goshon

1. Make sure they live & breath the company 2. Keep challenging them 3. Transparency as much as possible 4. Make them be part of the decision making process in the company

In general I don't think age is relevant.

I think that by the end of the day this is a habitual battle. The functionality is pretty similar and switching between messaging apps is like switching from Google to Bing => not an easy thing at all. Their real chance is by making a more engaging platform, and this is a real challenge as the offerings are very similar.

My List (some repeating):

- Basecamp, Trello (for project management).

- Stripe, Braintree (for payment).

- Amazon S3, Amazon RDS (for storage & db). - Bugsense, Fogbugz (for bug management).

- Textmate (for hacking).

The technical validation is being done at the architecture level usually, and the due diligence is usually focused on the background and tech skills of the entrepreneurs.

Yep, same layout exactly.