December, 2016

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Encore Entrepreneur Is The New Baby Boomer Lifestyle

Startup Professionals Musings

Contrary to what you might guess, the highest rate of entrepreneurial growth over the last few years is not Gen-Y upstarts, but Boomers over the age of 50, now called encore entrepreneurs. In fact, according to the most recent Index of Startup Activity by the Kauffman Foundation and recent SBA reports , these Baby Boomers are actually driving a new entrepreneurship boom.

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Welcoming the Newest Partner to Upfront Ventures

Both Sides of the Table

Today is amongst the proudest days I’ve had at Upfront Ventures — getting the chance to announce that Kevin Zhang has been promoted to Partner. Watching him develop over the past 4.5 years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. Kevin joined Upfront in 2012 as an Associate. We generally look for associates who are deeply quantitative, have great research & analytical skills and often have the tool kit for framing and making complex decisions.

Partner 156
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Want To Start A New Business In 2017? Do It From Home.

YoungUpstarts

by Kristy Dickerson, CEO and co-founder of STARTplanner. Somewhere, at some point in your life, you’ve had a brilliant idea for a start-up business. Am I right? Or maybe you have a hobby that you love and want to make a career out of it. Odds are that you’ve often fantasized about ditching your J-O-B to start a business of your own; to be your own boss; to set your own hours and make your own decisions.

Cofounder 140
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5 Simple Things Every Successful Website Has In Common

YFS Magazine

From new clients and potential investors to press inquiries, your online hub is the best place to start impressing the world.

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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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The Best Free Email Marketing Tool for Startups and Small Businesses

Up and Running

Bplans and Palo Alto Software are strong supporters of entrepreneurs and small business owners. We work with like-minded partners who also want to help your businesses succeed by providing the best tools and content for the job. If our readers choose to learn more or purchase from links to our partners, sometimes we earn affiliate commissions that support Bplans’ mission.

Email 114
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As a product manager, you need to do just two things

Street Smart Product Manager

One of the biggest lies in product management is agile. That may sound like heresy, but hear me out… I actually love agile. It’s a great approach to reducing the risk of developing and shipping software. It’s a better software development methodology. But on its own it doesn’t solve the problem of providing a capital […]. The post As a product manager, you need to do just two things appeared first on Street Smart Product Manager.

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2016 VC Half-Thoughts: The Industry Has Shifted Back to Investing in Technology, Not Business Models

Hunter Walker

In the spirit of clearing out some half-formed thoughts, one takeaway is that we’re again in a period where the most exciting investment opportunities possess real technology risk. When we started Homebrew in 2013 our industry was, in retrospect, probably midway through a cycle where innovations were in business model rather than underlying technology.

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Marketing Your App This Holiday

YoungUpstarts

by Vitaly Petritchkovitch, Director of Marketing at Audiobooks.com. December is a critical time for app marketers. With the Christmas holidays looming, it’s time to take a good, hard look at your strategy. Perhaps you didn’t see the numbers you were hoping for after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or maybe you want to keep some great momentum going.

Marketing 113
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Take Your Business Online In 4 Easy Steps

YFS Magazine

The advantages of the internet are limitless. Here are the four steps needed to bring your business online.

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The Small Business Guide To SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in 2017

crowdSPRING Blog

Image Source: SEO Linkbuilding. If you’re moving slowly or have yet to implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies as part of your overall marketing efforts, you’re falling behind your competitors. In fact, even if your competitors aren’t thinking about SEO, you’re still missing out because 93 percent of online experiences begin with search.

SEO 63
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How to develop an app,get 7K visitors and be on the news in less than 3 weeks

Austin Startup

If you read my last post, you would know I participated in a hackathon organised by the BBC for this year’s 100 women season. Continue reading on Austin Startups ».

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A Year in Review: 2016

Version One Ventures

This has been an important year for us as a firm, as well as the market in general. We couldn’t begin any recap of 2016 without focusing on the bubble we hear so much about. The industry entered the year bracing for an apocalypse. Every announcement – whether it was a funding round, exit or layoffs – was analyzed within the context that the tech bubble has definitely burst or that we’re still in the bubble.

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You want to have the world like I do at anywhere you are?? Then Go remote

Transformify

Script for #Go Remote Main Characters: Steve Kate Minor Characters: Eddy- Steve’s seven year old son Kemdy- Kate’s friend with an ampulated leg Personal Assistant Act 1 Scene 1 Fade in…. Ext. sitting room ; 1:39 am In the heart of West Los Angeles, a burgalow house, numbered 3 at Parkers street. Just at the dead of the night. KATE; content developer at ABC firm, a tech enthusiast.

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Unbelievable Ways Technology Can Transform The Health Of Your Workforce

YoungUpstarts

Business runs on people. Money and equipment might be the tools they use, but people are the life support for your company and its ultimate success. Of course, people are the hardest ‘resource’ to manage, because they aren’t really a resource at all. They’re human beings with flaws, just like you. It’s easy to see the numbers and statistics when it comes to running your company effectively and looking over the reports for your growth progress, but you might be missing a trick when it comes to th

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How to plan to make a successful acquisition

Berkonomics

One of my company CEO’s recently described his rule for acquisition success, and it resonated with me as a great goal for planning during acquisition exercises. This CEO states that he has made it work twice when acquiring companies, and that is enough for him to make it his rule for all future acquisitions. If the target company is able to show a ten percent EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), then the acquisition team should be able to create a way to

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10 Mindset Checks Before You Start A New Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Making the decision to start your own business is a major commitment, with huge implications for skills and lifestyle. Yet there is no standardized testing or certification required or available anywhere to help you decide if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship, or founding a business is right for you. An MBA or other academic credentials just don’t do it.

Stock 178
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Are you better off than your parents were?

deal architect

I asked my wife, Margaret that question recently. She rattled off an unqualified “yes” – we are more mobile, we have more occupational choices, we have way more choice in products and services, and one that really resounded – “we.

Mobile 163
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The Innovation Insurgency Gets Educated: Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy, Development, …

Steve Blank

We’re holding our 2 nd Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy,… educators and sponsors class January 17-19 at Georgetown University. The class is for: educators who want to learn how to teach a Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy, Development, etc. class; problem sponsors who want to learn how to get the most out of their interaction with student teams and how to use the teams to help accelerate their problem. government organizations who want to a more efficient way to deliver needed solutions with speed an

San Diego 152
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Giving what's required; The power of teaching.

Transformify

Giving what is required. FADE IN. EXT. ST PAUL’S AVENUE ABA – MORNING: It was a warn and easy morning in the heart of Aba Abia State and the sun rises with each second. DESOLVE TO: INT. MERILENE LODGE – SECOND FLOOR – DAY. The sound of a TV adverts coming from the sitting room. BUCHI, 31, is a motivational speaker and an inspirational stalwart.

Nigeria 40
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6 Steps To Avoid Growing Advance Fee Fraud

YoungUpstarts

By John Canfield, VP of Risk for WePay. A prospective client contacts you via email or your website, seeking your services on a big, new job. He mentions that the job also involves a third party, so he wishes to pay you for the whole job if you can then pay that other party involved. Sounds a bit dubious. But he’s got a good explanation. He’s seen your design portfolio online and wants to contract for your services to design his new business website if only you can pay his photographer so it’s a

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Managing New User Satisfaction On A Daily Basis

Feld Thoughts

As we get to the end of 2016, I’m in many conversations about 2016 performance and 2017 budgets. While 2016 isn’t over yet, most SaaS companies know how things are going to end up within a few percentage points. As a result, their focus on 2017 is an extrapolation from how they have been doing in 2016, typically building on month over month activity.

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7 Key Principles of Question-Based Leadership To Win

Startup Professionals Musings

Too many people in business just expect their leaders to give orders. Maybe it’s for this reason that as professionals advance in their career, they tend to start asking fewer questions and providing more answers. Smart leaders, on the other hand, learn to ask more penetrating questions, listen carefully to expert input, and empower the right people to get the best solution.

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Exciting manufacturing technologiesJason Blessing, CEO of Plex

deal architect

More from my conversation with Jason Blessing What other trends excite you in terms of manufacturing technology? I think the other interesting thing that is emerging in manufacturing from a technology perspective is 3D printing and how that's affecting how.

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So Here’s What I’ve Been Thinking…

Steve Blank

I was interviewed at the Stanford Business School and in listening to the podcast, I realize I repeated some of my usual soundbites but embedded in the conversation were a few things I’ve never shared before about service. Listen here: Steve Blank on Silicon Valley, AI and the Future of Innovation. Download the.mp3 here: Download Episode Filed under: China , Hacking For Defense , NSF (National Science Foundation) , Science and Industrial Policy , Secret History of Silicon Valley , Teaching

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Good Customer Service: Are You Doing It Right?

Duct Tape Marketing

Good Customer Service: Are You Doing It Right? written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Whether you are a B2B or a B2C organization, one thing you already know is that you need to provide quality customer service in order to be successful. Chances are, your mission statement or company vision includes something about customer service.

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Cloud Computing Demystified For Small Businesses

YoungUpstarts

by Lewis Robinson. Cloud technology has become a huge topic in the IT industry, and even more so for small businesses who may are working to stay on top of technological advances while often not having an in-house, dedicated IT staff. Cloud computing offers specific advantages and disadvantages over traditional site-based server rooms. Here are five misconceptions about cloud computing technologies clarified for small businesses to make the choice to migrate simple: 1.

Cloud 109
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3 Emails Every Early-Stage SaaS Should Be Sending Right Now

Software By Rob

This article is a guest post by Christoph Engelhardt of SaaSEmailMarketing.net. Today I’m going to show you 3 emails that can change the trajectory of your SaaS business. The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. You’ll learn how to: increase your signup conversions by 15%. improve your “trial-to-paid” conversions. prevent payment-related churn.

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8 Challenges To Overcome In The Growth Of Hyperlocal

Startup Professionals Musings

In this age of instant communication via the Internet, It’s ironic that I can now find out what’s going on around the world often more easily than in my own neighborhood. This opens an area of business opportunity, popularly called hyperlocal, which still seems to be underserved. Some experts have tied this market to location detection hardware (GPS), but even that is now pervasive on all smart devices.

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Quick Thoughts on Term Sheets and LOIs

Rob Go

This is something that isn’t that obvious to founders, so I thought I’d write a quick post. When a VC invests in a startup, the two parties usually sign a term sheet that lays out the major terms of the investment round. This is usually followed by several weeks or longer of legal due diligence. 90%+ of term sheets result in a closed deal that is more or less equivalent to what was discussed.

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Being in the Minority

This is going to be BIG.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been to a couple of tech events that were sparsely populated by straight white men. Yeah, can you believe it? One was a careers panel aimed at women in tech held at Flatiron School and the other was Alterconf. The goal of Alterconf is to provide safe opportunities and spaces for marginalized people in tech and those who support them by highlighting positive initiatives of local community members.

Community 162
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Inspire Positive Conversations Behind Your Back

Duct Tape Marketing

Inspire Positive Conversations Behind Your Back written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Today everybody can publicly give a thumbs up or down to each customer experience. Whether you’re an Uber driver or a brain surgeon, you have to accept that online reviews are now built into the buying process. While negative reviews can certainly impact business, it’s second only to having none at all.

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Preparing For An Acquisition

YoungUpstarts

by Jeff Stark, Audit Partner at Sensiba San Filippo. In the current economic landscape, it’s common for startups and businesses to seek a buyout or acquisition — in fact, it’s frequently the goal from the start. Preparing for an acquisition as early as possible can help alleviate the stress of an unplanned opportunity as well as put your company in the best situation for the strongest offer when the decision is made to sell the enterprise.

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3 Emails Every Early-Stage SaaS Should Be Sending Right Now

Software By Rob

This article is a guest post by Christoph Engelhardt of SaaSEmailMarketing.net. Today I’m going to show you 3 emails that can change the trajectory of your SaaS business. The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. You’ll learn how to: increase your signup conversions by 15%. improve your “trial-to-paid” conversions. prevent payment-related churn.

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Can You Beat Amazon In The Race To Overnight Success?

Startup Professionals Musings

Every startup founder knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Yet we always dream that we are the exception to the rule. So once in a while it’s good to look at some facts to temper our imagination. I was reading an old article written by marketing guru Seth Godin a while back where he mentions that “it takes about six years of hard work to become an overnight success”.

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Building in public forces true competitive advantage

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

What would happen if I forced you to develop all your precious, proprietary, secret-sauce code in a public Github repository? One thing would be: You would be judged. Your peers would judge you by that code, with a broad definition of “goodness” that includes everything from file and class organization, documentation, tests, avoiding placing API keys in code, eliminating your reliance on “security by obscurity,” and even that artful quality which like the proverbial US Su

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The Innovation Insurgency Gets Educated: Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy, Development, …

Steve Blank

We’re holding our 2 nd Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy,… educators and sponsors class January 17-19 at Georgetown University. The class is for: educators who want to learn how to teach a Hacking for Defense, Diplomacy, Development, etc. class; problem sponsors who want to learn how to get the most out of their interaction with student teams and how to use the teams to help accelerate their problem. government organizations who want to a more efficient way to deliver needed solutions with speed an

San Diego 141