Sat.Aug 02, 2014 - Fri.Aug 08, 2014

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Are You Properly Managing Your Core Competency?

Startup Professionals Musings

'If you have a software development background like mine, Im sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days. Outsourcing is defined as contracting the work to another company, usually located in a developing country, like India, China, or Eastern Europe.

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Manage Your Startup Admin Efficiently

YoungUpstarts

'It is surprising just how much admin is involved in running a company, especially one-man operations where the budget is simply not there to employ a secretary. The owner simply drowns in paperwork, failing to keep on top of invoices and bills and often incurs hefty fines for non-payment due to a mislaid tax form. All too many new businesses fail because of this sort of problem.

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What is a Social Enterprise?

Up and Running

'The popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s is a certified B corporation—a type of social enterprise. A social enterprise is defined by its mission, specifically that it makes a positive contribution to a social cause. Because of this, the structure of a social enterprise can vary. Nonprofits are certainly social enterprises, but many for-profit companies fall into this category by making the conscious decision to have their focus be an altruistic cause, rather than the maximization of

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Back to anthropology

Start Up Blog

'Things are changing so rapidly that we are again suffering from future shock. It’s hard to comprehend the pace of change, not just to business or pop culture, but to the way we live our lives. We’ve had for the best part of 100 years, certainly the last 50, a very stable business infrastructure and lifestyle. This makes us feel as though the changes we see are new to the human experience, when in fact they are only new to the experience of our generation.

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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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How Much Founder Stock Should You Offer Co-Founders?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology or money. The first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Giving a co-founder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want.

Cofounder 261
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[Review] The Rise Of The New East

YoungUpstarts

'Are China and India still the “factory” and “outsourced service provider” of the world? How big is the market for Muslim-friendly products and services? What are the promises and perils of trading in the East? In a sweeping expose on the dynamic forces shaping the “New East”, Ben Simpfendorfer’s “ The Rise of the New East: Business Strategies for Success in a World of Increasing Complexity ” provides an in-depth view of how the economic re

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Pioneering Women in Venture Capital: Kathryn Gould

Steve Blank

'I met Kathryn Gould longer ago than either of us want to admit. Kathryn has been the founding VP of Marketing of Oracle , a successful recruiter, a world class Venture Capitalist, a co-founder of a Venture Capital firm, a great board member, one of my mentors and most importantly a wonderful friend. During her career she made a big point of not telling you: she was one of the first women Venture Capitalist’s in Silicon Valley (along with M.J.

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Values Build Startup Culture: A Founder’s Take on Getting Started

View from Seed

'This is a guest post from Ben Rubin , co-founder and CEO of Change Collective , which offers courses for behavior change with world-class experts. For seed-stage startups, when resources are tight, trying to consciously build startup culture can feel wasteful. Below, Ben makes the case for why defining values is actually a worthwhile exercise, and he outlines his startup’s approach.

Cofounder 307
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8 Networking Tips For Introverts

YoungUpstarts

'By Jacqueline Whitmore, author of “ Poised for Success: Mastering the Four Qualities That Distinguish Outstanding Professionals ” They say it’s who you know that counts, which is what makes networking events so appealing to most people. But what if you’re an introvert? What if you’re not good in social situations? Are you doomed from ever excelling in business because it’s hard for you to meet the right people?

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Inventor Entrepreneurs May Be The Rare Exception

Gust

'Thomas Edison image via Wikipedia. In my experience, inventors and technologists aren’t interested or aren’t very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs aren’t usually good scientists. These people need to find each other, and can jointly make a great team for a new startup. Without the synergy, companies like Apple might never have gotten off the ground.

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What Do Customers Get From You? 2 Minutes to Find Out

Steve Blank

'If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons.

Customer 285
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Are Your Summer Sales Sizzling?

Rembrandt Communications

'Are Your Sales as Hot as the Weather? It’s August. That means it’s probably hot and humid where you are, and most people are in “summer” mode. But there is no reason you can’t boost sales, awareness and credibility right now. With this in mind, here are… 3 Tips to Make your Sales Sizzle Now! […]. The post Are Your Summer Sales Sizzling?

Sales 150
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What Impact Social Media Truly Had On Society

YoungUpstarts

'By Jenny Q. Ta , CEO of Sqeeqee.com and author of “Wall Street Cinderella” By now, we are all aware that social media has had a tremendous impact on our culture, in business, on the world-at-large. Social media websites are some of the most popular haunts on the Internet. They have revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on the Web.

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How a community is born: The rise of Polish startups

The Next Web

'Borys Musielak is the founder and CEO of Filmaster. When we raised a seed round for Filmaster from a German fund HackFwd in Spring of 2011, we were one of the first Polish startups to work with a foreign investor. Traditionally, Web companies in Poland were focused on the local market of 40 million people, which seemed big enough to scale their business.

Poland 167
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Capital Is Cheap And Labor Is Expensive

Feld Thoughts

'I was on an airplane for the first time for business in a while and when I woke up from my nap I found my self staring at CNBC on the DirecTV seat back display. I never watch CNBC so I was attracted to the talking heads, who were silent since I didn’t have earphones in. I kept thinking I was watching ESPN with all the sports metaphors, blinking lights, constantly changing headlines, and tightly coifed and good looking men talking at me in rapid fire.

Valuation 144
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Is it legal to have a crowd-funding site that gives equity as reward?

Gust

'In the United States, equity-based crowdfunding will not be legal until January, 2013 at the earliest, when the SEC issues its rules regarding the process. It will then be permitted, provided that it is done in strict compliance with those SEC rules, and the provisions of the JOBS Act, which was signed by President Obama earlier this year. *original post can be found on Quora @ [link] *.

Equity 133
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How Startups Can Use Celebrity Endorsements

YoungUpstarts

'by Billy Bones, Bookingagentinfo.com. As a start-up, you might be asking yourself how in the world you could ever afford a celebrity endorsement for your product. The idea might sound like a solid one, but you’re not sure how to make it work for your company specifically. Celebrity endorsements do in fact work – but we have to expand our scope of what a ‘celebrity’ is.

Jordan 191
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The ‘boring’ trait Google looks for in its leaders

The Next Web

'This post originally appeared on the iDoneThis blog. The prototypical leader is a hero: gives the rousing speech, inspires the troops and shows up at the last minute to save the day. At least that’s how leaders are portrayed. but that’s not at all what Google discovered as their most important qualities. At Google, they’re obsessive about looking at data to determine what makes employees successful and what they found in the numbers was surprising.

Web 167
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On The Road Again

Feld Thoughts

'After a year of zero travel for business, I’ve started to venture out into the world again. I just got back from my third business trip this summer – this time to Seattle for the past three days. After 20+ years of traveling 67%+ of the time for work, I was sick of it. So I’m wandering back in with a little trepidation. I’ve decided to take a very different approach.

Seattle 128
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The dream is free…

The Equity Kicker

'…but the hustle is sold separately. I love this picture that was doing the rounds on Twitter this morning. In English-English we would say something like ideas are cheap, and execution is everything. This is soooo much better. Dreams are more exciting than ideas and ‘hustle’ captures the work of startups much better than ‘execution’, particularly at the early stages.

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How To Be A Reporter’s Favorite News Source

YoungUpstarts

'By Ginny Grimsley, print campaign manager at EMSI Public Relations. Reporters love sources who understand their needs. Getting a call from a reporter who wants to quote you as an expert for his story, review your book or product, or invite you to write an exclusive article for a publication, is a major coup. It means that your marketing efforts are paying off.

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The 7 (mostly free) tools Product Hunt used to build its early-stage community

The Next Web

'Erik Torenberg is Product Hunts first hire. This article originally appeared on the CMX Hub. Ive been thinking about building online and offline communities for the past few years. Community isat the center of what I do, from planning in-person events (rap cyphers, book clubs, happy hours) to creating online and scalable communities (rapt.fm,Product Hunt).

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Piers, Parks and Why White People Suck

This is going to be BIG.

'There''s a saying. "There''s nothing worse than rich white people living in luxury housing in a park than the rich white people living in luxury housing protesting against them.". Ok, well, there wasn''t a saying, but there should be. Maybe you''ve heard about " The Battle of Brooklyn Bridge Park." It''s a long and winding tale that basically amounts to this: There once were some unused commercial piers.

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Lost My Name on Dragons’ Den

The Equity Kicker

'Ever wondered how much of a difference it makes going on Dragons’ Den? Our portfolio company Lost My Name found when they pitched their magical children’s book to the Dragons whilst I was away on holiday last week. You can see the relevant section of the show in the YouTube clip below with realtime analytics super-imposed in the corner of the screen.

Naming 129
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How To Make Your Business Card Professional

YoungUpstarts

'by Debbie Allen , award-winning entrepreneur and author of “ The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talents Into A Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority In Your Industry “ After your logo and USP has been established or reinvented, it’s time to move on to your first marketing piece – your business card.

Restful 173
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Digital Darwinism: Transforming your business in the #selfie era

The Next Web

'Brian Solis is a Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm that helps companies thrive with disruptive technologies. Digital transformation is about to change the way business is done. That’s not a startup pitch from HBO’s new comedy series “Silicon Valley.” Digital transformation is the latest trend in business where companies invest in new technologies to align with the evolution of customer expectations and behavior.

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If I Gave You a $100,000 Marketing Budget, What Would You Do With It?

Up and Running

'Let’s face it: developing a marketing budget for a small business is usually not a very big priority. Typically, we just don’t have enough money to warrant having a formal marketing budget. Sometimes we just ignore doing one because it’s depressing. After all, if you don’t have any money to put towards a marketing budget, what’s the point of creating one?

Marketing 118
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You Are Leaving Money On The Table: The Secrets Of Pricing

David Teten

'Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is a “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” A startup CEO should know both. One of the most powerful levers a CEO has to impact profitability is pricing. Typically, a 1% price increase has more than twice the impact on profit of a 1% volume increase. However, optimizing pricing is hard enough for the CEO of an established company, let alone a startup with a new service, often for a new market.

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The Anti-Diva Guide To Startups

YoungUpstarts

'By Danielle Tate, CEO of MissNowMrs.com. Approaching a startup with a diva attitude is a great way to fail before you even begin. To launch a successful startup you need to be willing to work harder, longer and for less (usually nothing at the beginning) than any other person out there to make your idea become a reality. Essentially, you need to be the anti-diva.

Startup 171
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Inside Y Combinator’s first hack-a-thon

The Next Web

'Hack-a-thons are a great way for companies like Facebook or Twitter to get their developers together to find the next great feature. For Y Combinator, it’s a way to find the next developers to add to its incubator. For the developers, it’s a place to build the future via apps and friendships. Y Combinator is in an unremarkable commercial park located in Mountain View.

Incubator 143
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Don’t let post event rationalisations ruin your future decisions

The Equity Kicker

'Putting a favourable gloss on events even when it isn’t merited is in many ways a healthy part of human nature. It helps us preserve our self confidence and lets us move on. However, it can lead to a history being mis-remembered and then future decisions get made using bad data. That’s dangerous. I often see this when good people leave a company.

Restful 111
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Dropbox Cultivates an Austin Culture and Continues to Hire and Expand

SiliconHills

'By LAURA LOREK Founder of Silicon Hills News In December of 2011, Facebook bought Austin-based Gowalla and relocated a bunch of its workers to Palo Alto. Sherry Birk, director of recruiting at Gowalla, moved with them. She later left Facebook to join another startup: Dropbox, based in San Francisco. But Birk longed to get back […] The post Dropbox Cultivates an Austin Culture and Continues to Hire and Expand appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Testing Your Entrepreneurial IQ

YoungUpstarts

'By Eric Tyson, author of “ Investing For Dummies “ Many people dream about running their own companies — and for good reason. If you start your own business, you can pursue something that you’re passionate about, and you have more control over how you do things. Plus, successful business owners can reap major economic bounties. But tales of entrepreneurs becoming multimillionaires focus attention on the financial rewards without revealing the business and personal challenges and cos

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Trusting your gut: Knowing when to bite the bullet and pivot

The Next Web

'Lopo Champalimaud is the founder of Wahanda, a health and wellness community and marketplace. Over the past five years I have made a radical change to my business’ direction. Twice. Making the decision to pivot is never an easy one, but in hindsight, both times, it was the right thing to do at the time. As a result, the past 24 months have been among the most challenging, and rewarding, of my career.

Web 135
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5 Ways to Spy on Your Competition

Up and Running

'Most companies are continually looking for ways to get an edge over their competitors, and a time-honored method is simply to spy on the other guys. Technically, it falls under the category of market research, unless, of course, it’s actual spying. But, we’re not going to get into corporate espionage here—we’ll stick with the “market research” strategies that are legal, if somewhat sneaky.

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Google acquires the most, Apple hasn’t bought big (until now)

The Equity Kicker

'Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint ventures posted this table as part of a long analysis of M&A by leading tech companies over the last 15 years. Here are the takeaways: Google comes out as the most prolific acquirer by far, with almost twice the number of acquisitions per year as Facebook who sit behind them. Most surprising for me was that with the exception of the $3bn acquisition of Beats (which is missing from the analysis above) Apple hasn’t paid more than $390m for a company in the last