Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. We also know that even though many of us who are experienced in startup successes & failures look at businesses and say, “That will never work” (as many people said about Uber) or “You can’t make any money in that business” (as many said

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Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 235

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2016

Ask a founder of a growing startup what they need most, and you’ll often get an answer along the lines of, “We need great people, and we need them fast.”. But even well-prepared startups that have laid out strategies for scaling can find themselves scrambling in the face of a fast-growing customer base. Founders need to make sure the quality of the startup’s offerings remains high and provide adequate sales and service support for prospective customers and new users.

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Metrics Founder CTO Hire Technical Review 191

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 29, 2016

For most people looking to build a website for their startup or small business, outsourcing is the only way to go. Without a knowledge of coding , you just won’t get the results you need with template design or DIY methods. However, it’s not just as easy as phoning your local web design agency and getting them on board. There are a few things you need to know about them first – and in this guide, we’re going to go through each of them.

Web 100

Web Design Los Angeles Software Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2016

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.

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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

Startup

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 25, 2016

I had a great vacation with Amy this week. My reading was varied and included two books ( American Sphinx and The Hunt for Vulcan: And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe that were useful in my current “thinking about how humans think” theme and how that might be different than how machines think.

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Open Source Naming Software Developers Software Development 73

ConversionXL

MARCH 25, 2016

Symbolism is a tricky thing. Different symbols mean different things to different people based on different backgrounds and past experiences. That’s why icons can easily flop, if they’re not properly tested. After all… If the user can’t use it, it doesn’t work. [Tweet It!]. But how do you test icon usability? Is icon usability testing the same as standard usability testing?

Mobile 76

Mobile Design Technical Review Engineer 76

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. The irony hurts. You don’t have the traction, the big-dollar investments, or the marketing staff to attract media attention.

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Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 163

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 21, 2016

by Cameron Johnson. The use of the internet has become so commonplace that more and more businesses are opting to use it. As a business owner nowadays, it is almost expected for you to create a website to represent whatever product or service that you are offering. Some businesses have even moved entirely online, only operating through E-commerce. While many business owners are setting up sites for their business, some of them are making the mistake of neglecting site content, relying mostly on

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Customer Social Media Security Web 109

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

Many entrepreneurs assume that everyone will love their solution as much as they do, so they tune their marketing focus based on their own needs and wants. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you. Expanding your market into these areas requires thinking outside your personal box. For example, Starbucks found initial success with professionals aged 25 to 40 in urban areas and with moderately high income but later looked to a ne

Customer 132

Customer Marketing Social Media Technical Review 132

Up and Running

MARCH 28, 2016

If your marketing plan for women is still focused on the Barbie-days-of-old, you might want to consider taking a page from the sports industry playbook. A recent infographic published by MBA@UNC, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s online MBA program, shows just how much marketing to women has changed, and the sports industry is leading this trend. In a shift from “shrink it and pink it” to female empowerment, major sports league advertisers are targeting their female fan base, due to their spen

Marketing 72

Marketing Technical Review Viral Advertising 72

Scott Edward Walker

MARCH 21, 2016

INTRODUCTION. I’ve been handling a number of M&A transactions over the past few months from the buy-side, and one mistake I’m repeatedly seeing is the failure of the acquirer to perform an adequate due-diligence investigation of the target. As I discuss in this video from a few years back (starting at the 0:24 mark), I first learned of the importance of due diligence as a young lawyer at a major law firm in New York City.

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Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence New York City 43

Growthink Blog

MARCH 30, 2016

The fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing. - Ancient Greek Aphorism Isaiah Berlin , in 1953, famously referenced this as a jumping off point for an essay on the relative importance of two kinds of knowledge, on the one hand that of principles and ideas, and on the other hand that of "ways of the world," street smarts, and technique.

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Social Media Business Model Leadership Operations 48

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 23, 2016

Fear is one of the most common, innate emotions we feel as human beings. From a psychological point of view , fear is a reaction from your Lizard Brain – the part of your brain that is very primitive. Fear is a survival tactic – it warns and protects us against dangers. It can also paralyze us from action. In business, fear can be our worst enemy.

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Silicon Valley Small Business Technical Review Bootstrapping 56

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 25, 2016

You have spent years building your business and brand from next to nothing. You’ve invested tons of time and effort into it, and can now have it ripped away from you in just a few minutes. That’s all it takes to destroy a brand. A brand is what people think about your business. It’s how they feel about you, and it’s how they feel when they hear your name.

Social Media 116

Social Media Technical Review Software Review Media 116

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2016

A question I often get asked as an advisor to startups is how to recognize and attract the best people to grow the business. The reality is that entrepreneurs usually don’t have the money or time for executive recruiters to do the filtering and selection for them. If your primary source of candidates is friends, family and Craigslist , is it possible to get any high-quality team members?

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Technical Review Stock Options Salary Hiring 133

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2016

Some businesses are not a great fit for angel or venture capital funding. But, what if your startup is a good candidate, but you’re having trouble getting meetings and convincing investors that your company is the next big thing? Maybe it’s time to try a different approach. Here are 11 tips from the Young Entrepreneur Council that will help you attract the eye of an angel investor or a VC, and make your business a more appealing investment. 1.

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Cofounder Metrics Angel Investor Silicon Valley 85

OnlyOnce

MARCH 22, 2016

A New Path Forward. Welcome to the world, Path Forward, Inc.! I’m thrilled to announce the launch today of Path Forward, a new non-profit with a goal of empowering millions of women to rejoin the workforce after taking time out for childcare. We are launching today with a Crowdrise campaign. See more about that below. And we launched with a bang, too – the organization is featured in this really amazing story on Fortune.

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CTO Hire Cofounder Programming Equity 76

View from Seed

MARCH 16, 2016

Today, we are excited to re-release an updated Hitchhiker’s Guide to Boston Tech ! This guide is a living and breathing site, so we make a bit of a push to update it on an annual basis to keep things fresh. I wanted to point out a couple things in the updated guide, but the general theme is that we are simply seeing more, bigger, and better things happening here in Boston.

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Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 21, 2016

Ten Steps to Starting a Podcast written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. photo credit: DollarPhotoClub. As the content marketing arms race continues to heat up, it’s becoming harder and harder to get noticed. Sometimes it seems that unless you are a published author, speaker, and prolific blogger, you won’t get much traffic or recognition as an authority in your niche.

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Technical Review Software Review Audio Jordan 33

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 21, 2016

While those who go on vacation are often made fun of for not leaving the technology at home, the opposite is true for those who travel for work. More often than not, the business traveller lives on their phone, tablet, or laptop. While having top notch gear is important, your five year old laptop should probably stay home, sometimes its not the hardware, but the software that can make or break your productivity.

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Software Review Technical Review Internet Email 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 19, 2016

Every entrepreneur with a new technology tells me that his innovation will be industry-disrupting, meaning that it will render the existing technology obsolete, and create a new market. Yet truly disruptive innovations, like the smartphone from Apple and the rise of the Internet, are very rare, and are generally unpredicted. So why would any investor ever believe any of these claims?

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Non-Compete Technical Review Forecast Social Media 142

deal architect

MARCH 20, 2016

In my role, I spent a fair amount of time with Chief Marketing Officers of technology companies. Much of the conversation is about their digital journeys - the growing sophistication of their lead generation engines and social marketing. Every time.

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Lead Generation Engineer Conversion Technology 230

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses — tech or otherwise — fail.

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Startup 221

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2016

I love learning about business, but in particular, I love learning about how today’s most successful companies got started. What things did they do to gain initial traction? As a result, I listen to a lot of podcasts and interviews with founders—but there’s one thing about them that drives me absolutely insane. Founders are all typically asked about their growth and the key to their success.

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Customer Startup Email Channel 174

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 28, 2016

10 Reasons Why People Don’t Trust Your Website written by Phil Singleton read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Let’s face it, most of us are skeptical when we visit a business website for the first time. We inherently distrust information on the Internet – unless it comes from trusted sources. It’s just the way it is. This is why it is essential for your small business website to convince new visitors that you are trustworthy and why you are the company they should choose.

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Kansas City Kansas SEO Software Review 43

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 16, 2016

By Nick Goode, VP of Cloud Product Management at Sage One. Wealth has historically been viewed as financial success in business that translates to success in life. Money, real estate, investments, and “stuff” like cars and expensive vacations — if you’ve got these things, you’re doing well for yourself… right? Perhaps it’s time we recognized that the wealth game is changing.

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Cloud Technical Review Retention Employee 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2016

Whether you are talking to peers, competitors or investors, you as an active entrepreneur will be judged on your familiarity with today’s startup and funding jargon. I’m not recommending that you saturate your discussions with lingo, but responding with a blank stare once-too-often won’t convince anyone that you can build the next world-changing business or outpace the market.

Software Review 135

Software Review Sweat Equity Accredited Investor Angel Investor 135

deal architect

MARCH 17, 2016

I first met Paul Wright, CIO at Accuride at the Plex User Conference last year. I was struck by the level headed, low-hype way he approached technology, and also how much time he had invested with the user community around.

Community 230

Community Technology 230

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2016

The U.S. government is discovering that Lean innovation can help them serve the country better and faster. The Small Business Administration and the digital services agency 18F are trying to help entrepreneurs build successful companies and the 21st century digital government. The guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show explained how they’re working to do that.

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Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 145

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2016

Last time, we heard from a CEO about how startups can sell to big brands and enterprises. This time, Angus Davis, the founder and CEO of Upserve (fka Swipely) shares stories and tactics around selling to Main Street businesses. As a startup that sells to later adopters of technology or very small businesses, how do you think about product, marketing, and sales?

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Cofounder Startup Small Business Sales 152

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

$30 million. That’s how much Invoca raised and we’re announcing it today.

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YoungUpstarts

MARCH 30, 2016

by Ted Spooner, CEO of RespondWell. Speed bumps and change live at the very heart of entrepreneurship. As Mark Cuban says in his book “ How to Win at the Sport of Business “, “you only need to be right once.” But what if you got it right and you were derailed by circumstances out of your control? Part of being an entrepreneur is to know when to take a step back to build something else.

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Early Stage Lean Revenue Global 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2016

Intuitively, many entrepreneurs and businesses believe that the key to faster growth and success is more products, features, and markets. Since we all have limited resources, and can’t add more hours to the day, the result is usually more things done poorly, rather than a few key things done better than anyone else. The message here is focus , reiterated by every advisor and investor.

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Balance Sheet Metrics Entrepreneur Engineer 139

Brandanew

MARCH 30, 2016

We all are eager to teach children and pass on our pearls of wisdom. But most times we realize that they can teach us adults, a ton of things. Same is the case with Children’s literature. Simplistic but profound lessons for every walk of life, which can easily be applied in the field of business too. I’ve picked up ten classics and things your brand can learn from children’s stories. 10 Things Your Brand Can Learn From Children’s Stories. 1.

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Stock Leadership Demand Employee 116

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2016

Tenacity and resilience. Getting people to buy in to your startup vision takes a thick skin, perseverance and willingness to learn. You’ll probably be laughed out of several boardrooms along the way. Entrepreneurs refuse to take no for an answer. The latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere shared what they learned from having their ideas rejected and how those lessons propelled their businesses forward.

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Entrepreneur North America Cofounder Silicon Valley 178

Rembrandt Communications

MARCH 30, 2016

Take advantage of this competitive tool to boost sales and online awareness Content is a huge part of most marketing strategies right now. In fact, recent stats from the Content Marketing Institute indicate that 72% of B2B marketers are “heavily focused on creating engaging content, citing it as the top priority for their internal content […].

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SEO Marketing PR B2B 109