April, 2016

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Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. When I publicly Tweeted that all companies should be gross margin positive many people pointed out that Amazon wasn’t profitable for many years.

Metrics 236
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Turn Your Web Design Talent Into Freelance Success

YoungUpstarts

By Dan Bochichio, co-founder of Bocain Designs. It’s 2016, and just about everyone either does business online or uses the internet as a tool to discover, rate and engage with businesses they rely upon. With so much demand and opportunity, now seems like a great time to tap into the market for quality freelance web designers, but what can you expect?

Web 100
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Hacking for Defense (H4D) @ Stanford – Week 2

Steve Blank

We just held our second week of the Hacking for Defense class. This week the 8 teams spoke to 106 beneficiaries (users, program mangers, etc.), we held a DOD/IC 101 workshop, our advanced lecture was on the Value Proposition Canvas , and we watched as the students ran into common customer discovery obstacles and found new ones. (This post is a continuation of the series.

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6 Leadership Behaviors Drive Continuous Innovation

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur and business executive knows that continuous innovation is required to survive, but most struggle with this more than any other challenge they face. They know they need to act proactively, but still are often blindsided by a new competitor coming out of the blue with a future they never imagined. Innovation driven by the next crisis is not leadership.

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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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60 Percent Of Microbusinesses Don’t Have A Company Website (Here’s Why They Should)

YFS Magazine

If
 you are a small business owner, it is pertinent that you build an online presence - starting with a company website, a proven channel that is valuable for business.

Channel 61
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May Business Angels Spread Their Wings Over Kenya?

Transformify

Despite Kenya has been named as the fasted growing payments market in Africa, there is still a lot to be done to develop the local business angel community. The founding of M-Pesa in 2007 inspired many young people to undertake entrepreneurial risks. The capital of Kenya, Nairobi, is a vibrant city offering various resources for young start – ups, including accelerator 88MPH and incubator i-Hub.

Kenya 45

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Why Every Business Needs To Become A Platform, And How To Do It

YoungUpstarts

By Kurt Bilafer, Global Vice President Sales & Success at WePay. What’s the hottest trend in business right now? Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter? Sharing economy apps such as Uber and Airbnb? Apple, and its line of personal computing devices? Or Software as a Service for the enterprise, such as Salesforce? You could probably make a case for any one of these, but here’s the thing: Although on the surface these companies appear to have completely different business models, they al

Japan 109
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Hacking for Defense @ Stanford – Week 4

Steve Blank

We just held our fourth week of the Hacking for Defense class. This week the teams turned the corner on understanding beneficiaries and finding product/market fit. The 8 teams spoke to 115 beneficiaries (users, program managers, etc.); we sent each team a critique of their mission model canvas; we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators; our advanced lecture explained how to go from concept to deployment in the DOD/IC; and we watched as the students got closer to

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3 key lessons startups can learn from Netflix’s rapid expansion

The Next Web

After announcing its presence in over 130 new markets early this year, Netflix has truly become a global content company. That is not to say it’s been easy for Netflix to adjust its services to meet the needs of developing markets with varying maturities, while still maintaining success in more developed areas. Balancing efforts in markets with differing needs is something that not many tech companies have been able to achieve due to three main challenges – lack of financing, straggling te

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Vietnam venture capital – potential unlocked

VC Cafe

Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has shared a circular (a regulatory document, in Vietnam speak) for improving the legal environment for venture capital investing in the Socialist state. The circular is now – since 16 th April – open for public comment. The aim of the circular is to improve the ease of setting up and running VC funds in Vietnam, and importantly for the MPI Agency for Enterprise Development (the AED) , make it easier and more attractive for angels and VCs to in

Vietnam 81
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Q1 Round-up: Portfolio companies in the news

Version One Ventures

In the past, we typically wait until the end of the year to recap what’s happened here at V1. But with a group of incredible startups doing great things, we’re determined to provide more frequent updates. If you’re not already familiar with the startups and founders making up the V1 portfolio, here’s a summary of some of this quarter’s news clippings.

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How to Avoid Being Disrupted as a VC

Both Sides of the Table

My partner Greg Bettinelli (worth following on Twitter) was recently named by The LA Business Journal as the “Top deal maker in Los Angeles… Continue reading on Medium »

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Everything You Should Try To Make Your eCommerce Business A Success

YoungUpstarts

If your eCommerce business hasn’t got off to the best of starts , then you’re probably wondering how to fix things. Fear not. We’ve compiled a list of great tips that you should try – all of which may save your bacon! So, here is everything you should be giving a shot in order to drive your eCommerce business to success. Incentives. Who doesn’t love an incentive to go and do something?

eCommerce 100
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Hacking for Defense @ Stanford – Week 4

Steve Blank

We just held our fourth week of the Hacking for Defense class. This week the teams turned the corner on understanding beneficiaries and finding product/market fit. The 8 teams spoke to 115 beneficiaries (users, program managers, etc.); we sent each team a critique of their mission model canvas; we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators; our advanced lecture explained how to go from concept to deployment in the DOD/IC; and we watched as the students got closer to

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SAP Nation 3.0

deal architect

People ask me all the time if I have plans for volume 3 in the SAP Nation series. I tell them I am waiting for a turnaround in the SAP economy. A noticeable one. For reference, my models showed the.

Software 200
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Introducing the NYC Tech Podcast from NextView [Ep. 1: Melting Pot Problems]

View from Seed

We’re thrilled today to roll out a bit of an experiment, but one we feel has staying power – an NYC Tech podcast. This show will be exclusively about, for, and even by New York City tech. Although we’ve written about NYC tech before and are active seed investors here, we’re hoping this podcast can fill a much-needed void, help strengthen the community, and shine a spotlight on an ecosystem that deserves more cheerleaders and local attention.

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5 Small Business Marketing Tools for Building Authority Fast

Duct Tape Marketing

5 Small Business Marketing Tools for Building Authority Fast written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Whether you are trying to get better rankings in Google, spreading your message on social media or working on making your website more persuasive, the power of being seen as an authority will help you streamline your digital marketing.

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Lead, Follow or Get the F**k Out of the Way

Both Sides of the Table

Lead — It’s hard to be a real leader. Decisions are never black or white, so most people fudge. The straddle middle grounds to keep everybody happy. They make compromises to try and hold together constituencies. On business decisions they want to hedge their bets so they do a little bit of everything but nothing extremely well. As highlighted by Brad Garlinghouse years ago in the famous “ peanut butter manifesto ”— it’s like spreading peanut butter evenly over a piece of bread.

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Why A High Quality Mobile App Design Is Essential

YoungUpstarts

Not all mobile app designers are created equal. Some app designers are difficult to work with or fail to deliver on their promises. Even worse, some don’t know what they are doing. This is not the case with companies like Magora , who understand why high quality business app design is essential. These are the main reasons why proper mobile app design is so important: User Acceptance.

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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 28: Magdalena Yesil and Michael Mondavi

Steve Blank

If I had spent less time on the business and more time with the family, we’d have been better off as a business and as a family. Family must come first in a family business. And if others don’t get your startup idea, it won’t matter how hard your team works to try to achieve it. Balancing business and family, and ensuring demand for your product were key lessons shared by two veteran entrepreneurs on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show.

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An upbeat PowerPlex

deal architect

I spent a few days at Plex’s user conference in Detroit this week. For me, the backdrop was the invigorated city as I describe here. That amplified the many upbeat conversations and presentations I witnessed at the event.

Detroit 239
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Hiring Your First Engineer: A Technical Entrepreneur’s Take

View from Seed

How do you build your engineering/dev team from the ground up? There are a few different ways to do it, but unfortunately, none bring a guarantee of success. Let’s make a few assumptions: You are a founder, you have your idea, and you have your money. It is just you. You need to bring in the right people to build your product. What kind of engineers do you need?

Engineer 149
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9 Entrepreneur Habits That Lead To Long-Term Success

Startup Professionals Musings

Being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle that requires staying power, because starting a new business is a long-term process with many tough challenges. As an angel investor, I look diligently for signs that an aspiring startup founder has what it takes to thrive and prosper for the long haul ahead. Passion and vision are necessary, but not sufficient, to really change the world.

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Never Ask Two People to do One Person’s Job

Both Sides of the Table

Why you do me like that? Over the year’s I’ve tried to offer some tangible, practical advice to help people communicate more effectively. I’ve weighed in on: Email 1 —  How to Get Busy People to Take Action Email 2 —  Etiquette to Email Introductions Email 3 —  Make it Easy for Me to Forward Your Email ! Phone Calls 1 —  Pick up the Damn Phone ! Phone Calls 2 —  How to Make Better Calls Presenting at Meetings —  Without Going Down a Rat Hole Presentations —  Where Should You Sit ??

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Money Management Tips For Virtual Assistants & Small Business Owners

YoungUpstarts

by Diana Ennen and Kelly Poelker, co-authors of “ Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA “. Money management is one of those topics many virtual assistants and small business owners routinely put off and hope for the best. It’s front and center on the mind on April 1 st in anticipation of the April 15 th tax deadline, but then it goes straight to the back burner for the rest of the year.

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Hacking for Defense (H4D) @ Stanford – Week 3

Steve Blank

We just held our third week of the Hacking for Defense class. This week the 8 teams spoke to 108 beneficiaries (users, program mangers, etc.), we held a Customer Discovery workshop, we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators, our advanced lecture was on Product/Market fit for the DOD/IC and we watched as the students solved their customer discovery obstacles and started getting closer to their customers.

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Seriously, SAP?

deal architect

SAP has a new spokesperson, Phil. He is pretty slick: “there’s no such thing as being fashionably late to a paradigm shift” He is also condescending to his lady boss. I hear he is doing a series, so in keeping.

Software 235
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Always Do The Right Thing

Rembrandt Communications

A few tips to be a happy and successful small business owner. Being a small business owner has numerous ups-and-downs, and you work with many types of people in numerous industries. To do well, you have to be confident, maintain expert skills in a certain area and set boundaries for what you will and will […]. The post Always Do The Right Thing appeared first on Boost sales with BtoB Content Strategy and PR here.

PR 100
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7 Reality Checks On Your Funding Odds With Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

If you expect an equity investment from reputable investors for your new startup, you need to know the boundaries that often limit their interest. In the jargon of investors, certain businesses may be viable but not fundable. For example, investors recognize that online gambling sites or a medical marijuana site may generate big returns but may tarnish their squeaky clean reputation.

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Understanding the Rich Tapestry of American Culture as Experienced Through Food

Both Sides of the Table

Like many immigrant families and many Jewish families I grew up around a kitchen table, often outside my house and experiencing food… Continue reading on Medium »

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How To Communicate Your Message On A Pull Up Banner

YoungUpstarts

If you are searching for a way to make a big impression for your business, then pull up banners are one of the most low-cost and portable marketing tools that you can use to drive more leads for your business. To ensure that pull up banners will work as a powerful marketing tool for your business, the team from Classic Colour offer the following tips on designing pull up banners that will attract more leads for your business.

Sales 100
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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 29: Ajay Kshatriya and Steven Cohn

Steve Blank

Entrepreneurs see opportunity where others see obstacles and why hubris is an entrepreneur’s worst enemy, were two topics of discussion on my SiriusXM radio show, Entrepreneurs are Everywhere. The show airs on SiriusXM Channel 111 (weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). It follows the journeys of innovators sharing what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more.

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5 Best Practices For Increasing Earned Media For Your Brand

Brandanew

In order of trust, earned media or organic mentions of your brand by influencers, your friends and family, or your consumers, rank at the very top. Nothing pushes your customers to get more influenced by you and favor your brand over competition, like genuine earned media mentions that you can’t buy. So, the million dollar question is, what are the best practices for increasing earned media?

Media 126
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CLI (Cognitive Load Indicator)

Feld Thoughts

In a world of endless signal and noise coming at us from all angles including TV, radio, the web, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, blog posts, email, text messages, Slack, and fill in another 50 different sources of stuff, we don’t have a measurement for the sentiment of the noise (and signal) and the toll it takes on our thinking. If you pay attention to finance, you are familiar with the VIX , which is officially the implied volatility of S&P 500 index options.

Stock 71
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9 Great Paths To Recurring Revenue For Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Every new business quickly realizes that revenue coming in every period on a committed basis is the Holy Grail to survival and growth. According to many experts , getting new customers is five to ten times harder than getting additional revenue from existing customers. Thus the subscription model (low fixed monthly payments), is rapidly becoming the norm for new products and services.

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Startup Advice

Both Sides of the Table

I usually tell people that everything I learned about being an entrepreneur I learned by F’ing up at my first company.

Startup 173