2021

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8 Strategies For Sustaining Momentum In Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. The most common approach I see to achieving this is to do more of everything for everyone. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team.

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Why LP’s Passed on Seed Funds 10 Years Ago (And What’s Happened Since)

View from Seed

This year will mark the 10 th year anniversary of NextView. I’ll be writing a number of posts looking back over the first decade of the life of this firm. In some ways, this feels like an eternity. But in the grand scheme of things, 10 years is a blip, and one that had a continuous bull market in tech. So whatever conclusions or observations I draw should be seen in this context.

Dilution 399
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4 Ways IoT is Rewiring How the World Works

ReadWriteStart

There are few technologies in the world today that can make a Trillion-dollar impact on the global economy. IoT (Internet of Things) is one of them. McKinsey, the global think tank, estimates that IoT will have an economic impact of between $4 trillion and $11 trillion by 2025 ( Source ). Source: Mckinsey. IoT brings organizations a whole new way of working wherein it becomes easier to control, manage, and monitor remotely located hardware.

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Israeli startup Landscape Maps (Updated April 2021)

VC Cafe

Readers of VC Cafe know that I collect and curate Israeli startup landscape maps. You can find previous editions in the achives. July 2020 , May 2019. This latest batch includes new maps for Insurance tech, Industry 4.0, Deep Tech, Passion Tech and Proptech, as well as updated landscapes for cyber security tech and retail tech. Hope you find it as interesting as I do.

Startup 215
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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 Conduct a Technical SEO Audit

ConversionXL

The technical elements of your website’s SEO are crucial to search performance. Understand and maintain them and your website can rank prominently, drive traffic, and help boost sales. Neglect them, and you run the risk of pages not showing up in SERPs. In this article, you’ll learn how to conduct a technical SEO audit to find and fix issues in your website’s structure.

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Twitter Spaces and Nietzsche

Feld Thoughts

Last week I was scheduled to do a live interview with Eliot Peper about The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche. He opted to use Twitter Spaces and diligently tested it out a couple of days beforehand to confirm that it would work. Nevertheless, we immediately ran into difficulties, and after ten minutes, we decided to bail on the interview and reschedule.

More Trending

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How I Gamified My Own Brain to Lose Weight & Improve Fitness

Both Sides of the Table

Socially distant hiking in Sedona (we drove there) I recently wrote about my weight-loss journey over the past 18 months where I lost 65 pounds without a fad diet and returned to my college weight. If you want to get in better shape and haven’t read that you might start there. I separately wrote about some food plans I use. I started advice with the premise that no amount of exercise or food eating plan would help with long-term fitness or weight goals unless you first had a mental plan and a se

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Why Innovation Heroes are a Sign of a Dysfunctional Organization

Steve Blank

A week ago I got invited to an “innovation hero” award ceremony at a government agency. I don’t know how many of these I’ve been to in the last couple years, but this one just made my head explode. The award was for an entrepreneur who worked against all odds to buck the system to turn her insight into an application. She had realized it was possible to automate a process that was being done manually – reentering data from one spreadsheet to another and annotating it with additional data f

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5 AI Trends That Will Shape Your Business In 2021

YoungUpstarts

Christa Martin shares some of the fundamental considerations for businesses to understand prior to undertaking the deployment AI for audience segmentation. The post 5 AI Trends That Will Shape Your Business In 2021 appeared first on Young Upstarts.

Audience 352
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Why Colleges and Universities Should be Scared of the On Deck Fellowship

This is going to be BIG.

There’s been an emergence of “pre-accelorator” or “people accelorator” programs—experiences that you can buy your way into with cash, as opposed to potentially valuable future equity, that replicate the education and network provided by the likes of YCombinator. They’re popping up in a variety of different verticals, led by one called On Deck and they’re causing a lot of people to ask the question if a very specific and highly relevant continuing professional education and network is buyable in

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7 Keys To Making A Business Out Of Your Great Product

Startup Professionals Musings

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Product 403
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Announcing NextView IV

View from Seed

We are pleased to announce that we have closed on NextView IV. This is a fresh $100M fund with the same high-conviction, hands-on seed strategy that we’ve been pursuing since the start of NextView over 10 years ago. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs.

LP 411
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Seven Timeless Tips for Connecting and Building Relationships at Conferences

ReadWriteStart

An important part of honing our skills as business professionals is becoming better at meeting new people and building real relationships. The more we invest in practicing engaging with others effectively — the more natural our ability to build relationships, becomes. We then look forward to the process of building relationships and find genuine happiness in the process.

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The most important 2021 Predictions in entertainment tech and gaming

VC Cafe

“It follows that the goal of forecasting is not to see what’s coming. It is to advance the interests of the forecaster and the forecaster’s tribe.” PHILIP TETLOCK, SUPERFORECASTING: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PREDICTION. Covid-19 accelerated the adoption of entertainment tech, gaming and commerce. But are these trends here to stay? 2020… where to start?

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How to Create a Compelling Unique Selling Proposition

ConversionXL

Why should customers buy from you? How do you stand out and solve their problems better than anybody else? Every marketer knows these are important questions, but finding the answers can be a challenge. In this guide, you’ll learn how to differentiate your business and attract your ideal customers by creating a unique selling proposition. We’ll cover why a unique selling proposition is important, how to uncover what your customers are hungry for and share a framework for developing and testing a

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Techstars Accelerating Black ParentPreneurs

Feld Thoughts

I recently nominated James Oliver’s ParentPreneur Foundation for the new Techstars Accelerate Equity Program. Amy and I provided the lead gift of $100,000 through our Anchor Point Foundation. For a detailed look at what the ParentPreneur Foundation does, take a look at Techstars Foundation Empowers Black ParentPreneurs, So They Can Leave A Legacy For Their Children.

Equity 249
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Making Web Design Easier With Duda

Duct Tape Marketing

Making Web Design Easier With Duda written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Itai Sadan. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Itai Sadan. Iati is the C o-founder and CEO of Duda – a website development platform used by thousands of agencies around the world to build sites for their customers.

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Saas Survey 2021

For Entrepreneurs

2021 SAAS SURVEY – Part 1 For the eighth year in a row, we’re proud to work with KBCM Technology Group (formerly Pacific Crest Securities) Thank you to the readers of forEntrepreneurs who participated in taking the survey! Thank you also to Adam Noily and the team at KBCM Technology Group for their work on.

Security 203
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A Path to the Minimum Viable Product

Steve Blank

I first met Shawn Carolan and his wife Jennifer at the turn of the century at 11,000 feet. I was hiking with my kids between the Yosemite High Sierra camps. Having just retired from a career as an entrepreneur I had started thinking about why startups were different from large companies. The ideas were bouncing around my head so hard that I shared them with these strangers around a campfire, drawing out the four steps with a stick in the dirt.

Product 436
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The Rise of eLearning Platforms – Types, Business Models & Solution For Startup Edupreneurs

YoungUpstarts

As people switch more to the online realm for education and knowledge, the scope and application of elearning platforms will only get bigger. The post The Rise of eLearning Platforms – Types, Business Models & Solution For Startup Edupreneurs appeared first on Young Upstarts.

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$GME, Robinhood and r/WallStreetBets: What did we learn, Palmer?

This is going to be BIG.

The movie Burn After Reading ends with this scene: CIA Superior : What did we learn, Palmer? Palmer : I don't know, sir. CIA Superior : I don't fuckin' know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. Palmer : Yes, sir. CIA Superior : I'm f *d if I know what we did. Palmer : Yes, sir, it's, uh, hard to say CIA Superior : Jesus F **g Christ. That’s a bit how I’m feeling about this week’s battle between the Reddit users who successfully short squeezed multi-billion dollar hedge funds by driving

Stock 206
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8 Keys To Maximizing Your Confidence and Self-Esteem

Startup Professionals Musings

Confidence and self-esteem are critical to your success as an entrepreneur, or any business role. As a mentor, I’m regularly frustrated by people who try to cover their lack of confidence with ego and arrogance , rather than working on the base issue. Every business leader and investor I know quickly sees through the façade, and tags you as a high risk and difficult person to work with.

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Resetting venture capital return expectations: is 10x the new 3x?

Version One Ventures

When I started Version One Ventures in 2012, every experienced VC shared the same rule of thumb: we had to return 3x net consistently to stay in business (i.e. 3x the invested capital net of fees over a period of about ten years for a net IRR in the low twenties). Ten years (almost) and four funds in (not including t he two newest funds we just raised ), we are well underway of hitting and exceeding those targets and it is within reach for all three core funds to become at least 10x funds.

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11 LinkedIn Posting Tips to Get Viral on LinkedIn

ReadWriteStart

In this article, we will share six LinkedIn algorithm tips and insights and 11 actionable content tips. You can start following these tips on LinkedIn today to gain maximum engagement and opportunities. If you have a B2B company whose budget is meager and you are looking for all the possibilities to promote it on Linkedin? 11 LinkedIn Posting Tips to Get Viral on LinkedIn.

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The State of Creative Automation

VC Cafe

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Pablo Picasso. Like many other parts of our life and work, creativity, the ability to invent or design something new from scratch, might have seemed like it’s the last job safe from automation/machines. With new advances in AI, creativity is now being transformed by technology and offered as a services for consumers and companies.

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Measuring Market Penetration with Brand Tracking (+ Metrics & Examples)

ConversionXL

You work tirelessly to understand your customer, market, and competition so you can differentiate. Voice-of-customer (VoC) research, user research, competitor research, and insights on jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) can inform your marketing strategy. . Brand tracking is how you measure if those efforts are paying off. Brand tracking provides both qualitative and quantitative answers to crucial questions: How do your customers perceive your brand?

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Google Enters Hologramland

Feld Thoughts

Six months ago I wrote When The Big Companies Show Up about Sony releasing their first holographic display and what I thought about that development, given my role as an investor via Foundry and board member in the 40-person purveyor of fine holographic interfaces in Brooklyn called Looking Glass. In that post, I wrote: “When I ponder my life in 2040, I am confident that I will not be spending 12 hours a day in videoconferences on a 2D display.

IP 245
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Tapping Into The Power of SMS Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing

Tapping Into The Power of SMS Marketing written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Aaron Weiche. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Aaron Weiche. Aaron is the CEO and Co-founder of Leadferno, a business and text messaging platform to close more leads faster. Aaron is a digital marketing veteran of over 20 years founding and growing both digital marketing agencies and marketing software products.

SMS 101
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5 Things Your Company’s Website Needs To be Successful

The Startup Magazine

What’s the most important thing your business can do to ensure success? The answer is to build a company website that attracts a healthy flow of visitors, provides useful and relevant content, and helps to build brand awareness. It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is or what industry, in today’s technology-driven landscape, a website is an absolute must.

Mobile 195
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Your Product is Not Their Problem

Steve Blank

There are no facts inside your building, so get the heck outside. I just had a call with Lorenz, a former business school student who started a job at a biotech startup making bacteria to take CO2 out of the air. His job was to find new commercial markets for this bacteria at scale. And he wanted to chat about how to best enter a new market. His market research found that the concrete industry contributes between 5 and 10% of the world’s carbon emissions.

Product 421
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The Definitively Terrifying Rules of Serial Entrepreneurship

YFS Magazine

If you’re like me you probably have a pretty enthusiastic outlook on the idea of being an entrepreneur. That’s good. You’re going to need it.

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Scott Stringer and the Wrong Question

This is going to be BIG.

Mayoral Candidate and current NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who worked for him twenty years ago. He has denied the allegations—a reflection that the wrong question is being centered in the conversation. “Did he do it?” That’s the road everyone goes down in these situations—dividing the world into “good guys” and, basically, rapists.

Community 199
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6 Keys to Attracting Customers Based On Social Needs

Startup Professionals Musings

As a logical and data-driven business advisor, I have long focused on facts, technology, and quantifiable pain in guiding entrepreneurs. Yet, these days, I am seeing overwhelming evidence that customer buying decisions, especially with consumers, are often based on emotional and psychological factors , including passions from others, your experience, and social relationships.

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‘Inside Rounds’ Used to Be Bad. Sequoia & WhatsApp Changed Venture Forever

Hunter Walker

Why Their Multibillion Dollar Outcome Flipped The Script. Pre-2014: Insider Rounds Are The Funding of Last Resort. Post-2014: Why Are Insiders Letting This One Get Out? When WhatsApp took $19 billion and joined Facebook, the industry headlines moved quickly from the buyout itself to Sequoia’s masterful funding strategy of the startup. After publicly leading a Series A, the firm put another $50m+ into the startup in two subsequent insider rounds, neither of which were disclosed publicly prior to

Startup 163
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What Every Entrepreneur Should Do Before Launching a Startup

ReadWriteStart

Launching a startup is always exciting. This is your opportunity to accumulate wealth, make a name for yourself, innovate in some unique way, and possibly leave behind a legacy. But too many entrepreneurs end up failing because they were inadequately prepared. Before you even consider launching a startup, there are many preparatory steps you’ll need to take.

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Opportunities for startups in the creator economy

VC Cafe

The creator economy consists of a new set of tools designed to support content creators from all walks of life (from doctors to hobbyists). Let’s start with a short definition: [the creator economy] is defined as the class of businesses built by over 50 million independent content creators, curators, and community builders including social media influencers, bloggers, and videographers, plus the software and finance tools designed to help them with growth and monetization.

Startup 207