Sat.Jan 31, 2015 - Fri.Feb 06, 2015

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Taking Your Startup Public Is Fraught With Negatives

Startup Professionals Musings

'In the old days, every entrepreneur dreamed of easily taking their startup public, and making it big. Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is up from the dead zone, but is still less than half the rate of 15 years ago. Smart entrepreneurs now avoid this option like the plague, due to its unpredictability and the challenges of running a public company.

IPO 204
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Tips For Successful Networking In The Creative Industry

YoungUpstarts

'by Pierre Drescher, co-founder of The Creative Loft. With the job market as competitive as it is, finding a place of employment within the creative industry is no longer as easy as getting good grades in school, completing one internship, and nailing your first interview. Today, snagging a job is about one thing: knowing how to network. And for some, the idea of networking can be a scary thing.

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Want Your Team Engaged? Then Lead Them

Up and Running

'It is a known fact that an effective leader is only as good as the team they assemble (recruit and select), develop (properly train) and lead (set expectations and goals). If the leader is not effective, then it stands to reason that the team will not perform well on a consistent basis. If the leader doesn’t set expectations for the team to achieve, then the team will set their own expectations and pretty much do what they want, including wasting as much time as they can.

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If you think privacy doesn’t matter….

Start Up Blog

'If you think your privacy doesn’t matter , then how about you do the following: Email me your bank account details and login passwords. Remove the blinds and curtains from your house. Leave the door open when using the toilet. Publish on your Facebook page the links to every website you visit – even those with 18+ year age requirements.

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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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S4HANAthe morning after

deal architect

'I caught up on some morning reading of reaction to yesterday’s SAP event in NYC and posted this comment on Dennis Howlett’s post Dennis, I saw it from afar and two things stuck out a) very little discussion of economics.

Cloud 283
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Must-Haves For Your Online Store In 2015

YoungUpstarts

'by Rostyslav Demush, marketing manager at Cart2Cart. Since the first successful launch of online stores, the e-commerce world has developed to unprecedented heights. These days it is far easier to build up a top-ranked and profitable shop with little effort; it is now possible to add a dozen features or implement attractive templates without a problem at all due to the wide range of technology platforms available out there.

More Trending

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Free Templates for Great Startup Pitch Decks, Direct from VCs

View from Seed

'Today, NextView Ventures is excited to release a pillar project in our Growth Guides series: pitch deck templates for raising seed capital. These help address a common question which we frequently receive from entrepreneurs about how to create startup pitch decks for this crucial financial milestone. For context, last year, based on questions from our existing portfolio, we launched two board deck templates for seed-stage startups.

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S4HANAfrom the SAP Nation Lens

deal architect

'I listened to the SAP S4Hana webcast today from the NYSE. I expected a marketing event , and it mostly was with a focus on “most significant product announcement in 23 years”, demo of prettier UX, talk new acquisitions, speed.

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Leadership Crisis: Fact Or Fiction?

YoungUpstarts

'By Russell Harley, veteran project manager and Director at PMO. The short answer it is a fiction. Even though there are a number of articles that differ from this point of view – including these at Forbes and the World Economic Forum. If you want to know the details as to why this crisis should be considered fictional in this author’s opinion, then please keep reading.

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When Krave Jerky Showed up in Class with a $435,000 Check

Steve Blank

'I remind my students that I’m teaching them a methodology they can use the rest of their careers, not running an incubator. Every once in awhile a team ignores my advice and builds a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Hershey just bought Krave Jerky, a team in our 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class, for >$200 million. —– Jon Sebastiani and his team came into the 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class with several key observations: Snack foods were a large ~$35 billion bu

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6 Ways Businesses Win By Doing Fewer Things Better

Startup Professionals Musings

'Intuitively, many entrepreneurs and businesses believe that the key to faster growth and success is more products, features, and markets. Since we all have limited resources, and can’t add more hours to the day, the result is usually more things done poorly, rather than a few key things done better than anyone else. The message here is focus , reiterated by every advisor and investor.

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The S4HANA promotional discount

deal architect

'Over the next few weeks in the run up to Sapphire, SAP and partners will be talking plenty about the recently announced S4. S stands for simple, and 4 for fourth generation – as CEO Bill McDermott has pointed out.

Partner 240
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PR Checklist For 2015 To Get Back Into The Swing Of Things

YoungUpstarts

'by Diana Ennen, President of Virtual Word Publishing and author of “ Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA “ Hard to believe January is over and the holidays are a distant memory. By now, some resolutions are probably already broken and everyone is back into the “ same ole’ same ole’ ” of 2014. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

PR 182
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The Best Job in Stamford Connecticut

Steve Blank

'K&S Ranch Publishing has an exciting opening for a Book Traffic Coordinator living near Stamford, Connecticut. We need someone who can help get our library of entrepreneurship books into the hands of the startup founders and students who rely on them. The job involves figuring out where to best sell our books ( The Startup Owner’s Manual , The Four Steps to the Epiphany , and Holding a Cat by the Tail ), and the logistics of managing inventory, sales and shipments of them.

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Startups Without Business Plans Are Expensive Hobbies

Startup Professionals Musings

'If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan. But, for the rest of us, don’t believe the Silicon Valley myth that all you have to do is sketch your million-dollar idea on the back of a napkin, and investors will line up to give you money.

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Hello again, Moores Law

deal architect

'There are rumors of massive layoffs at IBM. True or not, there is no denying the company has had years of consecutive quarterly revenue declines. Poor Ginni Rommety gets the blame, but my view is IBM forgot about Moore’s Law.

Revenue 212
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The Rule of 40% of a Healthy SaaS Company

Feld Thoughts

'There are lots and lots of blogs and anecdotes on (a) how to build a successful SaaS company and (b) what a successful SaaS company looks like. Yesterday’s post by Neeraj Agrawal from Battery Ventures titled The SaaS Adventure is another great one as he describes his (and presumably Battery’s) T2D3 approach. If you want to follow these more closely, I encourage you to subscribe to the Mattermark Daily newsletter.

.Net 153
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How to Avoid PR Scams

Rembrandt Communications

'Stop wasting time, money and resources The phone rings and it’s a producer who wants to speak to the CEO of your company right away. You think it’s a media call, drop everything and listen to what the person on the other end of the line has to say. Wow! It sounds great. They are […]. The post How to Avoid PR Scams appeared first on SEO Content Strategy and BtoB Public Relations.

PR 148
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10 Keys To Evolution From A Startup To An Enterprise

Startup Professionals Musings

'Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin.

Mezzanine 221
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Why You Should Show Up

YoungUpstarts

'by Jessica Ekstrom, founder and CEO of Headbands of Hop e. During my first week of college, a girl in my dorm said she had to go to an information session about internships at Disney World for one of her classes. She asked if I wanted to tag along. She also added that maybe we could get some frozen yogurt on the way back. Never wanting to turn down an opportunity for frozen yogurt, I obliged.

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A day of in a life of product manager

The Next Web

'Mike Fishbein does content marketing at Alpha UX. You can connect with him @mfishbein or via his personal site, mfishbein.com. An article ion The Next Web captured the essence of product management so well that it left one commenter exclaiming, “Finally I can point people to an article when they ask me what exactly I do!” I know how that reader feels.

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Sales Predictability Through Data, Science, and a little bit of Glengarry Glen Ross (The ABC’s of selling)…

For Entrepreneurs

'The following is a guest post by Tim Bertrand. I have the pleasure of knowing Tim since the late 1990’s when we worked together at my last startup. Tim now heads up world wide sales and field operations at Acquia, the company behind Drupal. In this post, he offers some great advice for how to get consistent […].

Sales 131
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I'm launching a Kickstarter campaign

Startup Lessons Learned

'I have some news I''m excited to share: I''m launching a Kickstarter campaign in March. I can''t wait to tell you more about it. But before I do, I''m conducting a very short survey. It''s been a while, but long time readers know I always try to collect data before any kind of launch. Please click here if you''re interested in participating. I''ll have more details to share soon.

Campaign 127
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How To Meet Your 2015 Goals

YoungUpstarts

'By Kris Duggan, CEO of BetterWorks. It’s already February, and if you’re like most Americans it’s highly likely you’ve thrown your New Year’s resolution out the window. According to 2014 research published by the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, a mere 8% of ambitious goal setters end up sticking to their resolutions. While this statistic isn’t particularly shocking, I’d argue that we could see this percentage increase ten fold if we simply make changes to the way we’re

Cofounder 147
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7 strategies for writing 3 books in 3 years

The Next Web

'Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumphs and two other books. He is an editor-at-large for the New York Observer and his monthly reading recommendations are found here. Writing a book can be a long, hard slog. The “miserable” parts of the experience have been documented over and over again.

New York 130
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4 Ways to Turn Your Website into a Marketing Heavyweight

Up and Running

'Your company is in the ring. There are 12 seconds left in the last round. Will your digital brand take the knockout throw, or will it crumple on the mat? That really depends on one major thing: your company’s website. As more and more people consume online content, the importance of standing out from your digital and industry competition becomes more important than ever.

SEO 116
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Are Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality the next computing platform?

Version One Ventures

'There’s a lot of discussion these days about what the next breakout computing platform will be: wearables, the Internet of Things, Bitcoin, VR/AR, or something else that we haven’t heard about yet? I think VR/AR is a strong candidate, since it feels like a logical extension of our current computing platforms. Previous VR/AR attempts have failed because the technology wasn’t ready yet.

Syria 115
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Why Face-To-Face Networking Is Still Relevant

YoungUpstarts

'The traditional form of drumming up business was the face-to-face pitch followed by the exchange of business cards. When the Internet came along, the focus changed as sellers tried to exploit the new niche. For a while, online marketing looked as though it might make the use of the traditional business card obsolete. However, business cards remain viable tools for business.

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8 things to know before working with an offshore dev team

The Next Web

'Most of us have been tempted to outsource some or all of our development work to an offshore team in order to save money. But is this the best idea for your business? The short answer is: It depends. To better understand the pros and cons, I polled a group of entrepreneurs from YEC about what one should know before deciding not to hire an in-house team.

Offshore 128
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Sunday Morning With the Wayback Machine

Feld Thoughts

'I’ve been reading a bunch of history lately. So I was psyched to see a long post titled Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job highlighting some of the amazing stuff that the Internet Archive has done with the Wayback Machine and its other properties including the Live Music Archive and their Software Collection. So – I decided to go down a website memory lane trip for Intensity Ventures (my personal investment company), SOFTBANK Technology Ventures (my first VC f

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Will Having a Positive Attitude Really Help Me Be More Successful in Business?

Up and Running

'Many scholars and researchers have studied the benefits of having a positive attitude. Athletes focus on winning as well as skill development. Optimism leads to more creative thinking and the energy to accomplish goals. A positive attitude reduces stress and leads to better health according to the Mayo Clinic. Operating a business successfully requires energy, health and creativity as well as many other skills and resources so a positive attitude is an asset that can benefit any business. &

Oregon 113
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12 Reasons To Let Your Employees Work Remotely

YoungUpstarts

'by Will Bridges, HR Consultant at Unum. Many office-based employers are granting their employees remote working privileges, allowing them to work from home for 1 or 2 days a week. Of course this is not a viable option for all jobs, but the majority of office jobs contain elements that allow workers to do their job from almost anywhere, as long as they have a computer and internet connection.

Employee 146
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A first-time founder’s guide to term sheets: What’s a convertible loan?

The Next Web

'Andrej Kiska is an Associate at Credo Ventures. In the past five years, seed-stage investing has experienced a boom. In North America, seed funds now represent 67 percent of all VC funds, up from 33 percent in 2008. The CEE region is no different: according to European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, the number of seed deals has increased 19x over the past four years.

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Why we are investing in Guardant Health

Lightspeed Venture Partners

'Today we are excited to announce that Lightspeed Venture Partners is leading Guardant Health ’s $50M Series C. For the last few years, we have been closely following advancements in genomics that have brought down the cost of sequencing the human genome to less than $1000. We believe that in the next 5-10 years, we will enter a world where it is commonplace to sequence your genome to diagnose all sorts of medical conditions from prenatal testing to infectious disease to cancer.

Partner 112
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Customer Loyalty 101: How to Get Consumers to Do What You Want

Up and Running

'How do you turn window shoppers into loyal customers? Have you ever been in awe of brands that seem to have mastered the art of “customer whispering,” frequently getting casual onlookers to buy on the spot? Much of this comes from consumer attraction techniques that anyone can learn and apply easily. Follow us as we demystify conversion and customer retention with the help of a few simple tricks.

Customer 101
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Turning Conflict Into Creativity – Consciously Choosing To Create Flow

YoungUpstarts

'by Hayden D. M. Hayden, author of “ Conscious Choosing for Flow: Transforming Conflict Into Creativity “ How do you deal with conflict? Is there a way to become a person of action who transforms conflict and has a positive impact on people’s lives and their business results? In every conflict, big or small, behind every action, and every word spoken, there are critical needs screaming to be acknowledged and satisfied.

Demand 141