Sat.Aug 25, 2018 - Fri.Aug 31, 2018

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Pre-seed is the new seed

Hippoland

A few months ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who is a successful serial entrepreneur. He has done incredibly well financially on his past two startups, and he’s now building his 3rd company. But when we were talking, he expressed frustration in raising his series A round. This was surprising to me. Then I asked him about his metrics, which are good, but they are were not at series A level.

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7 Growth Choices That Can Make or Break Your Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Most of you new venture founders I meet as an angel investor seem convinced that starting the business is the hardest part. You look forward to the day when your business becomes self-sustaining, and settles into a long-term growth curve, ensuring financial success. Unfortunately, sustainability is proving to be a more and more complex challenge in this era of rapid change.

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13 Powerful Ways You Can Manage Customer Expectations Better To Grow Your Business Faster Than Ever

YoungUpstarts

by Katie Lundin of crowdspring. A prospective customer looks to your business to provide something they need or want. This is the beginning of a very important story for your business. And, starting with your very first interaction, this story can develop in one of three ways: You fail to meet their expectations. You meet their expectations. You exceed their expectations.

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7 Equity Crowdfunding Risks Feared By Many Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

Although professional investors may discount the impact of crowdfunding, they can’t argue with the growth of this new industry in the last few years. According to statistics by Fundly , crowdfunding contributed $34 billion in funding last year around the world, including peer-to-peer lending. That exceeds the amounts contributed in the U.S. by either angel groups or VCs alone.

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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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How to Build a User Research Culture

ConversionXL

In many organizations, user research creates friction. It directly challenges the intuition of others, often at the highest levels. It slows product development. It costs money. It has no clear ROI. But it’s also essential— 89 percent of customers stop doing business with a company after a bad experience. User research delivers the quantitative and qualitative insights to improve those experiences.

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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.

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8 Steps To Starting A New Venture With Limited Funds

Startup Professionals Musings

Now is the time to be an entrepreneur and create a business from your passion. The cost of rolling out a business has never been lower – it only takes a few hundred dollars to incorporate a Limited Liability Corp (LLC) online, create your own website, use social media to get attention, and you are in business. In the early Internet days, it would cost a million dollars to get this far.

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Facebook and Google Ads – The Keys to Small Business Paid Search

Duct Tape Marketing

Facebook and Google Ads – The Keys to Small Business Paid Search written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. If you want to run a business today, you need to be advertising on Facebook and Google. These two tech giants dominate the online advertising market, and their reach is so incredibly broad (both have billions of users each month) that to leave them out of your strategy is to not have an online strategy at all.

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Tips and Tools for Keeping Your High Growth Startup on Track

Up and Running

Times of rapid growth are especially exciting and challenging for new startups. Obviously, it’s a signal that things are headed in the right direction—but it can also be a critical turning point that determines long-term success. Failing to keep up with a sudden increase in demand for your product or service can lead to an equally sudden downfall. Take the recent example of the company MoviePass as a cautionary tale.

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Efficient Methods For Boosting Startup Revenue

YoungUpstarts

There are a lot of factors that go into running a business, but money is by far at the top of the list. Without enough capital, entrepreneurs don’t have the means to invest in the development and growth of their brand. Though you may not have much to work with now, if your startup is to succeed, you must work consistently at finding and executing plans to increase your revenue.

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Synchronization is Critical for Mobile App Market Research

The Startup Magazine

As you prioritize your product rollout tasks, a mobile app, whether it is “the” product, or an adjunct marketing tool, is critical to the customer experience. Getting the right app design elements, the right experience, and the right development resources lined up will make your rollout much quicker and with fewer headaches. Market research, though, is required before you put development resources to work.

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How to Create a Morning Routine That Breeds Success

Duct Tape Marketing

How to Create a Morning Routine That Breeds Success written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Benjamin Spall. Podcast Transcript. This week on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I chat with Benjamin Spall. Spall is co-author of the book My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired and co-founder of the website by the same name.

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How to Write a Business Plan for an Outpatient Medical Practice

Up and Running

So you’re thinking about starting your own outpatient medical practice. You probably have many good reasons to open a private practice. Private practices can be lucrative, although it requires you to spend time building relationships with patients while also attending to all business processes that are part of running your practice. Maybe you want more autonomy over your practice and your workflow.

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7 Genius Ways To Fund Your Startup With A Personal Loan

YoungUpstarts

Starting your own business isn’t easy, especially if you don’t have the funds for it. While your idea may be amazing, getting investors or even a business loan can be difficult in the initial stages. This is when you have to think outside the box and find other ways to finance your startup. So, what could you possibly do to get kick off this idea? The solution to your financial problem could be a personal loan.

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5 Powerful Psychological Triggers That Can Help You Improve Your Marketing To Increase Sales And Profits

crowdSPRING Blog

People like to think they’re in control, especially when it comes to their behavior. Science has proven otherwise. Most human behavior can be at least partially attributed to deep-set psychological traits or triggers. We may have control over our actions, but science has shown that we have cognitive biases and can be persuaded to take specific actions.

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Why we all need to draw bigger circles

deal architect

A few days ago, I wrote about Bill Joy’s advice “If you cannot solve a problem, make the problem bigger. If you draw a bigger circle, you start to see several systems you can work on.” Reading James Farrar’s post.

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8 Management Behaviors Drive Change Without Crisis

Startup Professionals Musings

In this era of rapid market and technological change, I know I have to challenge my small business advisory clients to keep innovating and stay ahead of the game. As you can imagine, it is human nature to look for a stable and unchanging business process, after all the pivots and chaos of starting your business. Innovation driven only by crises is not leadership and growth.

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Startup Growth Made Possible By FinTech: 5 Empowering Benefits

YoungUpstarts

From inflexible funding requirements to fierce market competition, start-up businesses have many obstacles to surpass before they can reach stability and make a profit. It takes a great deal of ambition and innovation to get over the initial hardships of running a start-up, but, unlike a few decades ago, when entrepreneurs had a limited set of tools at their disposal, nowadays both technological and financial innovations offer a much-needed helping hand.

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Twitter Link Roundup #345 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers!

crowdSPRING Blog

Are you one of the millions of people who have started using coconut oil? It may be time to reconsider the fervent adoration this cooking ingredient has accrued in recent years. The American Heart Association recently reviewed the evidence on coconut oil. An astounding three-quarter of the US population believes that coconut oil is a healthy choice and a panacea for just about everything.

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Draw a bigger circle

deal architect

We are approaching the two-year anniversary of Silicon Collar (released on September 2, 2016). Many readers tell me their favorite book I authored is still The New Polymath. Amazon tells me SAP Nation sold the most. Many disagreed with the.

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5 Small Business PR Ideas to Skyrocket Sales

Rembrandt Communications

Get Ready for a Great. Holiday Season! As we celebrate summer’s end and back-to-school, it’s time to dive into holiday marketing and think about small business PR ideas. That’s right! While online and print advertising, email campaigns, and more may be at the top of your list, don’t forget about all of the public relations […]. The post 5 Small Business PR Ideas to Skyrocket Sales appeared first on Small business PR and content strategy that boost sales, awareness and credibility fast!

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Why Team Building Is Important In A Company

YoungUpstarts

Team building can get a bit of a negative reaction from some professionals. There’s often the worry that it could feel forced or even a little childish. But team building is a very effective exercise for a business and if you make sure you do it right, employees should leave feeling closer and happier in their teams. And this doesn’t have to mean doing trust falls in the office car park.

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Trademark Protection for Startups

ReadWriteStart

As a startup one of your most important assets is your brand and that brand is usually embodied in your company name and logo. The valuable time that you invested in coming up with just the right creative name and developing the branding and marketing around that company name is impossible to measure. After creating […]. The post Trademark Protection for Startups appeared first on ReadWrite.

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3 Ways First-Time Founders Make A Strong Start

YFS Magazine

Many dream of following passions, leaping off the corporate ladder and starting a business. But it seems only a few brave souls actually do it.

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7 Tips to Make Your Nonprofit Financially Healthy by Sandy Free

Mike Michalowicz

Keeping your nonprofit financially healthy should be your priority. You cannot serve your mission and purpose if you have to close. These have rapidly become some of the most challenging times most of us have ever seen. Even for nonprofit leaders who are accustomed to making much of little, the repercussions of the current downturn are difficult to fathom and challenging to address.

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3 Reasons To Find A Passion Outside Your Business

YoungUpstarts

by Allison Maslan, author of “ Scale or Fail: How to Build Your Dream Team, Explode Your Growth, and Let Your Business Soar ”. Are you attracting the kind of “Big Picture” vision you want for yourself in business and in life? As a driven, Type A business owner, you are most likely focused solely on your goals, which are certainly important. However, if you are so singularly focused that you miss out on the star-studded landscape around you and the little miracles falling at your feet on a daily

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5 Small Business PR Ideas to Skyrocket Sales

Rembrandt Communications

Get Ready for a Great, Holiday Season! As we celebrate summer’s end and back-to-school, it’s time to dive into holiday marketing and think about small business PR ideas. That’s right! While online and print advertising, email campaigns, and more may be at the top of your list, don’t forget about all of the public relations tools that can give you a competitive edge.

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5 Tips To Build A Consistent Brand

YFS Magazine

I know how hard brand consistency can be when you’re first starting out. Yet the benefits are endless. Here's how to get started.

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Startup Tips for Buying Used Items

The Startup Magazine

If you are like most startups, you have a bit of a problem saving money. Now, this isn’t your fault, as the revenue and income levels simply haven’t kept up with the your costs. As a result, many startups have to try and save money or spend less wherever they can. One great way to save some money is to buy used items instead of new in order to stretch your dollars each month.

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How Having An MBA Gives Your Upstart A Competitive Advantage

YoungUpstarts

Having a Master of Business Administration has become one of the most prized qualifications that upstarts can seek out. Even despite several leading business figures criticizing those who get an MBA, the knowledge you attain from an MBA will serve you for the rest of your life. You don’t necessarily have to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School to become the next success story, but a growing body of evidence suggests that having an MBA could help you as an upstart.

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News Corp. Buys Austin-based Opcity for $210 Million

SiliconHills

News Corp., one of the world’s largest media companies, announced Wednesday that its subsidiary, Move, Inc. has entered into an agreement to buy Austin-based Opcity for $210 million. New York-based News Corp. reported Opcity will broaden its offerings under its brand realtor.com and give consumers more choice when it comes to buying a home, according […].

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You Can’t Afford To Overlook Mental Health And Workplace Safety

YFS Magazine

Our thoughts and emotional state largely dictate how we act. When you address mental health it can get to the root of many workplace safety problems.

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5 Critical Considerations for Your Manufacturing Startup

The Startup Magazine

Many entrepreneurs look at manufacturing as a lucrative and versatile enterprise. With the potential of re-purposing equipment, manufacturers have access to a wide range of opportunities. However, the up-front costs of starting a manufacturing business can be difficult to overcome, and competition is abundant. Manufacturing startups require careful planning in order to thrive.

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5 Innovative Ways To Inspire Customer Loyalty

YoungUpstarts

by Ankit Dudhwewala, founder and CEO of SoftwareSuggest. The eCommerce marketplace is already highly crowded. Getting customers to buy your product or services is not an easy ride. Besides, retaining the customers to your business is much harder. For you to stay on top, you need to do all you can to differentiate yourself from the sea of competitors.

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Tips from the Oil and Gas Service Industry Leaders by Christian Brim

Mike Michalowicz

If you’ve been in the Oil and Gas Service business for any amount of time, you know the wild ride of commodity prices and how it can make or break your business. We’ve asked several industry leaders their experience in how to successfully navigate the ups and downs to remain profitable and cash flow positive. Johnnie Reaves, Asphalt & Fuel Supply, Inc.

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Break The Rules Like Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn

YFS Magazine

Should you break the rules if it means achieving greater success? Here's a look at what every entrepreneur can learn from billionaire financier Carl Icahn.