If the co-founder of your startup company is quitting, you need to prepare a separation agreement that clearly addresses issues around IP ownership, company stock, non-compete, no-poaching of current clients and employees, etc. It’s better to be clear about the terms of separation so that both the departing co-founder and the company fully understand their obligations. read more

For someone with a tech background like me, the biggest pain points of starting a business I wish I had support with are all administrative tasks: 1. Finding legal counsel I could trust and afford to review all the legal documents for any business deals and give advice before we sign any of them. The last thing a startup wants is to enter a business deal in the early stage that it later regrets. But at the same time it’s not easy to find legal support that’s affordable to an early stage startup. 2. Finding office space and setting it up with furniture, phones and equipment. This problem is mostly solved now with WeWork and similar types of companies out there offering shared office space for startups. It makes starting a company a lot easier now, in my opinion. 3. Setting up payroll and getting health insurance for our employees. This is an area that I never had to deal with when I was an employee and had to learn when I started my own business. My co-founder and I both came from a tech background and wish we could have handed this job to someone else. read more

  This is a trick question because the answer is always "yes, your product is good in the eye of beholder". The real question is "how do you identify the people who would find your product useful?" The relationship between 'product' and 'marketing' is 'fit', not yes vs no. The challenge is finding the market fit for your product. read more

The most important skills for startup employees unrelated to the actual job description are: 1. The ability to wear many hats. A startup employee may be hired to do one job, but often times he/she may need to help out with other tasks to get things moving along. 2. Able to handle the unexpected and problem solve under pressure. A lot times things don’t go as planned in a startup and employees who can think on their toes and resolve problems under less-than-ideal circumstances are the most helpful. 3. Critical thinking. Startups move at a very fast pace, sometimes employees are ask to make decisions based on incomplete information, knowing how to apply critical thinking to make the best decision under any given situation is very important 4. Adaptability and ability to learn quickly. Startups could change directions quickly. Having the mindset to adapt to new situations and the ability to learn new things quickly are essential to succeeding in a startup environment. read more

This varies from company to company, but usually it's between 30% to 50%. Some Series A investors might want majority (> 50%) control, but it's not common. read more

I think you can start a company as a side project while working full-time if you want to prove out the concept, prototype the idea, test out the market before you fully dive into the new business. But at a certain point, you will have to dedicate your full attention to the startup in order to give it the best chance to succeed. Also, it will be difficult to secure funding if you are not working on the startup full-time. read more

Building a brand is like climbing a career ladder. You got to start small with a laser-focused targeting, then grow from there. For example, if you are starting a social network, don't try to take on Facebook first. Segment your market by appending qualifiers to your core service, like "the first verified social network for people with pets in Hong Kong". In this example, the qualifiers are "first", "verified", "for people with pets", "in Hong Kong". With these qualifiers, you are guaranteed to be #1 in your target market. It's better to start as a #1 in a very targeted and small market, as opposed to starting out as a nobody in a big market. Establish a foothold first, then grow. read more

You have to know the country you want your business to grow into. If you have that knowledge, then you may not need a partner to get into that country. If you don’t, whether it is a partner you find or a senior employee you hire, you need to have someone who knows how to do business in that country working on your behalf in order to succeed. read more

Test and validate as quickly as possible. The one that can demonstrate a customers' readiness to pay will indicate a higher success rate and growth trend. However, that being said, if the business model is a long-term data play, then this will not make sense. read more

Ensure that there is a strong enough case to support customer and market validation. You want to make sure that you constantly measure customer acquisition and 'readiness to pay' during the beginning phases of your startup. This is essential to do even before launch. Failure to find this can result in the launch of a company or product with no customers. read more