April, 2018

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Why Entrepreneurs Start Companies Rather Than Join Them

Steve Blank

If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss.” “I love risk.” “I want flexible work hours.” “I want to work on tough problems that matter.” “I have a vision and want to see it through.” “I saw a better opportunity and grabbed it. …”. It never crossed my mind that I gravitated to startups because I thought more of my abilities than the value a large company would put on them.

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What Can You Learn From Ring’s Astounding Success?

Both Sides of the Table

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. Since I had a ringside seat to the company before it really existed all the way through the end I thought I’d offer my version and what I think it means for our future.

Security 247
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Digital Transformation And The Evolution of Apps – What’s The Link?

YoungUpstarts

by Keiichiro Nozaki, Regional Marketing Architect/Evangelist of Asia Pacific, China, and Japan for F5 Networks. A century ago, we had the industrial revolution. It transformed how we manufactured, well, everything. Fast-forward to the present day. We are now in the midst of the Fourth, characterized by the fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between physical, digital, and biological worlds.

SMS 164
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CXL Live 2018 Recap: Top 5 Lessons from Each Speaker

ConversionXL

CXL Live is our flagship conference about growth and optimization. The 2018 edition of CXL Live brought together 400 practitioners from 22 countries and everyone was “locked in” at a beautiful resort for a full three days. The event had returning attendees… Again wow’d by #CXLLive — plenty of knowledge to bring back to the team.

Retention 106
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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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Useful Tips on Pitching Your Startup to a VC

The Startup Magazine

You’ve developed a great product. You’ve taken it to the market and have seen strong sales and rave reviews by customers. Yet, you do not have enough cash to scale it in order to reach its full potential. This is the point where a venture capitalist (VC) can make all the difference in realizing your dreams. Source: Pixabay. There are numerous startups chasing after a comparatively small number of VCs.

Startup 95
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Volunteering in Costa Rica

David Cohen

When each of my kids is 12, I take them volunteering on a dad/kid trip with Globe Aware. This spring break it was Delaney’s turn. We just returned from a week in the Orisi Valley of Costa Rica. Like when I did this in China in 2013 with Andrew , who is now 16, I wrote a daily email home and am just posting them all here chronologically with a few photos.

More Trending

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Insurance is always too expensive – until it’s needed.

Berkonomics

I expect that you have a story about how insurance saved you lots of money in your past. As usual, I have a story to make your hair stand on end. But first: here’s a fact. Business insurance is one of the more poorly managed mitigation of risk in small and many medium sized corporations, often because of failure to assign the responsibility to an individual or department, and sometimes just from the willingness to bet against the event and save cash.

Employee 106
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Recruiting Should Be Your #1 Priority From Day 1

YoungUpstarts

by Felix Winstone, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Talkative. As a new entrepreneur or business owner, the most important thing you will do is hire talent. As a startup co-founder with a growing team, here are the recruiting tips I’ve learnt over the last couple of years. Hiring = Sales. A good recruitment process has many parallels with a sales funnel.

Cofounder 164
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20 Entrepreneurs Explain How They Came Up With Their Business Names

Hearpreneur

The idea of exactly what your business is going to usually come first. Secondly, most often, is giving a title to your idea. What exactly is going to be the name of your business? Some people turn to their childhood for inspiration or a beloved family pet. It could be a made up word you dream of one night and feel it has the right ring to it. Even still there are some people who study foreign words for the perfect meaning behind their chosen business.

Naming 102
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The Software Developer’s Guide to Building an Online Reputation

Transformify

In the past, I have written about how important networking can be for your chances of finding a job as a software developer. In fact, up to 80% of the jobs are filled through networking. This is especially true for developers looking for remote jobs since their options are much more limited (although growing). The reason I know this is because I run an online training program for remote software developers , and I’ve been helping our students hack their way to get their first remote job fo

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The One Thing That Makes the Difference Between Success and Failure in Business

Up and Running

I started my first business out of the trunk of my car 33 years, ago with my (our) wedding money. Over the next 13 years, I made good money in my business, but I worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then, I learned two secrets that changed my life. I learned that the one and only reason your business exists is to be a vehicle to achieve your life goals.

Vesting 85
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Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

Steve Blank

A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Elon Musk, Alfred Sloan, and entrepreneurship in the automobile industry. The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. The guy who replaced him invented the idea of the modern corporation.

Michigan 299
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Developing Content for Your Mobile Audience

Duct Tape Marketing

Developing Content for Your Mobile Audience written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Have you ever seen content on a mobile device that you’re excited to read and click through to view it only to realize you need to squint or zoom in to read it? It’s frustrating, not only because it’s inconvenient, but because it’s so easily avoidable.

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7 Tips For Financial Success

YoungUpstarts

by James Whittaker, author of “ Think and Grow Rich The Legacy: How the World’s Leading Entrepreneurs, Thought Leaders, & Cultural Icons Achieve Success “ Some entrepreneurs do all the right things: have a great solution to a problem, build a strong team to amplify their efforts, and start to find an audience for their product or service.

Finance 145
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Maker Faire Austin: May 5–6 at Palmer

Austin Startup

The Forrest Four-Cast: April 30, 2018 Maker Faire is a family-friendly gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. From engineers to artists to scientists to crafters, Maker Faire is a venue for these “makers” to show hobbies, experiments, projects. Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters to homesteaders to scientists to garage tinkerers.

Austin 63
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The Thing I Love Most About Uber

abovethecrowd.com

In spite of all the ink that journalists, analysts, and pundits have spilled on Uber over the years, no mainstream article has focused on what I consider to be the most elegant feature of this now ubiquitous, high growth global service — no driver-partner is ever told where or when to work. This is quite remarkable — an entire global network miraculously “level loads” on its own.

Partner 61
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4 Ways to Improve Your Online Storefront

Up and Running

In our connected world, people shop online almost as often as they physically shop in stores. In fact, according to Shopify , global retail ecommerce sales are on track to reach $4.5 trillion in 2021, up from $1.3 trillion in 2014. And, these trends don’t just apply to businesses selling directly to consumers (B2C). B2B ecommerce sales , (businesses selling directly to other businesses) generate three times as much revenue as B2C, at $7.7 trillion in sales, compared to B2C’s $2.3 trillion.

SEO 80
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NetSuite under Oracle: a progress report

deal architect

I have seen way too many large vendors under-leverage their acquisitions. They mostly benefit from the incremental revenues but lose talent and value of the acquired IP. The week prior, I was impressed by how Rob Enslin has started to.

IP 199
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How Do You Negotiate More To Know What Your Brand Is Worth?

Brandanew

Your personal branding is determined by your ideas. You get to decide what your brand is worth. Taking this into the professional realm isn’t that easy though. Especially, for women – and women led businesses. Research studies show that women negotiate far lesser than men. Thus jeopardizing their brands and finances. All this when it’s merely a question of leaning in versus pure quality.

Michigan 154
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How Flawed Web Design Undermines Your Brand Image

YoungUpstarts

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Web 145
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Facebook is dropping key advertising tools — here’s how you adapt

The Next Web

If you listen to headlines about Facebook recently you may be wondering if it’s still a good place to run ads for your business. The Facebook privacy scandal that brought a ton negative press over the last month (and justly so), has already forced Facebook to change the way they handle and collect consumer information and data. This is now changing their advertising platform.

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How To Find and Select a Great Business Mentor

YFS Magazine

There is a simple strategy that is typically overlooked and it can increase your startup’s chances of success more than anything else: working with a mentor.

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Simon Arias Reveals His Top Tips for Financing Your Startup

The Startup Magazine

There are a lot of different elements involved in the process of running a business. But, there is no doubt that the financial side of things ranks as one of the most important. Without funding and financing, it’s pretty much impossible to get your business off the ground. There is a lot to think about when it comes to financing your startup. It’s important to look at the experience and advice of gurus like Simon Arias when exploring the best way to finance the business.

Finance 133
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How Seniors Can Use Technology to Become Entrepreneurs After Retirement

Up and Running

A new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging onto the market, and it’s not who you may expect. Baby boomers are starting to become a huge part of the entrepreneurial world. Full retirement is becoming less and less popular, and many seniors are opting to earn their own income after they officially retire from their “day job by taking on independent contract work.”.

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How To Find Banks That Support Profit First

Mike Michalowicz

Profit First is a simple system, but the process of finding a bank that supports it can be painful. Almost 100,000 companies have implemented Profit First within the first year of the release of the Profit First Revised & Expanded Edition and the most common question I get is, “What bank should I use for Profit First?” Here is the simple answer: You want to work with a bank that does not charge minimum balance fees on checking or savings accounts.

Community 121
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Top iOS Development Trends To Watch Out For In 2018 For Businesses

YoungUpstarts

Ever since Apple launched the new iOS 11 update, the iOS app developers have sought out new and interesting ways of incorporating the latest technology with the iOS app development. If you ask the workers at an iOS app development company about the shifting of iOS app development trends, they will tell you that a lot has been changed since the beginning.

Developer 140
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NFC is the underdog tech set to explode in the next five years

The Next Web

In the tantalizing world of technology today, there are endless buzzwords and acronyms for emerging tech you need to know. From AI to the ‘Uber of’ dog walking and everything in-between, maybe you think you’ve heard it all. But before you hop on the hype train and leave the station, take note — an unsuspecting player is poised to leap out of the shadows: Near field communications technology.

Web 159
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4 Signs You’re A Toxic Leader, Because Sometimes The Business Problem Is You

YFS Magazine

When I encounter frustrated leaders, it is necessary to be honest with my observations and the things that contribute to a negative workplace atmosphere – I sometimes have to tell them they are the problem.

Developer 135
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3 Entrepreneurs Share Their Business Goals for 2nd quarter, 2018

Hearpreneur

It’s the 2nd quarter of the year and right after the ball drops, it’s time to go to work. Often entrepreneurs and business owners create new 2nd quarter goals around their business or continue with the new year’s resolution. It could be more revenue, hiring clients or launching a new product or service, but every new year & quarter is an exciting time because it’s ripe with opportunity.

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5 Tips for Starting a Business With Your Spouse

Up and Running

When my husband Josh and I launched our business Pagely in 2006, we had just been married a few months. We soon learned that coupling the demands of marriage with a brand new startup is exhausting—but it’s also rewarding if you commit to work together and push through all the growing pains. Our business was founded on a simple idea that has developed into a major website hosting platform, but our success didn’t just materialize.

Cofounder 118
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Breaking Silos: Passive Consumption + Active Engagement FTW!

Occam's Razor

Today something complex, advanced, that is most applicable to those who are at the edges of spending money, and thus have an intricate web of internal and external teams to deliver customer engagement and business success. The Marketing Industrial Empire is made up of number of components. If you consider the largest pieces, there is the internal (you, the company) and the external (agencies, consultants).

Metrics 118
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[ADV] 4 Products Businesses Can Import From Qatar

YoungUpstarts

Middle Eastern countries have build an immense reputation in the world of business by exporting goods to many countries and Qatar is one such country. Bordering Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf, UAE and Iran, Qatar is one of the most important Middle Eastern countries despite its small size. According to reports, 92 types of products are being imported by various countries from Qatar helping the country make more than $57 billion each year.

Qatar 140
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Improving your emotional intelligence can earn you a raise — here’s how

The Next Web

“Would you rather be smart, or kind?” For most of us, this would be a difficult question to answer. Both characteristics are valued highly in our society. Which do you choose? If you’re leaning toward smart, you’re not alone. It’s easy to associate intelligence with wealth and success. Meanwhile, kindness and its cousin — empathy — is often associated with passivity and weakness, especially by self-proclaimed diehard business people.

Salary 154
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High Value Employees Need Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

YFS Magazine

Dedicated employees are essential to startup success. Anyone can say they are highly skilled, but if employees lack a congruent vision and determination, it can be detrimental for a startup.

Employee 133
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10 Startups Pitch at Techstars Austin Demo Day 2018

SiliconHills

By Laura Lorek Publisher of Silicon Hills News From dog walking services to robot teaching assistants, 10 startup founders pitched their ventures at the sixth annual Techstars Austin Demo Day. This year’s class included six teams from the Carolinas and Virginia and four from Austin and half of them had female founders. They made their […]. The post 10 Startups Pitch at Techstars Austin Demo Day 2018 appeared first on SiliconHills.

Austin 116
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Predicting Winning A/B Tests Using Repeatable Patterns

ConversionXL

If you ever ran a highly trustworthy and positive a/b test, chances are that you’ll remember it with an inclination to try it again in the future – rightfully so. Testing is hard work with many experiments failing or ending up insignificant. It would only seem optimal to try and exploit any existing knowledge for more successes and fewer failures.

Metrics 114