Sat.Sep 12, 2015 - Fri.Sep 18, 2015

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7 Reasons A Small Business Should Hire Advisors 

YoungUpstarts

by Jonathan Aspatore, CEO of ExecRank. The right advisor can have a greater impact on the success of your small business than any other hire you ever make. Here are seven ways that advisors can immediately help your small business achieve the next level of success: Assist With Strategies & Connections to Have Record Revenue & Profit in 2016.

CTO Hire 205
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6 Ideal Team Members For Any Entrepreneurial Venture

Startup Professionals Musings

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. That’s why investors say they invest in people (bet on the jockey, not the horse), rather than the idea. Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team.

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Network effects on social platforms: why the quality of user matters

Version One Ventures

Back in July, we wrote about network effects in marketplaces and social platforms and how they are critical to defensibility. In the post, we talked about the difference between direct and indirect network effects, and how they may or may not relate to virality. Since then, we have been further developing our investment thesis on social platforms and want to add more nuance to the discussion.

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Don’t Buy the Hype

A Crowded Space

“People calculate too much and think too little” – Charlie Munger One of the core principles of Jackson Square Ventures is that we don’t buy hype. Don’t get me wrong – we love it when a company in our portfolio does exceptionally well and receives a lot of attention. We try to avoid buying hype when there is no substance - we look out for it before we ever invest.

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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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Six Ways To Keep Trade Secrets And Sensitive Company Info Offline

YoungUpstarts

By James Pooley, author of “ Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage “. You can be sure that most of your employees are active on social media. For younger ones, in fact, Facebooking, Instagramming, and Tweeting are as natural as breathing. But suppose an employee shared pictures of your product prototype? Posted a draft patent application your company was about to file?

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How to Correctly Use Collateral to Secure a Business Loan

Up and Running

If there’s one aspect of the American dream that seems to appeal to just about everyone, it’s the idea of owning and running your own business. Whether you’ve always dreamed of running an Asian-Italian fusion restaurant downtown, or simply can’t wait to open up that quaint little boutique filled with your own fashion designs, it’s only natural to be excited about someday becoming your own boss.

More Trending

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What starts in Vegas today, will not stay in Vegas

deal architect

A US District Judge will preside over a trial starting today in Las Vegas related to a $209 million copyright lawsuit Oracle has filed against Rimini Street. Having been an expert witness in a few software cases, I know both.

Las Vegas 272
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An Entrepreneur’s Journey Towards World Domination Begins With Achieving Key Milestones

YoungUpstarts

by John Vrionis, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. I love it when entrepreneurs start a pitch with a “Big Vision” and end it with their how their idea will achieve “World Domination.” However, equally important is the ability for entrepreneurs to break down that path to world domination into realistic milestones that line up with funding rounds.

Valuation 133
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Three Not So Obvious Learnings from 8 Years in VC

Rob Go

Around this time 8 years ago, I joined Spark Capital and started this chapter of my career in Venture Capital. About three years later, I started NextView with Dave and Lee. I knew very little about VC when I started, and as the old adage goes, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. 8 years is a decent about of time, and it’s been an interesting period.

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8 Key Rules for Starting a Business on a Shoestring

Startup Professionals Musings

A few years ago, before the Internet was pervasive, before everyone carried a smartphone and before do-it-yourself software tools were available for free, it was difficult to reach a critical mass of new customers without spending a million dollars on a website, custom software and television advertising. Now you can match a big company with worldwide reach for a few thousand dollars.

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Wishing the best to Bill McDermott

deal architect

Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP suffered a pretty catastrophic accident a few weeks ago. He said this in an eloquent Facebook post that I hope he does not mind me sharing “In early July, I was visiting my father on.

Software 257
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7 Digital Marketing Trends For Your Brand Success in 2016

Brandanew

Digital marketing has gone under some major makeovers over the last few years. From something that was associated only with eCommerce platforms to becoming an increasingly important medium for creating a brand name across industries. But as a digital marketer, how do you keep up with these ever changing trends? Here are some marketing predictions for your brand success in 2016.

Marketing 218
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The Importance Of Customer Feedback

YoungUpstarts

By David Specht, CEO and Owner of The Waterworks. In the plumbing industry, the majority of our clients are not having the greatest day when they’re calling for our services. With emergency plumbing and HVAC needs, our clients will do a quick Google search and call the company that looks the most reliable and highly rated, based on a few cursory glances.

Customer 147
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6 Ways For Startups To Offer Greater Marketing Value

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. The days are gone when marketing was all “pushing product.” Now customers seek out people who are willing and able to add value, with expertise and insight, even before they have a product.

Marketing 217
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Announcing SAP Nation 3.0

deal architect

Availability - summer of 2017. Or later. Seriously, as I conclude in 2.0, S/4HANA will need to go through significant morphing and maturing I want to advise and observe customers implementing the 9 strategies I have in 2.0 to optimize/diversify.

Customer 256
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How to Manage Your Personal Brand And Social Media As an Author

Brandanew

Recently, I attended the Kerry Town bookfest in Ann Arbor. Specifically, I was able to attend a panel discussion on how to manage your personal brand and social media as an author. While this was targeted towards authors, the tips and discussion was something everyone developing a personal brand can learn from! The panel was composed of young adult fiction authors Andrea Hannah, Amanda Flower, David James and Bethany Neal.

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The Pros And Cons Of Running A Business Alongside A Full Time Job

YoungUpstarts

Being in charge of your own business is pretty appealing. It means that you can be your own boss, and run your company the way you want. However, it also means that you are fully accountable for everything your own business does. If you are considering starting up a business that you want to run alongside your current full time job, then there are things you need to think about.

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7 Ways To Work Less But Get More Business Traction

Startup Professionals Musings

Getting traction means not spinning your wheels without forward progress. In a startup, or any business with limited resources, the last thing you need is people who put in lots of time and effort, but never seem to move the ball. Successful entrepreneurs must never stop looking for ways to improve their own productivity, as well as the efficiency and momentum of the team.

Salary 215
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SAP Nation 2.0 Excerpt: The Bastards Say, Welcome

deal architect

The sequel to SAP Nation came out in book stores a week ago (print at CreateSpace and ebook atAmazon). As with previous books, I will be excerpting 10% of the contents over the next few weeks. Here is some from.

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Three Not So Obvious Learnings from 8 Years in VC

Rob Go

Around this time 8 years ago, I joined Spark Capital and started this chapter of my career in Venture Capital. About three years later, I started NextView with Dave and Lee. I knew very little about VC when I started, and as the old adage goes, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. 8 years is a decent about of time, and it’s been an interesting period.

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[Infographic] The Startup Genome Project 2.0

YoungUpstarts

Compass.co recently released the results of their latest 2015 Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking (known previously as the Startup Genome Project), which ranks the top 20 startup ecosystems around the world. The index, produced by ranking global technology startup ecosystems along five major components of Performance , Funding , Talent , Market Reach , and Startup Experience , looks at the global phenomenon in technology entrepreneurship and charts their growth and progress along those components.

Startup 139
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8 Keys to Dispersed Teams With Maximum Productivity

Startup Professionals Musings

Finding your entire team in the same office is a rare occurrence these days. Even small teams may be dispersed across town, working out of their homes or across the world in different time zones. Modern communication tools, including WebEx, Skype and video conferencing are a good start, but virtual teams remain a productivity nightmare for many companies.

Product 208
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Webinar on SAP S/4HANA

deal architect

Pleased to be part of a joint webinar with Panaya Sr. Director of SAP Product, Nir Paikowsky, on the truth, complexity and trends behind S/4HANA. Register here for the session on Tuesday, September 29 at 1 pm US est. Panaya.

Product 223
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3 Top Tips For Ultimate, Business Success

Rembrandt Communications

Are you forgetting these simple tips? It’s the busy fall season, and your schedule is probably filled with meetings, sales calls, content-strategy sessions, copywriting, and more. With all of this going on, it can be easy to forget the simple, but important, things you need to be successful in the long-term… so as you rush […]. The post 3 Top Tips For Ultimate, Business Success appeared first on Boost sales with BtoB Content Strategy and PR here.

PR 126
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[Competition] GSMA Glomo Awards 2016

YoungUpstarts

The GSMA ‘s Global Mobile Awards are now open for online entry for its 2016 edition. Renamed The Glomo Awards, the competition which has been held for 21 years is the mobile industry’s longest established awards that recognises everything from game-changing mobile devices to applications, technologies, apps and services, showcasing the ever-growing value that mobility brings to users, to industries, to businesses, communities and economies.

Mobile 130
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Passing the torch

VC Cafe

“We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own.”. — Ben Sweetland. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to start things both in my personal life and professional career. I love the rush of creating something out of nothing, pouring all my energy into the project, working hard and often achieving (or at least getting close to) a state of “ Flow ”.

Ireland 122
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User Groups and Customer Advocacy

deal architect

Somebody asked me recently what was the toughest part to write in my SAP books. Without hesitation, I said Chapter 7 of the first book. It cataloged 20 years of project failures. I had forgotten about the steady drumbeat of.

Customer 216
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Finding out what you suck at is a professional’s greatest secret

The Next Web

When I hired Royal Hebert, a former process-server based in Portland, I did so because I had keyed in on one core fact – I’m not the best at organization. I’m not great at organizing little niggling details: vast spreadsheets of client demo times, lists of coverage and getting/keeping people on my calendar. This led to me saying yes to every phone call, forgetting to check if it was actually a free time and ending up with two calls coming in at once.

Portland 120
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[Review] Start With Why

YoungUpstarts

We’ve seen it happen time and time again. A company starts off with great fanfare, led by a charismatic and visionary leader. She brings it to new heights and grows it year after year. There is much clarity in what the company does. It attracts a loyal and growing following of customers and fans. Every action the organisation takes is aligned to its core values and beliefs.

Analytics 130
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The most important lesson learned in early-stage investing

Version One Ventures

Sean Silcoff had a thoughtful article in Saturday’s Globe & Mail on my path from entrepreneur to investor. It is a well-written piece with many great quotes and anecdotes and included the most important lesson about early-stage investing that I learned over the past 8 years: “If the fail rate of our companies is not high enough, it’s not because we are exceptional investors, it’s probably because we’re not taking enough risks.

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SAP Cloud Powered by Oracle

deal architect

Let the mud-slinging begin as Oracle starts this campaign In typical Oracle fashion, it pushes the speeds and feeds button. Better from many CIO’s pov would be to show the lower TCO/risk dimension. No need to wait for talent and.

Cloud 214
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14 ways to bootstrap finance your startup

The Next Web

Sourcing capital for your startup is never easy, especially when you are pre-product completion and before the proof-of-concept the traditional venture investors are looking for. Often, the only way to get your business from a piece of paper concept to a venture-backable business is to bootstrap your efforts, via whatever means necessary. Below is a summary of the some of the most-used bootstrapping techniques: 1.

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Apple And Google Lead The Way With In-Car Technology

YoungUpstarts

While specialising in different areas of business, tech giants Apple and Google have two things in common. Firstly, they have both moved into areas beyond their core businesses – doing battle over the hotly contested mobile phone market – and secondly they are competing head on for a slice of the car technology market. Ultimately, they are both looking to develop the driverless car.

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Startup advice should be strong on the ‘why’ and the ‘what’

The Equity Kicker

I just read a great post titled Dear startup advisors, you don’t always need to be right, but you have to be solid. Forward Partners is very much in the business of startup advice so I was keen to read what Phin Barnes from First Round had to say. As I say, it’s a good post and well worth reading in it’s entirety. What follows are the money quotes and the rest of the post is largely an example from when Phin was an entrepreneur that really brings the point home.

Startup 112
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Stunning Singapura

deal architect

I love what I call déjà vu travel – to go back to a place 10 or 20 years since my last visit. I like to see how towns and cities have evolved and innovated along the way. In the.

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How losing a co-founder and most of our team saved our company

The Next Web

There we were, $1.1 million of investor funding on the line, flatlined growth, a burn rate that would make even seasoned entrepreneurs cringe, and daily founder battles that were promising to undo all that we had built. We knew we had to make some hard decisions, or our company wouldn’t last the next few months. When we started out, the mission was simple: To help remote teams feel like they were in the same room, even if they were scattered across the globe.

Cofounder 109