Sat.Aug 03, 2019 - Fri.Aug 09, 2019

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The Importance of Diversity on Boards

Board Effect

For a long time, boardrooms were commonly jovial, affable places where board directors were like-minded and knew each other well. An agreeable atmosphere is certainly nice, but it can cause some unintentional problems. Where everyone usually agrees, everyone tends to continue to agree and the group becomes exceedingly insular. Tight-knit boards often feel like they have an obligation to go along with the CEO or the executive director for various reasons.

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Stay Hungry: Helping Startups Commit to Improvement

ReadWriteStart

Let’s say a startup has defied the odds and survived its first several years. The entrepreneur has found a niche market, launched a product, secured funding, and continued to assemble an effective team. The business is moving forward. As the business grows, and entrepreneurs feel they have a safety net where there was none before. But how to stay hungry?

Startup 107
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7 Ways Small Companies Can Out-Innovate Big Corporations

Up and Running

Innovation has the power to drive even the smallest businesses to success, but is it enough to help them take on the biggest corporations? It’s not an easy question to answer, yet all we need to do is remember that plenty of companies running the world today started as small enterprises. The visionaries behind these companies were innovators. They hit on winning formulas and the rest, as they say, is history. .

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Friday Fun-ism: “Smiling Killer”

View from Seed

One of my favorite descriptions we use half in jest is that a founder seems like a “smiling killer” This is a compliment, I promise. This means that the founder strikes a very delicate balance that is very hard to pull off. First, the founder just seems like a great person. She is kind, charismatic, engaging, and seems genuinely great to work with.

Founder 120
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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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6 Keys To Marketing That Many Entrepreneurs Overlook

Startup Professionals Musings

Marketing is everything these days. You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. They skimp on the design of their website, procrastinate on the rollout to make sure the product is perfect, and get so excited about technology features that they forget about creating value f

Marketing 244
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Does your board give you good advice?

Berkonomics

This may be news, but boards of directors can offer bad advice. Having served on more than forty boards, I’ve seen such a variety of good and bad advice that my stories could fill a book. (oh, wait. They have…) So, lets delve into board composition, risk of an unbalanced board, and one of those stories…. The composition of your board matters. A typical board is composed of five persons in a company that has received outside funds from professional investors.

More Trending

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How to Develop a Clearly Defined Cloud Strategy

ReadWriteStart

Cloud adoption is picking up steam and for a good reason. There are myriad advantages to running a business in the cloud and fewer risks than ever before. According to a LogicMonitor survey, 83% of enterprise workloads will be cloud-based by 2020. While the odds are good that your business could reap significant benefits, cloud adoption isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

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7 Common Causes Of Failure To Communicate in Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Most business mentors tell me that the single biggest problem they have to deal with in small companies is the lack of open, honest, and effective communication, both from the top down and from the bottom up. Some entrepreneurs forget that talking is not communicating. Fortunately these skills can be learned, and the barriers to communication can be overcome one by one.

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What Every CIO Needs to Know From Their PR Team

Rembrandt Communications

Talked to Your PR and Marketing Teams, Lately? You’re in charge of all tech innovation at your B2B, and as the CIO, you are probably analytical and love statistics. Therefore, you probably don’t deal with the “creative, right-brain-oriented” communications people at your organization very often. Now, I may be wrong, but if you don’t talk to your public relations (PR) and marketing people on a regular basis, you are missing out on some huge opportunities for business growth.

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Effective Communication Within Your Business

YoungUpstarts

While running any enterprise, everything has to be in sync. However, it isn’t possible without effective communication. Communication involves understanding rather than talking. As a business owner, you may seek to be clear, concise, objective, complete, relevant, and consistent and understand your staff. Efficient communication is crucial. The following are the effective communication that to be followed in business.

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Top 10 Most Expensive Mistakes New Restaurant Owners Make

Up and Running

Every new restaurant business owner is bound to make mistakes. Some will be costly, but if you can keep your sense of humor and learn from those mistakes, your business (and your attitude) will benefit in the long run. . You’ve launched your new restaurant and you’re starting to see customers, but running a restaurant is serious business, especially because your financial livelihood is most likely tied up in startup costs. .

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Growing a Profitable Marketing Consulting Practice: My First Year as a Duct Tape Marketing Consultant

Duct Tape Marketing

Growing a Profitable Marketing Consulting Practice: My First Year as a Duct Tape Marketing Consultant written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. My first interaction with John Jantsch was in April of 2016 at the annual Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego, CA. I had just begun my digital marketing consulting business a few months prior and, to be honest, hadn’t read his popular book Duct Tape Marketing nor did I know anything about running a successful marketing bu

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Improve Your Retail Sales by Changing Your Business Communication

The Startup Magazine

If you own a retail store or a chain of stores, competing with other companies can feel overwhelming. However, there are things you can do to increase sales that do not require an enormous amount of change. One of the best things for your company is improving business communication among managers, staff, customers and everyone else. Poor Communication Consequences.

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Could You Outlive Your Retirement Funds? 3 Ways To Strategize With A Fiduciary

YoungUpstarts

by Alexander Joyce, president/CEO of ReJoyce Financial LLC and author of “ Rejoyce in Your Retirement: Everything You Need to Know to Get Everything You Want “ People are living longer , and as wonderful as that news is to many, there’s a possible downside: outliving your money in retirement. It’s a very large fear many people have. Most retirement plans have not incorporated the longevity risk.

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How to Survive “The Amazon Effect” as a Small Ecommerce Business Owner

Up and Running

You’ve just bought something that looked perfect online and you can’t wait to get it in your hands. Take a moment to pause and think about that last bit: How long would you actually be willing to wait to get your item? For the vast majority of products—whatever your target market — people are willing to wait about two days. This desire to have what you want at that speed is what the industry has coined “The Amazon Effect.” It’s turned a vast majority of the ecommerce world into a rac

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Transcript of Why Customer Service Must Come from the Heart

Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript of Why Customer Service Must Come from the Heart 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 Gusto, modern, easy payroll benefits for small businesses across the country. And because you’re a listener, you get three months free when you run your first payroll.

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What Should Not Be Included in Board Meeting Minutes?

Board Effect

Writing board meeting minutes is such a common task that there’s a risk of not giving it the due diligence it deserves. While writing board meeting minutes is a common task, minute-takers should never underestimate their importance. It’s crucial that minute-takers remember the purpose of taking meeting minutes. First and foremost, meeting minutes provide a legal record of board activity.

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Everything You Need To Know About Virtual Data Rooms

YoungUpstarts

A VDR is an online database in which businesses can share and store confidential information, usually used during a financial transaction. Virtual data rooms may also be described as a type of document filing system or electronic repository. With the ubiquitous reliance on PCs and specialized software to keep a business running smoothly, and coupled with the fact that more enterprises are making the transition of being paperless, many of the previously document-heavy operational practices have b

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7 Emigrant Entrepreneur Traits We All Should Emulate

Startup Professionals Musings

In my experience as a business advisor and angel investor these days, I seem to more frequently hear from entrepreneurs and business owners with “can’t-fail” or “get-rich-quick” ideas. In my view, these are the least likely to succeed, partially because the people behind them have the wrong expectations and traits. The instant gratification approach just doesn’t work in business.

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Why Customer Service Must Come from the Heart

Duct Tape Marketing

Why Customer Service Must Come from the Heart written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Jeanne Bliss. Podcast Transcript. Today on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I visit with Jeanne Bliss , founder and President of CustomerBliss, and the co-founder of The Customer Experience Professionals Association. Bliss pioneered the role of Chief Customer Officer and was the first to hold the role at several organizations, including Lands’ End, Microsoft, Coldwell Ba

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The "Glo-ver" phase in enterprise apps

deal architect

I don't mean to pick on NetSuite but it is one of the oldest cloud apps vendors - born as it was in 1998. Over 21 years, you would think it would have a fuller global footprint. Especially since it.

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There’s More To Protecting Your Firm Than Using A Stronger Lock

Women Entrepreneurs Can

We can often feel that in 2019, many business processes are becoming easier to deal with. Workplace modules can help all our staff remain on the same page at the same time. Health and safety standards are routinely updated and cared for, yet often uniform within the same types of business. Marketing has never been easier, as we can now directly target the groups we hope to appeal to most.

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10 Business Areas Where Data Is The Key To The Future

Startup Professionals Musings

Even though ‘big data’ has now been around for several years, the opportunities for startups seem to keep growing, just as the amount of data keeps growing. According to IBM , companies have captured more data in the last two years than in the previous 2000 years. This data comes from sensors, social media posts, digital pictures and videos, purchase transactions, everywhere.

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Putting Social Media Myths to the Test

Duct Tape Marketing

Putting Social Media Myths to the Test written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Scott Ayres. Podcast Transcript. Today’s guest on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Scott Ayres, content scientist with AgoraPulse’s Social Media Lab. Ayres and the team at the lab are testing every question a marketer has ever had about social media.

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Rimini Street tries to reshape AMS

deal architect

I drove by the Renaissance hotel in Powai on the outskirts of Mumbai in India last month. It brought back memories - I had taken a client there 15 years ago on a due diligence trip as they looked to.

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Focus On Being The Best You Can Be   

YoungUpstarts

by Dean Karrel, author of “ Mastering the Basics: Simple Lessons for Achieving Success in Business “ On occasion, we can all feel a little intimidated by work colleagues who may have more senior titles than us or have an MBA or other advanced degrees. This can especially be true when we first enter the business world, but it can occur throughout our careers.

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8 Keys To Enjoying Work, And Enhancing Your Career

Startup Professionals Musings

As a business advisor, one of the most frustrating things I see is the number of employees who are unhappy at work. Business owners don’t like it, the new generations think promotions will solve it, and productivity levels continue to suffer. According to the polls, only 32 percent of workers are engaged , and the rest spend much of their time wishing they were somewhere else.

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Transcript of How Ultralearning Helps You Master New Skills

Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript of How Ultralearning Helps You Master New Skills 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 Klaviyo. Klaviyo is a platform that helps growth-focused eCommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook and Instagram marketing.

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Cognizant and the healthcare vertical

deal architect

I had a chance to talk to Larry Bridge, SVP Healthcare Strategy at Cognizant about the sector and how healthcare vertical solutions have evolved in his 30+ year career.

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3 Ways To Build Philanthropy Into Your Culture

YoungUpstarts

by Jason McCann , founder and CEO of VARIDESK. Before we became known for standing, we believed in standing for something. When startups are still in the infant stage, it’s hard to envision the day when philanthropy becomes part of the equation. There’s just so much to accomplish before giving back can be a legitimate, sustainable goal. One of the biggest obstacles to giving back to the community, especially for entrepreneurs, is finding the time to get started.

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Charting return multiples over time

Version One Ventures

Last week I blogged about the return multiples for our Fund I and how they perfectly illustrate just how much the power law drives VC return. Alex Norman from AngelList asked how these return multiples have changed over time and what insights could be won from that data. It was a great question and I went back and crunched our data for the past 6 years.

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Trueface raises $3.7M to turn camera data into actionable insights

ReadWriteStart

Today, we have millions of cameras deployed throughout various industries, organizations, and global borders around the world. However, with each of these individual cameras monitoring continuously and collecting vast amounts of data points, what good is it if not actionable or context applied? Trueface, a US-based leader in computer vision, utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment camera data into actionable intelligence.

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Easy Ways To Have More Fun At Work

The Startup Magazine

You spend more time at your place of work than you do at home, yet you have less control over the environment in your workplace. So why not have some fun at work to make it worth the long hours. Image by Henning Westerkamp from Pixabay. It’s no wonder that some companies experience such high staff turnover rates. After all, if you can’t have a little fun at work what’s the point in being there?

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13 Important Branding Lessons From The Top 4 e-Commerce Giants

YoungUpstarts

by Katie Lundin of crowdspring. Simply showing up online with a business website isn’t enough to guarantee success. E-Commerce giants Apple, eBay, Craigslist, and Etsy seem to have cracked the code. Together, they brought in total revenues of over $275 billion in 2018. They are successful businesses and successful brands. You may notice some notable companies missing from our list.

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B2B Influencer Marketing: 4 Strategies that Move the Needle

ConversionXL

Influencer marketing has been around long enough to generate great case studies—and skepticism. That’s especially true for B2B marketers. An Instagram model gushing over a new fashion product seems infinitely remote from strategies they might deploy. Still, about 65% of brands planned to increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2018, which puts the strategy on track to top $10 billion by 2020.

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4 Painless Ways to Pay off Small Business Loans Early

ReadWriteStart

Paying back small business loans (SBL) has become a nightmare for so many entrepreneurs in this millennial age. The research by Main Street Lender on over 10,000 business loan applicants in the U.S disclosed that about 64 percent of applicants were unable to secure any type of financing. About 82 percent of applicants were denied financing by their bank.