Sat.Mar 16, 2019 - Fri.Mar 22, 2019

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How to Test and Optimize Your New Business’s Customer Journey

Up and Running

If your business is up and running, you’re probably starting to think about how to grow your revenue and build a successful and sustainable enterprise for the long-term. If your business has an online component, and almost every business does, optimizing the path to a purchase conversion and building a strategy for customer retention is essential. You’re looking at allocating budget, time, and resources to conduct tests on everything you can to figure out what works best.

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Idea Generation Fails, or, How to Hose Your Next Ideation Session

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

Idea Generation Fails. How to Hose Your Next Idea Generation Project*. If you want to improve , get the training. This post is a self-explanatory graphic for the most part. Those who regularly do Idea Generation don’t need my text below (but don’t be smug, even one of these fails can do you in). I posted this graphic on LinkedIn a couple days ago it got so much attention I thought I’d do a bit of explaining.

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Never ask anyone to be your lead investor

David Cohen

Let me explain why you should never ask anyone to be your lead investor. First, if you’re talking to a venture capital firm that writes large checks (>50% of the round size you’re seeking), just ask them to commit to investing. Let them know they’re wanted. If they want to invest, they’re going to want to lead and will throw out a term sheet.

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SAP Nation 3.0: Early Book Reviews

deal architect

I got very nice feedback from tech executives I respect who had seen early copies of the book "Don't be fooled by the title - the book is not just about SAP. It is about drama in enterprise computing. As.

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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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Artificial Intelligence Can Help Or Hurt Any Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Image via Pixabay Everyone has heard about the big potential for using artificial intelligence (AI) to expand your business, but many of the small businesses I mentor are still wary of embracing it, because they don’t understand how it works, and fear losing control and unintended consequences. My advice is that AI is here, so it behooves all of us to learn how to use it properly and move forward.

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Entrepreneurial Essentials – The Foundations Of A Successful Startup

YoungUpstarts

So you have a great business idea, you’ve done your research and due diligence, you know your market and you are good at what you do. What could go wrong? Many small business owners and entrepreneurs begin their first foray into self employment neglecting some of the most crucial aspects of running a business. By the time they are up and running they are so busy with the day to day aspects of keeping their business ticking over that they can become overwhelmed at the time demands of invoicing, t

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Protecting Yourself from Counterfeit Products

The Startup Magazine

Ordering a product made in the UK, only to note that the starting point is China, it is likely you are dealing with fake merchandise. That typically happens when dealing with online shopping stores with a variety of vendors. No one is exempted from the difficulty of knowing when something is real or not. As it stands, counterfeit products, mainly in fashion and accessories, bring an annual amount of$500 billion globally.

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Model for Marketing Maturity, Stage Two: Grow

Duct Tape Marketing

Model for Marketing Maturity, Stage Two: Grow written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch on the Model for Marketing Maturity, Stage 2: Grow. This is the second episode in our three-part series on the Model for Marketing Maturity. Want to learn more? Check out Stage 1: Build. The idea behind the marketing maturity model is that every business needs to begin by building the foundation for their marketing.

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Small Business Security – It’s A Serious Business

YoungUpstarts

People wh? ?wn ?nd run small businesses m?? h?v? b??n neglected ?n th? ???t. N?t attracted b? th? large budgets ?nd sophisticated requirements ?f large enterprises, th? security industry d?d n?t focus ?n providing security f?r small businesses. Small businesses h?d t? settle f?r inadequate ?nd overpriced security th?t resembled h?m? security systems.

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How Does Robert’s Rules of Order Increase Board Meeting Efficiency?

Board Effect

“There was a lot of talking, but we accomplished little or nothing.” Have you ever left a board meeting feeling that way? Or, perhaps, you left a board meeting that was completely out of control, where a few board members dominated the discussions, and others left the meeting feeling frustrated that they didn’t get a chance to participate. These are the very reasons that Robert’s Rules of Order were created.

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Finding Quality SEO Expertise in Denver Colorado

The Startup Magazine

If your business has any kind of online presence then you really can’t afford to not exploit SEO to the max. Without a solid SEO plan you are going to be pretty much invisible in the Internet sphere, sitting in the shade while your competitors are catching all the rays. So again, you really cannot just ignore this aspect of business life – unless you are happy to miss out on the traffic you both deserve and need.

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Oracle Applications: a new chapter?

deal architect

Steve Miranda, EVP, Applications Product Development at Oracle briefed analysts about this week's co-located Modern Business Experience (MBX) and Modern Customer Experience (MCX) in Las Vegas. He also blogged about it: "we are bringing together marketing, sales, and service with.

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How To Start A New Business

YoungUpstarts

by Amanda Bowman of crowdspring. It’s not easy to start a new business. About two-thirds of businesses with employees survive 2 years and only about half survive five years. Businesses that survive and thrive have an unfair advantage. They’re started and run by people who are prepared for what’s ahead of them. If you want an unfair advantage, we’re here to share 4 of the 12 steps you’ll need to know to get started.

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4 Reasons Why Freelancing Will Continue to Grow in Popularity in 2019

Women Entrepreneurs Can

In 2017, Upwork and Freelancers Union released a comprehensive study of the freelance workforce in the U.S. They found that 57.3M people freelance, which constitutes 36% of the workforce. Moreover, they expect that freelancers will become the workforce majority by 2027, reaching 86.5M. Most freelancers don’t like the “gig economy” name that experts use when referring to this type of labor market since freelancing isn’t just a hot trend.

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UT Business students are fighting snakes with memes. Here’s why.

Austin Startup

By: Sarah Bloodworth Snakes infested UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business last year, at least according to memes. The joke comparing businesspeople to greedy, competitive snakes seemed to slither into every post on the UT-Meme Facebook page and Twitter. The Black Sheep Online even posted guide to “The Different Types of Snakes in McCombs.” Perhaps the characterization of businesspeople as snakes generated from the McCombs holiday decoration controversy, but the millennial view of declining bus

Harvest 50
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10 Key Principles To Drive Customer Decisions Today

Startup Professionals Musings

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision process. Every aspect of your business must be about sales.

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The Importance Of Office Flooring

YoungUpstarts

Flooring is a subfloor over the original ground floor which basically works as a protective layer, flooring exhibits adorable specifications to the office & also gives charismatic, colorful and aesthetic beauty to the office, which is the need of the Today’s World. One of the best way for floor grinding or making it perfect is gulvkanonen.dk.

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Conversations with ASUG

deal architect

Merriam-Webster defines ecology as a "branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments". If ecologists were to study today's software vendors they would be fascinated not just by how the core organism functions but by the.

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Good Authority – my book notes

Jeff Hilimire

In 2018 read the book, Good Authority , and found it to be full of great insights on leadership. If that’s a topic you’re into, you should give it a read, but also sign up for the mailing list for my upcoming book, The Five-Day Turnaround ;). Here are the passages I highlighted as I read Good Authority : One idea from the top can spiral into 100 projects for the team and overwhelm them in ways the CEOs can’t even imagine.

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9 Simple Approaches To Creating A Sure-Fire Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Image via Jisc As an advisor to startups and entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that all new businesses must start with a great idea. I have to disagree. I believe the best entrepreneurs start by finding a large opportunity, and only then use good ideas to capitalize on that opportunity. The best opportunities are recognized from painful needs, plus a growing population of customers with money to spend.

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[INTERVIEW] Brandon Seigel, President, Wellness Works Management Partners, Madison, Wisconsin

YoungUpstarts

Brandon Seigel is targeting his business talent toward helping health practitioners in private practice, and at the same time filling a niche he recognized when helping a family member shore up a practice that was in a tailspin. Seigel recognized that, while health practitioners in a variety of healthcare roles are passionate about providing health and wellness in their communities, they aren’t often versed in the financial processes that will allow their private practices to prosper.

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Here comes the sun.and the book

deal architect

It is a glorious Spring day and I heard the Beatles this morning - this song cheers me up no matter what time of the year. Then I got an email from Amazon "Congratulations, the paperback edition of your book.

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The pioneers of Silicon Valley’s fast culture on how to grow quickly, not recklessly

Reid Hoffman

Tim O’Reilly’s recent article, “ The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy ,” makes an impassioned argument that the ideas in our book, Blitzscaling , encourage entrepreneurs to behave in ways that are irresponsible or even dangerous in the pursuit of what he characterizes as “runaway growth.” Instead, he argues for the virtues of going slow and staying small.

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5 Keys To Relying On Intuition In Business Decisions

Startup Professionals Musings

Image via Pixabay With all the progress in analytical tools and big data available, many people feel there is no place in business today for intuition and gut instincts. As an advisor to entrepreneurs for many years, I strongly disagree, and still see the value of at least combining intuition with logical analysis, as we face customers and markets driven by relationships, emotions, and unpredictable social trends.

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4 Tips For Small Business Online Marketing

YoungUpstarts

Not sure how to launch or improve your small business’s online marketing? Should your business include social media buzzwords in your communication strategy? What type of content is the most alluring? Let’s delve into the top four tips that all small businesses can use to improve their online presence. Expand Your Local SEO. Every brick-and-mortar business on the planet wants more customers.

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Birth of An Entrepreneur

Feld Thoughts

In the past 24 hours, I’ve gotten a bunch of emails with positive feedback about my 81st birthday tribute to my dad and the Storyworth history I posted on how we ended up in Dallas. I woke up this morning to another Storyworth history from him, this time titled Birth Of An Entrepreneur: Brad Feld. I read it and loved it, especially since it reflected so significantly on how integral he was to the entrepreneurial path I ended up on.

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The Smartest Most Unsympathetic Guys in the Room: Tech's Responsibility Going Forward

This is going to be BIG.

I'm a bit tired of tweeting, donating, protesting, etc. to end gun violence--so I'll take a different tact in the wake of the Christchurch shooting. If you're an investor, employee, or just user of a large media distribution network, please ask the hard questions about the responsibilities of those platforms to prevent the spread of hate and violence--again and again until these platforms take their role seriously.

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Exceptional Leaders Learn Faster To Lead Further

YFS Magazine

In today's marketplace change seems to happen at lightning speed, making it essential for leaders to learn faster and apply knowledge systematically.

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Entrepreneur With Street Smarts Not Learned In Business School

YoungUpstarts

by Ron Coury, author of “ Tenacity: A Vegas Businessman Survives Brooklyn, the Marines, Corruption and Cancer to Achieve the American Dream: A True Life Story “ If I had to give myself a title or occupation description after four decades of business activity in Las Vegas, I’d call myself an observational entrepreneur, a “niche finder.” With nearly every venture I’ve undertaken, I identified a niche in which we could do things better than they were currently being done.

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Startup Feature: Football, Tennis, and Rugby Sports and Safety Surfaces

The Startup Magazine

The sports facilities services can give the right thought in UK. so the specialists can carry various projects from all over the country. It is one of the ways which gives the right deal to get experiences. There are more companies designs can be manufactured in artificial grass surfaces for the sports and leisure has landscape applications. And it can perform consistently to look natural in any kind of climate.

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The Achilles Heel of Startup Ecosystems

This is going to be BIG.

Across the world, various economic development organizations, government agencies, and non-profits are putting in admirable and well-intentioned efforts to develop startup ecosystems. They’re building campuses, districts, buildings, spaces, as well as running new educational efforts and contests—basically anything they can think of to foster the growth of new and innovative companies.

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OJO Labs Raises an Additional $45 Million in Venture Capital

SiliconHills

OJO Labs, an artificial intelligence startup, has raised $45 million in additional funding. The Austin-based company plans to use the funds to accelerate its development and market expansion. It plans to hire more employees in the areas of engineering, data science, product and design. The Series C funding round is being led by LiveOak Venture […].

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Employment Gaps Raise Red Flags, But They Can Be Overcome

YoungUpstarts

by Steven Starks, Senior Career Counselor at University of Phoenix. Throughout the course of a career, working professionals may experience brief or extended gaps of unemployment between positions. While hiring managers understand that these gaps can be caused by a variety of reasons – such as illness, family situations, travel or the inability to find a new job – they can be viewed as red flags.

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What’s the Difference? Venture Capitalist vs. Angel Investor

The Startup Magazine

Most entrepreneurs are aware that securing investments in their companies could be essential to the short-term growth and long-term success of their venture. It can often be confusing to know which investment type might work best for an entrepreneur and business. The question of venture capitalist versus angel investor often arises. Venture capital and angel investments offer excellent options to startup businesses.

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Do You Love Your Job?

Feld Thoughts

My dad’s posts over the past two days put me in a reflective mood about work. I’ve been working hard around computers and entrepreneurship since the summer between my senior year in high school and my freshman year at MIT. That first real job was as the first employee of Petcom, a company started by a husband and wife team that grew to about 20 people before the oil and gas market for software evaporated in 1985.

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25 Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Most Coveted Self-Care Rituals

YFS Magazine

How do entrepreneurs approach self-care? How we start our days, end our days and manage the time in between impacts how we show up in life and business.