February, 2016

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Performance competition is a good thing

TechEmpower

We love this! If you've not been watching the ASP.NET team's community standups , you have missed some surprisingly transparent, interesting, and oftentimes funny updates from a major web application framework development team. Every time I watch one I marvel, this is Microsoft? Clearly we're seeing a new Microsoft. If you're not watching, you would have also missed how much emphasis the ASP.NET team is putting on performance.

Framework 200
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The True Costs Of Entrepreneurship

YoungUpstarts

by Donovan Janus, founder of 17hats. When food and shelter are a freelancer’s two heaviest expenses, a conversation about “costs” sounds absurd, no? Unless you breakfast on caviar, truffles and Dom Pérignon in a Mediterranean villa tended by your manservant Basil, your costs can’t be that bad. Most freelancers build a business with gear they already own and write off whatever expenses arise.

Cost 109
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7 Lessons They Don’t Teach You In Crowdfunding School

Startup Professionals Musings

Crowdfunding is the hot new vehicle for raising money to support your entrepreneurial efforts, with over 1,250 website platforms around the world to help you, according to a 2015 industry report. In fact, the report suggests that the total amount raised annually (over $30 billion) now exceeds the funding from venture capitalists during the same period.

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Inside Mattermark’s Ubiquitous Newsletter: Principles and Process

View from Seed

You probably know them well. If you’re not already subscribed to a number of them yourself, you’ve seen pop-up messages—on any number of sites—that urge, beg, plead with you to sign up to receive them regularly. Not every company uses them the right way, but those that do reap incredible rewards from their creations—even if the payoff isn’t direct or immediate.

Curation 185
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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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Darwinian company growth doesn’t always select the best companies

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

“Survival of the fittest” is not the same thing as “survival of the best,” though not apparent at first glance. “Fittest” means “most able to become a grandparent.” Sound weird? You might “fittest” means “most able to create offspring,” but that’s not true if the offspring themselves are unable to continue the process of reproduction. A horse mated with a donkey creates a mule which is sterile; the parents in this case cannot become grandparents, and thus is an evolutionary dead-end.

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The Apple / FBI Rabbit Hole Is Deep

Feld Thoughts

Yesterday I wrote about getting stuck in an hour long reading loop on the Apple / FBI situation. As much as I didn’t want it to happen again today, it did. More on that in a minute. But first, I want to encourage you to go watch the movie Race which is the story of Jesse Owens and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was superb and the double entendre of the title played out for a full two hours as the movie made us think hard about race in America in the 1930s and what was happening in Nazi Germ

More Trending

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The Importance of Software Development Services

YoungUpstarts

Software development is an umbrella term used to refer to the overall process that involves several tasks, such as computer programming, documenting, repairing and testing that concern both the creation and the maintenance of applications and frameworks. Although software development is found for a wide variety of purposes, the one we will refer to here is custom software.

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10 Setup Steps To A Compelling Startup Presentation

Startup Professionals Musings

The average length of a funding pitch to Angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.

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Linux for Ladies Program Seeks to Train More Women in the Technology Field

SiliconHills

Anna Eilering worked as a chef before becoming a software developer two years ago. “I make four times the amount of money I made as a chef,” Eilering said. She also has healthcare and other benefits as an employee at Rackspace in San Antonio. But it took her almost ten years working as a chef […] The post Linux for Ladies Program Seeks to Train More Women in the Technology Field appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Hiring Employees? Here Are Over 70 Must-Ask Interview Questions

Up and Running

When hiring a new employee, it’s important to ask the right questions. There are some interview questions that are a given; we all know how to put a good spin on the classic greatest weakness question. It’s also expected that you’ll have potential employees review their job history and qualifications. But how do you really dig into what makes someone tick as an employee, and how do you determine if they’ll be a good fit for your business—not only in terms of their skills, but also their personal

Hiring 85
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Should. Must. And Our Lives: Five Questions with Author, Designer Elle Luna

Hunter Walker

Elle Luna and I met several years ago via overlapping friend circles. The last meal we shared, several years ago, she departed accepting a ride in a pedicab piloted by a man in a spiderman costume. That kinda summarizes how wonderful her journey of the past several years have been. Hunter Walk: Your book, The Crossroads of Should and Must , has really reverberated with the creative community.

Design 52
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The Advanced Guide to Transactional Emails That Convert

ConversionXL

In 2008, Seth Godin published a list of things that “every good marketer knows” Among that list was: “Anticipated, personal, and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.” His conclusion was that there is a very big difference between knowing and doing. Good marketers continue to send unsolicited junk. [Tweet It!].

Email 76
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Is Your Business Prepared To Handle A Crisis?

YoungUpstarts

Making changes to your business can come with unique problems. As you try to make your business greener, more sustainable, and more responsible, it’s important to identify potential issues that can lead to a crisis. Is It a Crisis or Just a Problem? While doing business, problems will arise. You will handle these problems as they occur, and likely implement solutions to prevent such problems in the future.

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The Significance of SEO in Web Design

Duct Tape Marketing

The Significance of SEO in Web Design written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. photo credit: SEO Scrabble via photopin (license). People go online to search for different types of information and this means that your company needs a strong online presence. Many users need to carry out searches before they make a purchase. Your business thus requires a website that will be ranked on the first page of search results.

SEO 41
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The Real Deal: Ben Pring on the Room in a Flat World

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is repeat contributor, Ben Pring who co-leads Cognizant's Future of Work Center, a global think tank that researches and advises.

Global 150
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Five Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make With Your Nonprofit

Up and Running

A lot of work goes into making a nonprofit run smoothly, and a lot can go wrong. If you want to keep yours afloat, here are five mistakes you need to avoid. There’s something immensely admirable about running a nonprofit; it stems from a desire to change the world for the better, and a willingness to devote oneself entirely to a charitable cause. Unfortunately, good intentions do not a stable organization make.

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Spotting, Nurturing and Mentoring Talent – The Power of Troy Carter

Both Sides of the Table

I recently sat down with Troy Carter to talk about what he does and why he believes it is applicable to venture capital. The “what” is well known in LA circles – Troy discovered a little known young singer named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga and helped her launch her career. The “what” Troy Carter does also led him to be an early investor in Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Warby Parker and several other great startups of the last era.

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Why Content Personalization Is Not Web Personalization (and What to Do About It)

ConversionXL

In 1999, David Weinberger, a technologist and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto , wrote, “Personalization: the automatic tailoring of sites and messages to the individuals viewing them so that we can feel that somewhere there’s a piece of software that loves us for who we are.” Ironically, nearly 20 years later, personalization is being used by companies attempting to make the online experience more human.

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To Franchise Or Not To Franchise?

YoungUpstarts

Image credit: Franchise from Shutterstock. By Brandon Moxam, Director of Brand Development at U.S. Lawns. There are numerous franchising opportunities in the U.S. With more than 825,000 franchise establishments across 300 business lines, they employ nearly 18 million people and account for one eighth of the U.S. private-sector jobs. Whether it’s access to a proven business model, the expertise and resources needed to achieve sustainable growth, or simply wanting a team of support, franchising ha

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7 Startup Strategies To Gain From Your Limitations

Startup Professionals Musings

As Clint Eastwood once said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Every new entrepreneur soon realizes he or she has some big ones, but very few figure out how to use these them to their advantage. I believe that the resourcefulness to turn constraints into competitive differentiators and new opportunities is a trait that separates the great entrepreneurs from the “wannabes.

Startup 135
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The Real Deal: Bill Hewitt on Contracts meet Machines

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Bill Hewitt. Bill joined Exari in 2015 as Chief Executive Officer, responsible for the company’s vision, strategy and business.

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How to Hire the Right Leadership Team for Your Startup

Up and Running

One important thing to remember from the earliest days of your startup is that its success won’t rest solely on your own abilities. As soon as you start pulling together your first leadership team, you’ll be making big decisions about how to push your business to the next level and will be relying on others to share your vision and your passion. You’ll probably have limited resources —and you may have limited experience—which means it’s crucial to make each hire count.

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MakeSpace Raises an Additional $17.5 million and Unveils Strategy to Make Public Storage the Next Blockbuster Video

Both Sides of the Table

MakeSpace , the leading provider of next-generation storage for consumers, today announced an additional $17.5 million in funding on TechCrunch led by Harmony Partners and Upfront Ventures to double its footprint of 3 cities (New York, Chicago & Washington DC) to 6 in 2016. We raised this capital in what has increasingly become a difficult market for fund raising so I’d like to share with you some details on how we get it done.

Video 238
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The Intersection of SEO and CRO (and How to Maximize Long Term Growth)

ConversionXL

You’d think conversion optimization and SEO should play together nicely, right? In theory, conversion optimization aims to improve the user experience, which, conveniently, is what Google wants to do as well with their top search results. Therefore, the more you test and improve your site, the higher it should appear in the rankings. You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle.

SEO 76
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The Mission Model Canvas – An Adapted Business Model Canvas for Mission-Driven Organizations

Steve Blank

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission? In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue? Alexander Osterwalder and I think we have the answer – the new Mission Model Canvas.

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10 Steps To Profitable Strategic Business Decisions

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs are so overwhelmed by the day-to-day challenges of their business that they rarely take the time to work on longer-term strategy (they work in the business versus on the business). As a result, strategy decisions are made in the same ad-hoc crises style as operational decisions, and the business suffers. Gut reactions are rarely the optimal solution to any problem.

Framework 129
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Oracles Confident Cloud

deal architect

I have analyzed Oracle for over two decades – at PwC, at Gartner, and now at Deal Architect. I have written before Oracle does not get enough respect – I would say it has to work twice as hard as.

Cloud 195
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Seed-Stage Startups: Beware the “Stickiness Squeeze”

View from Seed

This post originally appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission. NextView is also an investor in thredUP. There’s a lot of negativity out there. From the public markets to the private markets, everyone is feeling valuations and optimism contract. Many will say “it’s going to be another 2009 vintage!” publicly and privately lament “my portfolio is hurting…” Mark Suster over at Upfront has a great deck on this.

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The Full Dataset on What VCs are Thinking About Funding in 2016

Both Sides of the Table

Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends. We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. In venture our goal is to fund companies over a 10-year+ time horizon, which is the time it takes to build truly transformational companies.

Burn Rate 235
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Why Every Company Needs a Growth Manager

Seeing Both Sides

. (this post was originally published in Harvard Business Review and is co-authored with Nadav Benbarak of Okta.). Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively.

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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 21: Grant Warner

Steve Blank

While finding product-market fit is important, getting the rest of the business model right is the difference between and a great demo and a great business. And embracing risk-taking or failure is hard when you go to college and have to be the example for your family. Lessons learned from starting up and teaching entrepreneurship were the focus of an interview with the latest guest on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific,

Cofounder 130
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8 Ways To Survive And Prosper Around Negative People

Startup Professionals Musings

To be an entrepreneur, you have to have a thick skin and not be defensive to customer feedback and constructive criticism. On the other hand, no entrepreneur should tolerate negative vibes and complainers on their own team. The challenge is to understand the difference between these two situations -- and to respond effectively to both. You can’t reinforce negative thinking and stay positive.

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NetSuite's Dent Repair for the IT world

deal architect

An exec at a failed on-premise ERP project told me he was delighted the project crashed. I thought he was joking. No, his later SaaS project alerted him to the fact that even if his on-premise software had worked, he.

Software 150
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Behind-the-Scenes with a Startup Rebrand [Traction #19: Liz Wessel, WayUp]

View from Seed

Oh what’s in a name? Your startup’s name and branding become objects that represent your passion, pride, and determination. But startups change their names more often than their founders or teams might like, despite all the love for their current incarnation. So … why? What causes that? What influences should you listen to as a founder?

Startup 156
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Why Investing In LEDs Is One Of The Smartest Decisions You Can Make For Your Business

YoungUpstarts

Every business owner or operator wants to implement cost-saving strategies for their business. Overhead expenses from electricity consumption can easily account for 40% of the business’s overhead costs. Businesses can encourage staff to improve their energy consumption habits in the workplace. However, the biggest change will come from the type of light bulb that is being used.

Australia 109
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Why Every Company Needs a Growth Manager

Seeing Both Sides

. (this post was originally published in Harvard Business Review and is co-authored with Nadav Benbarak of Okta.). Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively.