Sat.Jan 23, 2016 - Fri.Jan 29, 2016

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Getting A Software Patent Is Valuable But Frustrating

Startup Professionals Musings

For a software startup, a patent can be the intellectual property providing the key competitive advantage, or it can be an expensive non-defensible bureaucratic nightmare -- or both. I still generally advise software startups to file a patent as a barrier to entry from competitors and to increase their valuation by investors, but every entrepreneur needs to understand the tradeoffs.

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3 Ways Your Website Can Grow Your Startup In 2016

YoungUpstarts

by Wes McDowell, The Deep End. If you’re a startup, you probably already know the importance of having a killer website. In addition to being your lifeline to the rest of the world, it can (and should) be a major tool to allow you to grow your prospects, and gain traction in the marketplace. The way I see it, your website should cover two major bases: It should be current.

Startup 100
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How to Successfully Close Customers as a First Time Startup CEO

Lightspeed Venture Partners

I once witnessed a first-time entrepreneur pitch his very early stage startup, vision, and product with so much passion, precision, and authority to a well-recognized Global consumer goods brand that the CIO agreed to a POC (proof of concept) even before the entrepreneur finished his 30-minute pitch! For a large multinational to take this leap of faith was no small feat – especially considering the relatively early stage of the startup.

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7 Retargeting Case Studies That’ll Boost Your Current Campaigns

ConversionXL

You already know retargeting works. But what if you’re doing it all wrong? What if grouping all audiences into the same retargeting campaign is actually doing more harm than good? The truth is that a lot of people never give the attention or resources that’s needed to improve their retargeting campaigns. It’s an afterthought. So today, we’re going to look at seven retargeting case studies that use some seriously creative tactics that I’ve never thought of… or even heard of.

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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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8 Initiatives To Make Your Customers Loyal Advocates

Startup Professionals Musings

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. According to many observers , we can thank or blame technology for these higher expectations, providing information at the speed of light, leading everyone to expect more. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates.

Customer 131
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Beyond The Basics: Create A List Of Interview Questions That Reveal The Truth About A Candidate

YoungUpstarts

By Omer Tadjer, CEO and co-founder of Comeet. Hiring mistakes and turnover can be costly for any organization; according to the Society for Human Resource Management , it can cost as much as half of an employee’s annual salary to replace them. Hiring the right employees in the first place can help prevent your losses by ensuring that the people you add to your team truly belong there and will stick around for the long term.

Cofounder 100

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15 Entrepreneurs Explain How They Came Up With Their Business Name

Hearpreneur

The idea of exactly what your business is going to be usually comes first. Secondly, most often, is giving a title to your idea. What exactly is going to be the name of your business? Some people turn to their childhood for inspiration or a beloved family pet. It could be a made up word you dream of one night and feel it has the right ring to it. Even still there are some people who study foreign words for the perfect meaning behind their chosen business.

Naming 61
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What Do You Do With Inconclusive A/B Test Results?

ConversionXL

So you ran a test – and you ran it correctly, following A/B testing best practices – and you’ve reached inconclusive results. What now? A surprising amount of tests end up inconclusive. According to Experiment Engine’s data, anywhere from 50% to 80% of test results are inconclusive, depending on the vertical and stage of the testing program.

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5 Benefits Of Accounts Payable Software

YoungUpstarts

by Steve Smith, U.S. Chief Operating Officer at Esker. The efficiency of your accounts payable department can have a significant impact on your business’s financial stability and reputation among clients and vendors. However, even the most talented accounts payable team can present inefficiencies that cost your business unnecessary time and money. Here are just five of the benefits accounts payable software can provide your business: 1.

Software 100
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What is Structured Data & Schema for Websites & SEO?

Duct Tape Marketing

What is Structured Data & Schema for Websites & SEO? written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. For business owners and even for many marketing consultants, search engine optimization can seem like a headache – especially when it comes to any level of technical SEO. The good news is that a professional marketing strategy that is powered by a search engine friendly website and consistent content marketing, many small business websites can achieve at least some level of sear

SEO 44
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The only thing to fear is fear itself

deal architect

For a decade now, my two blogs have been yin and yang. New Florence keeps me excited about new technologies, Deal Architect keeps me level headed about the economics of technology and the slow adoption rates in most enterprises. That.

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What Are Pre-Seed Rounds and Why Do They Exist?

View from Seed

This is the first of several blog posts discussing pre-seed rounds. To ensure you receive the rest, subscribe here. In this post, I want to answer the question, “What are pre-seed rounds?” I’ll also address why they’ve become fairly common. In the next post, I’ll talk about how we think about pre-seeds at NextView. It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are kn

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The Best Way To Get More Traffic To Your Website

YoungUpstarts

Having a snazzy website is not enough to become a successful online business. You also have to make sure that your site gets found. This is something a search engine optimization company can help you with. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a strategy that gets more relevant traffic to your site, thereby increasing your ranking on the Search Engine Result Page, or SERP.

SEO 100
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Hacking for Defense @ Stanford – Making the World a Safer Place

Steve Blank

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Hacking for Defense is a new course at Stanford’s Engineering School in the Spring of 2016. It is being taught by Tom Byers, Steve Blank, Joe Felter and Pete Newell and is advised by former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry.

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Why I’ve Shifted More Attention to Facebook

Both Sides of the Table

I’ve been spending a lot more time on Facebook as a blogger than I ever did. So I thought it was worth explaining why. And I’m going to cross post this entire post on Facebook as an experiment rather than just posting a link on FB and trying to drive people to my blog. If you want to follow me on Facebook I’m here. So if you’re reading this on Facebook (or on my blog!

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Amazon in India: Lost in the noise

deal architect

Fortune has raised a firestorm with its cover showing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as Lord Vishnu, a revered Hindu deity. Others don’t like the word “invade” in the title because it smacks of colonialism. After Charlie Hebdo, it is surprising.

India 163
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How NextView Thinks About Pre-Seed Rounds as VC Investors

View from Seed

On Tuesday, I wrote a post to help define pre-seeds and give context to their rise. You can find that here. On Wednesday, my partner David wrote about how we’ve been using our office space (and network and other resources) to support pre-seed companies. Today, we continue our look a this trend by getting more specific about our approach to these rounds as institutional seed investors.

Cofounder 163
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10 Proactive Ways to Build Engagement From Your Team

Startup Professionals Musings

Every business wishes that all their employees were star performers, but wishing doesn’t make it happen. Some coaches and leaders seem to have the magic for bringing out the best in everyone. Research has shown that it isn’t magic, but a focus on engaging people in their work, so that their work triggers the same emotions as play does for you. Some of you cynics may think that such a thing isn’t possible, but Shawn Kent Hayashi, who has worked for years with entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500

Dilution 151
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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 18: Sarah Calhoun and Steve Sims

Steve Blank

Realizing you need help and learning how to ask for help are crucial skills for a founder. And while how much money you make at startup is a way to keep score, a successful life can’t be measured only in dollars. These topics were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern).

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What’s The Difference Between Content Marketing And PR?

Brandanew

Often when we speak to our own clients , we’re faced with questions that are talking about related adjacent fields. Many brand owners confuse between the functionalities and specifics of different jobs. Today’s post talks about two very related but still different fields of work and shares the difference between content marketing and PR.

PR 143
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Valuation Part I: Peeling the Onion, or How Top Investors Value the Startups They Invest In

Gust

Early-stage technology company valuations are generally a crap-shoot. Bill Payne did a great post about this in October 2011. This post builds on top of his work, and attempts to shed additional light on the valuation process. New founders may think that startup valuations work like this: I figure out what the value of my existing company is I figure.

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7 Counter-Intuitive Insights On How To Get Things Done

Startup Professionals Musings

In business, the only thing that counts is results, not how hard people work or how many hours they put in. Have you noticed in your startup or around your office that some people are always at work and busy, but others seems to consistently get more done? Studies of software teams, for example, show differences as great as ten to one in productivity between working team members.

Product 136
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Shopping Tactics: Online vs In-Store

YoungUpstarts

by Mark Simpson, Chairman of shop4pop.com. For small businesses, building your client base is crucial to success. For 85% of small businesses , interest is drummed up through word of mouth – and whether you’re trying to drive traffic to your site or increase footfall to your store, a powerful marketing strategy is key. Whether they’re shopping online or in-store, immersing your customers in a fluid brand experience will undoubtedly increase sales at the checkout.

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7 Marketing Must-Haves For An Online Startup

Brandanew

Building a startup from the scratch is hard work. Surely we do not have to explain that to you as an entrepreneur. In case you have already taken the plunge, you must be already prepared or getting to experience it hands-on. Even if you’ve been in business for long and are just beginning to explore the thriving online world, this is for you. Beyond the proverbial blood and sweat, you need certain practical assets and additional help to establish and grow an online business.

Marketing 109
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The rise of the vertical reputation graph

Version One Ventures

When’s the last time you sent out or requested a CV? Chances are it was quite awhile ago. In today’s reputation economy, we evaluate one another based on what people have done and how we’re connected. What you’ve built is becoming more important than where you’ve worked and the school you attended. If you’re a professional applying for a job or an entrepreneur applying for funding, here’s how the typical evaluation process looks today.

Vertical 101
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7 Secret Sales Are Hiding in Your Blog Content Right Now!

Rembrandt Communications

Are you missing out on more income at this very moment? If you take the time to write a regular blog and post it, that’s great. But you may be missing out on some key factors to significantly boost sales, online awareness and more. There are so many advantages to writing regular, blog-posts. Are you […]. The post 7 Secret Sales Are Hiding in Your Blog Content Right Now!

Sales 100
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Five Steps To Amplifying Retail Profits In 2016

YoungUpstarts

by Brandon Levey, CEO of Stitch Labs. The New Year is here! You’ve made it through the hectic holiday season and it’s now time to start planning for success in 2016. But how can you start striving for success if you don’t know definitively what success should look like for your business in comparison to your competitors? Laying the Groundwork for Success.

Michigan 105
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How Can I Figure Out Who My Ideal Clients Are?

YFS Magazine

Apparently, this is a mistake a lot of new entrepreneurs make, and of course it’s hard when you don’t have the experience to know what you will like (and not like) doing.

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V1’s latest investment: Booster Fuels – on-demand delivery of gas for vehicles

Version One Ventures

Last year, we quietly invested in the seed round of Booster Fuels, a then-stealth on-demand gas delivery service. Today, we’re excited to officially announce our investment as they raise their Series A financing from Maveron, Madrona, and RRE, and other invests, as well as expand into Silicon Valley. Much has been written about the Uberification of the economy over the past year.

Demand 95
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Apply For Grants From The Techstars Foundation

Feld Thoughts

The current grant cycle for the Techstars Foundation is now open. We are providing grants, scholarships, and sponsorships to underrepresented groups in entrepreneurship, including women and minorities. Apply here. And, if you want to contribute financially to support the mission of the foundation (a 501c3) – donate here. The post Apply For Grants From The Techstars Foundation appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

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9 Things You Need To Start A Construction Business

YoungUpstarts

There is no denying that the construction industry is once again experiencing growth ! It seems that we’ve got over the worst of our economic woes and are enjoying a growing economy. Without the construction industry, nothing would ever get built. It’s a crucial industry that will remain regardless of trading conditions. Of course, it makes sense to run a company in such an industry when people are spending money!

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Sustainable startup growth and venture capital

The Equity Kicker

On Friday it seemed like everyone in the venture capital industry was again reading about market turmoil, this time the news is that angel investors are pulling back and valuations taking a hit. I read it too, because it’s a big deal. Startups everywhere will need to adjust their fundraising strategies and good investors will be helping them to adjust quickly – it’s much less painful that way.

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The Other Kind of Traction You Need to Get Funded

This is going to be BIG.

One of the earliest lessons a new VC learns is about building consensus within a firm. No matter what the voting structure is in your partnership, I think every VC can think of a deal that they got completely excited about, only to have the deal crash and burn when they showed it to the rest of their team. It can be one of the most confusing and frustrating things from the entrepreneur side.

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What Did Entrepreneurs Learn in 2015?

Up and Running

With the arrival of a new year, we often become very reflective. We spend time thinking about what we’re grateful for, what we’ve been inspired by, and how we can improve ourselves in the upcoming year, both in body and mind. With this period of reflection, it’s a good idea to take a look at what worked—and what didn’t—for your business in 2015.

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Finding The Right Incubator For Your Business: The Three Most Important Questions To Ask

YoungUpstarts

by Dr. Xiao Wang, Chief Fire Starter, InnoSpring Silicon Valley. So you’ve decided to enlist a technology incubator to help your new business get off the ground. You have a great idea and a strong business plan, and an incubator is just the partner you need at this stage. Luckily, there are a good number of incubators now available to burgeoning entrepreneurs.

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Corporate innovation will harness the power of entrepreneurs

The Equity Kicker

Apple has $160bn of net cash and has paid $153bn to shareholders, for a total of $313bn. US private tech funding 2006-2015: $258bn (real). — Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) January 27, 2016. Jon Bradford, founder of Techstars UK, once said to me that corporate innovation budgets dwarf venture capital. This tweet from Benedict Evans gives an insight into how much.