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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

“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 […]

There’s always a tinge of “TBD” that accompanies the role of an early stage startup CTO. There’s a reason the position comes with that “up in the air” feeling. Early stage companies can’t immediately hire someone with the tech and executive know-how needed to handle the job. Most startups appoint a lead developer or some other tech go-to […]

IoT is taking the world by storm and rapidly gaining ground. In 2015, there were about 15.4 billion connected devices. IHS says this number will grow to 30.7 billion in 2020, and 75.4 billion by 2025. As the demand for connected device technology increases, so does the number of emerging IoT startups. But it’s not […]

After spending more than 20 years in Silicon Valley fighting my way through every conceivable obstacle, misstart, and product disaster, I’ve learned that knowledge can be an organization’s greatest asset. But standardizing best practices and giving everyone access to valuable institutional knowledge remains a challenge for many companies. More than 70 percent of employees said […]

Peter Drucker (1909-2005), the late Austrian-born management consultant, once famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast — i.e., while a sound business plan is excellent, nothing is more important than a company’s culture. That philosophy, later adopted by Ford Motor Company president Mark Fields, is still fully embraced by C-Suite denizens today. A Modern […]

In today’s rapidly changing world, we are in constant search of instruments and techniques that would make us more productive. We understand: do more, better, and faster if you want to succeed in business and life. Productivity influences our self-esteem. We believe: the more productive we are, the more others will respect us and consider […]

Outdated technology practices will keep your company mired in competitive quicksand. To remain competitive, address these five tech mistakes.

We all dream of coming up with the next ingenious idea that redefines and industry, or creates one from scratch. Netflix opened the floodgates to the world of streaming content, and they benefited enormously from being the only players in town (at least, for a few years). Uber capitalized on an existing need–transportation–but provided a […]

People who say Austin is the “next Silicon Valley” have obviously never been to Miami. Miami has its tropical climate, world-class art scene, and ample business crowd, technology companies have found a new home-sweet-home, leaving locals wondering what took so long? Perhaps still best known for the bright colors, sandy beaches, and Art Deco made […]

Radio “just ain’t” what it used to be. In the olden days, you’d turn the dial, try to avoid the whistles and pops, then land on a station that plays Hotel California every half an hour. Today, you can build your own music playlists, and you can also line up a stream of talk-radio-style podcasts […]

One of the biggest mistakes made by new business owners is not to engage startup legal services to handle possible issues for their new venture. Beginning an enterprise needs planning not only for marketing and growing the business but also to eliminate the legal risks faced by startups. Such hazards can quickly derail a new […]

The tech talent in Latin America is capturing the attention of global companies. Government pushes and investments in IT initiatives are paying off, with Amazon, Google, Alibaba, and many other global firms opening offices in the region and hiring local tech talent. There’s a new wave of excitement about Latin America’s potential to become a […]

There are seemingly countless stories of tech innovators who simply woke up with a brilliant idea, got investments to build it out, and ended up becoming billionaires. Of course, these stories are extremely rare, but they are exciting to think about—especially when you wake up with a brilliant tech idea of your own. You don’t […]

When you are the founder of the start-up, you have no roles to perform, aside from being the CEO to doing the basics. You have to be a marketer, IT head and even customer care at times. Managing a start-up is quite perilous and chaotic both. Things become a little flexible for you only when […]

The movement of software into the cloud has enabled developers to release new features at a staggering pace. But, all this change has created a fundamental security problem: How do you secure software that’s no longer monolithic and instead consists of hundreds of microservices that are updated multiple times daily? This is a challenge that […]

Trends are more or less dictated by the shifts in consumer behavior — as well as deeper elements such as changes in SEO, CTRs, and reach/impressions. This past decade also brought a surge in the awareness of the importance of digital marketing and doing it correctly. 2019 is the year that will close off a […]

If you run a business and are not happy with your current results, you are likely wondering how you can boost your sales to the next level. Crafting a viable sales process that you can scale is the best way to reach your goals and get the sales rate you have always wanted. Finding a […]

Over the past two years, we’ve witnessed the cryptocurrency market explode onto the scene, minting billionaires overnight, followed by an implosion that has wiped out up to 80 percent of the market’s value. All along, the true believers have continued to insist that this is just the growing pains of a new and dynamic financial […]

Before 2019, Elon Musk was a version of a rock star — maybe he still is — we sure follow what he does.  He takes drugs, stays out late and dates famous women. He also runs four companies and is worth $20 billion. In a 2016 poll, startup founders named him their most-admired tech CEO. […]

If you are in the position of potentially needing a patent, you will want to get some information before you file. The first two bullet points are entities for which you will want to become intimately acquainted. USPTO = United States Patent and Trademark Office. Applicants who qualify for small entity status can reduce many […]

We live in an increasingly digital world. We shop, make appointments, order food and taxis, and document our lives online. Approximately 70 percent of us use social media to connect and share content, and most spend an astonishing four hours per day interacting with our smartphones. Deep learning and AI are changing the ways we consume […]