Sat.Sep 06, 2014 - Fri.Sep 12, 2014

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Size Up Your Investors Before Accepting Their Money

Startup Professionals Musings

'Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.

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The Seven Deadly Sins Of Digital User Experience

YoungUpstarts

'By Thelton McMillian, Founder & CEO of Comrade. To successfully compete in today’s digital world, companies must design user experiences that resonate with customers and keep engaged. Effective marketing depends on a seamless user experience. However, in the race to design smart capabilities, many businesses commit one or more “deadly sins” that can compromise the growth and viability of their business.

Oakland 180
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How to Raise Startup Funding from Unlikely Angel Investors

Up and Running

'Angel investors come from a variety of ages, backgrounds, and professions. I’m not your average angel. I’m a mom, a full-time sales manager, and recruiter. I’m not active in an angel group. I don’t have an MBA and I don’t live in Silicon Valley. I live in a small town surrounded by farms and I made my first angel investment at 29 because my dad said it was a good idea.

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The end of ownership: The zero-marginal-cost economy

The Next Web

'Dries Buytaert created Drupal, an open source content management platform, in his dorm room. He is also the co-founder and CTO at Acquia, a company providing enterprise software for websites and commerce. Society is undergoing tremendous change right now — those of us who enjoy services like Uber and Kickstarter are experiencing it firsthand. The sharing and collaboration practices of the internet are extending to transportation (Uber), hotels (Airbnb), financing (Kickstarter, LendingClub), mus

Cost 167
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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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Why This SEO Veteran Is Joining the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network

Duct Tape Marketing

'Why This SEO Veteran Is Joining the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest post is from Phil Singleton – Enjoy! I recently enrolled in John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing Certified Consultant program.

SEO 73
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With The New iPhone And The Apple Watch, Apples Delivers On High Expectations

YoungUpstarts

'by Ezra Gottheil, principal analyst at Technology Business Research. Apple’s Sept. 9, 2014 event was the largest its recent history, raising expectations and questions about how the company was going to deliver on its promises of new products. TBR believes Apple succeeded in developing a new model iPhone that will enhance its position as the premium smartphone provider, and the release of the Apple Watch (not an iWatch) elevates the smartwatch category to that of a major mobile device.

Bandwidth 164

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How To Think Like an Entrepreneur: the Inventure Cycle

Steve Blank

'The Lean Startup is a process for turning ideas into commercial ventures. Its premise is that startups begin with a series of untested hypotheses. They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. That’s all well and good if you already have an idea.

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I sense a disturbance in the enterprise Force

deal architect

'Starting next week I will get briefings from a wide range of enterprise players – Infor, Workday, Oracle, Rimini, Salesforce and Microsoft among them. Conference season is in full swing. I have not been so excited in a long time.

Software 296
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Are Online Courses Better Than University Classes?

YoungUpstarts

'This is quite an interesting question, and one that appears a lot more often than many believe. Thanks to the appearance of different online courses and the evolution of technology, people from all around the world now have access to the possibility of putting their hands on the knowledge that they need to advance in their careers or simply learn what they were not able to due to various possible reasons.

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7 Bookkeeping Habits Every Entrepreneur Should Adopt

Up and Running

'Good bookkeeping is essential to keep your business thriving—not just surviving. Badly tracked finances can cause your business a world of problems—from poor cash flow to improper tax filings and beyond. These kinds of problems can put a young business at serious risk. Good bookkeeping habits, on the other hand, can help a business thrive—and not just survive.

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Do You Have The Mentality To Be An Entrepreneur?

Startup Professionals Musings

'As an angel investor and a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always disappointed to see founders who seem stressed out most of the time, and more annoyed than energized by the abundance of challenges they see in building their startup. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is a tough one under the best of circumstances, and it’s one you have to love in order to succeed.

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Why Translational Medicine Will Never be The Same

Steve Blank

'There have been 2 or 3 courses in my entire education that have changed. the way I think. This is one of those. Hobart Harris Professor and Chief, Division of General Surgery at UCSF. For the past three years the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps has been teaching our nations best scientists how to build a Lean Startup. Close to 400 teams in robotics, computer science, materials science, geoscience, etc. have learned how to use business models, get out of the building to test thei

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What it will take for the iPhone 6 to get me back

Jeff Hilimire

'Will Apple introduce a killer iWatch tomorrow? . Tomorrow at 1pm EST is the big Apple event where there will be new iPhones, new iPads and likely, the iWatch. You can watch it live via the Apple website. I’ve been asked by a lot of my friends if I’m considering switching back to the iPhone after the event. Obviously this is a tough question as no one really knows what will be announced tomorrow.

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What Is a Balance Sheet?

Up and Running

'Assets = Liabilities + Equity. If you’re in the process of starting a business or writing a business plan document, you’ll have heard the phrase “balance sheet” mentioned, or maybe you’ve seen one in a sample business plan. The balance sheet is one of three essential parts that form the bedrock of a company’s financial statements: cash flow, balance sheet, and income statement.

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6 Principles For Building A Winning Business Culture

Startup Professionals Musings

'Sponsored by VISA Business I’m seeing a renewed appreciation of culture and values in business these days. Maybe it’s just another example of nature abhorring a vacuum, but I prefer to think it’s a natural evolution of the pervasive social networking communities where people relate to, and expect to interact with businesses and products they like. They drive the market, rather than the other way around.

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4 Emerging Concepts & Trends In Social Media Marketing

YoungUpstarts

'by Robert Danard, CEO of Spriza. When Beyoncé released her self-titled album late last year, she didn’t go through any of the traditional promotional means, which she called boring. Instead, she simply posted a video featuring the new album cover and pictures of her with the caption “Surprise!” on Instagram. That was enough for Beyoncé, one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

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What I wish I’d known about running a startup

The Next Web

'This post originally appeared on the Crew blog. I knew building a startup would be hard. I knew it would be slow. I knew we had to do lots of customer development and build something people want. But there were things I didn’t know. A lot of the work is actually email Someone asked me recently what a typical workday at Exist looks like for me. After some thought, I realized that a lot of what I do starts with email.

Startup 167
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5 Sure-fire Ways to Bomb Your Investor Pitch

Up and Running

'Having delivered hundreds of pitches myself (and bombed a few), as well as coaching dozens of entrepreneurs on how to pitch, I’ve definitely seen some doozy pitches. I sometimes wish I’d had a video camera with me to create a funny compilation of all the bloopers—something I might have shared with entrepreneurs on how not to deliver a great investor pitch.

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Every Entrepreneur Needs Help In Getting Things Done

Startup Professionals Musings

'The universal challenge of every startup founder is to get everything done that needs to get done, and still have a life. Even outside of business, everyone wants to accomplish more, while working less. I’ve been a student of these techniques for some time, but some time ago I saw a great summary that seems to pull all the key principles together. Stever Robbins, known on the Internet as the Get-It-Done Guy, outlines his strategies in his classic book “ 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.

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5 Ways To Protect Your Startup From Copycats

YoungUpstarts

'By Danielle Tate, CEO of MissNowMrs.com. Whoever said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery clearly did not have a startup. The fact is, when you have a good idea the copycats will come out of the woodwork to steal it. To keep competitors on their toes and your startup from becoming one of too many, here are several ways that you can protect your startup from pirates and avoid costly legal battles: 1.

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Critique vs. criticize: The lost art of candor in the workplace

The Next Web

'Gregory Ciotti is Help Scout‘s resident content marketer. He also gets nerdy about behavioral psychology at Sparring Mind. This post originally appeared on the Help Scout blog. How rare it is to find ubiquitous agreement in the world of management on how an organization should be run. But if there’s one truism that has been repeated since time immemorial, it is that great work is contingent on a willingness to be judged.

Web 166
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Dread Startup Problems Or Learn To Enjoy Challenges

Gust

'Stressed entrepreneur photo via Wikipedia. If you can’t solve problems and enjoy it, you won’t make it as an entrepreneur. By definition, an entrepreneur is the first to undertake a given business, and firsts never happen without problems and people frustrations. The toughest problems are people problems, like personnel issues, but there are tough operational problems as well, such as vendor delays and quality surprises.

Startup 161
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What’s the problem with too much funding?

Version One Ventures

'With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. For example, check out Fred Wilson’s post where he compares funding a start-up to walking up a flight of stairs. When building a company, it’s smarter to hit each step on the way up rather than jumping over three, landing on the fourth, and potentially falling all the way down.

Guerilla 158
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Financial Tips For Starting Your First Job

YoungUpstarts

'By Clare Levison, author of “ Frugal Isn’t Cheap: Spend Less, Save More, and Live Better “ As many college students are preparing to start a new school year, grads all across the country are finding themselves starting new jobs, meeting new co-workers, and of course, earning that all important paycheck. Here are some tips for navigating the financial waters of a first job and even if you’re not brand new to the workforce, this can be a great time for a quick financial check-up

Virginia 178
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How to craft a compelling storyline for your company

The Next Web

'Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, speaker and a freelance writer. TThis post originally appeared on the SumAll blog. Content is the fuel of all marketing initiatives today, but without having a story to tell there’s no content for your business to create and distribute. Storytelling is a powerful way to get the message across about what your company does and on a deeper level, what it stands for.

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The What & Why of Hiring a Great Startup COO

View from Seed

'This is a guest post from Stephano Kim , former co-founder of Web 1.0 success story Blackboard and veteran entrepreneur who’s held several COO and president roles at various startups. Many startup CEOs hire COOs or launch companies with a co-founder carrying the title. But what do COOs actually do for startups? When should founders hire one? Based on what criteria?

Hiring 336
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How to Start a Successful Restaurant

Up and Running

'If dreams of opening a restaurant have filled your thoughts for years, it might be time to sit down and draw up a plan to open your own business. To help you create a recipe for success, we’ve put together a how-to-get-started guide to make sure you have all the ingredients you need to open your restaurant with confidence. While starting a restaurant is exciting, it’s also time consuming and one of the toughest businesses to successfully launch.

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4 Ways An iPad POS Could Benefit Your Small Business

YoungUpstarts

'by Andy Lim, CEO and co-founder of Lavu. Opening a new small business or restaurant is stressful, there’s no denying that. With a to-do list a mile long and an impending grand opening, business owners need all the relief they can get. An iPad POS solution can help new business owners start off right, and find a point of sale that will benefit their restaurant as a short and long-term investment.

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Culture is everything: How I reclaimed an employee back from Apple

The Next Web

'Jerry Jao is the founder and CEO of Retention Science. The widely accepted “dream job” of many engineers is to work for a Silicon Valley tech giant such as Google, Facebook or Twitter. So I wasn’t surprised when, last summer, our intern Vedant told us that he had received a full time job offer from Apple. I knew that, like many aspiring engineers, it was his “dream job,” but at the same time, I believed that my company, Retention Science, could provide him with a different (but no less valuable

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Five Tips for Getting PR for Your Startup

This is going to be BIG.

'Because, you know, who doesn''t love a good startup list. 1) Figure out who has written about companies like yours and reach out--when you don''t need something. Think about who else is in your space--other wearables companies, companies also focused on the smart home, you name it. Those are going to be the reporters who are most likely willing to write about you.

PR 130
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The Pixar Way: 37 Quotes on Developing and Maintaining a Creative Company

Up and Running

'In his book, Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull shares his experience as a manager of Pixar, one of the world’s most famous creative animation studios. More than that, Ed offers a number of starting points to help those that wish to work in an environment that fosters creativity and problem solving, to create it. We’ve collected 37 choice quotes from the book that demonstrate how to develop and maintain a creative company, and paired them with images from Pixar’s award-winning films and t

Developer 143
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What Should Small Businesses Check On Their Employees?

YoungUpstarts

'by Michael Klazema , lead author and editor for Backgroundchecks.com. The question in the title of this article is a common one, but not for the reason you might think. When you hear the question “What type of background checks should my small business run on employees?” you imagine that some invisible barrier exists between “small companies” and “large companies” that impacts which types of background screenings are and are not necessary.

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The keys to designing the most effective investor presentation

The Next Web

'Daniel Glickman is the CMO at emaze, an online presentation platform used for content marketing. Presenting your product to investors isn’t your average walk in presentation park. Not only is there huge pressure to deliver effectively, investors are a different breed. You’ve got to know what they are looking for in order to present effectively. Here are the key points in making sure you are giving investors the best presentation you can put together.

Design 152
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More on UK ecommerce penetration

The Equity Kicker

'One of the reasons we like backing ecommerce companies is that here in the UK we spend more online that all other major countries bar Sweden and we punch above our weight when it comes to ecommerce leaders.

eCommerce 126
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Elizabeth Gore to Join Dell as its Entrepreneur in Residence

SiliconHills

'Dell has named Elizabeth Gore with the United Nations Foundation, its next Entrepreneur in Residence. Dell made the announcement at TechCrunch Disrupt Monday. Gore, who currently serves as entrepreneur in residence for the United Nations Foundation, will join the company in February of 2015. Gore will be Dell’s second entrepreneur in residence.

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The Most Rewarding Marketing Mistake I Ever Made

YoungUpstarts

'By Marsha Friedman, CEO of EMSI Public Relations and author of “ Celebritize Yourself ”. Recently, a colleague asked me, “What was the most rewarding mistake you ever made in business?”. It’s a great question, and I quickly had an answer for him because it was an incredibly painful mistake. However, it proved to be an invaluable lesson that has served me well in the years since.

Marketing 171