Startups

Financial institutions and entrepreneurs have a historically complicated relationship. Entrepreneurs need ways to fund their companies and keep business moving, meaning they lean on banks for everything from business loans to checking accounts. And banks need entrepreneurs, too — without small businesses fueling the economy, there isn’t much banks can do. This (sometimes reluctant) co-dependent […]

Much has been written about the tech industry’s sexist undertones. In 2017, Silicon Valley faced a “reckoning” for its gender-driven decision-making and tolerance of sexual harassment. From marginalizing women’s ability to contribute to the field because of their biological makeup to holding them to higher standards in order to earn leadership roles, the business world […]

To expand your wealth and achieve specific financial goals, you’re going to have to make some investments. However, those investments come with the significant risk of potential loss. Fortunately, the investment world has grown to offer more investment options and ways to assess those options. This includes more opportunities for individuals and companies to get […]

Bevy, an enterprise community event platform, announced today it has raised $6.4 Million Dollars from investors: Upfront Ventures, renowned author and Stanford Professor Steve Blank, Ryan Smith and Jared Smith, co-founders of Qualtrics, and Aaron Skonnard, SEO of Pluralsight. Bevy raised funds to increase their growth rate and expand the team. The Bevy Platform was […]

“I didn’t even know who Mark Zuckerberg was back in October 2015. Eighteen months later, I’m keynoting at conferences and serving clients in London, Sydney, Singapore, Los Angeles, Lisbon, Vancouver, and 50 other cities,” says Logan Young, the co-founder of BlitzMetrics, a Facebook dashboard and advertising company. Learn, Do, Teach: Build Your Expertise First New […]

Let’s talk about values. Not family values or stock values, but company values: the bedrock of an organization. A company’s core values define it in a way nothing else can. They support the vision and shape the culture. They are the principles and beliefs that define the work. They are what drive the company. Some […]

If you’ve ever toured the offices of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., you might notice a few commonalities. There’s the ubiquitous ping pong table, productivity-enhancing tunes wafting through the air, and an open, flexible workspace designed to support collaboration across teams. But the biggest commonality of them all? Their cupboards are almost invariably stocked […]

Economic bubbles aren’t new. From the tulip bubble of the 1630s, to the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, to the big-tech mania we’re seeing today, overvaluations happen — but not all bubbles pose the same risks or offer the same rewards. Every few years, it seems we’re warned of another looming “bubble” about to burst. Most […]

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic across the board. Everyone from developers, to data scientists, journalists, and general user-bases of all profiles are talking about it on a global scale. Entrepreneurs have taken notice of the benefits of AI in most areas of everyday life, whether assistants, mobile, entertainment and even healthcare or insurance. In […]

Savvy business owners understand the importance of intellectual property (IP) to their business’ success and most can name patents, trademarks, and copyrights as some of the various forms that IP can take. But the distinctions between copyrights, patents, and trademarks is often confusing and misunderstood, even by business people that regularly deal with IP. But not […]

Meural, the digital art platform we love and have in our office displaying beautiful art was just acquired by NETGEAR. This was just announced at NETGEAR’s Analyst Day. Meural started in 2014 by Jerry Hu and Vladimir Vukicevic. They has since raised $9.4 million over four rounds of funding from NETGEAR, Corigin Ventures, Bolt, Bryan […]

At first all I wanted was to be able to purchase something wonderful and uplifting for my bedroom wall. Then the goal was — if we could just find a piece that was inspirational above the desk in the den — that would be enough. Soon, we realized that we spent much more time in […]

What do Pied Piper and blockchain tools have in common? Both are always “coming soon.” By now most of us are familiar with blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Outside of cryptocurrency, blockchain has many purported use cases in scenarios that require an immutable ledger. Rhetoric has elevated blockchain to godly status, […]

Every time you’ve installed a piece of commercial software, you’ve invariably been presented with what must have appeared to be legal gibberish- a seeming difficult to read, needlessly long, solid block of text that was almost impossible to understand. Most people never bother to read the information presented- quickly scrolling to the bottom of the […]

Over the past couple years, the machine learning niche has exploded into the mainstream. Startups have popped up left and right to show off their innovative new tools, and Google — the tech giant above all tech giants — now claims to be a machine learning company. This sudden spike in AI interest is not as […]

“Make a spinner and spin the wheel”. – Seth Godin That’s what influencers always mean, start what you like doing and stick to it. Don’t give up in the middle. However, you can only continue doing something when you start something in the first place. Most of us today are tired of living a 9-to-5 […]

As a startup one of your most important assets is your brand and that brand is usually embodied in your company name and logo. The valuable time that you invested in coming up with just the right creative name and developing the branding and marketing around that company name is impossible to measure. After creating […]

Freelancing has been dubbed the on-demand economy, where businesses hire independent contractors to perform tasks for the company instead of regular employees. Contractors are generally less expensive to hire because you only pay for what you need. This can make them more appealing for smaller or shorter term projects, but some Silicon Valley startups are […]

The Start-Up Chile accelerator was arguably the spark that ignited Chile’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Chilean government, through the development agency CORFO, founded Start-Up Chile in 2010 as a way to bring in foreign entrepreneurs who would galvanize Chile’s transition into an economy built on technology and innovation. Since then, Start-Up Chile has accelerated over 1,500 […]

With the economy in an inevitable tailspin toward the first recession in over a decade, there remains ample click bait apocalyptic article titles touting the economy’s inevitable downfall. The most alarming recent data is the millions that filed for unemployment in a single week–the largest such black swan event in the history of the country. […]

Venture capital investment is one of the top places startups look out for when seeking funding for their business alongside other popular options like angel investing and crowdfunding. Moreso, there is a lot of competition with investors doing all they can to determine the viability of a business before putting their money into it. When […]

Startup businesses continue to find creative ways to evolve rapidly and adapt to market changes with limited resources. They spend a great deal of time and effort researching innovative techniques, finding and testing the best management methods, and implementing the right tools for their teams. 32 percent of executives claim that choosing the right technologies […]

Due to their unique oversight, governments have a surplus of data at their fingertips. Used properly, this available data could enable them to create beneficial programs that tackle problems in economics, policy, transportation, and civic life. Unfortunately, the majority of that data is untapped. Here are the facts about AI startups needing data, and how […]

Digital marketing is a series of tools that most modern businesses use to bring customers to their products and services. It involves using digital outlets like websites, social platforms, and software applications as marketing channels. There are a wide variety of options in digital marketing encompassing many different methods. Some marketing techniques that fall under […]

Measuring website conversion is actually a very simple formula. All you need to do is look at the percent of visitors to your website that complete one of your desired actions or goals. Growth-hacking your company takes place as you learn to read your website conversion rates and optimize for the growth. Practice these five […]

The Latin American startup scene is attracting more and more attention and investments. In 2018, venture capital investments in Latin America doubled for the second consecutive year, according to LAVCA’s Annual Review of Tech Investment in Latin America. Looking at the major markets in Latin America in 2018, most show increases in VC investment in […]

You’ve got a great idea, and you’re hoping to get the most money out of it. However, even with the best software package in the world, you won’t be earning much if you don’t follow a few basic pre-launch steps. Here is a software pre-launch checklist — six things you have to do. In today’s […]

When starting a business, it’s typical to look for venture capital, angel investors, and even co-founders to help get the company up and running. While funding is necessary for almost all businesses, seeking it out yourself isn’t necessarily the right path for everyone. Instead, knowing how to bootstrap your startup might be a better option. […]

For most startups, it’s no secret that a significant part of their long-term plans is to go public and become the next market darling for investors. The problem most startups have — aside from reaching the critical mass necessary to support an initial public offering (IPO) — is deciding exactly when the conditions are exactly […]

Let’s face it; we all overcomplicate things. But when you’re just starting as a new company, you can’t afford to waste time overthinking and complicating simple processes. You’ve got the gift of a clean slate. Meaning you’re not like the more prominent, older companies who have thousands of employees learning new CRM software. You’ve got […]

Over the last few years, Canada’s technology sector has been experiencing a renaissance. Increased venture funding has been helping to develop a robust tech ecosystem with major hubs in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto. Here’s how public venture funding can help build Canada’s tech talent. Despite this noticeable growth, however, Canadian tech companies still face […]

This article is the third part of my extended series on boundaryless teams, remote-first companies, and the future of work. In my two previous installments, I talked about the changing dynamics in many tech-centric cities. I explained why authorities like Sam Altman of Y-Combinator, Angel List’s Naval Ravikant, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Bill Gurley, […]

When new, typically young entrepreneurs start thinking about how they’re going to launch a startup, their mind instantly begins sorting through potential ideas. And most of those entrepreneurs end up discouraged. Why? Because they can’t come up with some revolutionary, game-changing, never-before-considered idea to serve as the foundation for their business. Obviously, if you have […]

My first job out of college was preventing a nuclear power station from melting down. It was summer 1986, the fall-out from Chernobyl was blowing over Europe and, after graduating in engineering science, I undertook a software development project for the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Here is why a tech startup is like a nuclear […]

On the topic of ecommerce, one wonders to what extent this business model is applicable, and where is it likely to end? This is the prime question that goes through most online retailers, entrepreneurs today. It’s the extent of this phenomenon that has resulted in soaring businesses across the world. Some of the many ecommerce […]

We all love a good story, especially those that involve rags-to-riches path. We love the zero-to-unicorn stories of Microsoft, Facebook and Uber. We often tie this type of success to proof of the American experiment–an ever-present reminder to some that if they put in the time and eventually get funded, they too can scale a […]

Being relatively a new service trend in today’s tech-driven world, CTO-as-a-Service (CaaS) is notably gaining its momentum. Though CTO as a traditional full-time position exists for decades, some companies do not feel they need a technology executive. Still, in some crucial stages of company growth, the CTO engagement turns out to be inevitable. CTO engagement […]

In this episode, I had the opportunity to talk to Will Decker, the VP of Brand and Retail for Plug and Play. The company is known as the most active investor in Silicon Valley. It’s also the “ultimate innovation platform” because it connects the best technology startups with the world’s largest corporations. Will Decker has […]

Into the realm of visual merchandising, we are going to see how this vital and exciting marketing technique can propel sales in the fashion business. Retail stores have long been using visual merchandising as an effective way to provide customers with a unique experience of purchasing products. Here is why online startups cannot afford to […]