A C-Corporation, or C-Corp, is a type of business entity that is legally separate from its owners and shares its profits with shareholders. It is subject to corporate income tax, and its shareholders are also taxed on dividends.

Open a C-Corp

The iOS App Store is a digital distribution platform, operated by Apple Inc., where users can browse and download apps for their iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads. It is a popular platform for developers to reach a global audience with their applications.

Publish an iOS App to the App Store

 is a communications platform that allows customers to manage transactional and marketing emails. Popular SendGrid competitors include 

Add a Teammate to SendGrid; Manage SendGrid Teammates

 is an email delivery service that helps businesses send transactional and marketing emails in a reliable manner. Some common competitors of Postmark include 

Add a User to Postmark

, is a business entity structure that offers the personal liability protection of a corporation along with the tax benefits of a partnership. In other words, members of an LLC are not personally liable for the liabilities or debts of the company. Furthermore, the company's income is "pass through" meaning that an LLC's revenue gets passed to the members and is taxed as personal income rather than being hit with a double taxation seen by corporations.

Startups and early stage companies will look towards LLCs when forming their business for a handful of reasons:

They are easy and cost-efficient to set-up and maintain

They offer personal liability protection, meaning the member's personal assets are not at risk

If you are starting your business, you likely will want to start off as an LLC.

Start an LLC

 is a customer communication platform, allowing its users to leverage their APIs to more easily communicate with their own customers via text and call.

Add a User to Twilio; Manage Twilio Users

 is a domain registration service offered by Google. It is a competitor to popular services like NameCheap and GoDaddy.

Google Domains allows you to purchase website domains that can then be used as your website as well as provide you a domain for an email address.

Add a User to Google Domains

 is a tech-company that offers a wide range of services. They are most known for being a destination where you can purchase domains. However, they also offer services such as hosting, website building tools, and online marketing.

GoDaddy is one of the largest domain registers in the world. Some of its widely used competitors include Google Domains, NameCheap, and Bluehost.

Add a User to GoDaddy

An EIN is an Employer Identification Number used by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) to identify a business entity. This nine-digit number is used for tax-filing and reporting purposes - it functions similarly to how a SSN functions for an individual.

A business will typically file for an EIN when they are formed. If your business has employees, then you likely will have an EIN. The common exception to not needing an EIN is if you are a single-member LLC as you can use your social security number to file your taxes. However, if your entity has employees, then even a single-member LLC will need to file for an EIN.

Get an EIN

A customer journey map is a tool that is used to help you track the user experiences (UX) of your customer's interaction with your brand (your product or service). A customer journey map is a time-intensive task and requires a lot of critical thinking.

When thinking about customer journey mapping, it is important to think through two central themes before getting too far ahead of yourself:

What is your goal in mapping your customer's journey?

How will you apply these insights to your business?

If you don't first understand the reason as to why you're mapping and how the insights will help you, then your effort will be of less value. So be sure to plan ahead and extract as much value from this process as possible.

Create a Customer Journey Map

 is a fintech B2B SaaS company that gives companies an easy path to letting their users connect their bank account to their payment profile. Plaid supports over 2000 financial institutions and is leveraged by over 6,000 companies around the world.

Add a Team Member to Plaid

Cloudflare is a web performance and security company, ensuring that your website's connection to the internet is secure, private, fast, and reliable.

Cloudflare is servicing over 4 million customers, making them a gold-standard company when it comes to securing your website's up-time and reliability.

Add a User to Cloudflare

 is a money management fin-tech company, letting users send, receive, and manage their money in one place. PayPal, a market leader, holds over 50% market share of the online payment processing landscape.

Add a User to PayPal

A problem statement is a concise statement outlining the specific problem or issue that you are looking to solve. A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state and desired state of a process or product.

Write a Problem Statement

A vision statement is a desired future state of the company (and often times the world) that would be achieved if the company is able to complete its mission. Vision statements are a declaration of the company’s “why” and serve as a North Star for the company to strive for. An inspiring vision statement encapsulates the company's aspirations and describes the positive impact on people's lives if the company achieves its full potential.

Vision statements are an important part of a startup's strategic plan because they align key stakeholders, especially employees, with the company’s values and goals. We do this to ensure we have the right attitude, attitude that goes beyond profit and loss and stresses both the opportunity and responsibility to actions.

Write a Vision Statement

In the context of tech startups, an elevator pitch is a short, 30-second presentation that introduces key stakeholders to your product or business idea. The purpose of an elevator pitch is to capture your audience’s interest and make them curious to learn more.

As a startup founder, it is your responsibility to prepare and practice your elevator pitch so that you can make a great first impression.

Write an Elevator Pitch

 is the app store for Android devices. There are over 3 million applications available for download via Google Play.

Add a User to Google Play

 is a tool that helps you analyze your website's search traffic and performance. You can submit up to 1,000 URLs to your Google Search Console.

Add a User to Google Search Console

 is your data insights into your applications on the App Store. It allows you to monitor your app's sales and downloads, reply to Store reviews, and receive notifications.

Add a Team Member to App Store Connect

 is the platform that allows you to leverage and work with Facebook data. If you want to allow users to login to your product via Facebook, you need to leverage the APIs provided via Facebook Developers.

Add a Team Member to Facebook Developers

 is a data tool that helps you better understand your users and site visitors. Over 4 million websites around the world use Google Analytics to power their site-visitor data insights.

Add a Team Member to Google Analytics

Google reCAPTCHA is a software service that uses authentication methods to prevent malicious bots and malware from engaging in abusive activity. Google reCAPTCHA has been implemented on and protecting over 5 million sites around the world.

Add a Team Member to Google reCAPTCHA

 is a data analytics platform that combines quantitative and qualitative data to offer the most complete picture. Over 8,000 companies around the world leverage Full Story.

Add a User to Full Story

AWS is one of the most widely accepted cloud platforms, leveraged by companies around the world. When working within AWS, you can add an IAM (Identity and Access Management) user. This is an entity that you create in AWS that represents the person or application that uses it to interact with AWS. The purpose here is to control what permissions and account access you provide to people within your account.

Setup An AWS IAM User

Backend development refers to the server-side of a web application where the business logic, database interactions, and server configurations take place. It is responsible for managing and processing data, ensuring that the frontend of the application runs smoothly and efficiently.

Imagine a restaurant. The frontend is like the dining area where customers interact with the menu and place their orders. The backend, on the other hand, is like the kitchen where chefs prepare the meals, manage ingredients, and ensure that orders are completed accurately and on time.

Backend development is the "kitchen" of a web application, where all the behind-the-scenes work is done to ensure a smooth and efficient user experience on the frontend.

Backend Development

Docker is an open-source platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of applications by using containers. Containers package an application and its dependencies into a single, portable unit, making it easier to run and maintain across different environments.

Imagine you have a toy factory, and you need to ship your toys to different stores. Instead of packing each toy individually and sending them in various-sized boxes, you decide to use standard shipping containers. These containers can hold all the toys and their parts, keeping them organized and protected during transport. The stores can then easily unload and display the toys, regardless of their internal setup.

Docker is like a standard shipping container for applications, packaging them with their dependencies to run smoothly and consistently across different environments.

Docker

Android is an open-source operating system (OS) developed by Google, primarily designed for smartphones and tablets. It is based on the Linux kernel and allows developers to create applications that can run on Android devices.

Imagine Android as a city with various buildings (apps) and infrastructure (hardware). The city's layout and rules (the OS) determine how the buildings are constructed and how they interact with one another. Just as a city provides a common ground for people to live and work, Android provides a platform for apps to run and interact with each other on a device.

Android is the platform that allows apps to run and interact with each other on smartphones and tablets.

Android

iOS is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Imagine a city where all the buildings, roads, and infrastructure are designed and built by a single company. This company also sets the rules and regulations for how everything in the city should operate. iOS is like that city, and Apple is the company that designs, builds, and governs it.

iOS is the software that runs on Apple's mobile devices, allowing them to function and providing a consistent user experience.

A software development framework is a set of tools, libraries, and guidelines that help developers build software applications more efficiently and effectively.

Imagine you're building a house. Instead of starting from scratch and creating your own bricks, cement, and wooden beams, you use pre-made materials and follow a blueprint. A software development framework is like those pre-made materials and blueprint - it provides developers with reusable components and a structure that makes it easier to build software applications.

A software development framework is a pre-built structure and set of tools that help developers create software applications more efficiently.

Software Development Framework

React is a popular open-source JavaScript library used to build user interfaces, particularly for single-page applications. It allows developers to create reusable UI components and manage the state of their applications efficiently.

Imagine you're building a house, and you have a set of pre-built rooms (kitchen, living room, bedroom) that you can easily assemble together. React is like those pre-built rooms, providing developers with pre-built UI components that can be quickly assembled to create a complete application.

React simplifies the process of building web applications by providing reusable building blocks (components) and efficient state management.

React

CI/CD Pipelines, or Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment pipelines, are automated processes that enable developers to build, test, and deploy software changes quickly and reliably.

Imagine a factory assembly line where each station represents a step in the software development process. As a product moves through the assembly line, it gets tested, assembled, and packaged. CI/CD pipelines work in a similar fashion, with each step in the pipeline representing a stage in the software development process, such as building, testing, and deploying.

CI/CD pipelines streamline the software development process by automating key stages, allowing for faster and more reliable deployment of changes.

CI/CD Pipelines

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a stylesheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in HTML or XML. It allows you to control the layout, colors, fonts, and other design aspects of a web page.

Imagine you're building a house. HTML is like the bricks and mortar that construct the walls, floors, and roof of the house. CSS, on the other hand, is like the paint, wallpaper, and furnishings that make the house look beautiful and unique. Just as you can change the appearance of a room by updating its paint or wallpaper, you can change the look of a web page by updating its CSS.

CSS is the language used to style and format web pages, making them visually appealing and user-friendly.

Frontend development is the process of designing and implementing the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of a website or application, using programming languages and frameworks such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Imagine you're building a house. The frontend development would be like designing and constructing the exterior and interior of the house, including the layout, colors, and furniture. The goal is to make the house visually appealing, functional, and comfortable for the people living in it.

Frontend development is the process of creating the visual and interactive parts of a website or application to make it user-friendly and appealing.

Frontend Development

User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience a user has when interacting with a product, website, or application, focusing on aspects such as usability, accessibility, and overall satisfaction.

Imagine visiting a theme park. If the park is well-designed, easy to navigate, and enjoyable, you'll have a great experience and want to visit again. This is similar to UX design in that a well-designed product or website provides users with a positive experience, encouraging them to return and recommend it to others.

User Experience (UX) is all about creating a seamless and enjoyable experience for users when they interact with a product or website.

User Experience (UX)

A user interface (UI) is the point of interaction between a user and a digital product or service, such as a website, app, or software. It includes all the elements, like buttons, menus, and forms, that allow users to navigate, interact with, and control the product or service.

Imagine a car's dashboard. It has all the controls and indicators that the driver needs to operate the vehicle, like the steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedal, and various knobs and buttons. In this analogy, the car's dashboard is like a user interface, providing a way for the driver (the user) to interact with the car (the digital product).

A user interface is the digital "dashboard" that allows users to control and interact with a product or service.

User Interface (UI)

User feedback is the process of gathering opinions, suggestions, and insights from users about a product or service to improve its overall quality, usability, and user satisfaction.

Imagine you're a chef who has just cooked a new dish for the first time. To know how well you did and what you can improve, you ask your guests to taste it and share their thoughts. User feedback is like those guests' opinions on your dish, helping you understand what works and what needs improvement.

User feedback is the valuable information collected from users to enhance a product or service based on their experiences and preferences.

User Feedback

User Journey is the process of mapping out and visualizing the steps a user takes when interacting with a product or service. It helps identify pain points, opportunities for improvement, and areas where the user experience can be optimized.

Imagine you're planning a road trip. The user journey is like the map you create for your trip, outlining the stops you'll make, the sights you'll see, and the route you'll take. Just like a road trip, the user journey helps you understand the overall experience, from start to finish, that your users will have with your product or service.

User Journey is a map of the interactions and experiences a user has with a product, highlighting the important steps and touchpoints.

User Journey

A server crash is an unexpected event in which a server stops functioning properly, causing downtime or loss of data. This can be due to hardware failure, software issues, or external factors such as power outages or cyber-attacks.

Think of a server as a busy highway with cars (data) constantly traveling on it. A server crash is like a sudden, massive pile-up that blocks all lanes of traffic, preventing cars from moving forward and causing a standstill.

A server crash is an event that causes a server to stop working, disrupting the flow of data and potentially causing downtime or data loss.

Server Crash

A web application is an interactive software program that runs on a web server and can be accessed through a web browser. It uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to provide a user interface and functionality.

Think of a web application as a restaurant. The restaurant (web server) serves you food (web content) whenever you visit it. You can access the restaurant through a door (web browser), and the restaurant offers different dishes (features) that you can choose from.

A web application is a software program that you can access and interact with through a web browser, providing various features and functions.

Web Application

A dynamic website is a type of website that generates content and displays information based on user interactions, preferences, and real-time data. Unlike static websites, which have fixed content, dynamic websites can change their content and appearance, providing a more personalized and interactive experience for users.

Imagine a restaurant menu. A static menu would be a printed menu with a fixed list of dishes and prices. On the other hand, a dynamic menu would be like a digital menu that can change according to the availability of ingredients, customer preferences, and special offers. Just as a dynamic menu provides a more tailored experience for customers, a dynamic website adapts to the needs and interests of its users.

A dynamic website is a site that can change its content and appearance based on user interactions and real-time data, providing a more personalized and engaging experience.

Dynamic Website

A static website is a collection of web pages with fixed content, where each page is coded in HTML and displays the same information to every visitor. These websites are not interactive, meaning they do not allow users to input data or request specific content.

Imagine a restaurant with a fixed menu. No matter when you visit, the menu remains the same, and you can only choose from the items listed. A static website is like that restaurant; the content is predetermined, and visitors cannot request any changes or customizations.

A static website is a simple, unchanging website with fixed content for all visitors.

Static Website

DevOps is a combination of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), practices that aims to improve collaboration between software developers and IT operations teams, leading to faster and more reliable software delivery.

Imagine a restaurant where the chefs (developers) and the waitstaff (operations) work independently without communicating with each other. The chefs might create amazing dishes, but if the waitstaff doesn't know how to serve them properly, customers will have a poor dining experience. DevOps is like having a well-coordinated team in the restaurant, where the chefs and waitstaff communicate effectively to provide a seamless and enjoyable experience for the customers.

DevOps is the collaboration between software developers and IT operations teams to deliver high-quality software quickly and efficiently.

DevOps

A blockchain node is a computer that participates in a blockchain network by storing, validating, and relaying transactions and blocks to other nodes.

Imagine a game of telephone, where each participant must relay a message to the next person in line. In this analogy, each participant represents a blockchain node, and the message is a transaction or block. The nodes work together to ensure that the message (transaction or block) is accurately transmitted and verified throughout the network.

Blockchain nodes are like participants in a game of telephone, working together to maintain the accuracy and integrity of transactional data in a blockchain network.

Blockchain Nodes

Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user's computer or mobile device by websites. They are used to remember information about the user, such as login details, preferences, and other personalized settings.

Think of cookies as name tags that you wear at a conference. The name tag helps the event staff recognize you and provide personalized assistance based on your preferences and interests. Similarly, cookies help websites remember who you are and customize your experience accordingly.

Cookies are like digital name tags that help websites remember and personalize your online experience.

Cookies

A prototype is an early model or sample of a product that is created to test and validate its design, functionality, and user experience before it is finalized and launched. In software, a prototype is a version of your product that is usable but not available to the public. It commonly will only allow for clicking through flows or viewing what the proposed solution will eventually look like.

Imagine you're building a house, but before you start constructing the actual house, you create a smaller, scaled-down version of it. This smaller version, or "model," allows you to see how the house will look and function, and helps you identify any issues or improvements that need to be made before you start building the real thing. In this case, the model house is like a prototype.

A prototype is a preliminary version of a product that helps you test and refine its design and functionality before moving on to building a functional product.

Prototype

A server environment refers to the hardware, software, and network configurations that collectively form the backbone of a server's infrastructure. This infrastructure is responsible for hosting and managing applications, websites, and other digital services.

Think of a server environment like a restaurant's kitchen. Just as a kitchen is equipped with various appliances, utensils, and ingredients essential for preparing and serving dishes, a server environment consists of the necessary components to run and manage digital services.

A server environment is the combination of hardware, software, and network configurations that work together to host and manage digital services.

Server Environment

HTML (hypertext markup language) is a programming language that is used to build web pages and other types of documents on the internet. HTML is one of the foundational technologies used to build websites, consisting of headers, paragraphs, lists, tables, forms, and links.

HTML is like the blueprints of your house.

A blueprint defines the structure, layout, and components of a building.

The blueprint will leverage a set of symbols and language specific to the construction roadmap in order to convey the proper information to the architects and engineers who will be constructing the building itself.

A building cannot be built without blueprints as otherwise there aren't the foundational elements and proper steps to build.

HTML is the framework or skeleton of your web page. It's the infrastructure that allows your site to be built upon.

HTML

An internal API is an interface that enables access to a company's backend information and application functionality for use by the organization's developers.

The communication between a waiter and the Chef in a restaurant.

When you are in a restaurant, a waiter must communicate to the Chef what your order is. In order to facilitate that communication, they may submit the order on an internal system or just rip the piece of paper off and stick it up on the Chef's queue.

However the waiter communicates this, the method of communication is performed by the waiter, an employee of the restaurant, to the Chef, an employee of the restaurant.

An Internal API allows developers at a company to access information from their company.

Internal API

A pull request (PR)is a way for developers to collaborate and propose changes in the codebase, doing so through the approval of another developer. This ensures that all changes are carefully reviewed and tested before being integrated into the codebase. You can think of a pull request as a peer review.

A pull request is like a chef preparing a meal and having their sous chef taste it before being served.

A chef will prepare ingredients and begin to cook a meal, starting with the basic foundation and slowly putting the entire meal together itself. The chef may first start off with working on the sauce. As they prepare the sauce, they will personally taste it as they make it to ensure they are on the right track. Once they think its in a good spot, they will then ask a sous chef or colleague to taste it, to ensure they get a second opinion before sending it out for a customer to eat.

If the sous chef has feedback, the chef will then be able to incorporate that feedback into their preparations, making alterations to the recipe to enhance the quality of the sauce. Once it is back to a place where the chef is confident with it, they will have the sous chef taste it again. When the sous chef gives the thumbs up, they will then use it as the final product for the meal.

A pull request is a way for developers to collaborate on a codebase, ensuring that they review each other's work to only integrate code that is of quality and mutually agreed upon. Common 

 like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket leverage pull requests.

Pull Request

A user story is a tool used in software development to describe a description of a feature or functionality from the lens of the user or customer. A user story describes a specific task that the end-user wants to achieve.

A movie script is going to outline the whole function of the movie. It will outline who the characters are, what the setting is, and what everyone is saying. The script itself will walk through the lines of each character and what their actions are, ultimately leading to a comprehensive story.

A movie script is focused on the key components needed to tell the story. A script isn't going to outline whether the wall in the background of a scene is pink or blue, it will concisely focus on just who is saying what and where the scene itself is taking place.

Stakeholders will review the script and iterate on it before it ultimately is implemented and the scenes are shot.

A user story is a way for you to convey, in plain english, how your product should function from the perspective of the end-user or customer of your product.

User Story

Branching is when you make a copy of the same code base and use the copy to perform your work.

Code branching is like working on a cooking recipe.

A chef will have the base recipe that they start working with. As they test out new ingredients, they will replicate the recipe and make their changes. Rather than changing the master recipe, they will duplicate the recipe to test out their new approach.

If they like the new piece of the recipe, then they will add it to the main recipe. If they don't like it, then they can discard it and go back to the original recipe. This way, their efforts of testing out new ingredients doesn't impact the base recipe itself.

Code branching is a type of version control system in writing code, allowing developers to work on different versions of the same codebase. Once the changes have been made, a developer can merge their branch back into the main codebase, applying their changes without disrupting the workflow of others.

Branching

A code repository, also referred to as a code repo, is a place where developers can store, share and collaborate on the source code of a software project. Beyond the code itself, you can keep documentation, notes, web pages, and other items in your repository.

A library stores books, a compilation of information and resources, that can be shared by many people. A library has different sections for different types of books, keeping the information it stores in an organized manner. A library also has a system to track who checks out book, ensuring that it tracks version controls of its stock of information.

Some libraries are public, like a local Public Library, whereas other libraries may be private, like a school's library, which is reserved only for students and faculty.

A code repository is the home for source code and it's relevant resources, allowing collaboration between developers.

Code Repository

A production environment, sometimes called deployment environment, is the set of computers where finished, user-ready software is deployed and executed.When software code is moved to the production environment, it is the final step in a 4-tier architecture that includes development, testing, staging and production.

A production environment is like a construction site.

Different teams come together to build on the construction site, putting together the structure that will be the final product. Let's say it is an apartment building. Construction workers will first clear the area, build the foundation, and slowly put the building together.

They may first put together components to create different frameworks and pieces before then building it in the construction site.

All of the construction workers will work together to build this apartment building within the construction site itself - the final place where the building will be.

A production environment is where you build, test, and deploy your software product that users will see and use.

Production Environment

A development environment is the collection of processes and tools that are used to develop the source code for a program or software product.

A development environment is like a carpenter's workshop.

A carpenter's workshop will house all of the tools and materials needed to build a house, and include space for them to build some of the basic components and test out new approaches.

In the workshop, the carpenter might have a workbench, saws, drills, and other tools, as well as wood, nails, and other materials that they need in order to build the full product.

In the workshop, the carpenter may put together base components of pieces of wood or measure out different pieces. The carpenter can practice using different tools as well as test out new materials.

A development environment is a place where a software developer can write, test, and debug code, as well as access documentation and other resources that are needed to build the application.

Development Environment

 (Graph Query Language) as you may have guessed from the hint in parentheses, is a Query Language, specifically for APIs. A query language is a method of communication for the retrieval of information from a database. In other words, GraphQL allows you to transfer information from a server to a front.

GraphQL is like an a la carte menu at a restaurant.

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