Sat.Jun 28, 2014 - Fri.Jul 04, 2014

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How To Use A Reward Credit Card To Earn Free Travel

YoungUpstarts

'Traveling is a passion. You can take every opportunity to travel, no matter where it takes you. Some practices that allow people to travel so much are budgeting, putting money aside monthly, traveling inexpensively and maximizing the travel benefits you get with a travel credit card. When these things are done wisely, you’d be surprised at how many trips you can go on each year.

Dividend 167
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Do venture capitalists have an ethical duty to startups?

The Next Web

'Janine Yancey is the CEO & President of Emtrain — an organization dedicated to creating user-friendly, memorable and scalable ethics and harassment prevention training for the workplace. Before I get into the “ethical duty” mentioned in the title, allow me to quickly run a few things by you. In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of entrepreneurs at startups make some serious ethical and professional mistakes.

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How to Forecast Sales

Up and Running

'Sales forecasting is much easier than you think, and much more useful than you imagine. It’s not about guessing the future correctly. We’re human; we don’t do that well. Instead, it’s about assumptions, expectations, drivers, tracking, and management. You review and revise your forecast regularly. Since sales are intimate with costs and expenses, the forecast helps you budget and manage.

Forecast 119
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Michelle Dale: Mother Of Three Takes Her Kids Around Europe On A Ten Year “Laptop Lifestyle” Trip Thanks To Her $30,000+ A Month Online Business

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

'This has to be one of the best “laptop lifestyle” case studies I have ever heard. Let me introduce you to Michelle Dale. She is the founder of Virtual Miss Friday , a virtual assistant service and training company. [ Download MP3 | Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]. Michelle has been traveling all around Europe … Read the rest of this entry » The post Michelle Dale: Mother Of Three Takes Her Kids Around Europe On A Ten Year “Laptop Lif

Europe 111
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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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[Review] How Asian Women Lead

YoungUpstarts

'How do Asian women experience leadership? What challenges do they face? More importantly, how can organizations recognize, nurture and celebrate Asian women leaders? The answers to these and more can be found in “ How Asian Women Lead ” by career and organizational consultant Jane Horan. Developed from Horan’s doctoral dissertation, the book is structured as a “multicultural narrative inquiry” focusing on the leadership experiences of women in Asia.

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Book Short: Culture is King

OnlyOnce

'Book Short: Culture is King. Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love , by Richard Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations, was a really good read. Like Remote which I reviewed a few weeks ago, Joy, Inc. is ostensibly a book about one thing — culture — but is also full of good general advice for CEOs and senior managers. Also like Remote , the book was written by the founder and CEO of a relatively small firm that is predominately software engineers, so there are some limitati

More Trending

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Everything You Need To Know About Designing Valuable Customer Surveys

ConversionXL

'Conversions are mostly about being relevant to your customers. If what you offer and the way you present it is relevant to your visitors they will convert to buying customers. Then again if you don’t understand who your customer is or worse it’s “everybody” then you have very little change of being successful at it. So you better know your customers, and know them well.

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The Right Ingredients: SBA Loan Prep Steps

YoungUpstarts

'by Evan Singer, SmartBiz. The small business sector is growing rapidly. And while corporate America has been “downsizing,” in recent years, the rate of small business start-ups has dramatically increased. According to recent U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics research, there are an estimated 28 million small businesses in the U.S. Some succeed and some fail.

SBA 154
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Why Venture Capital is So Much More Compelling Now

Both Sides of the Table

'It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” The most recent was 18 months ago or so called The Kauffman Report. It had an influence on the people who fund our industry in a negative way as many asset managers who fund our industry read this flawed report.

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How Investors Make Better Decisions: The Investment Readiness Level

Steve Blank

'Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor to assess project maturity or quantify risks. Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress.

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Governance Models That Don’t Scale: The World According to Charles T. Munger and Jean Jacques Rousseau

Pascal's View

'Can you name five benign dictators who have ruled successfully for any meaningful period of time (non-fiction)? Can you name five successful, long serving CEO’s (excluding Warren Buffett ) whose governance histories are free of the “high-beta” associated with outliers such as Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs ? It’s not easy. Why? Because enlightened dictators and their corporate CEO equivalents are very, very rare; maintaining immunity to the intoxicating effects of power challenges basic human nat

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5 Keys To Product Differentiation For Fun And Profit

Startup Professionals Musings

'Every entrepreneur believes that their product or service is different, and that every customer will quickly see the advantage over competitors. Yet true product differentiation in the eye of the customer is rarely achieved. According to a survey by Bain & Company a while back, 80% of businesses believe they have differentiated offerings, but only 8% of customers agree.

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Joe Perez, Founder of @tastemade, On What Makes a Great Product Manager & More

Both Sides of the Table

'Update : Bothsides TV is now available on iTunes , Soundcloud , Stitcher , or any RSS podcast player you use, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube. I also added a little Soundcloud widget on the sidebar (if you’re viewing on web – not on mobile or RSS reader) that you can listen to each episode with. In the most recent episode, I interviewed Joe Perez , Founder of Tastemade.

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Customer Discovery: The Search for Product/Market Fit. 2 Minutes to See Why

Steve Blank

'If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Search 313
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Stretch Goals

deal architect

'Two of my New Year’s resolutions were to walk 10,000 steps a day, and to post 1,000 entries over 2014 on my innovation blog. Half way through the year, FitBit tells me I have walked nearly 2 million steps –.

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How To Build Startup Credibility Before Your Brand

Startup Professionals Musings

'With the estimated 510 million live websites at last year-end, and 280,000 new ones being added every day, the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is to get found, and get some credibility for a new startup. I can attest from experience that publishing a regular blog to properly showcase your brand value, even before you have it, is a most cost effective approach in time and money.

Startup 253
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Website ROI: 5 eCommerce Design Tenets To Embrace

YoungUpstarts

'by Ben Acheson. Your website is looking a little dated, and you just got off the phone with your web designer. You’re still not sure exactly what changes to make and you don’t want to just throw money at your website. That never works. What you need are design elements that will pay off. Here are five that you might not have thought of yet: Designing For Mobile.

Design 210
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Validation: Be Sure Your Startup Vision Isn’t a Hallucination. 2 Minutes to See Why

Steve Blank

'If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 310
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How Are You Boosting Buzz for Your New, Business Investment?

Rembrandt Communications

'It’s more than sending out an SEO press release Whether you are a venture capitalist, angel investor or entreprenur, you’ve spent long hours developing, researching and investing in a new business. Now, it’s time to tell the world about your products and services and start generating interest and revenue. Where do you begin? Well, it’s […]. The post How Are You Boosting Buzz for Your New, Business Investment?

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Startup Investor Money Always Comes With Strings

Startup Professionals Musings

'As an Angel investor to startups, I’m still surprised to find entrepreneurs who expect investors to give them money, and then disappear into the sunset. Would you do that if it was your money? If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping.

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Expanding To Asia: 5 Tips For Tackling the World’s Largest Market

YoungUpstarts

'by Jay Eum, co-founder and Managing Director of TransLink Capital. At one time, expanding into Asia was considered a luxury — a feat attainable only by the largest and most well-heeled companies in the country. But, in today’s global market, the booming economy, massive population, mobile adoption and growing middle make Asia an attractive—and fully attainable—prospect for virtually any young upstart.

Asia 191
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How to start your business while working a full-time job

The Next Web

'Jason SurfrApp is the founder of IWearYourShirt.com. His new book, Creativity For Sale, is an in-depth look at how to turn passion into profit. The American dream used to be getting a secure job, working from 9-5, and retiring. For most of us, especially people born in the 80s and 90s, this is the American nightmare. The idea of working for someone else makes many of us cringe, and if you’ve had a 9-5 job, you’ve probably felt the suffocating hold it can take on your life.

Security 168
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What are key issues for companies to keep in mind when obtaining investment from an Angel group?

Gust

'The main one is simultaneously obvious and under-estimated in both directions: you are likely getting a bunch of small-ish investors at once. This might typically be anywhere from five to twenty-five investors each putting in somewhere between $10,00 and $100,000 (depending on the group.). The good side is that you now have 5-25 smart, connected people rooting for you.

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How To Get The Right Investor To Fund Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

'Time is too precious to waste trying to close a deal with the wrong investors at the wrong time. Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup.

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10 Steps To Creating The Perfect Logo For Your Startup

YoungUpstarts

'There are two ways in which you can go about creating a logo for your startup. First – contact a professional and get it done. There’re many companies out there who’ll design an awesome logo for you, such as 4040 Creative. But if you’re on a budget, you may consider doing it yourself. Below you’ll find a 10-step process to creating a perfect logo for your business: 1.

Startup 185
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6 ways content marketing has changed the way we do PR

The Next Web

'Shannon Byrne is the Content and PR Manager at Mention where she crafts words, creates strategies, and recruits loyal advocates. Back in 2007-2008, when Twitter was really taking off, the PR industry faced a pivot point. It was no longer effective to cold email as many relevant journalists as possible. Going to lunch with them helped, but it was not scaleable.

PR 167
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Using Startup Next To Get Your Company Accelerator-Ready

Feld Thoughts

'Getting into an accelerator is increasingly difficult. While there has been a proliferation accelerators around the world, there has simultaneously been a dramatically increasing number of companies applying to accelerators. In my world, supply and demand never balances out, so if you are on the application side of this equation, it’s important to do everything you can to improve your chances.

Startup 143
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Where Is Your Technology In The Gartner Hype Cycle?

Gust

'The Hype Cycle was a concept put forward by Gartner, Inc. back in 1995 meant to apply to technology product evolution and acceptance. As I was reading about it a while back, it occurred to me that the concept relates directly to how investors see startup opportunities and potential success as well, at least those with technology in their offerings.

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[Infographic] Crowdfunding: Where Will We Go From Here?

YoungUpstarts

'Crowdfunding – the (usually online) collection of finance from a large number of supporters for a particular purpose, such as funding an idea – has taken the online world by storm in recent years, and especially in the startup space. It’s still getting bigger, especially since – in the US – P resident Barack Obama in 2012 put pen to paper on the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act , that amongs other measures designed to encourage funding of small businesse

SEC 184
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5 methods and 15 tools to find your audience and build a community

The Next Web

'Alex Manthei is the Community Manager at mention, a media monitoring app that lets you monitor, react, collaborate and analyze your online presence. This article was co-written with Shannon Byrne, mention’s content and PR Manager. No matter what you do in life, chances are good you’re reliant on some kind of a community. People to read your writing.

Community 165
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When VCs Invest Together, Does Ability or Affinity Matter?

Feld Thoughts

'I woke up to a bunch of VC related things in my twitter stream this morning. I had a nice digital sabbath yesterday so I was a little surprised by how much there was. I tried cranking out a #tweetstorm of them using Little Pork Chop but I found the tweetstream experience to be very unsatisfying and very inauthentic feeling. The links are good, so here they are if you want to get in the headspace for what I really want to talk about. 1/11 Things I Read About VC This Morning I Think You Should Ca

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Where Is Your Technology In The Gartner Hype Cycle?

Gust

'Image via Wikipedia. The Hype Cycle was a concept put forward by Gartner, Inc. back in 1995 meant to apply to technology product evolution and acceptance. As I was reading about it a while back, it occurred to me that the concept relates directly to how investors see startup opportunities and potential success as well, at least those with technology in their offerings.

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Commit Yourself To Action By Investing In Success

YoungUpstarts

'by Veronica May, co-founder of Allcorrect.org. The title you just read is something to make people look at an article. The actual article you are about to read is not nearly as wishy-washy or plebian in topic. This article is actually about teaching yourself to succeed at a task by working through the stages required. It is about teaching yourself the mentality it takes to plan a task, start a task, and finish a task.

Cofounder 170
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Try to kill your startup before you start

The Next Web

'George Deeb is the Managing Partner at Chicago-based Red Rocket Ventures, a growth consulting, advisory and executive staffing firm based in Chicago. I recently had the pleasure of sitting on an investor panel with Joe Dwyer, a partner at Founder Equity Fund and good colleague of mine. He made a very interesting comment – he was counseling the startups in the room to “try to kill your startup!

Chicago 161
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Guide: How to Start a Successful Photography Business

Up and Running

'If you have some creative photography chops, you might want to open your own business. You’re not alone. Photography is a popular profession and hobby right now—and that’s the problem. In the past decade, camera gear has become more affordable and consumer friendly, and as a result, everyone is a photographer. But, that doesn’t mean you should toss your dreams of owning a photography business aside.

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What is the best advice a boss/supervisor ever gave you?

Gust

'Make a decision. This one I learned in reverse from watching my very first boss, who would not/could not make a decision to save his life. The result was an office that descended nearly into paralysis, before everyone else (including me) started making decisions around him. Keep in mind that not making a decision IS making one, because something is ultimately going to happen, but now it won’t be under your control.