and let the product do the talking.

• What thought should I give to the "culture" of my startup?

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    I think your vision and company culture are the two most important things that top talent look for when joining a company.

• How do you go about meeting other coders, people more advanced than you, to join your team, come aboard as co-founders?

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    Every major city has developper groups (php, django, ruby, etc.) You can attend those. You can also hangout in the open source world. Google, Facebook and Twitter use this approach to recruit a lot of their top engineers. You can also go to startup events.