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 […]

For every startup business, the need to give customers the best customer service experience is the key priority. Customers are kings, and they determine business growth. Your company growth will largely depend on how you treat them. Here is how self-service technology can boost startup growth. Some startups are already making it big with self-service […]

In this episode of the How To CEO podcast, I had a chance to catch up with Uri Haramati. Uri is a seasoned product manager with over a decade of business knowledge and experience in diverse capacities. Here is a new venture with a serial entrepreneur. A serial entrepreneur, Uri founded Life on Air – […]

Developing a small business into a successful enterprise demands more than passion. Unfortunately, over half of new businesses fail; mainly because the entrepreneur is unable to translate their passion into practical business skills. Here are five essential skills all entrepreneurs need to build success. Studies show that 30 percent of new businesses fail during their first […]

In the technology industry, almost more than anywhere else, image is everything. Image is the bedrock part of the “fake it till you make it” culture that animates most of Silicon Valley today. Innovators use it to sell illusions while they figure out the nuts and bolts of their big ideas. Here are four critical […]

You may think that you have the world’s most exceptional colleagues, but sooner or later, you’ll have a conflict at work. Unfortunately, conflict at work and misunderstandings happen all the time, so managing them in a proper way to minimize their effect on your productivity is critical to achieving career goals. The effects of how […]

In this episode of the How To CEO podcast, I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with Lesley Eccles. Lesley is the founder of the daily fantasy sports provider, FanDuel – which is the biggest sports betting company in the US. Now she’s building a new company called Relish, the #1 relationship training app. Relish […]

When done right, it’s hard to identify when your company moves from one growth stage to another. The transition should be seamless and can seem to flow naturally as the company grows. When you’re a business leader, however, it’s clear that this evolution rarely (if ever) happens on its own. Here’s what to do when […]

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference used to be the stuff of legend. We waited with bated breath for groundbreaking innovation. But… this year’s WWDC didn’t feature the significant product launches of yesteryear. Instead, the crowds watched the unveiling of Apple Arcade – the games subscription service. On the one hand, it indicates the growing importance ‘services’ […]

We all want to be more productive and improve our time management skills. Unfortunately, while time management is simple in theory, it’s not always an easy concept to put into practice. It takes knowledge, effort, and discipline. Here are seven critical time management skills to boost your productivity. We can’t make you work harder or […]

It’s official: The gig economy is coming to construction. While other industries have been quick to adapt to freelance employment, architects and engineers within the construction sector have lagged behind — and that is beginning to change. Here’s why the gig economy is coming for architects and engineers. The majority of all workers will be […]

As an entrepreneur, you have probably heard or read the “maxim” that only 10% of startups are successful, but is this true? And if so, what strategies can you apply with your company so that it is not part of the failures of statistics? How can you avoid being part of the 90% of failed […]

Thomas Edison wasn’t just known for his startup, the Edison Company. He was known as an inventor — and a prolific one at that. He contributed to innovations, including the phonograph, the light bulb, the motion picture camera, and others. In generating ideas and inventions that had a profound and lasting impact on the world, […]

In this episode of the How To CEO podcast, I was privileged to speak with sought-after leadership expert Dr. Mark Goulston. Whenever I talk to Mark, I always gain a world of insight and inspiration all within a few short minutes. This podcast episode was no exception. Here are the tips for aspiring CEO’s from […]

When Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded HP in 1947, it made logistical and fiscal sense to have all their workers housed under one roof. Ditto for Apple. It even penciled for Google in 1998, and it still worked well enough that Facebook chose to establish its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, in 2004. Standout […]

In this episode, I spoke with Podcorn.fm, co-founder and CEO, Agnes Kozera. Podcorn.fm is a marketplace for podcast sponsorships. The platform helps brands connect to the right podcasters to create authentic messages that resonate and engage listeners across audio platforms. In How-to-CEO, we are talking about the addiction to build companies. Side-Hustles and the Entrepreneurial […]

While it may not seem like a dangerous profession, the safety of real estate agents is often at risk. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2017 Member Safety Survey, 44% of female agents and one in four male agents have experienced a situation in the past year that made them fear for their […]

Why can’t products be designed with consumer privacy in mind? A recent controversy surrounding FaceApp collecting its users’ images has brought to light several data privacy issues. We only need to look at FB terms and conditions agreement to see that consumers are signing away rights to their personal information. The fact that the designed product, Facebook, […]

Can we see that maintaining a software-obsessed tech industry is self-sabotage? As a venture capitalist, I know there’s incredible excitement around quantum computing. Yet, as a material scientist, I also see the technology is at least five years away from commercialization. Once again, we see a bias that plagues the tech community: software overshadowing hardware. […]

Entrepreneurs always make mistakes. When you’re building a business, you will get things wrong. Everyone does. It’s part of the learning process. If you’re not failing occasionally, you’re not trying hard enough. Let me explain the biggest mistake your startup is making. Some mistakes, though, are more significant than others—and there’s one mistake that’s the […]

Live video is one of the most effective tools that marketers can use to reach and engage audiences. It allows businesses to address large numbers of customers at the same time. You are able to demonstrate products, and to make offers, but also to answer questions and quash objections. Here are some of the biggest […]