The pros and cons of public relations - the credibility and reach it buys you, set against the cost, the lack of control, and how hard it is to measure.

Hiring is hard. Do you give candidates a test? Do you ask about their experience, or pose theoretical situations to see how they think them through? These questions are hard enough for recruiters to answer, but even more of a mystery for entrepreneurs. While there’s no perfect formula, when it comes to finding talent, interviewing has to tell you a lot. Enhancing your talent efforts is a combination of creating a process for interviewing and improving how you interview candidates through that process.

Advisory boards can be an invaluable source of insight. Think of an advisory board as a collection of mentors that can provide individual expertise, provide you a sounding board for ideas, give you advice, introduce you to valuable contacts, and tell you when you’re potentially making a mistake.

You've worked from inception to birth and now your company is evolving. You might be bringing on co-founders, senior level team members and employees. You want everyone to be aligned to and share in the success of the business, but how do you determine how much equity to give everyone? The objective of employee equity is to make the first employees sensitive to feel an emotional ownership with your/your company’s great idea, its gripping product and the organization you are asking them to help grow. The percentage equity a hire gets depends on factors such as domain expertise, how early he joins (if he joins earlier, there is more risk and less stock), how critical the person is to the company and its funding, experience with associated ventures, whether or not he is replaceable, and connections. An equity premium may be considered if the employee is irreplaceable.

When you are advancing your business and thinking about building your sales team, it is important to have the right mix of talent. Sales teams require n different types of sales representatives. In a technology sales environment, two different types, the “hunter” and the “farmer,” each play a distinct role.

A company's mission, vision and values set the direction of the company. These may sound like things that only large companies need (or have the time to do) but you will quickly find, without an overall North Star and guiding direction, you can get lost quickly. Especially in the constantly changing environment of a new venture, these are essential.

There are many factors that go into this determination: the nature of the industry, established players, competitive solutions, pricing models, market influences, nature of the disruption, and the list goes on. How do you understand when the market is ready for your product or service?

Until recently most public relations activity involved person-to-person contact between PR professionals and members of the media, such as journalists and television news reporters. However, several trends are developing that alter the tasks performed by PR people. In most cases these changes are the result of new Internet technologies that are quickly gaining widespread acceptance among Internet users and are becoming new media outlets in their own right.

As an entrepreneur, we think that the market needs our solution now and can’t understand why it is taking so long to get investors, win customers or attract employees. While this perspective can be exciting, it can also create misalignment of people, financial resources and expectations. Have you ever looked down the strip in Las Vegas and seen your hotel and decided it was not too far to walk? The backdrop of the strip creates an optical illusion. As you walk, you realize how far away it is. Had you known, you would have prepared differently.

You've worked from inception to birth and now your company is evolving. You might be bringing on co-founders, senior level team members and employees. You want everyone to be aligned to and share in the success of the business, but how do you determine how much equity to give everyone? One of the most difficult decisions you will have to take as a founder is how to distribute equity among your co-founder(s) and earliest employees. Equity negotiations can be a cause of disagreements and stress and yet, are absolutely necessary.

Getting out in front of employee issues as a startup can help you avoid some challenging issues down the line. Many of these issues can be avoided by putting in place some standard policies and documentation that deal with many employee issues. Below is a list of the top employment law issues startups face and what to consider when faced with these matters.’

No one likes to think about taxes. But as a startup you must consider them when you are making decisions about how to set up and run your company. When starting a business, there are some key tax issues to consider.

Many businesses struggle not because they can't generate sales, but because they don't manage cash. There is nothing more important to the success of your business than your system for managing cash due from sales through your process of billing and collections. You can have lots of customers, but if you don't collect money from them, you will go out of business. For your business to get paid efficiently, you need to establish several things, including payment methods and payment terms, billing and collections.

Founders must be able to put every dime they can into growing their startups. One main way to accomplish this is by saving as much money as possible on expenses. When founders must put a great deal of money into equipment, office space, and employees, there’s less money left over to spend on marketing and networking. That being said, there are often benefits to being with others and today there is a wide range of options of where to work.

The Internet has changed competitive marketing analysis as we know it. While analyzing other organizations previously required some sneaking around akin to espionage, the growing importance of a web presence means that virtually everything you need to know about other companies in your industry can be found online.

Stock Option Plans are an extremely popular method of attracting, motivating, and retaining employees, especially when the company is unable to pay high salaries. A Stock Option Plan gives the company the flexibility to award stock options to employees, officers, directors, advisors, and consultants, allowing these people to buy stock in the company when they exercise the option.

Incorporating or forming an LLC gives you the right to operate in the state of formation. You must apply for the right to operate in any other state. That process is known as foreign registration or foreign qualification. So if you form in Delaware or Nevada (or another state) but you transact business in another state, you will have to qualify your business in that state - what is often called a "foreign corporation." When we hear the word "foreign" most of us think of something outside the United States. However, in the world of U.S. corporations and LLCs, the word foreign has a different meaning. This means if a company is doing business outside of its state of formation, it must register to do so. It is usually straightforward, but nearly always requires filing documents and paying fees.

India is still the predominant resource for outsourcing technology development but many other countries play actively in providing this service.

What does your brand stand for? When we are starting out, we have no brand. So setting down what you want your brand to stand for is a foundation to how you will be perceived by employees, customers, investors and all others that your company touches. I know you don't see how brand pays the bills, but setting out who you are in the eyes of your constituents can set the tone for the things that do pay the bills.

It is one thing to start a business but what does it take to run a business. Let’s assume that we entrepreneurs all come to the table with passion, grit and a good idea. So why does one business with an idea succeed and another with the same idea fail?

The legal structure or "type of company" you choose for your business is one of the most important decisions you will make in the startup process. Your choice of structure can greatly affect the way you run your business, impacting everything from liability and taxes, to control over the company. The key is to figure out which type of entity gives your business the most advantages when it comes to helping you to achieve your organizational and personal financial goals. The good news is that once you decide on the entity, there are services that can handle all the filings for a few hundred dollars.

The fundamentals of marketing are the same from one business to the next. It is the ability to use our entrepreneurial creativity to generate great and differentiated content and messages that sets us apart. In order to capture the greatest degree of prospect interest possible in your product or service, you’ve got to have something truly awesome to trade if you want consumers to interact with your brand. Even simple tasks such as getting consumers to join an email list have become difficult as consumers have become hypersensitive to being spammed.

While you shouldn’t evaluate the meaning of your life every day, you must put aside time to do it on a regular basis. Otherwise, you fall victim to the momentum of daily activities and obligations without asking yourself, “Am I happy?” For years, I didn’t do this.

It seems like it should be simple, but to start your own business and set up the basic working environment is more complicated than it seems. This requires you to ask some key questions and to give some honest answers. So here are the questions you should be asking before you start your own business.

Behind every great startup you've ever read or heard about exists a team of passionate, talented, and motivated individuals. The question is how do you get the most talented people to help you - especially when you may not be able to pay top-notch talent and the value of the equity in your company may not be clear.