December, 2016

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7 Startup Strategies For The Next Dot Com Billionaire

Startup Professionals Musings

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. The reality is that if you build a business you love, you may in fact make big money, but if you start a business to get rich, you will probably fail.

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InventHelp Inventions Are Everywhere And The Reviews Are Phenomenal

YoungUpstarts

You may have one or more ideas about how to make life easier or how to improve upon an already existing technology. Yet, you may have found that moving forward with that idea takes more than wishful thinking. Many entrepreneurs have used InventHelp to turn their imagined opportunities into real businesses. InventHelp allows you to discover and nurture the entrepreneur inside you.

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50 Must Have Features to Include in Your Small Business Website

Brandanew

It’s tough to survive in today’s highly competitive market. It’s almost impossible to thrive without a solid online presence. A website has become one of the most important aspects of a brand’s online marketing strategy. Without an optimized brand website, your small business will not stand out. Most modern customers are used to easy access of information online and expect a well designed site.

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The Best Free Email Marketing Tool for Startups and Small Businesses

Up and Running

Bplans and Palo Alto Software are strong supporters of entrepreneurs and small business owners. We work with like-minded partners who also want to help your businesses succeed by providing the best tools and content for the job. If our readers choose to learn more or purchase from links to our partners, sometimes we earn affiliate commissions that support Bplans’ mission.

Email 114
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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

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Five Key Elements For A Big Analytics Driven Business Impact

Occam's Razor

There is, almost literally, an unlimited number of things you could focus on to create a high impact data-influenced organization. And, as if unlimited is not enough, nearly every month your analytics vendors release new features, you discover new analytics solutions, and as your business is more successful (hurray!) there is a new mobile app to track or a new digital experience to problem-solve or a crazy online to offline campaign that upends everything unleashes a new layer of tactical activi

Analytics 115
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A Year in Review: 2016

Version One Ventures

This has been an important year for us as a firm, as well as the market in general. We couldn’t begin any recap of 2016 without focusing on the bubble we hear so much about. The industry entered the year bracing for an apocalypse. Every announcement – whether it was a funding round, exit or layoffs – was analyzed within the context that the tech bubble has definitely burst or that we’re still in the bubble.

More Trending

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The 4 Best Cities In America For Startups

YoungUpstarts

So, you’ve got the bug to work for yourself? There is no doubt about it, the appeal of startup culture is inarguable. It represents our chance to get away from the nine to five grind, stop taking orders, and start working for yourself. Instead of completing one menial task after another, we’ll have the ability to make our dent in the world. With luck, we might even make some money doing it.

America 145
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5 Simple Things Every Successful Website Has In Common

YFS Magazine

From new clients and potential investors to press inquiries, your online hub is the best place to start impressing the world.

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14 Entrepreneurs Explain Their Biggest Accomplishment in 2016

Hearpreneur

Share The end of every year is the opportunity reflect on a 365 day journey. 2016 was a bad year for some and for some it was a great year. Many businesses were launched and others were closed. Pivots were made and goals were shattered. In the last few days of 2016, we took some time to ask a few entrepreneurs and business what their biggest business accomplishments were. #1 – Officially Incorporated & More.

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2016 VC Half-Thoughts: The Industry Has Shifted Back to Investing in Technology, Not Business Models

Hunter Walker

In the spirit of clearing out some half-formed thoughts, one takeaway is that we’re again in a period where the most exciting investment opportunities possess real technology risk. When we started Homebrew in 2013 our industry was, in retrospect, probably midway through a cycle where innovations were in business model rather than underlying technology.

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10 Product Recommendation Techniques to Improve UX and Conversions

ConversionXL

Nowadays nearly every online shop utilizes some sort of product recommendation engine, which is no wonder, as these systems, if set up and configured properly can significantly boost revenues, CTRs, conversions, and other important metrics. Moreover, they can have considerable positive effects on the user experience as well, which translates into metrics that are harder to measure, but are nonetheless of paramount importance to online businesses, such as customer satisfaction and retention.

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5 Ways To Make Everyone On Your Team A Marketer

Startup Professionals Musings

“If we build it, they will come.” I heard it again yesterday from a technical entrepreneur who should know better than to believe the old “ Field of Dreams ” sports fantasy movie theme in today’s Internet information overload environment. These days, building a new business is all about visibility and marketing, no matter how great or innovative a solution you bring to the table.

Marketing 189
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8 ERP System Characteristics You Shouldn’t Compromise On

YoungUpstarts

by Kaloyan Dimitrov, founder of Vambos.com and Coriti.com. A business has various departments which work interdependently to maximize performance. For instance, a typical firm will have sales, operations, accounting, customer service and human resource departments. Each unit has distinct roles and performance metrics. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software comes to combine these functions into one system.

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Take Your Business Online In 4 Easy Steps

YFS Magazine

The advantages of the internet are limitless. Here are the four steps needed to bring your business online.

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Five ways we are surviving long term

Berkonomics

Dave’s note: This week we invite long-time CEO of Quicksilver Software to respond to our question: “How have you remained relevant in the gaming software business over so many years?” He and his company have worked in the video game business since the very earliest generation of games in the early 1980’s. His company is one of the oldest independent studios in the business.

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The Small Business Guide To SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in 2017

crowdSPRING Blog

Image Source: SEO Linkbuilding. If you’re moving slowly or have yet to implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies as part of your overall marketing efforts, you’re falling behind your competitors. In fact, even if your competitors aren’t thinking about SEO, you’re still missing out because 93 percent of online experiences begin with search.

SEO 63
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How to Do Conversion Attribution Modeling

ConversionXL

Customers don’t usually see one ad and then click over to purchase. In reality, the path is much more complex, and usually includes various marketing channels – organic and paid search, referral, social media, television. But if you’re a rigorous and data-driven marketer, the question has to cross your mind: how much credit can I give each channel for this conversion?

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8 Key Principles To Keep Up With The Speed of Change

Startup Professionals Musings

Things change so fast these days in business that your first priority as an entrepreneur is to stay current, by talking to customers, peers, and experts. Secondly, you must constantly communicate suggested changes to your team, implement necessary pivots, and realign all the elements of your business, including partners, investors, and vendors. No change means falling behind.

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DIY Social Media Advertising v. Expert Help: Examining The Real Cost

YoungUpstarts

by Raghav Mathur, VP Strategy, Partnerships & Business Operations, G/O Digital. Social media marketing – every small business owner has been told time and time again they must do it. Anyone who has a Facebook account can set up an ad campaign in a snap, and even target specific audiences based on a variety of characteristics. It’s affordable, effective and has almost no barrier to entry.

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Stop Hoping For Referrals – Build Your Referral Teams and Start Getting A Referral A Day

Duct Tape Marketing

Stop Hoping For Referrals – Build Your Referral Teams and Start Getting A Referral A Day written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Most people believe that getting referrals is something that just happens, that all you need to do is just turn up to networking events, do a good job with your clients or customers and be part of a referral group.

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How to plan to make a successful acquisition

Berkonomics

One of my company CEO’s recently described his rule for acquisition success, and it resonated with me as a great goal for planning during acquisition exercises. This CEO states that he has made it work twice when acquiring companies, and that is enough for him to make it his rule for all future acquisitions. If the target company is able to show a ten percent EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), then the acquisition team should be able to create a way to

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Invest in Innovation Skill Building

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

Invest in Your Innovation Capacity. In my various consulting engagements I have learned not to take much for granted. I thought by this year in history (2016) everyone in the business world would have a clue as to how to do ideation (aka brainstorming) properly. Wow, not even close. It’s a glaring missing ingredient in staying competitive. It’s a key to growth and it’s routinely done poorly.

Denver 64
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As a product manager, you need to do just two things

Street Smart Product Manager

One of the biggest lies in product management is agile. That may sound like heresy, but hear me out… I actually love agile. It’s a great approach to reducing the risk of developing and shipping software. It’s a better software development methodology. But on its own it doesn’t solve the problem of providing a capital […]. The post As a product manager, you need to do just two things appeared first on Street Smart Product Manager.

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Worrying is self-fulfilling; what to do instead

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Worrying is a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Worry” causes the very thing you’re worried about, to actually happen. When you’re backstage getting more and more anxious that your performance won’t be good, you’re implanting thoughts of second-guessing and fear that will arise during the performance. Instead, you should realize you’ve already done all the practice required, and mistakes don’t actually matter anyway.

Metrics 254
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Five Ways To Maintain A Smooth Manufacturing Process  

YoungUpstarts

by David Estrakh, Senior Vice President at Express Trade Capital. Even though your manufacturing facility is up and running, that doesn’t mean you can forget about it and turn your attention to other aspects of your business. Manufacturing requires constant attention to ensure that costs remain low and quality and productivity stay high. Here are a few ideas for keeping your operation running smoothly: Manage the Product Lifecycle.

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Page One on Google Is Your New Business Card

Duct Tape Marketing

Page One on Google Is Your New Business Card written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Do a search for your name, your company name, your product or service names. Whatever you find on page one in the Google SERPs amounts to a significant collage of how your brand is seen in the wild today. See, it doesn’t matter if your best client tells their best friend you are the most awesome thing since people started using the word awesome – Google you they will and what they find is all p

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You want to have the world like I do at anywhere you are?? Then Go remote

Transformify

Script for #Go Remote Main Characters: Steve Kate Minor Characters: Eddy- Steve’s seven year old son Kemdy- Kate’s friend with an ampulated leg Personal Assistant Act 1 Scene 1 Fade in…. Ext. sitting room ; 1:39 am In the heart of West Los Angeles, a burgalow house, numbered 3 at Parkers street. Just at the dead of the night. KATE; content developer at ABC firm, a tech enthusiast.

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How to Build a Startup Marketing Team from Zero [Traction #33: Mike Volpe, Cybereason]

View from Seed

So much of digital innovation has changed the way people communicate and create or access content. As a result, few departments in business have changed how they work quite like marketing, and few functions look so fundamentally different today than a decade ago. So hiring your first marketer as a startup founder can be a daunting task. What’s the profile of the candidate?

Marketing 242
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The State of Manufacturing: A conversation with Jason Blessing, CEO of Plex Systems

deal architect

I enjoy spending time with Jason Blessing, CEO of Plex. We share a passion for automation and other manufacturing technology and we enjoy sharing notes on outstanding plants and facilities we get to visit. With a new President about to.

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11 Attributes Of Great Entrepreneurs I Have Known

Startup Professionals Musings

At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do. I saw this illustrated a while back in the classic sports book, “ Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else ”, by Jon Gordon.

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Unbelievable Ways Technology Can Transform The Health Of Your Workforce

YoungUpstarts

Business runs on people. Money and equipment might be the tools they use, but people are the life support for your company and its ultimate success. Of course, people are the hardest ‘resource’ to manage, because they aren’t really a resource at all. They’re human beings with flaws, just like you. It’s easy to see the numbers and statistics when it comes to running your company effectively and looking over the reports for your growth progress, but you might be missing a trick when it comes to th

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Inspire Positive Conversations Behind Your Back

Duct Tape Marketing

Inspire Positive Conversations Behind Your Back written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Today everybody can publicly give a thumbs up or down to each customer experience. Whether you’re an Uber driver or a brain surgeon, you have to accept that online reviews are now built into the buying process. While negative reviews can certainly impact business, it’s second only to having none at all.

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Building in public forces true competitive advantage

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

What would happen if I forced you to develop all your precious, proprietary, secret-sauce code in a public Github repository? One thing would be: You would be judged. Your peers would judge you by that code, with a broad definition of “goodness” that includes everything from file and class organization, documentation, tests, avoiding placing API keys in code, eliminating your reliance on “security by obscurity,” and even that artful quality which like the proverbial US Su

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Gotham Alpha # 5: Skillshare’s Alex Qin on NYTech’s Diversity Gap and How To Fix It

View from Seed

NYTech does not mirror the diversity of its host city… Today on Gotham Alpha, I talk to Alex Qin, Skillshare engineer and founder of Code Cooperative, about the reality of New York Tech’s diversity gap…what factors actually reinforce hiring prejudice here…and how we can all start to fix this problem, right now. Follow me and Alex at twitter.com/tdevane and twitter.com/alexqin.

New York 198
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Exciting manufacturing technologiesJason Blessing, CEO of Plex

deal architect

More from my conversation with Jason Blessing What other trends excite you in terms of manufacturing technology? I think the other interesting thing that is emerging in manufacturing from a technology perspective is 3D printing and how that's affecting how.

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7 Ways To Think Outside the Box To Grow Your Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Too many entrepreneurs put their best creative thinking into the startup idea, and believe that the business implementation simply requires following tried and true business practices. In my experience as a startup advisor, nothing could be further from the truth. To win, you need to think outside the box to deliver a better customer experience, business model, and new positioning.

Retention 211