Business Resources for Startups

• As startups are notoriously short on time we thought what better way to maximise their productivity than by providing them with the most relevant business resources all in one place!

• Us folks at Seedcamp have included each resource with a list of start-ups that have ACTUALLY found them useful.  If a startup cannot back-up a resource it should not be included here.

• Companies that have contributed to this wiki include: Atomico Ventures, Entrip, FeeFighters, HyperNumbers, Patients Know Best, Plug in SEO, Speedsell, Stupeflix, TAG, Toksta, TV Pixie, uberVU, Yoose, Wasabi Ventures, Zoombu.

Any guidelines I should be aware of?

This wiki has only one cardinal rule:  no self-marketing/promotion (for example: a start-up/company cannot put a link to itself).

Have a suggestion?

Great!  Enter your suggestion as a comment at the bottom of this page (the home page) and on the first line simply put SUGGESTION (in capitals please so we can easily see it). Do you have a technical resource to share? Our friends at Songkick have created a wiki for technical resources so feel free to contribute your nugget on their wiki at:  http://startuptools.pbworks.com

At What Stage Are You?

1. Raising Money

     Negotiate Term Sheets

• Ideal first round funding terms blog post by Chris Dixon. Chris is co-founder of Hunch and “personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including Skype, TrialPay, Gerson Lehrman Group, ScanScout, OMGPOP, BillShrink, Oddcast, Panjiva, Knewton, and a handful of other startups that are still in stealth mode”
• 5 minute Primer on Venture Capital Term Sheets
• How to Negotiate a Term Sheet
• How Terms are more Important than your Valuation
• Generate Your Term Sheet
• Book To Read About Venture Capital - Smarter Ventures
• Raising Venture Capital: A Primer for 1st-time Entrepreneurs
• Both sides of the table - serial entrepreneur turned VC with advice on term sheets and funding

     Starting a company

• The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up – useful description of how to work backwards from what you will count as success (x sales) to what you need (y sales visits... but you only have 0.3 y hours in the day)
• Strategic Entrepreneurism: Shattering the Start-Up Entrepreneurial Myths – awesome about building a company for acquisition (guaranteed success) rather than IPO (probable failure for a chance at "hit it out of the ballpark" success)

2. Managing my Business

    Manage your Investors

• How to Run a Startup Board Meeting
• Why it is Important to Communicate with Your Investors
• Keeping Your Investors Informed: 7 Dos and Don'ts
• Measuring Business Performance for Internet Startups 

3. Strategy, Positioning And Company Core Values

    Books To Read To Understand Where To Position Your Business, How To Enter Your Market And What Is At Your Core

• The Innovator's Dilemma - market entry positioning
• Blue Ocean Strategy - customer model
• Business Model Generation - business model
• 4 Steps To The Epiphany - customer centricity, cashflow, fundraising strategy
• The Machine That Changed The World - quality control through the world of Toyota
• The Mythical Man Month - resource allocation in software engineering projects
• Crossing The Chasm - adapt your marketing strategy based on when users adopt your product/service
• Harvard Business Press - source of articles on general management

    The Best Ways NOT to Fail ("there is no knowledge inside a startup, only assumptions!")

• Lean Startup Strategy - what it means to be a "Lean Startup" by Eric Ries
• Ten Rules for Web Startups - Evan Williams

4. Product Development

     SCRUM Methodology

• Brief Overview of the SCRUM Methodology
• Guide on SCRUM
• SCRUM product management software

     Development Process

• Product Development 101 
• Getting Real
• The Art of Agile Development
• Extreme Programming

     Design

• 99Designs - Crowdsourced Designs, Logos
• Coroflot - Portfolios of designers

5. Customer Development

     Focus Groups

• How to Run a Customer Focus Group

     Keeping Customers the Focus

• Five Customer Service Tips for Startups

     Customer Development Process 101

• How to develop your customers like you develop your product - Steve Blank

• Built to Learn - Eric Ries

• Achieving a Failure - Eric Ries

6. Human Resources

     Recruitment

• Enternships - Recruitment service for startup interns
• Building Startup Sales Teams

7. Marketing

   General Web Marketing

• List of essays on Freemium, Viral Marketing and Online Ads - Andrew Chen

     SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

• What is SEM?

     SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

• Seedcamp SEO mentoring
• What is SEO?
• Beginners Guide to SEO: Dos and Don'ts
• Top 10 Tips (with examples) for Online Startups
• Using AdWords to Assess Demand for your Online Service - Eric Ries
• Marketing Driven SEO Strategy

     PPC (Pay-per-Click)

• What is PPC?
• Overview of PPC
• The Ultimate PPC Resource
• Google Adwords Editor

     eMarketing Guide (complete book for reference)

• eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing (2nd Edition)

     Marketing Reports and Market Research

• Marketing Charts

     Metrics and Analytics for Startups

• Startup Metrics for Pirates - Dave McClure

• Benefit-Driven Metrics - Andrew Chen

• How to Measure if Users Love Your Product - Andrew Chen

• How to Generate Great Options To Test (when creating a new element for your site/product/service) - Andrew Chen

     Social Media

• 10 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers

     Email

• Designing, Coding and Delivering HTML Email
• 30 Free HTML email templates - tried and tested

8. Finance

     Startup P&L

• Coming soon!

     Payment Processors

• Compare payment processors (US and Canada only)
• List of Payment Processors

     Recurring Billing

• Recurly

      Startup Friendly Accounting Software - Web Based

• LessAccounting

• Xero

      Banking Services

• Clydesdale Bank a Business Bank Account that lets you use posh offices for client meetings

9. Legal

     Incorporating in the UK

• Brief Guide to Incorporating Your Business
• Setting Up a Company and Tips for All Aspects of your Business

     Incorporating in the US

• Overview of Incorporation Process
• Get Business Licenses and Permits

10. Operations

     Outsourcing

• Outsourcing data entry / manual work
• Outsourcing email