Sat.Jul 06, 2019 - Fri.Jul 12, 2019

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Social Media and Thought Leadership for Founders

This is going to be BIG.

Running a startup consumes a ton of time. Just the immediate priorities seem to take up more than one person’s potential working hours—so it’s no surprise that when it comes to something like social media, many founders have trouble making it a priority. The consequences of failing to position a founder’s profile aren’t always obvious—and it’s usually all about missed opportunities.

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Less Multi-Tasking, More Meditation: A New Model For Start-up Leadership

YoungUpstarts

by Michael Heinrich, Founder and CEO of Oh My Green. More often than not, the words “start up culture” conjure up a very specific image in people’s minds: late nights at the office, lots of coffee and Red Bull, pizza boxes under the desks. In other words, an environment where people are just so committed to the work, that nothing else matters. Who needs rest, social relationships, proper nutrition, and exercise?

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Applied Venture and the inexorable rise of value-add VC

The Equity Kicker

When I started in venture capital in the late 1990s VCs were regularly lambasted for taking long summer holidays and spending too much time on the golf course. I remember one enterprising journalist judging VCs on the basis of how much their handicaps had gone down. Low handicaps weren’t good! During this time, cash was scarce and VCs were firmly in control.

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Is Artificial Intelligence Still Relevant for Startups?

ReadWriteStart

If artificial intelligence confuses you, think about what happens when it’s not leveraged properly. For context, consider the London-based VC firm MMC who found that about 40% of European AI startups don’t use AI in any tangible way. MMC (and TheVerge) are saying that companies just want to take advantage of the AI hype. Meaning that the company or startup “talks” about AI, but they are unwilling or unable to put in the resources to deploy the process, store the data, or make

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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 to Increase Ecommerce Conversion Rates

ConversionXL

If you run an ecommerce shop, you’re always trying to boost your sales. Here’s how to increase the conversion rate of your ecommerce site. What’s a good ecommerce conversion rate? Don’t worry about “average” ecommerce conversion rates. A good conversion rate is one that’s better than what you have right now.

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How To Start Your Own Small Business In 7 Easy Steps

YoungUpstarts

More people than ever before are swapping their traditional forms of employment to go it alone and start up their own business. It has become a very popular employment move in the last few years, and now there are currently 28 million small businesses in the US today. However, there are many different steps and considerations you must follow when starting your own small business if you want yours to be successful.

More Trending

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How to Grow a Successful Boutique Fitness Business

Up and Running

The boutique fitness studio movement is now seen as the most viable way of entering the fitness industry. If you’re thinking of taking the leap and starting your own business, first read this quick guide to what boutique fitness is, how to start a studio, and the keys to sustained growth in the long term. . What is boutique fitness? Put simply, a boutique fitness studio is a small gym that offers group exercise focused on one or two types of fitness.

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Seeking CEO+team for VC-backed startup: Make America Functional Again

David Teten

Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a network-based service. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved–ANY TIPS?? Do you want to make America functional again ? Are you thinking of applying to Y Combinator without an idea? Do you have a great team at your seed startup, but your product just isn’t working? Would you like to have a salary from day one that you work full-time on your startup?

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How to Build Healthy Relationships Between Board Members

Board Effect

Board culture is a key factor in board effectiveness. Boards of directors that enjoy strong relationships and good board dynamics have a positive effect on the leadership. Leaders who are motivated and encouraged are better able to lead an organization to success. Board dynamics are the way board directors interact with each other in carrying out their duties.

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Recruitment: Top mistakes made by hiring managers

The Startup Magazine

As we all know, recruitment is a hugely expensive game. A common misconception made by those who are new to the practice is that it’s just the starting salary that needs to be taken into account. As it turns out, there are a whole host of other fees to consider, such as HR, pension, tax and others. It means that mistakes come at a cost. If you do make a bad hire, you might have the chance to rectify it through the initial probation period, but in general it’s something that can cost

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Toronto’s John Fielding Lends Guidance on Mentorship, Strategic Leadership

Hearpreneur

For Toronto executive John Fielding, the road to entrepreneurial success began with a small dream and a lot of determination. In 1981, he decided to trade in his professional hockey career for the opportunity to pursue a path in business, a move which would eventually pay off. Today, John Fielding is the founder of Array Marketing, formerly known as IDMD, a global retail merchandising service with clients that include Ulta, Chanel, Estee Lauder, Sephora, and more.

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Is my business idea feasible? Key questions to ask before you start.

NZ Entrepreneur

Doing a business feasibility study first will help you figure out whether your new business idea is worth your time, energy and money – all very precious commodities. It will help you calculate, analyse and project what will be involved and the likelihood of success. Your big, bold business idea. So bright and shiny, it’s been keeping you up nights.

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The New Order of Silicon Valley: Forget the Silicon Part

Diego Basch

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area over twenty years ago. Back then I could think of no other place to be; it was the kitchen of the internet. Obviously in hindsight it was a good call. I was fortunate to live through several waves of crazy growth: first, internet infrastructure and basic applications that needed to exist. Then social networks, and finally mobile computing.

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7 Wise Leadership Strategies When Smart is Not Enough

Startup Professionals Musings

Most of the entrepreneurs I have met are smart, but many are not always wise. That means they may show great insights into a new technology that has marginal business value, their passion may motivate team members more than customers, or they may allow themselves to be pulled over the ethical line in their success drive. Wise leaders are authentic, timeless, and enduring.

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SAP Nation 3.0:  Excerpt Chapter 12 - From Sea to Shining Sea

deal architect

I excerpt 10% from every book in a series of blog posts. I posted several on SAP Nation 3.0 in April, then took a break after the Sapphire event. Over the next week I will excerpt the final batch. The.

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Why Gross Profit Is More Important Than Revenue

Feld Thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot about gross profit (and gross margin ) lately. Yeah, I know I can be riveting, but stay with me. When I was in Boston a while ago (it was very cold, so it must have been January), I had a wide-ranging conversation with Eric Paley. This was before the IPO Summer of 2019 when all conventional valuation metrics have entered the land of “suspension of disbelief” which is short-term good and long-term well-we-will-see-…-eventually.

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How The Workplace Divides, Not Unites, Women 

YoungUpstarts

by Joy L. Wiggins, PhD and Kami J. Anderson, PhD, co-authors of “ From Sabotage to Support: A New Vision for Feminist Solidarity in the Workplace “ Hostility between working women is trending. A study of one thousand professionals on leadership qualities found women consistently rate female colleagues lower than their male colleagues on workplace competencies.

Salary 151
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6 Keys To Growing Your Career Through The Gig Economy

Startup Professionals Musings

While everyone agrees that the “ gig economy ” is really here, the practical realities, other than not counting on long-term employment, are not so obvious. In my role as a mentor to many business professionals, I still see some who have no idea how to adapt to the new realities. The simple answer is that we all have to start thinking like entrepreneurs, rather than entitled employees.

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Friday Fun-isms: Handoffs

View from Seed

Given our high-conviction, hands-on strategy and NextView, we tend to take an approach where each one of our investments has a very clear lead partner within the firm. This is the person who ends up being the primary point of contact for a founder and is the one that drives the majority of the due diligence and day to day management of the investment.

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The importance of checking in

Version One Ventures

Last week was a rough week. I can be a pretty open book when it comes to my personal and professional life (though I’m not going to delve into the details here). As I shared what I went through, the kindness and encouragement from family, friends, and colleagues helped tremendously. I proactively sought support from those closest to me. But every other connection spun out from an unrelated call or conversation.

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10 Apple Watch Apps That Help Startups To Grow

YoungUpstarts

by Pete McCain, startup mentor at AppVelocity. There is so much buzz pouring about Apple’s innovations. The company like Apple has always managed to be in the headlines. According to the latest report from TechCrunch , “Apple Watch gets its own App Store.” By doing so, Apple Watch apps are breaking out from their previous constraints. According to Tim Cook, “Apple builds great products that enrich people’s lives.

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8 Ways To Learn From Your Team And Succeed Together

Startup Professionals Musings

Starting and running a company is a team effort. Yes, it takes a leader (entrepreneur), but you can’t do it alone, without a team. Maybe only you and a co-founder comprise the team at first, to provide key skills, back you up, and test your ideas. As the startup grows, the team has to be able to really push you in making growth decisions, rather than you pulling them along.

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Our Investment in Otis

View from Seed

On Tuesday, one of our most recent portfolio companies, Otis, came out of stealth and announced its public launch. Otis is founded by Michael Karnjanaprakorn, and is focused on creating a marketplace that enables fractional ownership of culturally relevant assets. That sentence is quite a mouthful :), so I wanted to share a bit more about why we were excited by the team and concept and were the first investors to join them on this journey.

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Austin’s Capital Factory and Plexal, a London Accelerator, Join Forces to Foster International Ties for Tech Startups

SiliconHills

The London and Austin technology ecosystems have developed a strong relationship during the last decade. And on Wednesday, Capital Factory, a technology accelerator in downtown Austin, officially announced it has joined forces with Plexal, an innovation center that sits within London’s Here East technology campus. The deal came together following meetings last March at South […].

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How To Eliminate Business Debt

YoungUpstarts

There may be no worse feeling than being crushed by the burden of debt, especially when the amount involved seems hefty. However, have you ever wondered what it feels like to be in a business debt – which is an entirely different situation? Aside from the heightened feeling of how you are going to pay up, there is also the fear of losing your business altogether.

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10 Challenging Insights From New Venture Innovators

Startup Professionals Musings

Most people agree that entrepreneurs have to think differently and take risks to have much chance of building a successful business. Yet I have found that serious entrepreneurs usually go way beyond these platitudes in their actions and thinking, and often won’t volunteer their real views, for fear of alienating “regular” people, and being branded a fanatic.

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Pledge 1% Today

Feld Thoughts

Over the years, I’ve written about my belief in the importance of giving back to your communities and #givefirst. In this spirit, one of the key organizations my partners at Foundry Group have helped create and nurture is Pledge 1%. In 2007, we were a founding member in the predecessor organization to Pledge 1%, called Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (or EFCO).

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Austin’s Rocket Dollar is Shaking up the way Individuals Invest Their Retirement Dollars

SiliconHills

By LAURA LOREK, Publisher of Silicon Hills News In a historic office building close to Capital Factory in downtown Austin, Rocket Dollar is disrupting the way people invest retirement dollars. The two-year-old startup allows people to use self-directed retirement accounts to make a wide variety of investments into real estate, startups, precious metals and more. […].

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How Startups Can Overcome Driver Shortages

YoungUpstarts

When starting in business, particularly in an area which requires the use of a commercial fleet, making your available funds go as far as they can is vitally important. It is easy to imagine that as a start-up needing to operate a small number of commercial vehicles, in busy times, a shortage of drivers and vehicles could cause severe problems for the business.

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How To Ensure Results From All Business Conversations

Startup Professionals Musings

Whether you are trying to motivate your team, close a deal with a customer, or get funding from an investor, a casual conversation is usually a waste of your valuable time. These result is a founder who is always “too busy,” but never seems to get the business done and the team moving. All real business is conversations focused on creating results. Shawn Kent Hayashi, in her classic book “ Conversations That Get Results and Inspire Collaboration ” makes my point very well as she outlines the top

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Mistakes University Students and Graduates Make in Their Jobs

ReadWriteStart

Finding the first job after the graduation is the most time consuming and stressful task. Despite of knowledge and skills, it becomes difficult to climb up the ladder of the career. Choosing the right career is important as it will impact you the whole life. There are many considerations in choosing up the right path based on our skills, capabilities, knowledge, abilities.

Salary 109
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Overcoming Fear When Starting Your Own Business

The Startup Magazine

It’s not uncommon for budding entrepreneurs to be racked with anxiety before plunging into uncharted waters. Entrepreneurship is a daunting undertaking of vast unknowns, but with some grit and resilience, anyone can conquer this giant. Source: Pixabay. For those who are looking to launch their own business but are uneasy about the journey that awaits, below are some tips on how to squash those fears.

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8 Ways To Avoid A Terrible Ranking In The Search Results

YoungUpstarts

by Christian Carere, founder of Digital Ducats Inc. There’s nothing worse than watching your website fall further away from the first page and wondering what you can do to reverse a failing ranking. Here are a few steps you can take that will give your company the best shot at a first page result and you on your way to maximizing the traffic to your website. 1.

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Fund81 Podcast Interview on Mental Health in Venture Capital

Feld Thoughts

I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth Kraus, Sue Heilbronner, and the work they do through MergeLane. Recently Elizabeth started a platform for the next generation of venture capitalists called Fund81. It includes a podcast , which has both a public section for everyone and a private section for the Fund81 members. Elizabeth recently interviewed me for Episode 13 where we talked about maintaining mental health in the fast-paced venture capital world while supporting portfolio companies, colleagues,

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I Traded In My Corporate Ambitions To Become A Freelancer – Here’s What I Learned

YFS Magazine

Now, I have no intention to tell you how to live your life. Instead, I want to show you that a different path is possible.

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Serious Advice for Designing a Home Office

The Startup Magazine

With the rising popularity of remote working, more people are deciding if working from home is a better alternative to the office life. Besides obvious reasons such as removing commute time, if designed properly, having a home office can actually increase your levels of productivity and comfort. In this guide, you’ll find the essential areas to on which focus, as well as some mistakes to avoid when setting up your home office.

Design 101