Sat.Jul 16, 2016 - Fri.Jul 22, 2016

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How Online Lenders Facilitate The Growth Of Startups

YoungUpstarts

In order to make a splash in their industries, startups need a healthy flow of working capital and, when you’re just trying to get established, it’s often impossible to access a sustainable flow of working capital through revenue alone. Because of this, startups traditionally look to outside funding solutions, but, unfortunately, obtaining capital from a bank can be challenging without an upfront investment, a solid business plan, a great credit score and a dash of luck.

Startup 100
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How to Choose a POS System

Up and Running

A point of sale (POS) system can be a great addition to your business. Capable of far more than simply taking credit cards, POS systems offer features like inventory management, reporting, and even time clock options. In my work for CardFellow, a leading resource for small businesses looking for credit card processing and terminals, I regularly test, research, and write overviews of equipment.

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Announcing our newest investment, Trim: A money-saving robot for the 99%

Version One Ventures

Last week, in our blog post “Is Social Dead?” , we wrote about the excitement surrounding messaging as a platform/conversational commerce. But, we also cautioned that messaging isn’t always the optimal way to get things done. One of the big unknowns is if the command line (or chat bubble) of a chat app is going to offer a better experience than an app.

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Them Evil Corporates

Babbling VC

There is forever a problem to be found, regardless where you may look. Inevitably, corporates are really good at this. There are a ton of people within large organisations whose job it is to find problems. They aren’t necessarily there to solve them yet they are incentivised to look. As much as this sounds like an issue, it’s one of the odd godsends of working with a corporate.

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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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TechEmpower Benchmarks and the Microsoft ASP.NET Core 1.0 Performance Story

SoCal CTO

I’ve had lots of conversations with fellow CTOs about the TechEmpower Web Framework Benchmarks. Some really appreciate the value that they bring to help them understand performance characteristics of different frameworks. Depending on the Technical Performance Requirements for your system, this could be really valuable information that is part of your framework selection process.

Framework 163
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10 Indications You Would Make A Great Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

As a startup advisor and investor, I’ve met many aspiring entrepreneurs, and I often get asked the question, “I have a great idea for a startup – do you agree that it real potential?” They don’t know that most experts agree the person is more important than the idea, yet I’ve never been asked, “I have a great idea for a startup – do you agree that I have real potential as an entrepreneur?

More Trending

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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 36: Jim Semick and Peter Arvai

Steve Blank

Given all that I’ve seen in my career I don’t sweat the small stuff. We didn’t talk about product; we didn’t talk about organization or raising money. We talked about our values, we talked about our hopes and dreams for the world, and that helped us realize why we were doing this project together. Startups aren’t only for twentysomethings.

Cofounder 143
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Your Customers Don’t Need Better Products. They Need Better Stories!

Brandanew

In 2008, I was in India working with one of the world’s largest consulting firms. I was working for a Hi-Tech client that was keenly following Nokia’s strategies (yes, there was a time). Steve Jobs had just launched the iPhone, and many analysts were dissing Apple for bringing a sub-par product to the market. Phones with better features and technology options were already in the market.

Detroit 122
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7 Ways People Can Make A Big Difference In Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

In my years of working with entrepreneurs, I have heard many times the promise that their new idea will create the next Amazon or Apple, but I rarely hear the more important promise that the founder will practice all the good habits of winning entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. You see, I’m convinced that the entrepreneur makes the company, not the other way around.

Startup 143
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Why You Should Start Your Entrepreneurial Career In Restaurants

YoungUpstarts

By Anthony Lye, President & CEO of HotSchedules. In the 1980s, as a teenager in Weymouth, England, I spent summers working in beachside restaurants. In our vacation town, that was the best way to make money and get a tan. I progressed from washing dishes to waiting tables, but I never considered restaurants a long-term option. From at least that era into the present, Western societies have construed restaurants jobs as temporary work – something you do before you get a “real job.

Offshore 148
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Berlin: Startup Home As A Service

Feld Thoughts

I thought this was outrageously brilliant. Thanks to Andrew Hyde for sending it to me. For a long time I’ve ranted against naming your startup community “Silicon Whatever.” Instead, I believe every startup community already has a name. The Boulder startup community is called Boulder. The LA startup community is called LA. The Washington DC startup community is called Washington DC.

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The Top 3 Questions to Ask Before You Allocate Marketing Spend

Brandanew

Many of the clients and businesses that we work with operate in a lean manner. Now this is fantastic, because personally, I believe that it helps us stay more creative and forces us to think about efficiencies while scaling. So if you’re a new business or about to start with digital marketing , how do you juggle with questions on where to begin or how to allocate marketing spend?

Marketing 122
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10 Entrepreneur Beliefs Restrict Innovative Thinking

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur believes in their heart that their startup is more innovative and creative than their competitors. Yet none knows exactly where creativity comes from within, or how to pick and motivate the most creative people for the team. Most believe and follow one or more of the popular myths on business creativity, even though none of them have much scientific evidence.

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Tips For Hiring Your First Employee As A Small Business Owner

YoungUpstarts

by Gyawu Mahama, Social Media and Marketing Manager at Hiscox Small Business Insurance. As a small business owner, you’re accustomed to wearing many hats. However, sometimes it’s necessary to just get an extra set of hands, especially as your business grows. This will allow you to focus on certain aspects of the business that may have been taking a backseat and even take a much needed vacation that can be difficult to find the time for as a small business owner.

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I Started My First Business at Age 9: Here’s What Kids Can Learn from Being Entrepreneurs

Up and Running

When I was nine years old, I never dreamed that the small, quarter vending machine I owned would turn me into a small business owner and a college graduate. Wanting to inspire a sense of entrepreneurship and business in his daughter, my dad brought home a vending machine he had purchased from a friend. Setting it down in front of me in our living room, he asked—in all seriousness—“Do you want to start a business?”.

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Why Showing Vulnerability In Business Actually Proves Your Strength

YFS Magazine

Vulnerability in business exponentially increases your ability to serve more people and deeply connect with those who can relate to you and your mission.

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7 Steps To Turning Business-As-Usual Into A Moonshot

Startup Professionals Musings

In this era of accelerating change, business-as-usual is the enemy of every business, new and old. Yet it’s an easy rut to fall into, and a tough one to break out of. Every business needs to “reach for the stars” on a regular basis, in much the same way the President Kennedy challenged a nation to put a man on the moon in an impossible timeframe more than fifty years ago.

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5 Mobile Apps Every Startup Needs To Use

YoungUpstarts

There are literally millions of apps on the app store, but which ones should be on your startup’s list? Well, not too many of them. It’s important that your startup has the best possible start in life, and that means being organized and decisive. The following five apps will help you be both those things, and we’ve thrown in a surprise along the way!

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8 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Started Their Own Businesses

Up and Running

When it comes to starting a business, you’ll need a driving force behind you—something more than money. Whether that is a desire to make some small corner of the world a better place, or the feeling that you could be the one to perfect a certain product, you’ll need to hone in on that deeper motivation to be successful. Otherwise, it’s hard to keep going when times get tough.

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Create Click-Worthy Content By Avoiding These 3 Mistakes

YFS Magazine

Take a look at your latest content you've created to market your business. Have you made any of these content marketing mistakes? 

If so, now is the time to change course.

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6 key tips to taking your business global

The Next Web

If your business has seen successful growth in the US, it most likely will see success in other countries as well. And, you may want to lock up those markets, before some other company does. I recently met a startup that had successfully tripled its revenues – largely from the results of a successful international expansion effort and wanted to share those learnings with all of you.

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[ADV] Debt Collection Done Right: Miller Stark Klein

YoungUpstarts

Debt collection done right, if you are struggling with debt our team of debt collectors and account representatives will work to collect your debts. In over your head, we help find financial solutions working within the guidelines of the F.D.C.P.A and the F.C.R.A. If you are having trouble paying bills, M.S.K. & Associates has over 20 years of collection and debt mediation experience.

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UK venture post Brexit – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The Equity Kicker

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” is an old French saying that translates literally as “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing” Before the Brexit vote there was a lot of debate about the trajectory of the venture capital markets and that has intensified considerably in the last couple of weeks. Venture investment has been pretty steady for nine months now in both Europe and the US, albeit with a lot of month to month volatility, but there are fea

Europe 78
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Want To Be Successful? It’s Time To Change Your Mindset

YFS Magazine

Negative thinking is a non-starter, especially for entrepreneurs. If you’re determined to blast away those negative thoughts and replace them with a much more positive and optimistic outlook, take a look at these techniques.

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The hardest thing about fundraising that no one talks about.

Hippoland

Fundraising is freakin’ hard. It’s time-consuming and draining. It requires being energetic and up 110% even when you’ve already been rejected a million times over. And, it’s a big sales job. But there’s one aspect of fundraising that no one talks about: how to balance growth and fundraising at the same time. For most companies, growing your revenue (or user base for consumer apps) while you’re fundraising is incredibly important, especially since the typical raise will span over a couple

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The 4 Best Reasons You Should Start An Online Business

YoungUpstarts

Many budding entrepreneurs are deciding to dive into the online business world. These days, you’re seeing more and more online companies springing up. However, some businesspeople are still pondering whether it’s the right venture for them. So, to help you decide, here are the four best reasons you should start an online business: Sell To A Global Market.

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On the Hunt for Pokemon in San Antonio

SiliconHills

By Laura Lorek Reporter with Silicon Hills News More than 1,000 Pokemon players met to go on a “Hunt” in downtown San Antonio Saturday for Pokemon, Pokestops and to do battle at Pokemon Gyms. “I just wanted to try to get everyone together. With all of the events happening in our world right now, it […] The post On the Hunt for Pokemon in San Antonio appeared first on SiliconHills.

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How to Develop a Positioning Statement for the Marketing Section of Your Business Plan

Up and Running

Positioning is the essence of marketing strategy, and some would say of all business strategy. It’s about how your business is different from the others. It’s about what your business does for people that other businesses don’t do. See Also: Business Planning Guide. The positioning statement template. I’m not sure where this classic positioning statement template started, or whom to credit, but I’ve found it very useful for years of developing business plans. “For [target market descriptio

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Founder Fights in Boulder

Feld Thoughts

The final event at Boulder Startup Week a few months ago was Founder Fights. A bunch of founders got in a boxing ring for a real, USA Boxing sanctioned event (three rounds, two minutes each). To see a two minute version of what played out, take a look at this great video montage from the event (I make a startling entrance at 0:52 in the video.) It’s worth clicking through to Vimeo if the security settings don’t let it play in your browser.).

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Get Your Startup Off The Ground With These Ideas

YoungUpstarts

You have to come up with ideas to help boost and improve your business. And, to do that you need to work on getting your startup off the ground. These are some of the key things you need to pay attention to as much as possible. Use these ideas to hit the ground running as much as possible: Sort Out an Office. Your office is an integral part of your business, so you have to get it right.

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Evolving “openness” at marketplaces

The Equity Kicker

I just read the following quote in a post about platform failures: Because platforms depend on the value created by participants, it’s critical to carefully manage the platform’s “openness” – the degree of access that consumers, producers, and others have to a platform, and what they’re allowed to do there. If platforms are too closed, keeping potentially desirable participants out, network effects stall; if they’re too open there can be other value-destroying effects, such as poor quality contr

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9 Invaluable Resources If You Want to Start a Gym or Fitness Business

Up and Running

Starting your own gym may sound like an undertaking of epic proportions. The truth is, it doesn’t have to be. If you know what you need to do to start and what you need to learn, you won’t be scrambling to do it all during the actual startup phase. In this article, you’ll learn which associations to join, what magazines to purchase, what blogs to read, and even what to do if you don’t want to start a fitness business but still want to use your knowledge to make money.

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7 Productivity Hacks To Improve Your Daily Workflow

YFS Magazine

The more productive you become, the less overwhelmed you'll be. Here's a look at 7 overlooked productivity hacks that can really help you reign in "the busy" and get more done.

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What Can You Do About Ransomware On Your Systems?

YoungUpstarts

by Tim Mullahy, General Manager at Liberty Center One. Ransomware is on the rise. Rather than targeting enterprises and users to steal their personal data, criminals are increasingly taking an alternative approach: holding that data for ransom and turning a profit that way, instead. It’s much easier than trying to sell sensitive documents on the black markets – and as an added bonus, it’s much more difficult to trace, too.

Bandwidth 109
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FOMO – A dangerous game for VCs

The Equity Kicker

“No VC has ever failed because of NOT having invested into a company.” This quote is from Alexander Ruppert’s The first year in Venture Capital — Lessons (to be) learned. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that a couple of Associates have been fired for passing on Uber or A.N.Other hot deal of the moment, so I’m not sure it’s 100% true, but the message here is spot on.

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Research-Backed Strategies to Boost Your Gym’s Revenue

Up and Running

If you want to own your own gym or fitness center, you’re probably trying to figure out how you’re going to bring in customers, and keep them. If so, you’re on the right track. As you will shortly see, member retention is key to the success of a fitness center. Luckily for you, there are multiple things you can do to win over your customers. To help you out, we’ve hacked our way through the forest of general (and generic) ideas to find you only those strategies that have been proven to boost rev

Revenue 66