By David French
Inventors often aspire to draft their own patent applications. This is something that they can and should do. But they should never go through the process of filing a patent application without consulting with and using the services of a patent professional.
Nevertheless, if an inventor starts the process of drafting their own patent application, they will save money and have a better understanding of the nature of the exercise. This will help them appreciate whether the prospective patent that they may obtain will be worth the investment. It will also help them improve their own invention and, correspondingly, the value of any patent they might obtain.
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By Denzil Doyle
The recruitment and retention of a good board of directors can be formidable tasks in any company, particularly in a high technology company where a knowledge of the technology as well as an understanding of corporate governance is required.
The first question that the owners of a new company must address is when to start the process of installing a board or if in fact it should be started at all. If the company is a “mom-and-pop” operation and it is the intent of the owners to keep it that way, a board of advisors is likely all that is needed.
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By Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Mark Suster, PandoDaily, Jason Cohen and MarketingProfs.
How to configure your startup team
Mark Suster, 2x entrepreneur and current VC, has been known to base 70 per cent of his early investments on the team — in an unpredictable market with competitors, funding requirements or PR disasters for example, only great teams will pull through. Suster posts his slide deck on “How to build out your early team” and summarizes the key findings.
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By Francis Moran
I just this minute got off the phone with a CEO who has twice been a client. Along with a technical founder, he’s been working on a new startup for about a year now, and he wanted to pick my brain a bit on messaging and positioning. He said he was struggling with the consistency of his messaging, especially when it came to pitching investors. The company is looking for $500,000 in an angel round.
“Investors are telling us we sound like a completely different company the second time they hear our pitch,” my friend said.
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By Leo Valiquette
There’s a fitness club in my neck of the woods that broke away from its corporate mothership and rebranded itself with a new name a couple of years ago. I shake my head every time I visit the place and still see the mothership’s name on the company vehicles and on the guest wi-fi account.
It’s all the more painful because it’s a former client I worked with to develop new brand messaging and promotional copy.
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Is the ‘last mile’ of sales automation keeping your reps from closing more business?
February 05, 2013 by Jeff Campbell
A recent CSO Insights survey found that B2B sales people spend an average of 57 per cent of their time on things other than selling. In my 33 years in the technology business doing sales, managing sales teams and building software businesses it has always felt like something was missing […]
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January roundup: What does it take to get technology to market?
February 04, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
We were back at full steam last month after a welcome holiday break in December. In addition to our usual counsel about effective and strategic marketing practices, we featured guest posts on topics ranging from the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung to regional economic development […]
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Great articles roundup: Series A crunch, content marketing, social keywords, crowdfunding, startups
February 01, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Silicon Valley Business Journal, 451 Marketing, ventureburn and Startup Professional Musings
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Super Bowl weekend: That time of year when a marketer’s fancy turns to thoughts of…advertising?
January 31, 2013 by Francis Moran
It’s Super Bowl weekend, that time of year when a very large swath of North America — and even some of the rest of the world — tunes in to see a once-a-year clash of multimillion-dollar Goliaths fighting it out in a no-holds-barred battle. There will be drama. There will be […]
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Bananatag discovers the marketing power of good press
January 30, 2013 by Accelerate Okanagan
Corey Wagner, co-founder of Kelowna based tech startup Bananatag, accredits the company’s early success to a marketing campaign in which it used a public relations launch to put its own product to the test. Launched in August 2012, Bananatag allows individuals to track opened email and clicked links […]
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It takes more than bricks and mortar to build a regional economy
January 29, 2013 by Denzil Doyle
A few years ago, a group of hockey enthusiasts from southwestern Ontario embarked on an ambitious campaign to establish an NHL hockey club in their area. A nasty comment that went around at the time was that it would never happen because if it did, Toronto would want one as well […]
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Do you know what your customer actually wants?
January 28, 2013 by Maurice Smith
I once spent a fortnight in Silicon Valley being trained in strategic planning. It was a fantastic experience. We spent the first week in groups trying to invent new products and industries, a motley crew of scientists, financiers and creatives. In the midst of the workshops, a very opinionated participant from Miami told us […]
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Great articles roundup: Startups, financing, crowdfunding, virality in videos
January 25, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Techvibes, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Huffington Post and copyblogger […]
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By David French
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]