June, 2019

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6 Signs It’s Time to Give Your Website a Facelift

The Startup Magazine

In today’s competitive and constantly evolving business climate, a strong web presence is crucial. Your website is one of the most reliable, effective and future-proof marketing assets you can have. It should be set up to make access to information simple and immediate. A well-constructed website design that is easy to navigate and engages potential customers ensures you give a wonderful first impression.

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How To Focus On Being Productive, Instead Of Busy

YFS Magazine

Let’s be honest. Entrepreneurs are notoriously busy. You know what we’re talking about –– hustle, grind, repeat. But there's a better way.

Product 143
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10 Keys To A Startup Surviving The First Five Years

Startup Professionals Musings

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. I often get asked about the real alternatives to bridge this valley, and there are some good ones I will outline here.

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Why Company Culture Is Vital for Every Remote Company

YoungUpstarts

by Denis Kryukov from Soshace. For many remote (and even regular) companies, company culture is something ethereal and abstract: while the most important metrics (customer engagement and satisfaction, employee turnover and retainment) are closely monitored, features like company culture are often neglected. However, our experience tells us: improving this aspect can really pay off.

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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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Chewy S-1: Category Leadership + Conveyor Belt Into Consumers’ Homes

View from Seed

Chewy has rapidly grown from a startup to a multi-billion commerce company, establishing itself as the leader in pet e-commerce. Chewy sells tens of thousands of products from many 3rd party brands, as well as its own private label brands (though latter remains <10% of sales). The company launched in 2011 and then was acquired by PetSmart for over $3 billion in 2017 (PetSmart itself owned by PE firm BC Partners), but Chewy is now preparing for life as a standalone public company.

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Video Hosting Platforms: Which Is Best for Your Business?

ConversionXL

Google “video hosting platforms,” and you’ll get about 50 million results, along with several paid ads. How do you choose the platform that suits your needs? There’s no single answer. The best video hosting platform varies business by business, depending on factors like: How often you’re uploading; How you plan to use the video; The viewing experience you want to give your audience; The analytics you need; The cash you have to spend.

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Argentina is Stepping-Up as a Country of Web Developers

ReadWriteStart

As high streets across the world look to streamline, and businesses transform physical shops to online stores, being able to make the digital jump is crucial. As well as providing a platform for businesses to promote their products and services, the internet has lead to the rise of e-commerce, with giants like Amazon becoming household […]. The post Argentina is Stepping-Up as a Country of Web Developers appeared first on ReadWrite.

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Security And Privacy Are Both A Risk and Opportunity

Startup Professionals Musings

With the ITRC 2018 End-of-Year Data Breach Report revealing a 126 percent increase in stolen sensitive personal information, there is a growing population out there worried about all the people intent on hurting them. My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity to make people’s life better, rather than worry and dodge the risk.

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5 Business Activities You Can Outsource To Set Your Startup In Motion

YoungUpstarts

When opening a new business, time and cost management are extremely important, in order to get you that jumpstart you need as a new entrepreneur. One of the best ways to save both money and time is to outsource part of your work to professionals who can help you deliver without having to go through the process of hiring someone full time. One of the main reasons companies choose to outsource is to save money on staff.

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Balancing the upside and downside of data sharing

Version One Ventures

This year we have seen privacy become top of mind for the general public, the media and “big tech.” The business model of Google and Facebook (collect as much data as possible about users for highly targeted advertising) is under attack. Europe’s legislators were addressing some of these privacy concerns when they put into effect GDPR in 2016, the primary law regulating how companies protect EU citizens’ personal data.

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How to Do a Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

ConversionXL

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” —Napoleon Bonaparte. When your competitors make mistakes, it makes winning so much easier. But what if it’s you who is making a mistake, while your competitors are off to the races? You won’t know until you figure out what your competitors are up to. Knowing what the competitors are doing—how they’re thinking about the market, which tactics they’re using, how they’re crafting messages and design—can make all

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Startup Lessons: 4 Companies Facing Product Lawsuits

The Startup Magazine

When conducting business, it is crucial to make a profit and keep your operations running smoothly. However, it is even more important to preserve product quality, run your business with moral guidelines in place, and value your customers’ safety and long-term health. Whether a startup or established company, these guidelines will establish your business as a reputable, ethical company and help you build and maintain customer relations.

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6 Aspects of Digital Marketing No Entrepreneur Can Afford to Ignore

Up and Running

Thanks to an always-evolving landscape and the nearly limitless availability of engagement resources, it feels like marketing gets more difficult with each passing year. This wealth of options, in fact, can put marketers in analysis paralysis while they try to figure out which direction to go. Social media, for one, has potential as a digital tool that more than one-third of internet users turn to when they want to learn more about a product or service.

Marketing 109
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5 Keys To Growing What You Have Planted As A Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Have you noticed that more companies beg you to participate in their business today? It started with an email survey on your last stay at their hotel, but now includes requests for online product reviews, to social media input on the design of future products. They do it because engaged customers become loyal advocates and buyers. Welcome to the “Participation Age” of marketing.

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How Office Cleanliness Correlates With Business Success

YoungUpstarts

by Nik Williams, Managing Director of Shredall SDS Group. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are always looking for ways to innovate and increase their productivity by investing in the latest tools, software and training programs. Yet, perhaps the simplest way to increase business success is to maintain a clean office space? Marie Kondo’s 2019 Netflix program on the benefits of decluttering was a huge hit this year, sparking a global tidying trend that led to charity shops reporting that clothes

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Why A Small Business Needs A Responsive Website

Duct Tape Marketing

Why A Small Business Needs A Responsive Website written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Responsive websites are a necessity in today’s digital marketplace. That isn’t surprising when statistics state that 51% of time spent online in the United States took place from a mobile device, rather than a personal computer. Your website should be mobile-friendly and responsive any time a user visits.

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Usability Test Reporting: Spend Less Time, Have More Impact

ConversionXL

Usability testing is one of the most effective ways to uncover issues that users have on your website or app. It works whether you’re a behemoth with millions of users or a startup that’s just left the proverbial garage. The problem is that usability testing takes time—time to recruit participants, moderate and watch videos, and compile results. Tools can help with the analysis component, but: Tools won’t be useful if you don’t have a good methodology; Few tools help you go from data (videos) to

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How to Put Personal Money into Your Startup In 6 Steps

The Startup Magazine

Bootstrapping going by the author of the Ulysses, James Joyce implies forcing your way to the top from the lowest of ranks by the aid of your bootstraps. Today more and more people are creating ventures and funding them as well from their own resources and efforts. Bootstrapping is a common way to fund a prospect. It is estimated that at least 80% of all startups rely on personal funds from their founders for operations, albeit in their formative stages.

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10 Entrepreneurs Explain How They Leverage Networking in Business

Hearpreneur

Here’s how some entrepreneurs and business owners leverage networking in their businesses. #1- Build relationships. Photo Credit: Jordan Ostroff. We leverage networking extensively in the firm. We try to have each attorney do at least 2 lunches per month with current and potential referral partners. We have a spreadsheet of the top 50-75 jobs that send us business and I have each attorney at the firm go down the list and see what slots they are missing so we can target new people to meet.

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How Modern Companies Have Redefined Customer Support

Startup Professionals Musings

Too many business owners still think of “ customer support ” as an after-sale process to rectify customer problems with completed transactions. The world has changed. With the advent of instant communication and social media, customer service starts at the first hint of interest by you, and never ends for repeat customers. One bad customer experience will kill not only one customer, but many future ones, who hear the message via social media and friends.

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Why Businesses Must Grasp Millennial Thinking Or Face Economic Calamity

YoungUpstarts

by Gui Costin , author of “ Millennials Are Not Aliens: …but they are 80 Million Americans Who Are Changing How We Buy, Sell, Vacation, Invest, and Just About Everything Else “ When it comes to shopping and buying, the Millennial generation appears to play by its own rules. And businesses that fail to understand the Millennial mindset are destined to fall behind their competition – and perhaps plummet into irrelevancy.

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Transcript of Taking Relationship Marketing to the Next Level

Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript of Taking Relationship Marketing to the Next Level written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Back to Podcast. Transcript. John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by ZeroBounce, an email validation system that integrates with all the major ESPs to make sure, hey, your mail doesn’t bounce.

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SaaS Growth: The “Triple A” Sprint Framework that Gets Results

ConversionXL

Many SaaS companies launch a product-led growth model —but never update it. When the executive team calls me and asks why they aren’t converting users into customers, I tell them to buy a plant. Seriously. If they don’t water the plant, it’s going to wither and die. If they water it and give it sunlight, it’ll grow. Everyone knows how the system works.

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Why You Need a Disaster Recovery Plan For Your Business

The Startup Magazine

Every so often, a major natural disaster strikes somewhere in the world and serves to remind us of how vulnerable we are. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and forest fires can leave catastrophic damage in their wake. While governments and emergency services have their role in preparing, warning, communicating, evacuating, and restoring the areas that are afflicted by a disaster, startup and all business owners must put in place appropriate measures that ensure their enterprise surviv

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Zoho's strikingly different global path

deal architect

I have heard Zoho talk about doing business in UAE and Nigeria. That is so different from other cloud vendors which tend to mostly focus on N. America and Europe. Over the last decade, their US revenues have steadily declined.

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Delegation is Crucial for Your Small Business’s Health [Use These Tips to Start Delegating Today]

crowdSPRING Blog

Small business owners often find themselves taking on every task in their company. But, as a business grows, this hands-on approach becomes harder to maintain. A business’s ability to evolve depends on its leader’s ability to let go of that death grip on… everything… and learn to delegate without micromanaging. But, despite the fact that hoarding tasks is exhausting and detrimental to business, it’s still a hard habit to break.

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Nine Companies That Got Brand Right

YoungUpstarts

by Lindsay Pedersen, author of “ Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide “ It’s tougher than ever to grab and hold customer attention. People are overwhelmed by messages flying at them from all directions, and it’s easy for ours to get drowned out. Plus, there are more options than ever, and online retailers have made it easy to pick the lowest price (with decent reviews) and be done with it.

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How to Create a Successful Business Event

Duct Tape Marketing

How to Create a Successful Business Event written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Rich Brooks. Podcast Transcript. Today on the podcast, I visit with Rich Brooks. He is the president of flyte new media and the founder of The Agents of Change conference and podcast. Brooks created the conference in Portland, Maine to build an event for digital marketers and to get flyte’s name out there as an industry leader.

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Heat Maps: What Are They Good For (Besides Looking Cool)?

ConversionXL

Heat maps are a popular conversion optimization tool , but are they really that useful? It’s easy to say that they help you see what users are doing on your site. Sure, of course—but lots of other methods do that too, and perhaps with greater accuracy. So what can heat maps answer? What is a heat map? Heat maps are visual representations of data. They were developed by Cormac Kinney in the mid-1990s to try to allow traders to beat financial markets.

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Sales CRM Power Tips To Successful Customer Relations

The Startup Magazine

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the activities, strategies, and technologies used by a company to manage their interactions with their existing and potential customers. If you’re looking to provide an excellent sales CRM service to your customers, you need to assemble the best sales team for your business. You must invest a considerable amount of time and resources into finding the best people for this job.

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A dream team to negotiate with SAP

deal architect

Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG, wrote this in his foreword to SAP Nation 3.0 "For many years, licensing was a “third rail” topic: look at it, discuss it among yourselves but don’t ever collectively — as a customer contingent —.

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U.C. Santa Cruz Commencement Speech – 2019

Steve Blank

I was honored to give the commencement speech at the University of California Santa Cruz, right down the road from the ranch. Rather than my usual talks about innovation and entrepreneurship I shared a few lessons learned after serving seven years as a public official on the California Coastal Commission. I told four stories about the conflict between money and power versus the common good.

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This One Attribute Will Mold You Into A Stronger Leader

YoungUpstarts

by Loriana Sekarski , founder and president of BONSAI. When it comes to successfully leading a team, one attribute in particular is crucial: boldness. Leadership requires braving uncharted waters and choppy seas. It’s the willingness to forge ahead despite unclear situations in order to make tough decisions, even when the outcomes are ambiguous. And now, more than ever, people want valiant leaders who can clear a path through stagnation, confusion, and increased competition.

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The Ins and Outs of Marketing Automation

Duct Tape Marketing

The Ins and Outs of Marketing Automation written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Jason Vandeboom. Podcast Transcript. Today on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I visit with founder and CEO of ActiveCampaign , Jason Vandeboom. ActiveCampaign is an SaaS solution built in the cloud that is focused on marketing automation.

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B2B Websites: 10 Best Practices for UX and Design

ConversionXL

Best practices are starting points: If you have no data, start with these. They are not what you should end up with, but they’re often where optimization begins. That’s an important distinction. This post applies Jakob Nielson’s 10 Usability Heuristics to B2B websites that focus on lead generation (as well as “high consideration” B2C sites that lack any transactional functionality).

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Build Your Corporate Identity With These Simple Branding Tips

The Startup Magazine

A business–whether it is a startup or an established behemoth–has its own identity. Like human beings, it has its good qualities. It also has its not-so-good qualities and its own quirks. This refers to corporate identity, and this is what makes any company unique. Corporate identity refers to the company’s philosophy, and how the company and its stakeholders communicate its philosophy to the public through its mission and vision statements.