Sat.Oct 21, 2017 - Fri.Oct 27, 2017

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Book Review: The Age of Sustainability

deal architect

I seek out Denis Pombriant, a fellow analyst, at industry events. We hardly ever talk about enterprise software. He is a history buff and a foodie and I walk away always having learned something and happier given his cheerful disposition.

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Does Fintech Disruption Break The Investment Banking Model?

YoungUpstarts

by Joe Duncan, founder of Duncan Capital LP. Fintech is triggering a profound rethink for financial institutions, from retail to investment banking. However must this imply the banking model is broken beyond repair thus leading to massive headcount reductions? At least for investment banks the answer is not so clear cut. The combination of services and infrastructure traditionally housed under one roof – underwriting, research, sales & trading, supported by large back office operation

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Why You Need Help Rather Than Helpers In A Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

As an advisor to startups, and a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m still surprised at the number who are determined to go it alone. Even worse, when they figure out that they really need help, the first place they look is for an intern or untrained helpers. They don’t realize that these only increase their workload, due to training and management, rather than offloading real work.

Startup 165
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What's Next for "The Startup Way"

Startup Lessons Learned

We’ve had an amazing first week following publication of The Startup Way. I’ve loved traveling to talk about the book and hearing what readers and supporters have to say and what their most pressing questions are. Launch week was busy to say the least, with lots of interviews, Quora and Reddit A MAs, and events across three states. A heartfelt thank you to everyone for turning out, reading, and offering support!

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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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Using Lean Six Sigma to End Baffling Business Problems

The Startup Magazine

Identifying the factors behind business success comes down to research and experience. Research might include reading business books and blogs, attending seminars, and speaking with seasoned business people. The experience might include sorting through hypothetical ideas to come up with factual answers. Unfortunately, in all this research and verification, one factor rarely gets discussed or explored: the skill of problem-solving.

Lean 60
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Business Prenup: What To Do Before You Start A Company With A Partner

YoungUpstarts

by Mark L. Zyla, managing director of Acuitas, Inc., and Jessica Wood, a principal at Bodker, Ramsey, Andrews, Winograd & Wildstein, P.C. So, you’re about to start a closely held business with your best friend (or a few friends). Congratulations! Before you get started, though, think pragmatically on the front end to avoid headaches at the back end.

Partner 208

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The emergence of intelligent HR software

deal architect

I recently wrote from Workday Rising about the Age of Intelligence. It’s not just Workday which has been busy. John Sumser of HE Examiner has a study which looks at intelligent tools at Workday and 29 other HR-centric vendors. He.

Software 186
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Endeavor Miami Takes on Scaleup Challenge

The Startup Magazine

Across the world, work spaces, maker spaces, incubators, and accelerators are opening, expanding, and making an impact on their communities, and beyond. Entrepreneurs who’ve overcome the proof-of-concept phase of their startups want to take their businesses to the next level. Within the entrepreneurship ecosystem, “scaleup” challenges differ from startup challenges and demand unique solutions.

Miami 60
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5 Sentences That Will Mark the End Of Your e-Commerce Site

YoungUpstarts

E-commerce might as well be one of the easiest ways to become a young entrepreneur, but it’s not a field that doesn’t have its difficulties. There’s a lot of competition in this growing sector of retail, and getting to the top would require you to successfully traverse a digital minefield where many young entrepreneurs’ business ideas failed.

SEO 138
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As it turns out, app retention & conversion are hard

Austin Startup

I attended a sneak peek of MixPanel’s latest app benchmark report a couple weeks ago. The report offers engagement, retention, and monetization insights from 572 Financial Services, SaaS, eCommerce, and Media/Entertainment apps, with 1.3b unique users, and 50b events, from June 1st through August 31st, 2017. MixPanel is a digital products analytics service I’ve recommended in the past , and is used by companies like Uber, Intuit, Samsung, and Expedia.

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Oracle Cloud AcceleratorPart 1

deal architect

At Oracle OpenWorld, Letty Ledbetter set up several interesting breakout sessions for a handful of us analysts. One of the more enjoyable ones was when Reggie Bradford, SVP described their Cloud Accelerator program.

Cloud 170
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3 Practical Machine Learning Applications That Can Help Your Startup

The Startup Magazine

Artificial intelligence is helping level the playing field for companies seeking to compete for search engine results. AI machine learning allows search engines to determine users’ intent when submitting queries, even when queries involve different keywords, using the context of prior searches to deliver more relevant results. This allows startups who know how to take advantage of machine learning to deliver website visitors a better, more relevant user experience.

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3 Ways Startups Are Using AI To Improve Daily Operations

YoungUpstarts

San Francisco startup Plenty’s innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted $200 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund, the world’s biggest tech fund. Plenty uses AI machine learning in conjunction with IoT sensors to grow crops indoors with only water, nutrients and light. Plenty’s AI-powered growth system uses only 1 percent the water of conventional farming while yielding 350 times as much produce per square foot.

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Why Taking Risk Is The Ultimate New Venture Advantage

Startup Professionals Musings

Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk. Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked.

Burn Rate 170
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Hey Alexa, Siri want to impress me?

deal architect

My wife has already had it with digital assistants. Alexa seems to wake up to the inflections of her Irish accent. Siri to mis-pressed buttons in the car or her phone. I am a bit more patient but I also.

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No Time for Bookkeeping? 5 Tips for Busy Startups

The Startup Magazine

Bookkeeping is a joy for some and a burden for others. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, streamlining your process and understanding the system is key to faster record keeping. Here are five tips to make bookkeeping easier and save time that’s better used elsewhere in building your new business. Keep Things Simple. In the excitement of a new business venture, it’s tempting to arm yourself with a big, fancy, expensive accounting software package that you don’t need.

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Surprising Tricks For Powerful Public Speaking

YoungUpstarts

by Paul Geiger, author of “ Better Business Speech: Techniques, Tricks, and Shortcuts for Public Speaking at Work “ Speaking in front of a group in any business setting, whether it’s a formal presentation, a meeting or on a conference call, requires not only that you have a well-prepared message, but that you deliver it clearly. Any number of glitches can sabotage your delivery.

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Scott Dorsey’s Attributes of Great SaaS Leaders

Feld Thoughts

A few weeks ago I was in Atlanta for Techstars Atlanta Demo Day and the Venture Atlanta Conference. I had a great time and it’s fun to see the vibrancy of the Atlanta startup community. My brother Daniel came with me and we had dinner with our cousin Kenny, who lives in Atlanta, so we got some nice, quiet, emotionally intimate family time. My favorite keynote at Venture Atlanta was from Scott Dorsey.

Atlanta 172
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Of Halloween and Enterprise Software

deal architect

This time of the year, I buy several packages of assorted candies. Keeps the neighborhood kids who come around on Halloween happy.

Software 170
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How to Choose Great Employees and Why It’s Important

The Startup Magazine

Many business owners find it difficult to find knowledgeable, reliable employees. However, finding the right people to hire for your business is extremely important. Learn how to simplify your hiring process to make finding good employees simple. Explore what makes an employee a great fit for your company and why employee retention is super important.

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Think Teaching Clients SEO Isn’t Worth Your Time? Think Again.

YoungUpstarts

by Itamar Gero, founder and CEO of SEOReseller.com . If you specialize in SEO, take a moment to imagine your ideal client. What comes to mind? A lot of SEO folks prefer someone who will “let them do their job and pay them.” However, a client that doesn’t take an active interest in what you are doing is less than ideal. You want a client that fully understands your job.

SEO 193
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7 Attributes Of Entrepreneurs Who Change The World

Startup Professionals Musings

By most definitions of the term, an entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business, incorporating innovative changes to existing products, services, business models, and creating new markets. Yet very few achieve that great aspiration of really driving economic, social, and environmental changes on a global scale. What does it take to get to that level?

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Don’t even think of naming your business until you read this

The Next Web

I’ve learned a lot from the development of NameLayer, and I’m ready to divulge every trick in my arsenal. In this guide, I provide realistic solutions to the frustrations encountered when naming a company. Plus, I’ll have some fun analyzing both good and bad company names. This guide is divided into three, independent sections: Why Bad Company Names Hurt You, Coming Up With Company Names, and Examples of Strong and Weak Company Names.

Naming 153
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5 Steps for Entrepreneurs with an Idea, but No Funding

Up and Running

Every business starts with an idea. Whether you have an idea for a great new product or a service that will revolutionize an industry, your inspiration is a great start. But how are you going to bring your idea to life? Building a successful business takes more than a great idea and a vision—it takes planning, discipline, research, and a whole lot of money.

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Will Autonomous Vehicles Shape Singapore’s Transport Future?

YoungUpstarts

by Dr Maren Celine Schweizer, CEO of Schweizer World. Will the autonomous vehicle (AV) shape the future of transportation in Singapore? But the main question is: are its citizens ready for AVs plying the roads with no human hand on the steering wheel and no human eyes watching out for traffic and pedestrians? The advances in technology make the AV a possibility for Singapore in the very near future.

Singapore 177
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How Much Stock Would Convince You To Join A Startup?

Startup Professionals Musings

Wouldn’t you like to be one of the lucky people who joined Google and Facebook when these were startups, and now be a multi-millionaire or better? So people ask me “How many shares should I ask for or expect when I join a startup today?” In reality, the number of shares doesn’t mean anything – it’s your percent of the total that you need to negotiate.

Stock 140
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What paddleboarding has taught me about being a balanced entrepreneur

The Next Web

If I told you that I credit paddleboarding to my success in entrepreneurship, you’d probably laugh me out of the boat, or the board — and I wouldn’t blame you! Founding and running a successful business requires many skills, and propelling one’s self on a board in Miami waters is decidedly not the first one that comes to mind. That said, as an entrepreneur, I get a lot out of my hobbies.

Miami 144
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Why You Shouldn't Put VCs on a Pedestal

This is going to be BIG.

Influencers. Kingmakers. Sharks. Power brokers. Visionaries. There are a lot of ways the startup world describes venture capitalists that portrays a certain power dynamic, real or perceived, that I believe is at the heart of so many of the industry's problems. The industry treats VCs as if they hold all the cards, and the worst behaviors of investors reflect that.

Founder 129
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5 Unusual Ways To Connect And Engage Your Employees

YoungUpstarts

by Eva Wislow is an entrepreneur and career coach at CareersBooster. To win in business, you must possess the necessary resources. Even today, human resources are the most important “tools” that you can leverage in order to expand your business. The digital tools and solutions and the new technology advancements are not to be neglected, yet employees…well, they must be happy!

Employee 174
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How To Reduce Workplace Drama And Improve Results

Startup Professionals Musings

Is it just me in my role as business advisor, or is emotional drama in the workplace increasing? Team members seem to be spending more and more time venting to anyone who will listen about the motives and actions of others, and less time introspectively focused on their own productivity and accountability. The result is less real engagement and more negativity for all to endure.

Hiring 137
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Why Uber is The Revenge of the Founders

Steve Blank

A version of this article is in the Harvard Business Review. Uber , Zenefits , Tanium , Lending Club CEOs of companies with billion dollar market caps have been in the news – and not in a good way. This seems to be occurring more and more. Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders.

Founder 245
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How to Keep Your Startup Safe From Cyber Attacks

Up and Running

October is national cybersecurity awareness month and it’s a good reminder for entrepreneurs to take a look at their online vulnerabilities, particularly in light of the recent Equifax breach and the slew of cyber attacks we saw earlier in 2017. Dr. Crispen Cowen of Leviathan Security Group recently shared his Top 6 Ways to Protect Your Startup From Cyber Attacks our LivePlan blog.

Security 122
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4 Legal Things Startups Need To Do

YoungUpstarts

Launching a business is exciting, but it’s easy to overlook some things in the laundry list of to-do items. When it comes to legal issues, it’s crucial to make sure you go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. Make sure you take care of these four legal things before launching your startup. 1. Incorporate – And Choose the Entity Type Wisely.

LLC 168
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Can AI become a tool to promote equality and fairness?

Version One Ventures

“Technological innovation should give us hope, not despair.”. Those words were a key part of the G7’s first-ever Innovation7, which was held last month in Turin, Italy. The Innovation7, or I-7, is a gathering of industry representatives from the G7 countries to help bridge industry and government. The theme of this summit was on making the digital economy inclusive, open and secure and making technological advancement a source of well-being for all of mankind.

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Sorry, You’re Out: How To Fire A Friend

YFS Magazine

It is never easy firing employees. Firing friends can be twice as difficult. Here's how to confront what may be every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare.

Employee 116
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Addressing KRACK

Feld Thoughts

The CEO of our portfolio company JumpCloud , Raj Bhargava, reached out to me after my rant on digital security earlier this week. Since JumpCloud plays in the world of digital authentication, they are well versed in security issues and are helping organizations with securely connecting their users to their IT resources (systems, app, storage, WiFi, servers, etc.).