The management tag has no wiki summary.
1
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3answers
120 views
Can I train a programmer from internal staff?
I have a person on staff who has been doing a lot of admin type work: support, billing, etc. I am thinking that I will want another programmer (PHP/MYSQL/etc) in the next 6-12 months for some new ...
1
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2answers
55 views
Micromanaging partner
We are a start-up working on a few projects and trying to build some strategic products alongside. This is a 3 member partnership setup with a development team of about 15 people. One person, let's ...
1
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3answers
118 views
How to manage developers who are inconsistent (i.e., very hot and cold)
I have worked with several developers who are very "hot and cold" in terms of their motivation. Sometimes they will slack off for weeks on a project and make zero progress, and other times they go ...
0
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2answers
71 views
Determining Limits of a Software Development Team
I'm currently managing 5 member (whom are also my friends) software development team for my startup and instead of looking for an angel investor I decided to finance my own product by my own. And in ...
1
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2answers
81 views
best practices of managing follow up calls in cold calling? [closed]
Best practices of managing follow up calls in cold calling?
Actually, I am searching for the best protocols in managing follow up calls.
1
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2answers
80 views
Functional model of co-founders work
Here's the problem for software development startup.
We're two. One can do a decent hard-skill programming. The other one don't know anything, except he has some capital ( approx. less than 10k, in ...
0
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1answer
70 views
Two services under one company. Is it OK to have this specific structure?
In my mind i have two companies. A in the A industry and B in the B industry. Even though in some cases those two industries may have things in common, they are different.
Of course, name branding, ...
3
votes
3answers
230 views
How do I pull this team together again?
I'll try to keep this as brief as I can. Recently I have taken up a position within a big agency where I am responsible for an 'innovation cell'. People can voluntarily join this cell and they get to ...
3
votes
2answers
326 views
Looking for advice on developing my skills as a CTO
I'm currently in the process of building a startup with two co-founders (both are business people). Since I've been a developer in a wide-range of technologies I'll handle the CTO role.
This won't be ...
3
votes
1answer
118 views
What are techniques to elicit requirements from customers who don't understand their needs?
Question:
How do you prevent a situation where you have to produce work-product work first and get client feedback before getting on the right track to meet their needs?
Are there techniques to help ...
3
votes
3answers
94 views
What business model “frameworks” are available to help lead/manage a business?
As the FAQ for this site notes:
Topics include financing, hiring employees, legal, marketing, sales, compensation plans, banking, payroll, benefits, and more.
There are a lot of different but ...
3
votes
1answer
158 views
How to structure even number of board of directors?
We are in the process of setting up a board structure for our startup. Everybody on the board will have their own veto rights on important matters, such as capital injection, spending limits, getting ...
1
vote
1answer
119 views
How do startups select relevant performance indicators?
Performance Indicators in existing businesses that have a defined business model and market are much easier to identify performance indicators for.
Within startup businesses, are there any ...
0
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2answers
166 views
Increasing the rate at which a startup gets things done
How can I improve the rate at which as a startup a group of 3 people get things done?
We are a group of 3, and have a few web apps that run in a mostly automated fashion. But improving on these ...
0
votes
2answers
44 views
Managing multi-lingual website when you don't know the language
Internationalization and localization are some ways to test the water in various regions, to see which market you fit in best.
I wonder if any of you has any experience in a multi-lingual web (with ...
1
vote
2answers
232 views
The startup I work for is slashing my last pay periods paycheck without notice
This question is not directly related to a creating or running a startup, but I guess this is one of the things that can happen at a startup and I'd love to hear responses from both sides of the ...
0
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1answer
35 views
Operational Improvements for Tech Company
I'm looking for the magic trifecta of good/quick/cheap, what are some options for improving operational capabilities around...
Support
- Clients email a support email, this opens a ticket, notifies ...
1
vote
4answers
391 views
How do I motivate someone who values his time significantly more than money to come to work on time?
I'm looking for a strategy to negotiate punctuality with an employee who is quite skilled. However, I fear that docking his pay may not have an impact because he values his own time more highly than ...
3
votes
3answers
161 views
What type of employee do I need?
My SaaS company consists of myself (founder and developer), another developer, and a support person. Our new app is starting to gain traction, and as a result, I'm on the phone with potential / new ...
1
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1answer
100 views
Help with usurpers
I run a paranormal investigation team which was founded by me, the logo designed by me and the paperwork designed by me. Initial funding was from my credit cards and the group has been running just ...
3
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2answers
181 views
E-Myth Revisited - how does it apply to an ISV startup?
A few people have recommended the "E-Myth Revisited" book to me (and its on Joel reading list IIRC) and it gets very consistently good reviews.
...
10
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15answers
1k views
Employee abusing sick leave
We have a very important employee at our startup who has been consistently abusing sick days. Unfortunately being a small company we would have a very hard time replacing him at this point but his ...
1
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1answer
73 views
What are some best practices for managing user feedback?
After months and months and months of work, our team finally launched our first application.
We have been very fortunate to receive a lot of feedback and one of my first "goals" post-launch is to ...
1
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2answers
131 views
Mentor requesting for board of director role, should i offer director or advisor role to him?
We recently met a person through our contacts and he has shown interest in our startup & super liked the Idea. We had initially requested him to be our mentor, for which he agreed. In our next ...
2
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6answers
690 views
What is a good free Business management software?
I'm starting up a lawn mowing service, and I want to know if there is any free software, where I can track sales, customers, expenses ect.
It doesn't need to be feature-crazy as my business will be ...
1
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4answers
152 views
Code Review & System (Re)Architecture
I've recently been brought on with a small startup to serve as their technical advisor to a group of developers offshore. The product is an ASP .NET WebForms application. One of my first tasks was ...
3
votes
3answers
205 views
What are good books on management and organization to excel as a startup COO?
Preferably specifically targeted for startups in Tech/IT.
I seem to find a lot about large corporations, but very little good literature about scaling from a small/midsize into a large corporation, ...
2
votes
9answers
356 views
How to Guide the Amount that Employees Work?
I run a well-funded startup. We're fortunate to have built a kick-ass team with a great product and good early traction. But I worry that our team's work ethic is sliding into stasis. Most of my ...
1
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4answers
256 views
Will employer invest in my idea?
Let me describe a situation I happened to be in by now several times. I work in the field of detector/electronics/imaging systems development. I often get some new technical ideas and solutions, ...
1
vote
2answers
263 views
New Project Management startup business
What's the best way to market startup project management/facilities consulting company for homeowners, churches and businesses?
4
votes
1answer
215 views
How to go ROWE (result only work environment)?
Even though we are a startup and heavily leaning on result-only work environment model, I noticed it's really hard to do this correctly, we still do have core hours and so many similar stuff and so ...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Hiring and Skills Testing
Does anyone know of a comparable service to test a users skills to what they provide on elance? I like the ability to test various skills but I'm not sure if it preferable to have them set up an ...
5
votes
4answers
225 views
Running a dating site - Use volunteers for administration - how to keep them motivated?
I'm running a dating site and I have 3 volunteers working on the administration (approving photos, profiles, removing stalkers, etc). The problem I'm having is that they are, as volunteers, very ...
2
votes
3answers
276 views
Identifying failing and bad start-up companies (for sofware developers)
I recently caught up with a former colleague, a mid-level software developer. For the last year, he has been at a failing (badly), self-funded, single-owner software startup.
According to him, the ...
3
votes
2answers
708 views
How much revenue share vs equity?
I am bidding to manage the commercialisation of some technology, and based on my daily rate and approx days to complete Stage 1, I would normally ask for $x in cash and remainder of my fees as equity ...
6
votes
3answers
390 views
How do I calculate how much my hour is worth?
I run a software development company (mostly potential so far, not amazing amounts of income). I am often in doubt of how much I should spend in order to save one of my own working hours. I know that ...
1
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3answers
1k views
What employee turnover rate is too low for a high-tech company?
There is a lot of focus on the cost of employee turnover in companies. I am curious to know whether there are any studies on failure-rate of high-tech companies increasing if the turnover rate is too ...
2
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5answers
561 views
Using a Staffing Agency - Is it a Bad Idea?
If you've exhausted your personal network (and friends' networks), and now need to hire people who have skills that you don't have, would you try working with a staffing agency?
I've heard a lot of ...
1
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3answers
208 views
In-house vs. 3rd Party PPC Management
I own a successful website selling a software product, but we do absolutely no in-house marketing at all. 75% of our sales come from affiliates promoting us. So, we'd like to become more involved in ...
5
votes
5answers
351 views
How do you develop a startup without personally having the skillset to launch/execute it?
We are a team of 4 individuals (1 idea guy, 2 developers, 1 finance) working together to create a online communication platform website. Since the idea comes from me I formed a team of people who ...
8
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7answers
280 views
Creating camaraderie among people who never see each other
I have a team of people scattered across time zones and the world. Most of these people have never been face-to-face with even one of their colleagues. Most have never heard anyone else's voice. We ...
4
votes
4answers
645 views
CEO Compensation
What is the average CEO compensation for a start-up - salary, bonus(es), sign-on, equity, benefits? Where can you find this information?
4
votes
3answers
386 views
I want to start an investment club
Ok gang, your input will be greatly appreciated here.
I have convinced 4 of my friends and relatives to join me in founding an investment club ( a la private equity or VC)
the idea is very simple: ...
9
votes
2answers
529 views
Software Sales & License Billing for Small Startup
I have just started a small software startup and one of my current headaches is the management of licenses that we sell / lease...
I am looking for a system that can manage the billing and contact ...
2
votes
5answers
291 views
Won't an operational manual incur many competitors?
I read the book*The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It*. It is said that we should treat a business as a system, as a money-making machine. We should have ...
0
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1answer
360 views
Any examples of large companies measuring profits and cashflow instead of making traditional cost/revenue budgets?
The following is a copy and paste from this discussion with Pierre 303:
Let us take an example where I believe that it is clear that there are no reasons for budget. Imagine a company, which has ...
2
votes
2answers
126 views
Could the following be a good way to manage a large business?
As a consultant for large corporations my startup is considering recommending the following:
Imagine that you have a large business with several thousand employees. Usually such a business has ...
5
votes
4answers
134 views
Any great book on how to talk to people, especially to a person who seems not to get along with you [closed]
I want to read some great books on how to talk to people, how to handle people's unfriendly comment non-defensively, how to turn a potential quarrel to a friendly and pleasant talk. I know there is a ...
3
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4answers
315 views
How important are risk management plans to startups?
I've been reading about startups and entrepreneurship, and the resources that I've liked the best (the lean startup camp) don't seem to address risk management planning.
I'm wondering if formal risk ...
7
votes
5answers
706 views
What are the best books to learn project management for a start up? [closed]
I was wondering which books are the best to learn good project management techniques to successfully run a startup.
