Tue.Sep 03, 2013

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Why You Should Background Check Your Business Partner

YoungUpstarts

'by Kenneth Coats, founder of eKnowID. If you don’t perform a background check on your potential partner before doing business with him, you’re setting yourself up to get duped. Now, don’t get me wrong: Most people don’t lie on their résumés. But those who have something to hide will hide it. In other words, you won’t know it’s there unless you look for it yourself.

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This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco…

Growthink Blog

'Last week, I wrote about the power of business intelligence dashboards. How, for the first time, smaller businesses can harness the power of big data to more efficiently and profitably manage their companies. Some readers expressed skepticism that this "stuff" actually works. That it is just more "noise” that causes entrepreneurs to get “lost in the weeds” versus long-term thinking and planning.

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How to Present and Answer Questions in a Team Presentation or VC Pitch

Both Sides of the Table

'I sit through a lot of presentations. These range from companies pitching me to portfolio companies presenting at board meetings. Each of these scenarios has a team presenting. Almost always the CEO plus members of his or her management team including tech, marketing, sales and/or product. Some CEO’s are masters at communicating when team members are present.

Cofounder 377
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The Modern Medicis

deal architect

'Have you heard of Green Day? Can I go see them? replied my daughter. She knows when I ask her about a band I don''t know, they usually are at some event I am attending, Yes, Green Day will play.

Green 249
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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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Smartphone Location Tracking Apps Next Wave Is B2B

Startup Professionals Musings

'These days, I’m hearing more and more that Location-Based Services (LBS) are transforming the smartphone Industry, but only for consumers. So far, it’s been focused on people wanting to find nearby shopping specials and friends ( Shopkick and Foursquare ). Entrepreneurs need to look more broadly into the business-to-business (B2B) space for more lucrative opportunities.

B2B 210
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Why Resource Planning Software Is Necessary For Small Business Success

YoungUpstarts

'by Akshat Singh, project manager and resource coordinator at eResource Scheduler. In modern times, small and medium enterprises businesses are playing a very fundamental role in the growth of any country’s economy. This increasing impact that these kinds of businesses have on the worldwide economy explains why the owners have to be more attentive than ever.

Software 186

More Trending

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[Infographic] The Rich Gets Richer (And The Test Scores Prove It)

YoungUpstarts

'If you’ve wondered why the GINI co-efficient in the United States is the way it is – high – the infographic below may make things a little clearer. Here’s the lowdown: the rich in this country get richer mainly because of money allows one to get into one’s choice of school, however competitive it is. That’s right – due to the rising costs of education, those who can afford to spend more on education tend to excel.

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Microsoft, Near Death, & Enterprise Cloud

Agile VC

'We all woke up to the news that Microsoft is buying Nokia for ~$7B (ok, not the carrier infrastructure biz but the main part of Nokia that anybody cares about). This isn’t totally out of left field since they’ve had a close partnership for a year, but I tweeted my reaction: ” Microsoft buying Nokia core phone business strikes me as 0.5 + 0.5 = 0.6 “ What Microsoft needs is a near death experience so that they can reinvent themselves as an enterprise cloud company.

Cloud 113
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What you might really be saying when you say you are super busy…

Life Beyond Code

'Meredith Fineman wrote a brilliant article on HBR blog urging people to stop complaining that they are very busy. Her key point: people are trying to be in the one-upmanship game of trying to show that they are more busy because they are more important. Fineman has a point and the problem is amplified with social media as people in the above category have found new mouthpieces (Twitter, Facebook etc.) to announce how busy (and hence how important) they are.

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Turning the Tables: How to Make Venture Capitalists Pitch You

David Teten

'I’m returning to Capital on Stage this fall in New York. Last year, 19 other VC fund Partners and I pitched to 170 attendees; this year the conference organizers expect a similar turnout. You can see online all the VCs pitching last year in NY and my own pitch last year. To attend, apply via the CapitalonStage.com website. I like the psychology of forcing VCs to pitch to entrepreneurs, so wanted to share the results of an email interview I held with Arjen Strijker, Founder of Capital On Stage (

New York 114
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Different, In Any Category, Gets Noticed

Mike Michalowicz

'The hottest meme (an idea or behavior that gets copied or imitated by people, over and over again) in the last month or so, has been on Twitter with the CVS sales receipt. When something is different than expected, it gets noticed. In this case it is the longest sales receipt ever. But the tiniest receipt ever, the size of a postage stamp perhaps, would get noticed too.

Viral 123
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Microsoft buys Nokia’s devices division – where’s the excitement?

The Equity Kicker

'The big news in the tech world this morning is that Microsoft has bought Nokia’s devices division for $7.2bn or $7.7bn, depending on who you believe. Either way it is a lot of money and these are two iconic brands that dominated the tech landscape in the 1990s. Sadly both have been in decline since then and both need to do something exciting if they are to revive their fortunes.

Mobile 102
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Can Facebook Really Help Your Business?

Up and Running

'Every Monday, I check the Google Analytics for my clients’ webpages. I’m always impressed by those that use Facebook—I see so much traffic coming to the corporate website via this particular social media channel. Am I surprised? No. You might be asking why. If so, check out this interesting statistic: Number of people who check Facebook EVERY day: 128 million Americans. 14 million Canadians.

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Startup CEO (OnlyOnce- the book!), Part IV – Book Launches Today!

OnlyOnce

'Startup CEO (OnlyOnce- the book!), Part IV – Book Launches Today! My book is officially on sale on Amazon and iTunes today. The full detailed outline is here if you’re interested, and the link to buy it is here. This is very exciting. I had been saying for a while that I had no idea whether 50 people would buy it or 5,000, but the publisher (Wiley) tells me we had over 2,000 pre-orders, so that’s a great start, at least.

Startup 73
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Setting up a Home Office on a Budget

Up and Running

'More and more “lean” entrepreneurs are choosing to start their businesses out of their homes, rather than sinking capital into office space right off the bat. At the same time, an ever-increasing number of people are taking advantage of flextime options and choosing to leave the office behind in favor of working from home. In order to keep a successful home office and avoid the daily distractions of home life, it is important to transform an area of your home into a peaceful and wor

Lean 76
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How Early Should You Raise Capital for Your Startup?

Early Growth Financial Services

'Originally published in GeekWire. There’s more than one school of thought about startup financing. After all, there are some very successful companies that have managed just fine without VC money, often on purpose. But as one entrepreneur we polled puts it below, if you really want to see your startup grow and thrive, then the question might be quite simple: “Do you want to be king, or do you want to be rich?

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The Different Worldviews of a Startup

practicetrumpstheory.com

'In his book, “All Marketers are Liars Tell Stories” , Seth Godin defines a “worldview” as the set of rules, values, beliefs, and biases people bring to a situation. He offers a strategy of not trying to change a person’s worldview but rather framing your story in terms of their pre-existing worldview. This concept of worldviews also applies to startups which I’ll illustrate using the Lean Canvas.

Startup 53
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Rich McKay, President and CEO of the Falcons, on the power of simplicity

Jeff Hilimire

'Last week I was able to attend a speech by Rich McKay , President and CEO of the Falcons, thanks to Marty who set it up for the 40 under 40 alumni. Since I am a huge Falcons fan I quickly signed up. We were all impressed with Rich’s speech as he talked candidly for 15-20 minutes about the Falcons, the dome situation, Steven Jackson, and everything in between.

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Running Promotions on Facebook Just Got Easier or Did It?

Duct Tape Marketing

'Running Promotions on Facebook Just Got Easier or Did It? written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing Facebook recently changed the long standing policy that required page owners to use 3rd party apps to run contest and sweepstake type promotions. Image source: Woobox This change allows page owners to run such contests directly on their wall and use likes and comments on the post as entries rather than a separate tab from an app.

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I'm Writing a Book

Spencer Fry

'I''m eager to let you know that I started writing a book on startups and bootstrapping in June. Before you keep reading this, please sign up to get notified when it''s ready. I wanted to hit 20,000 words before I announced the book and, as of yesterday, I''ve reached that milestone. Queue up the balloons! That''s forty-five single spaced pages and counting on topics covering the entire lifecycle of a bootstrapped startup, from coming up with an idea to generating revenue.

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Invest in Israel Newsletter – August 2013 Edition

VC Cafe

'As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors. This month’s top headline is that Israeli exits in 2013 reached $4.9 billion, making it a [.]. [[ This is a content summary only.