Sat.Jun 24, 2017 - Fri.Jun 30, 2017

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Why a Company Can’t “Be More Like a Startup”

Steve Blank

This article originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review. As more and more companies face disruption from globalization, new technology, and startups that have more capital than the incumbents, the continuing cry from Wall Street investors is, “Why can’t companies be as innovative as startups?”. Here’s one reason why: Startups can do anything.

Startup 275
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4 Reasons Gen Z Will Rule The Tech World By 2020

YoungUpstarts

by Nate Vickery, editor-in-chief of Bizzmarkblog.com. The new generation is coming of age and marketers turn their gaze to the new consumer focus group. Generation Z is making its way into the market and its starting to reshape the tech world with their views and preferences. Generation Z, much like their parents, Generation X, still doesn’t have an appropriate “name” like Millennials or Baby Boomers.

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4 Strategic Tools Service Businesses Can Borrow From Their Retail Counterparts

Up and Running

Over the past decade, ecommerce has enjoyed explosive growth. Retailers everywhere, large and small, have their pick from a range of tools to create an online shopping presence that attracts customers and increases revenue. But for today’s hair salons, spas, car repair shops, and other service- or appointment-based businesses, the technology needed to enhance the customer experience requires a slightly different set of features.

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Expa Labs? ?2017 Companies

Eric Friedman

We started Expa Labs to help founders build and ship new ideas. By providing fundamental help in starting and structuring their company, providing office space, funding, and advising, we take a very hands on approach. We do this by working with a smaller group of companies. Building off of our learnings from 2016, we expanded the program to better suit the needs of entrepreneurs.

Stealth 68
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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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10 Tips to Stay On-Top of Your Expenses When Starting a New Business

The Startup Magazine

Accounts and bookkeeping are notoriously tedious and difficult aspects of starting a new business. However, understanding and implementing systems for these processes is critical to ensuring your new business’ success. Accountants in geelong will ensure that your accounts are balanced, prepared for tax purposes and the financial health of your business is monitored.

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Great Tech Support – The Answer To Running A Successful Startup

YoungUpstarts

by James Ontra, CEO of Shufflrr. Startups typically lack the resources of larger organizations – cash, staff, and huge marketing budgets. Yet the good ones can compensate with a great product combined with great service. Customer support is one venue where start-ups can differentiate themselves from their larger competitors. To run a successful startup in the tech industry, you need to understand how critical tech support really is to the livelihood of your business, especially in the competitiv

Startup 182

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How to Use Your Website to Convert Consulting Leads into Clients

Duct Tape Marketing

How to Use Your Website to Convert Consulting Leads into Clients written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing and selling consulting services can take weeks, months, and in some cases — years. As a consultant who must balance delivery versus sales, not having enough leads can lead to the dreaded feast-or-famine cycle. Nurturing and educating your leads is time-consuming work.

Email 63
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One Simple Way You Can Make an Actual Difference in Somebody’s Life

Both Sides of the Table

Fresno State students receive supplies for school with help from Renaissance Scholars staff John Hunt, Jr. (left) and Kizzy Lopez (right). We’re all bombarded with social media campaigns asking for us to Tweet, share, like, change our badge, use a hashtag or generally show outrage at a topic du jour. We jump in when we feel compelled or want to support the person who enlisted us.

Fresno 221
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How To Negotiate with Vendors, Partners And Employees

YoungUpstarts

by Ross Kimbarovsky, founder of crowdSPRING. Not every entrepreneur or business owner is comfortable negotiating. Many dread the adversarial nature of negotiation. Even so, it’s difficult (and perhaps impossible) to operate a small business or startup and not negotiate agreements with employees, vendors, customers, and others. I’ve negotiated with thousands of people (for 13 years as an attorney and for the past 10 as an entrepreneur and business owner).

Employee 171
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Startup Accelerators: Bundled and Unbundled

Austin Startup

TL;DR : Elite accelerators have cemented themselves as the universities of the entrepreneurial world; offering a bundle of resources in exchange for a price (tuition in form of equity). The most elite absolutely deliver on their promise. But as with education, that bundle of resources can be unbundled, and that’s what’s happening among entrepreneurs who don’t need or want the “full package.

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Transcript of The Key to Success? Taking Care of Your Community

Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript of The Key to Success? Taking Care of Your Community written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Back to Podcast. Transcript. John Jantsch: Who doesn’t love Copyblogger? Really been around since the dawn of the online era. Brian Clark and I have been friends for a really long time and they have certainly set the standard on how to build a business, how to build a brand, how to take care of a community.

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7 Business Lessons You Can Learn From A 7-Year-Old

Startup Professionals Musings

Parents, it’s never too early to start nurturing entrepreneurial talents in your kids! As an active business advisor and angel investor, I’m convinced that we are rapidly entering a new age of the entrepreneur, and those who are best prepared will be the first to reap some big rewards. You may think you need more entrepreneurial courses in school, or more advanced degrees, but in my experience it’s more of a mindset, some good coaching, and learning by doing that separates the winners from the l

Stealth 202
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Americas Cup: A Polymath event

deal architect

Oracle invited me and a few other analysts to Bermuda to witness a few of the races in the 35th America’s Cup. It is a vendor of many technologies to the US team and I was interested in all the.

America 170
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The ROI Of Investing In Your Employees

YoungUpstarts

by Kevin Faber, founder of Silver Summit Capital. Investing in employees can be a very beneficial and all-around positive experience for everyone involved. Ideally, employers get far more productivity and less expenses such as interpersonal conflicts, miscommunication and turnover. Employees feel valued and motivated to contribute, work to improve their employer’s business as well as have an incentive and sense of security that compels employees to stay instead of hopping jobs.

Employee 184
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Why early-stage startups should wait to calculate LTV:CAC, and how they should use it when they do

For Entrepreneurs

I have the great pleasure in introducing you to a new writer, Jared Sleeper, who will make regular contributions to this blog. We were very excited to have Jared to join Matrix Partners recently as he is a truly exceptional individual. Jared grew up in Maine working in his family’s grocery store. He had a.

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10 Guidelines For Storytelling To Hype Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

The entrepreneur’s challenge is to effectively communicate their value proposition, not only to customers, but also to vendors, partners, investors, and their own team. Especially for technical founders, this is normally all about presenting impressive facts. But in reality facts only go so far. Stories often work better, because humans don’t always make rational decisions.

Chad 181
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Why midmarket customers love Workday

deal architect

Since its early days, I have heard Workday executives talk about having a highly scalable cloud so large companies would feel comfortable moving off their on-premise finance and human resources applications. So, it is not surprising that multinational customers like.

Customer 150
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What You Can Do To Make Customer Care Your Most Effective Marketing Strategy

YoungUpstarts

by Andrew Tillery, Marketing Director for MAP Communications. What if improving your customer service was all it took to generate more sales and grow your business? No gimmicks, no flashy promotions, no big advertising campaigns; just a dedication to improve the way you treat your customers. Would you do it? Of course you would. In fact, you’ve already talked to your team about the importance of providing high quality customer service.

Customer 182
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5 Reasons a Coworking Space Makes Sense for Your Startup

Up and Running

So, you’ve started your business—where are you going to work? About half of U.S. startups choose to run their business from home , but your home office may not be a suitable environment if your startup is growing and you want to bring more people on board or meet with clients. It can also be difficult to separate home and work life, which actually increases your risk of burnout.

Startup 161
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5 Reasons NOT To Start With A Non-Profit Business

Startup Professionals Musings

A common misconception I often hear in the startup world is that non-profits are easy and safe, since they don’t have to pay taxes, and they don’t have to make a profit for their shareholders. In reality, from the feedback I get from non-profit executives, exactly the opposite is true. Technically speaking, in the United States, a non-profit corporation or association is one which has been exempted from Federal income taxes by meeting the criteria set out Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue C

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Women Forward in Technology Scholarship Program

Feld Thoughts

Are you a woman who is an undergraduate or graduate student enrolled full-time at an accredited university in the US, in a STEM field? If you are, you now have an opportunity to apply for a Women Forward in Technology Scholarship. Distil Networks just led a group of us, including Foundry Group, Techstars, Cooley, Yesware, Help Scout, Cloudability, Kulesa Faul, FullContact, and Anchor Point Foundation, to raise $50,000 to advance female representation in technology.

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First Impressions – The Importance Of Storefront Design In Attracting Customers

YoungUpstarts

Like in any new relationship first impressions count, only one shot to make a great one. As a business, this step is critical in the acquisition of new customers. Customers today, in most cases, have multiple choices when looking to buy a product. So, your business must stand out, but it must also maintain that experience in every store. The storefront is the first and last opportunity your business has to convert that passer by into a customer.

Design 165
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Please respect outstanding entrepreneurial achievements

Version One Ventures

Blue Apron went public today. It was not the easiest road for them as they had to cut the originally proposed price range of $15-17 to $10 and closed the first day just around that at $10.01. As one can imagine, the media commentary was not pretty, calling the IPO a disappointment , the stock stale out of the box , and lamenting that the stock forgot to pop.

IPO 144
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Experts weigh in on how 5G could change the world

The Next Web

The promise of 5G includes faster internet, greater mobile connectivity for businesses, and the ability to take futuristic digital experiences like VR and AR mainstream. With such limitless potential, the question becomes just how 5G will change the way people use their devices. To find out what’s coming, I asked a group of entrepreneurs from YEC the following question: How do you see 5G changing the way consumers or businesses use the internet in the next five years?

Internet 139
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I Don’t Accept This Apology

Feld Thoughts

I don’t believe that one starts an apology with the sentence “ The past 24 hours have been the darkest of my life.” In my world, the apology is to another person. It’s not a tone setting exercise, or a plea for sympathy, for the one making the apology. I was fuming after seeing the public apology on Axios from Justin Caldbeck. I could be wrong, but it felt like it was written by a crisis management PR firm.

PR 133
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Essential Networking Tips For Young Entrepreneurs

YoungUpstarts

Being an entrepreneur today is an exciting concept as you will really be able to push towards making waves if you go about your business venture the right way. Some of the most successful and wealthy individuals have all started as entrepreneurs and have worked hard to achieve the success that they are experiencing today. One of the best forms of advice that any entrepreneur will tend to offer those who are starting up their business is the positive impact of networking and how it can offer pers

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If You Don’t Do This, You And Your Content Will Die!

Rembrandt Communications

The real secret to copy flow and overall success I’m in ballet class, and the instructor tells the ballerinas to do this so that the movements are fluid. The same goes in Muay Thai kickboxing… “If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to move quickly.” And you’ve probably had people tell you this […]. The post If You Don’t Do This, You And Your Content Will Die!

Sales 100
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10 questions that can dramatically change your life (and your business)

The Next Web

The quality of our questions determines the quality of our lives. A few years ago, I was in a dreary situation that I didn’t know how to get out of. I was not passionate about the work that I was doing, I wasn’t surrounding myself with the right people, and I felt like a hamster running in circles. I didn’t realize it back then, but this was mostly because I wasn’t asking myself the right questions.

Web 128
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Julie Sandler Joins Pioneer Square Labs As A Managing Director

Feld Thoughts

In October 2015, Pioneer Square Labs launched. We led the financing, and I joined the board to work more closely with Greg Gottesman, Geoff Entress, Mike Galgon, and Ben Gilbert to build a long-lasting and enduring startup studio in Seattle. Today, Julie Sandler joined Pioneer Square Labs as the fourth managing director. Julie previously was a partner at Madrona Venture Group and is deeply involved in the Seattle startup community.

Seattle 129
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8 Things Small Businesses Should Outsource

YoungUpstarts

by Liam Martin, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Time Doctor. As a small business owner, it can often feel like you have 1,001 things to do in the run of a day, and not nearly enough hours to get everything done. You really don’t need to have this kind of stress. Running a business is stressful enough, and it doesn’t have to get any worse when all you have to do is begin outsourcing a lot of the little jobs that are keeping you from doing the much more important jobs.

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How To Make A Big Impact With A Small Marketing Budget

YFS Magazine

These days, it’s possible for SMBs to compete with the big boys.
 For startups that have to watch every penny, these marketing tactics pack a big punch.

Marketing 128
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Winning with Data: More Highlights from the Data-driven Marketplace Meetup

Version One Ventures

This is the second in a series of posts summarizing our speakers’ insights from the Data-driven Marketplace Meetup on May 16. You can check out our post detailing Bala Ganapathy’s talk on pulling levers to reach supply-demand equilibrium here. Anyone who works with data knows that collecting it is one thing, but then finding meaning and actionable insights is another.

Metrics 96
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In The End, Entropy Always Wins

Feld Thoughts

I woke up to an email from a close friend of 25 years that his wife had passed away unexpectedly last night. She’d been fighting cancer for several years, had made progress, then had setbacks, and then made progress again. While I knew them both, I’d spent many hours over the years with my friend, so I immediately felt his sense of loss because I know how central his wife was to his life.

Email 92
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Numerical Nurturing – 6 Steps To Prepare Yourself For A Job In Accounting

YoungUpstarts

So, you want to become an accountant. However, you can’t just get a job as an accountant straight away. Working as an accountant requires advanced education, a formal certification and firm commitment to learning the relevant skills. Take heed of the following 6 steps if you’re thinking about becoming an accountant. 1. Earn the right degree. Most commonly, in order to get a job in accounting you will have to earn the right degree.

CPA 147
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5 Ways To Boost Your Online Brand Presence

YFS Magazine

You don’t have to have thousands of Twitter followers or publish daily blog posts to get noticed online. However, you do need an active online presence.

Sales 117
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How to beat the behemoths

The Equity Kicker

I just read Andrew Chen’s Growth is getting hard from intensive competition, consolidation, and saturation. His argument is that we are at a point in the cycle where distribution is controlled by a small number of companies who limit the opportunities for differentiation via marketing. He mentions Google, Apple, and Facebook, and I agree wholeheartedly.