Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2017

Everyone in the business world has heard of the old bestseller by Geoffrey A. Moore titled “ Crossing the Chasm ,” but most entrepreneurs have no idea how it relates to them. In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Most investors and startup professionals expand this concept of focus to apply to key issues of every aspect of strategic and tactical planning in a startup.

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Customer Entrepreneur Technical Review Dilution 191

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 24, 2017

The idea of starting your own business can be tempting. As soon as the idea pops into your head, you’re likely to fantasize about the freedom. It’s easy to imagine: You’ll be able to make your own decisions. You’ll only do work that you want. And you’ll only work with people who are easy to get along with. However, here are 5 challenges you may never have thought you might have to face: 1.

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Forecast Web Development Hiring Business Model 138

Up and Running

APRIL 25, 2017

If you’ve never recruited for a remote team, you’re probably wondering if the recruitment process looks different than the traditional hiring process. The answer? Yes, it does. However, this shouldn’t worry you. All you have to know is where to look, how to leverage LinkedIn for your recruitment process , and how to communicate with remote workers. This guide will give you three quick tips to get you started on the right track.

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Salary Employee Technical Review Search 90

Austin Startup

APRIL 25, 2017

Some quick numbers: 2016 Revenue: $515M (up about 6x year over year due to artificially restricted advertising revenue prior to 2016) 2016 Expenses: $919M 2016 Operating Loss: $404M To justify a $20B valuation, the market is suggesting that, at some point in the future, Snap would need to generate financials that look something like this (assuming no discount for risk/time): Revenue: $10B Operating margin: 20% Operating profit: $2B P/E multiple: 10x Growing revenues and profits by about 10% / ye

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Valuation Technical Review Forecast Social Network 48

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

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2017

I know entrepreneurs who have suffered from premature execution often associated with the ready-fire-aim quick-to-market approach. Yet I believe that many more have benefited from this approach, especially in early startup stages. If your product is highly innovative, and speed to market is critical, you won’t get it right the first time anyway, no matter how cautiously you plan.

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Marketing Technical Review Cost Entrepreneur 136

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 25, 2017

We’ve all laughed at detailed renderings of constellations overlaying a paltry set of stars that are in fact quasi-random. Like Fornax, which is just three stars: But which humans have no trouble rendering as an intricate sequence of machinery: It would be funny, if this natural compulsion didn’t also cause us to make bad decisions, all the time.

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Flash Africa Hiring Advertising 298

Hunter Walker

APRIL 22, 2017

Hi, you might remember me from such infomercials as… So I’m about two weeks into a nootropic called TruBrain and wanted to write a bit about my experience. Nootropics are essentially “vitamins for your brain,” and, while the term was apparently coined in 1972, it wasn’t until the last few years that it went ‘mainstream’ among my friends.

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Technical Review Early Stage Channel Demand 51

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 26, 2017

As a mentor for aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs, I talk to a fair number who may have a great vision and a strong engineering background, but have a negative interest in the role of public speaking in business. In fact, they often claim to be part of the survey group that fears public speaking more than death, but I’m not sure how anyone could validate that survey.

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Early Stage Lead Generation Hosting Entrepreneur 242

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 24, 2017

by Diana Ennen, President of Virtual Word Publishing and author of “ Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA “. This month I celebrated my 32 nd year in business. Wow! How cool is that? Who would have thought 32 years ago that a site like LinkedIn would be available to share the news of my big anniversary? Totally awesome!

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Social Media Florida PR Arizona 200

deal architect

APRIL 27, 2017

Jim McGeever, former President of NetSuite, now EVP of that global business unit at Oracle joked things had changed significantly after it invested over $ 9 billion to acquire NetSuite. “SuiteWorld has moved to Las Vegas, our safe harbor statement.

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Las Vegas Global Cloud Software 170

SoCal CTO

APRIL 25, 2017

Here is the most recent version of an all too common email inquiry from a startup founder. I've removed the two words that described the market - otherwise this is verbatim. I'm working on a start up idea in the XXX market with my partner and we are currently looking for full stack developer to join us as a technical co-founder. We have been reading about the LA CTO Forum and we thought it would be a great place to find him/her.

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Email Developer Elevator Pitch Cofounder 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2017

Based on my own experience as a startup investor, and feedback from like-minded friends, we all get pitches for at least ten startup ideas for every one new business plan. New business founders need to remember that investors fund business implementations, not ideas. In fact, investors will tell you that ideas are worth nothing, outside the context of a real team with a real plan.

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YoungUpstarts

APRIL 26, 2017

In the world of e-commerce, online sales are the bread and butter for firms of any size. Any aspiring start-up company wishing to survive in the competitive e-commerce industry must establish itself fast, and make its presence known. Gogoprint , a leading Southeast Asian online printing company founded in late 2015, has been working hard to do just that in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

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B2B Sales Thailand Malaysia 179

The Next Web

APRIL 27, 2017

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with 17-year old Femi Adebogun, the co-founder and CEO of Testify Software Solutions. Femi and I talked about his education and the problems he faced in the system-much along the lines of feeling lost or disengaged. Along with a friend who faced similar struggles, they developed MindMap, an edtech tool to helps teachers learn about their students’ learning styles, interests, and career goals in a short period.

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Nigeria Cofounder America Web 152

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

When you run a startup you’re always on borrowed time. You have cash in the bank, a monthly burn rate and a “cash out” date that few in the company truly comprehend. I’ve never met a founder who wasn’t acutely aware of his or her ticking time bomb and the sense that failure and humiliation is a real possibility. It’s why so few can really start a business from scratch.

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Burn Rate Term Sheet CTO Hire Fractional CTO 238

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2017

We all know some peers in business who could use some coaching to unleash their potential and optimize performance, but would you know how to do the job if they asked you for help? Most people find it easier and quicker to just do the work themselves, than to guide someone else through the mindset and process needed. The result is frustration and dissatisfaction all around.

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Restful Conversion Partner Management 136

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 24, 2017

If you have a small business, you may have noticed that some of your competitors’ sites are ranking higher than yours despite your best SEO efforts. Typically, websites that contain quality content are rewarded by major search engines like Google with excellent conversion rates and high rankings in the search results. However, since updates like Panda and Penguin , it has become more important than ever before to ensure your website contains a combination of quantity and quality.

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Developer SEO eCommerce Engineer 166

The Next Web

APRIL 26, 2017

On May 18 and 19 the digital tech scene – 15.000 professionals – are gathering in Amsterdam for TNW Conference. It was awarded Best European Conference and is also known as Europe’s leading digital technology festival, so it’s not a bad place to be as someone in tech. A ticket to attend the conference, the parties, the chats, discussions and meetings is going for €545 ex VAT at the moment (but this price is rapidly rising to €1200 in the next few weeks).

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Web Technology Entrepreneur 133

YFS Magazine

APRIL 24, 2017

Businesses can be sometimes overwhelming, and that's why it's best to give it a little breathing space. Start delegating—and make money on your terms.

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Product 144

Version One Ventures

APRIL 25, 2017

Sometimes there’s a disconnect between investor sentiment and the product’s value. The same thing happens in the market: good companies can have a lower stock price due to public sentiment and market factors outside of their control. Not every start-up can play in a vertical that’s an investor darling. For example, you may be in a crowded market. Maybe there have been some high profile failures in the past.

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Customer Vertical Stock Portfolio 130

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 27, 2017

by Amber Henning, Digital Marketing Strategist at Social Eyes Marketing. Live video has definitely captured the attention of the Internet. Specifically, Facebook Live has become a popular go-to for business and individuals alike. Facebook live started back in 2015, with a limited release among verified celebrity pages, but it quickly exploded to something that businesses and the general public could use – for better or for worse.

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Vesting Hosting Video Advertising 159

The Next Web

APRIL 26, 2017

Growth Story is a new four-question format we’re doing about startups finding and influencing a defining metric that helped really grow their company. This week the CEO and co-founder of Blinkist, Holger Seim, shares valuable insights into growing a subscription-based B2C service. Blinkist is a service that lets users read or listen to the key lessons from nonfiction books in 15 min or less.

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Europe B2C Cofounder Metrics 124

YFS Magazine

APRIL 25, 2017

The freedom of being a leader comes with hidden shackles. We personify our companies, and if we look disheveled, so do our businesses.

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Leadership Developer Management 147

Berkonomics

APRIL 27, 2017

We’ve spent several weeks discussing your vision for success, and whether you could be the next Ford, Jobs or Musk. Now it’s time to make this more tangible, more real – by attaching personal goals to this vision we’ve created together for you. So, your vision tells the world what you want to be as you contemplate how you will change the world for the better.

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Email Employee Developer Marketing 106

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 28, 2017

by Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever, coauthors of “ The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future “ We’re living in the transition zone when the convenience and economic benefit of hailing a car when we need one is becoming ingrained behavior. Car service companies around the globe, including Uber and Lyft, are providing a sharp contrast to purchasing, fueling, maintaining, insuring and housing a personal car.

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Syndicate Syndication Washington Texas 157

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 26, 2017

At 18 minutes into this awesome talk that Fred Wilson did at MIT a few weeks ago , he finishes the statement “ The best time to invest in something is.” “ … when nobody wants to invest in it but you.” He adds “ And – you have to believe in it and know why. ” Truer words have never been spoken about investing as, or in, VC.

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Video Venture Capital 85

YFS Magazine

APRIL 28, 2017

With increased mindfulness, you can take mistakes in stride, rather than taking them as a reflection of your inadequacies as a public speaker.

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Developer 124

ConversionXL

APRIL 27, 2017

What happens when ecommerce sites run out of stock? Cue crowds of angry (would-be) customers and the burning of a big pile of money. Ok, it might not be that bad, but it’s certainly never good. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to mitigate the negative impact. But First… How Sites Usually Deal with Out of Stock Product Pages. Let’s say you’re browsing an ecommerce site for a clothing line.

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Stock Product eCommerce SEO 90

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 24, 2017

It’s all too easy to start feeling flat about work, and life in general. If this applies to you, then you need to start improving your motivation levels. This is often a lot easier to do than you may think. Start out with small steps and then take bigger strides as you progress. The more motivated you become, the more energy and inclination you have to become further motivated.

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Developer 147

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2017

Video is one of the best tools to leverage right now to accelerate your business growth. Cisco expects video content to account for around 80 percent of the internet traffic by 2020. Clearly, video is not a fad. If you haven’t started to get serious about it yet, the time to take action is right now. Here are seven practical ways to integrate video into your business growth plan. 1.

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Video Social Media Startup Channel 83

YFS Magazine

APRIL 24, 2017

Starting a business can be stressful, but you can make it easy on yourself. You just need to make sure that you’re prepared – success should follow.

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Startup 118

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 24, 2017

If you are an NCIS fan, you are probably excited about the upcoming 48 Hours: NCIS which premieres on Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 10pm ET/PT. I like NCIS, but I’m especially excited about Oblong’s Mezzanine product being a central part of the show. John Underkoffler has been showing us – through Hollywood – the future of user experiences since Minority Report (where he was the science and technology advisor.

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Mezzanine Technology Product 71

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 26, 2017

by Greg Head of Greg Head Consulting. “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” – Winston Churchill. As companies grow, especially between $1M – $10M in revenue, entrepreneurs deal with very difficult issues. When CEOs “freak out” and encounter debilitating stress, it’s not because they’ve had a hectic week or have had to work late for a month straight.

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Founder Global Revenue Software 145

Austin Startup

APRIL 28, 2017

Last November, the Austin City Council passed a resolution requiring the creation of a Smart City Strategic Roadmap by the end of this May. The goal, per the resolution, is to create a “transparent framework or roadmap for City services to catalyze joint understanding, prioritization, planning, and resources for connecting technological opportunities.

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YFS Magazine

APRIL 25, 2017

10 simple iPhone hacks that will make your life easier; whether it’s daily planning, shopping, scheduling meetings or even to simplify parking payments.

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Product Technology 109

Hunter Walker

APRIL 25, 2017

Well, @Unrollme probably having a more interesting Sunday than they expected pic.twitter.com/qCtNAOnSHM. — Unroll.UsFrom2017 (@hunterwalk) April 23, 2017. So the moment I read Mike Isaac’s TK profile it jumped out that Unroll.me was going to have a problem on their hands. Their consumers were surprised at what was being done with their data and no one likes surprises.

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Conversion Aggregator Metadata .Net 79