Miscellaneous

Other Directories

Funding Documents

Sales Tax

  • In Pennsylvania, the rule is that there is no sales tax on something that is not delivered as a tangible product.
  • My understanding is that it varies from state to state in the ‘United’ States.  In Pennsylvania, the rule is that there is no sales tax on something that is not delivered as a tangible product.  So as long as a CD or manual is not shipped, there is no sales tax.  This sometimes plays out in strange ways.  For example, when we buy software subscriptions from Dell and there are no tangible CD’s or DVD’s being delivered, the original quote shows sales tax but we file a form and then the sales tax is removed from the final price.  But other states are different.  If you are delivering software in the U.S., you may need to develop a database of how sales tax should be treated in each state of delivery.

Choose an SEO firm carefully

  • http://www.thinkseer.com/c/s/selecting_seo_firms.html

Slide Presentations


  • The 10-20-30 Rule Blog Post http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz0UDlPzFG9
  • The 10-20-30 Rule Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liQLdRk0Ziw
  • Wanted to share a great, new blog I’ve been reading recently. It’s the BizClarity blog athttp://bizclarity.com/blog/. It is written by local consultant, Steve Bowman, who’s known as the “Pitch Doctor”. (Disclosure, I’ve worked with Steve, but I’m certainly not receiving a referral, and I would highly encourage using him to help refine your pitch.) Anyway, he offers invaluable advice about how to craft your company pitch. Check it out. You’ll learn a thing or two.

Trade Show on a Budget

  • For the booth, shop around on-line. When I set up the trade show program for one company I think we spent about $2500 to buy our very good quality 10×10  booth, plus some amount for the artwork for it.  It was a basic concave back w/ basic lights. That was 4 years ago so I don’t know where prices are now. I think I used Exhibit Deal. The short answer is, that you want your booth to look professional and not like one of the companies that can’t afford to be at the show. (They have no chairs, no carpet, no lights and use a cheap back drop.)

  • My wife and I built a 10×10 trade show on a budget (see attached

    picture). It was super simple, but only cost $2K to make.

    – Postcards to hand out, $185 (from modernpostcards.com)

    – Fabric for table & sides, $50 (from Jomar’s in Philly)–my wife

    sewed big pieces together really quickly.

    – Posters (3, 2 with lights), $1560 (from postergarden.com)

    – Fishing line held the software boxes up.

    I also brought 2 softbox spotlights to light up the back sign, which I

    already had in the basement (original cost ~$300 from B&H).  I don’t

    think they were actually needed though.

  • You can buy a pop-up with graphics pre-printed for a reasonable price. For example:

    http://popups4less.com/pu4-10-4g.html

    I don’t know this company or the quality of their product – just an example.

    I would recommend against trying to mount a 50″ display on a pop-up. You’re going to have some stability issues. Instead, get a floor standing monitor mount.

    Here’s a cool one with place for keyboard/mouse at a decent price:

    http://www.buy.com/prod/omnimount-tv-floor-stand-63-unv-adap-shelf-nic/q/loc/111/207597719.html

  • Don’t forget the most important part of show prep, is to write down your measurable goals for the show (x number of leads, x number of orders, etc.)  and to plan your follow up process for during and post show. Also think about pre-show marketing and which prospects and clients to whom you want to send a free pass. And consider any p.r. opptys you can create while you’re at the show. The post show work is critical in my mind. Otherwise any money you spend on the show is wasted if you don’t plan your follow up and execute on it. Can’t tell you how many companies I’ve seen waste $’s for lack of follow up.

  • I have purchased several pop-ups from Ace Exhibits and am happy with price, quality, and customer service. They’re located in Southern California (my hometown!) so you’ll need to plan time for shipping (~5 days) and printing (~7 days).

  • Don’t get a booth – just go and sell to people with booths.  Still have the same goals

    in mind, but only pay for a day-pass to walk around the exhibition areas.

    I don’t know if that helps, but it’s worth considering going commando.

  • I got a little proactive on this one and built a post out of it as the responses came flying in. http://frankkoehl.com/2009/09/trade-show-on-a-budget/
  • Can you work a deal with the conference — such as being the official networking site for conference attendees?

    You would pitch the conference on the value to attendees, show them what they would normally have to pay, then offer to provide it to them at no charge or a discount. You’ll do all the work and the attendee marketing. They would just need to send you the attendee list with e-mail addresses.

    We’ve worked ticketing deals like this with success. It gets you better exposure than you could pay for and shows off your product doing what it does best.

    If they are interested, be sure to ask for the extras that don’t cost them anything — including a booth in a premium spot, a speaking opportunity, ads in the program, on the web, etc, and a final attendee list so you can continue marketing to them.

Make your website social

  • I just saw: http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/ It looks like a “twist” on sharethis: http://www.sharethis.com for commenting, Disqus seems to be getting wildly popular these days.  I’ve never used it personally. If you have rich media (i.e. flash, videos, or other things to embed), gigya wildfire is pretty nice; it works even if you don’t have rich media, but it is especially nice if you do.
  • +1 for Disqus when it comes to comments. They are constantly updating it to add new features, and it allows you to login in from Facebook.
  • Sensidea is a great social media tracking tool …and it is free http://www.sensidea.com/socialseek/download.html


Print Shirts


Interns

  • Consider posting a part-time, full-time, internship or short-term project opportunity to the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs’ Job Board! Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs (WEP) has developed the WEP Job Board to connect Wharton students with the entrepreneurs seeking talented human resources.  The WEP Job Board is an online bulletin board where early-stage companies can post opportunities for Wharton students interested in working for an entrepreneurial company.  Opportunities can be full-time, part-time, internship or short-term projects.

  • Drexel Co-op student on stipend.  Drexel had they’re own set of guidelines you needed to follow, but was super easy.  Our co-op student (whom I’m sure you’ll all get to meet at the PSL happy hours), offered to work unpaid, but we felt we should comp her in some form. Overall, i would say make sure you have enough work for the intern to do, and have a backup plan if the intern can’t do all the work.

    Overall, if you raise the bar and treat them like a solid team member, more often than not, they will rise to the challenge.

  • We did sign agreements like any other employee, e.g. NDA, assignment of inventions, term and basis for relationship, – because regardless of their status it’s worthwhile to stay professional. In order the keep them for their entire term and not lose interest.  Find some form of compensation, and remind them of the opportunity they’re privileged to have. We’ve found that when it is not within your budget to compensate them with money, it is best to treat them like team members and go out of your way to include them on all the fun and cool parts of doing business as often as possible.  Listening in on deals or being present for negotiations(taking minutes), lunch trips, and simply implementing some creative work they do to keep them engaged and not focus on all of the tedious work they will inevitably be doing.


Investigate competitor funding

http://idea.sec.gov/idea/searchidea/companysearch_idea.html



Print Shirts

QueensBoro shirts, N.C., 800-847-4478, x231 Briana if she’s still there. It’s been a while.

www.Queensboro.com

Also – you can try http://www.brokenarrowwear.com/

A great company to work with is Smash.  Pretty much the greatest store in the universe – or so says the website.

http://www.thesmashsite.com/

Sticker Printer

Have you checked with LTL Prints? ( Larger than Life)

I just experienced the kind of cool stuff they can do yesterday for the first time and it’s pretty frickin’ cool.  Not everything they do has to be huge – I printed smaller stickers for advertisements.  It’s worth giving Kendall a call or shooting him an Email for this kind of job

kendall@LTLprints.com

Demo a product/Meeting VC/Press Coverage

http://bit.ly/OmZS1

http://bit.ly/NcItr

http://bit.ly/RrOHC

Insurance Resources

general liability insurance policy.  I’ve tried to find something like esurance.com or ehealthinsurance.com where I can comparison shop for quotes, but the closest I have come is netquote.com, which just takes my info and gives it to a bunch of brokers.

We use:

Harry Hoff

Boardman-Hamilton

hhoff@boardman-hamilton.com

(215) 487-3600

8459 Ridge Avenue

Philadelphia, PA  19128-2197

Austin Morris Jr.

Austin R. Morris Associates, Inc.

2600 Philmont Avenue, Suite 110

Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006

215-947-9200

215-947-1915 (main #)

Austin@morrisinsure.com

I’d highly recommend Barry Cohen at Cohen Partners Insurance. He’s a great guy, a good friend of the startup community, and a super helpful insurance guy.

Barry R. Cohen

Cohen Partners LLC

bcohen@cpinsurance.com

(917) 771-0521  mobile

(215) 568-8005  work

1601 Walnut Street Suite 522

Philadelphia, PA 19102