December, 2015

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Google Engineer: How We Interview, How I’d Beat Us for Talent, & How Non-Technical Founders Should Approach Devs

View from Seed

Editor’s Note: NextView recently kicked off a Boston-based workshop series on technical interviewing with Google. (Portfolio companies can contact us to learn more.) This interview covers a wide range of topics also covered in our workshops. Saurya Velagapudi is a senior software engineer at Google, based in their Cambridge, Mass., office, right in the heart of MIT.

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Your 2016 Budget: A Cost And Analysis Guide For Business Owners

YoungUpstarts

by Richard Milam , the Founder and CEO of EnableSoft Incorporated. Budgets are a tricky facet for any business owner however being one of the most critical aspects to the operations, productivity, profitability, and growth of a business. Every year, dynamic markets, the state of the economy, and consumer demands change the requirements of a business and the costs of operation.

Cost 122
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6 Keys To Make Sure Your Product Fits Today's World

Startup Professionals Musings

Great technology leads to innovative solutions that are possible, but not necessarily great businesses. Rube Goldberg illustrated this principle many years ago in cartoons, but I still find inventors that are creating solutions today looking for a problem. In addition, every solution has to fit into the current political, cultural and economic environment to make it a viable business.

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28 Gifts for the Entrepreneur in Your Life

Up and Running

This year, maybe it’s time to give the gift of Potter. Keep reading to find out more… The holidays are almost upon us—do you have all of your gifts ready? I’ll admit, I only just finished ordering presents for everyone on my list (and I’m crossing my fingers that they all get here on time!). See Also: Raise an Entrepreneur with These 36 Genius Toys.

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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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Version One in 2015: A year of building, backing, and exits

Version One Ventures

As 2015 comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve done and where we’re headed. It’s hard to believe that it has been just a little over a year since we launched Fund II with $35M in commitments. Since then, we’ve accelerated our pace – backing exceptional entrepreneurs, feeding their growth, and seeing others out with successful exits.

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How to Run Your Company Based on Metrics: What, Why, How, Who, and When

David Teten

I review a lot of board decks with a beautifully hand-crafted page with metrics for the company. That makes me nervous. . I prefer to see a screenshot of an internal dashboard, not something created for the board, and I prefer to see that same dashboard in the same format at every meeting. The reason is that the real value of the board deck is not (ironically) for the board; it’s for management to track their own performance.

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10 Awesome DIY Tools To Create Your Own Mobile App

YoungUpstarts

by Gaurav Sharma, a founder of Antipull and digital strategist at Nine Hertz. In this era, mobile applications have almost replaced the use of desktop versions. As mobile apps can be accessed anytime at anywhere, people feel more convenient with apps instead of waiting to load for a whole website. According to the recent statistics, the number of mobile apps in Android and iOS has crossed over 1.6 and 1.5 million respectively.

Mobile 158
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10 ‘Best Of Breed’ Marketing Practices For Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

The world of marketing is changing faster than technology these days. Winning entrepreneurs have long since supplemented conventional print and video “push” marketing with digital online interactive “pull” marketing, and more recently added social-local-mobile ( SoLoMo ) to the mix. Mobile and global are driving all of these in innovative new ways to grow your business.

Marketing 133
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36 Stocking Stuffer Ideas For Your Little Entrepreneur

Up and Running

I don’t have children yet but when I do, I know I’m going to want to make sure they’re intelligent, creative, compassionate, and self-confident—probably what every non-parent hopes for, right? Wishful thinking aside, I do still want to raise children who feel the world is their oyster. I don’t want to bring up ruthless little businessmen that hike drug prices 5,000 percent, but people more like Blake Mycoskie and Sanjit “Bunker” Roy who temper business smarts with a whole lot of compassion.

Stock 89
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The Big Opportunity for Bots in Messaging

Version One Ventures

Messaging platforms are gaining more and more mindshare. Michael Wolf’s deck on the Future of Tech and Media shows that messaging will soon blow past social media as the dominant media activity and will add 1 billion new users by 2018. Given these numbers, the opportunities for messaging platforms are getting very interesting – particularly in terms of how to leverage messaging platforms to help people solve problems at work and in day to day life.

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Why You Should Embrace Transparency Marketing

ConversionXL

Various studies have estimated the average consumer sees anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 marketing messages each day. Of course, most of these go unnoticed. One possible reason? People are increasingly tuning out inauthentic and blatant marketing attempts. For this reason, we’ve seen a recent rise in what’s known as ‘transparency marketing.’. Though transparency and authenticity have always been virtues extolled by thought leaders, certain blogs, companies and movements have given greater exposure

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Year-end musings: Of Marketwatchers and Sheep

deal architect

Third of year-end posts I am running this week. The other two were about enterprise software and outsourcing trends. I recently saw The Big Short. Well done, actually funny, adaptation of the book. With so many things in the movie.

Software 163
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Hectic Holiday Season: 10 Tips For Rolling Out The Red Carpet For Your Customers

YoungUpstarts

by Donna Cutting, Founder & CEO of Red Carpet Learning Systems, Inc. and the author of “ 501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers “ For many businesses, the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year. But it certainly is not the time slack off on service. In fact, in today’s market, there is a direct correlation between service and sales. 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they’re being treated.

Customer 126
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How to Turn a FanBoy into a Hater in 5 Minutes: Lessons from the New WaPo

Both Sides of the Table

Like many of you I read in awe last week about the accomplishments of the Washington Post since Jeff Bezos acquired the company two years ago. The killer chart is below: In the article it raved particularly about the WaPo’s amazing mobile app and how Bezos personally intervened to get the team to improve loading times – whatever the short-term costs. “His focus on customer experience has become a near mandate within the news operation.

DC 184
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How I stay up to date on the iPad Pro: Flipboard, ESPN, CNN, NY Times, and The Week

Jeff Hilimire

Looking at the bottom row of my iPad’s homescreen (which is essentially my laptop’s desktop, since the iPad Pro has replaced my laptop ), you get a sense of the things that I check on a regular basis to absorb the news. I referenced the many ways I receive content to read on a daily basis back in September, but the iPad has changed a few of those habits.

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How to get the most out of your Christmas sale on a budget on Adwords

Duct Tape Marketing

How to get the most out of your Christmas sale on a budget on Adwords written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. photo credit: Wikimedia. It’s no news that the holidays increases sales, however, one of the drawbacks of the holiday season is the increases of competition and marketers. So we’ve put together a list of marketing tips that will help you get the most out of your Christmas sale and on a budget.

Sales 33
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The Advanced Guide to Promotional Emails That Convert

ConversionXL

Email makes the world go around, right? No matter how many times you read about “the death of email”, it remains paramount in the online world. In fact, I’ll bet you’ll receive at least two emails in the time it will take you to read this article from start to finish. Are all emails created equal? No, not exactly. According to Salesforce , the top 3 uses of email are newsletters (66%), promotional content (54%) and welcome series emails (42%).

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Year-end musings: The changing outsourcing landscape

deal architect

Second of year-end posts I am running this week. Yesterday I wrote about enterprise software trends. To me 2015 was about how three A’s – Amazon, Analog, and Automation – are changing the outsourcing landscape, and looking forward, how these.

Software 174
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Santa Claus Is Coming To Town: Preparing Your Small Business For The Holiday Season

YoungUpstarts

by Heather Foley, consultant at etsplc.com. The holiday period can be a tricky time for any business. You may struggle to meet an increase in demand, customers may insist that you work to even tighter deadlines and your workforce may be running on minimal numbers, but nowhere are problems more evident than in the small business. A holiday time can impose pressures on a small business which may stretch it to breaking-point.

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10 Leadership Traits That Can Damage Your Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Does it really take a few flaws to make a great entrepreneur, or are the rest of us just confused about what a perfect business person is all about? In the past I’ve written about the positive attributes of great entrepreneurs , so this time I thought I would focus on the negatives that I see often, and I challenge you to find someone that has all the positives and none of the negatives.

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What Is Data Science, Really? Peering Into the Future with Hilary Mason [Traction #15]

View from Seed

What is data science? Hilary Mason is among the very best in the world in answering that question in ways that others understand. That’s because, according to Hilary, one of the three main areas of expertise all great data scientists must possess is the ability to communicate to those who aren’t as mathematically minded. In this episode, we mix up our podcast format a little bit and host an “unplugged” chat with Hilary about her career as a data scientists, her work at Fa

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5 Tips to Prepare Yourself for an Entrepreneurial Burnout Threat

Duct Tape Marketing

5 Tips to Prepare Yourself for an Entrepreneurial Burnout Threat written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. There are several areas an entrepreneur needs to shred for getting a better position in the game before the risk itself devours him whole. The entrepreneurial spirit must be kept alive and the fire kindled from time to time so doesn’t die out of hope and exhaustion.

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Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year To You!

Brandanew

Happy New Year To YOU! Dear Brandanew readers , It has been a wonderful year, and looking back at the year gone by, we feel grateful for your support and interest. It’s time to say Happy New Year! We thank you for your persistence in allowing us to create wonderful new things through this year, and challenging us for pushing the envelope ahead.

Marketing 116
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Year-end musings: Speedier Cloud Boats

deal architect

First of year-end posts I will run over the next few days. This time of the year, my wife Margaret likes to take the family to the Caribbean, usually on a cruise. The island breezes are gentle, the rainbows at.

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10 Startup Mistakes To Avoid On Your Pathway To Success

YoungUpstarts

So you have decided to start a business. That is fantastic. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. Now you need to achieve your goal of getting the desired success from your startup venture. It may be a long road, but you want to make it as efficient and smooth as possible to reach your desired success. You already know that most startups fail within the first three years of business due to making mistakes that set them back to where they started or worse, into closure.

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The Only Thing Not to Fear Is Success Itself

Startup Professionals Musings

Can you imagine an entrepreneur who is actually afraid of success? None will ever admit it openly, but I’m a strong believer that actions or lack of action speaks louder than words. In my years of advising startups, I’ve seen too many cases of seemingly irrational actions, or just freezing with that “deer in the headlights” look when it’s time to make a critical move.

Hiring 135
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What Matters Most in Your Small Business?

Rembrandt Communications

It’s time to stop and think about what’s really important for ultimate success. It’s the end of the year and time to reflect on your small business… and life. How did you do? Did you have a good year? Were sales up or down? When you have a quiet moment, and the “holiday rush” comes […]. The post What Matters Most in Your Small Business? appeared first on Boost sales with BtoB Content Strategy and PR here.

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Growth Could Kill Your Company!

Duct Tape Marketing

Growth Could Kill Your Company! written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. photo credit: epSos.de. When Alina Martin took over her father’s small company in 2007 it had been ticking along, growing slowly for several years. The company, Danatec, sold paper-based course materials for corporate trainers to use in safety training of employees.

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5 Ways To Boost SEO Through Social Media

Brandanew

For small businesses and startups, SEO can be a tough game to play. When companies compete against larger, better-funded competitors with sophisticated SEO strategy, it can take several months, if not years, to challenge them for search engine visibility. One way to accelerate SEO is to fully leverage the social media potential. Here are the five best ways to boost SEO through social media.

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Unit4 self-driving UX evolves

deal architect

I was excited when Unit4 shared this summer early details of its machine-learning driven thinking (shades of Microsoft Cortana applied to enterprise scenarios) – I titled it “AI is the new UI” Yesterday, they shared couple of use cases from.

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Benefits Most Likely To Attract The “A Team” Staffers Your Business Needs

YoungUpstarts

Business owners and managers understand how critical the benefits of a highly skilled and educated workforce are, and you may be wondering what it takes to attract the cream of the crop to your business. While a competitive salary can go a long way to encourage the prime candidates to join your workforce, there are other benefits that can swing their favor in your direction.

Matching 109
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It’s Time To Design Human Experiences Versus Products

Startup Professionals Musings

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends. People love Apple’s whole customer experience, and willingly pay a premium for the product.

Design 143
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How to calculate the Discount Rate to use in a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Analysis

For Entrepreneurs

We look at how to compute the right discount rate to use in a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis. This post is a supplement to a blog post titled “What’s your TRUE customer lifetime value (LTV)? – DCF provides the answer“. My thanks to my partner Stan Reiss, who co-authored this piece with me, providing.

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9 Common Mistakes to Avoid During Funding Rounds

Up and Running

When raising your first round of capital, there are a few common mistakes many entrepreneurs make. To help you become a savvy founder (and avoid these mistakes), we asked nine successful entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council to talk with us about the mistakes they’d made in the past, and to give a bit of advice on how others can avoid doing the same. 1.

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What is a Blog and Why Do I Need One?

Brandanew

Recently I had a quick look at Quora and found out that users were still talking about whether or not blogs are for them. Sometimes it’s good to take another look at the basics. While you’ve heard enough insights and stats on blogging itself on our blog, this post is starting from the start. Blogs are one of the most powerful tools that you can use to spread the word about your business.

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The whole word as one area code

deal architect

This time of the year, I am reminded of my Brazilian-American friend, Karin Morton. With family spread around thee world she said her father would have palpitations, as she was growing up, with all the international phone calls at $.

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