Sat.May 23, 2015 - Fri.May 29, 2015

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How To Ensure Your Startup Team Is Growth Hacking Not Copying

Brandanew

Startups need PR, publicity and proof of visibility for investors and while you may have a PR agency, many struggle with producing enough or high quality content. The all encompassing Internet does provide opportunities but not when we create a content stealing epidemic. Content marketing and growth hacking are not mere buzzwords in hopes of fast movement but need time investment (and therefore money) on creating originality or quality experiences.

Curation 177
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[Review] Hatching Twitter

YoungUpstarts

Twitter, which originated as an accidental side project of a failing Internet startup, first launched into prominence in 2007 when it landed best start-up in the blog category of the technology portion of annual festival SxSW that year. That winning announcement would catapult them into the Internet big league – whether the service, or the co-founders behind it, were ready or not.

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Rally Software Acquired By CA Technologies for $480 Million

Feld Thoughts

Congrats to my friends at Rally Software on the announcement that they’ve signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by CA Technologies for $480 million. Part of the fun of having a blog for a long time is that it captures some of the history – in the moment – of what’s going on. For example, from a post in 2008 about Rally’s $16.85m financing , I riffed on the origins of the company.

Software 117
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How to Forecast Sales

Up and Running

First, allow me to deal with a very common problem: Business owners are often afraid to forecast sales. But, you shouldn’t be. Don’t think there is some magic right answer that you don’t know. Don’t think that it’s a matter of training you don’t have. It doesn’t take spreadsheet modeling, much less econometric modeling, to estimate units and price per unit for future sales.

Forecast 108
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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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Twitter Link Roundup #271 – Textbook Resources for Small Business, Startups, and Design!

crowdSPRING Blog

Too weird, right? Metallica? Mellow? But perhaps a great way to start the weekend, am I right? A hard act to follow, perhaps, but get yourself ready, because it’s time now for our weekly Roundup! This week’s set of lovely links and attractive articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdSPRING Twitter account (as well as my own Twitter account ) is keyboard perfection!

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Does Mobilegeddon Really Even Matter?

YoungUpstarts

By Brian Sutter, Director of Marketing, Wasp Barcode Technologies. Unless you’re Kimmy Schmidt, you probably heard some buzz (or as the case may be, panic) about Mobilegeddon over the past few weeks. On April 21, Google launched its new algorithm update , designed to alter the ranking of its mobile search results to favor mobile-friendly sites and ultimately, to provide a better search experience for mobile users.

Mobile 150

More Trending

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Lean Business Planning with Tim Berry [VIDEO]

Up and Running

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. He is the known guru in business planning, particularly for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs, although he’s worked with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies as well. Lean business planning offers a simple, powerful, and effective way to organize your business based on what matters most, set the right priorities, track

Lean 83
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These 8 Groups of People Will Never Start a Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur I know is dismayed by the number of friends who approach them with a line such as “I have an even better idea that will change the world, and one of these days I’m going to get around to starting my own business.” I always wonder what is more important to them on an ongoing basis than changing the world, since their startups usually never materialize.

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How PPC Management Services Can Transform Your Company

YoungUpstarts

The Internet has become an enormous platform for businesses to advertise and communicate to existing and potential customers. It is also where consumers first turn when looking for any kind of product or service, and this means that businesses in every industry need a strong online presence as well as a flawlessly-conceived internet marketing campaign.

PPC 142
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The Hardware behind the Results of Framework Benchmarks Round 10

TechEmpower

By Jeffrey Papen, CEO and Founder, Peak Hosting. At Peak Hosting , we're big fans of TechEmpower's Framework Benchmarks, an open source project the company has been coordinating since early 2013. Covering a wide variety of web application frameworks, this project gives developers useful data that can help them find the framework that will provide the performance and features they need for their application.

Framework 218
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The Real Deal: Jason Prater on Manufacturers, Mobility, and the Internet of Things

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Jason Prater who leads product and platform development teams, from design to deployment at Plex Systems, the manufacturing cloud.

Internet 210
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8 Learning Principles Enhance Entrepreneur Survival

Startup Professionals Musings

Aspiring entrepreneurs who rely only on traditional learning vehicles (teachers, classrooms, and risk-free practice) are doomed to failure in founding a startup today. Either they are never really ready to start, study an opportunity until it has passed, or fail with tools and techniques from a bygone business era. The Internet and the current information wave have changed everything.

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4 Habits To Bring In Content Originality

Brandanew

If you’ve been in the loop and thinking about how to bring in content originality , then perhaps you have already heard of the latest couple in digital town. If you’re not in touch, make sure you spend the next thirty minutes finding out – or not, because I don’t like not gossiping about Digi-town ! Content and marketing- the inseparable couple in digi-town.

Curation 204
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5 Things To Do To Make Sure Your First Hire Is A Good One

YoungUpstarts

by Andy Roe, General Manager of SurePayroll, Inc. Perhaps almost as exciting as starting a new business is making your first hire. The feeling of actually being able to employ someone is very gratifying. So the last thing you want to do is have it all go wrong by hiring someone who’s a bad fit, making mistakes with their paperwork or paycheck, or failing to do your proper due diligence on the candidate.

Hiring 155
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SAP Customer Paths

deal architect

To me, the most enjoyable part of writing a book is the initial research/interviews phase. In the last few weeks working on the sequel to SAP Nation, I have had invigorating conversations with several professionals in SAP world and beyond.

Customer 163
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9 Key Tests For Innovation Potential In Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

The entrepreneurs I see are always talking about “disruptive innovation” ideas, but the plans I read are more often linear extensions of a current hot offering, like one more social network with the best of Facebook and Twitter, one more dating site dimension, or another “must-have” accessory for smartphones. Perhaps hard questions need to come before ideas, rather than after.

Startup 210
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Tuiza : The Art of Creating Content In Collective Solidarity

Brandanew

Federico Guzmán created a beautiful modern art installation of Tuiza- the cultures of the Bedouin Tent in Madrid last week. Tuiza (in the Hassaniya Arabic dialect of the African Bidan) is the work carried out in collective solidarity, in togetherness. Collective solidarity refers to a state of social bonding or interdependency which rests on similarity of beliefs and values, shared activities, and ties of kinship and cooperation among members of a community ( source ).

Community 166
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Spring Clean Your Startup: 5 Tips For Removing The Clutter

YoungUpstarts

by Rick Martinez, CEO and founder of Project BINK. Clutter is a drag. It slows us down, distracts us, and can send the wrong message about our work habits. Worse yet, it can have the same effect on an organization as a whole. For startups that are always pushing forward, it’s only natural that they’ll leave a mess in their wake. After all, a little clutter is simply the byproduct of productive teams, right?

Startup 152
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Are Blogs Part of Your BtoB Content Marketing Strategy?

Rembrandt Communications

Your tactics depend on your target market You are busy running your business and know that you should be posting blogs on a regular basis, but who has time? Ugh! It’s just another thing on your giant, “To Do” list that is stressing you out. But in reality, you may be worrying for nothing. Remember, […]. The post Are Blogs Part of Your BtoB Content Marketing Strategy?

Marketing 139
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Have You Explored Every Business Growth Alternative?

Startup Professionals Musings

Image via Pixabay.com Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions.

Merger 207
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Measuring the Immeasurable: Evaluating Startups Qualitatively

Gust

At Hyde Park Angels, we evaluate startups based on quantifiable metrics related to traction, market size, and more. But that’s not all we consider. In fact, sometimes the most important factors in determining whether we should invest are qualitative. While these can vary from deal to deal, there are a few that remain the same. Understanding of the Pain Read more >.

Startup 139
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Avoid Sales Limbo And Start Targeting The Real Decision Makers

YoungUpstarts

by Stephen Kurtz, CEO of MuscleSound. In B2B sales, figuring out who makes the final call is a critical first step in the sales process. You’ll save time and money by starting with the decision maker and adjusting your sales process accordingly. I learned this lesson the hard way. My company sells equipment to fitness centers, and for a time, we focused on the end user — trainers, nutritionists, or fitness coaches.

Sales 151
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Stannis Baratheon – King of Westeros, Lord of Grammar

Feld Thoughts

It’s always a fun experience to be laying on the couch next to my wife Amy watching something on our 90″ TV when suddenly she grabs the remote, says “that’s awesome”, rewinds, and plays it again. It’s especially humbling when it has to do with grammar. We’ve both been fans of Stannis Baratheon and regularly refer to him as the one true king when we talk about him.

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8 Processes Define A Business Rather Than A Hobby

Startup Professionals Musings

As a startup investor, I often see business proposals looking for funding that really look like expensive hobbies looking for donations. I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business.

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From co-founder to ousted CEO of 500px: Trials, errors, and lessons learned

The Next Web

Started in the early 2000s as a community on the LiveJournal blogging platform, 500px has become one of the most popular places in the internet to store professional and amateur photos, with more than 50 million images in its archives. Its history, however, has been a bumpy ride, which ended for its co-founder Oleg Gutsol last year, with him being ousted from the CEO role and the company itself.

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Book Marketing – What Can A PR Pro Do For You

YoungUpstarts

by Diana Ennen, President of Virtual Word Publishing and author of “ Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA “. Experts in public relations (PR) and marketing don’t simply get the word out; they create such a phenomenal success for their clients, that when someone needs a recommendation they are the first name they consider.

PR 152
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Weekend Reading on Startup Communities

Feld Thoughts

Amy and I had a very quiet weekend hanging out with each other, Brooks the Wonder Dog, and Super Cooper the Pooper. We like Memorial Day weekend – it always feels like the beginning of summer to us. I read three books over the weekend. Since I was home, rather than reading on my Kindle, I grabbed some books from the infinite pile of physical books I have in my office.

Community 124
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How to seed your marketplace

Version One Ventures

The earliest days in a marketplace are a tricky time. As I’ve discussed before, there’s a chicken and egg problem when it comes to supply and demand: customers need supply, and suppliers need customers. But it’s nearly impossible to ramp up supply and demand in lock step. We’ve found that in most cases it’s best to focus on building up the supply first.

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Change ‘we’ to ‘I’

The Next Web

Recently I had an interesting conversation with someone who works at a bigger company. We spoke about inefficiencies at different levels, and how to get s**t done. He said something that made an impression: “Change ‘we’ or ‘us’ to ‘I’ as much as possible, and force others to do the same. It is very easy to say ‘Shouldn’t we be doing this’ but it won’t change things.

Web 121
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Six Components Of A Positive Workplace Culture — And Why Your Company Needs One

YoungUpstarts

by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, authors of “ The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People “ and “ The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built a Bestseller “. There’s no denying that this isn’t your father’s Corporate America. Since Don Draper’s day, workplaces have become more casual, more connected, more innovative, and more flexible.

Salary 142
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The Tedium of Being a Founder

This is going to be BIG.

We glamorize the life of a founder--the big picture idea person who creates something big out of nothing. They lead a team with vision and bold thinking, guiding a ship from the helm. Right? That certainly seems to be what people believe--because I can't tell you how many founders are surprised when they find out how much of the job is. well. Mind-numbingly tedious.

Founder 116
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Societal Structures Change Much Slower Than The Machines

Feld Thoughts

I’m at Startup Iceland today. I like Iceland – this is the second time I’ve been here. It’s the closest place on earth I’ve been to Alaska, which I love dearly. And it’s fun to see and hang out with my friend Bala Kamallakharan. As a super bonus, Om Malik – who I adore – is also here. Om and I did a fireside chat with Bala.

Iceland 119
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Our latest investment: Shift Messenger, a communication tool designed for hourly workers

Version One Ventures

With more and more messaging platforms emerging, members within groups and communities are more likely to communicate across multiple platforms (SMS/iMessage, Whatsapp, WeChat, Facebook messenger, etc.), and therefore, in a less consistent and disparate manner. As a result, we feel there is a great opportunity for startups to provide a better, more targeted experience for these groups and their communication needs.

Design 118
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International Business Do’s And Don’ts

YoungUpstarts

by Scott L. Girard, Jr., Editor-in-Chief of ExpertBusinessAdvice.com and co-author of “ International Business Basics: Learn What You Need in 2 Hours “ Doing business on an international scale is very exciting; it can also be overwhelming. Not only should you bring your “A-game” from a professional standpoint if you want to close the deal, you also have to bring it culturally as well.

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Chinese marketplaces – lower commission drives faster growth

The Equity Kicker

We invest in a lot of marketplaces and one of the questions we wrestle with a lot is determining the optimum commission level. Most of the time 10-20% feels like the right answer. I say ‘feels’ because it’s impossible to know for sure when you start out. At the 10-20% level you can make enough money to build a big business (particularly when non-transactional revenues are layered on top), but commission is low enough that it will be tough for competitors to undercut you.

Revenue 110
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An Evening with Twitter and Foundry Group

Feld Thoughts

Chris Moody (formerly CEO of Gnip, who Twitter acquired last year), Rishi Garg (head of Twitter Corporate Development), and Seth Levine (Foundry Group) are having a discussion about the inner working of Twitter. If you are interested, register to attend at Galvanize Boulder on June 10th from 6pm to 7:30pm. Tickets are limited. The post An Evening with Twitter and Foundry Group appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Developer 113