Sat.Jul 12, 2025 - Fri.Jul 18, 2025

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Why Navigating Politics Matters Even in the Most Innovative Environments

StartupNation

When we think of startup culture, we often picture open office layouts, team happy hours, and a “no politics, just progress” mantra. Startups pride themselves on being the antithesis of traditional corporate environments with lat hierarchies, fast-moving decision-making, and transparent leadership. But beneath the surface of ping-pong tables and Slack emojis lies a truth that many early-stage professionals learn too late: politics exist everywhere—including startups.

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Navigating Risk, Learning Relentlessly: An Interview with Steve Gomberg of Mondegreen Ventures

Jason Malki

Steve Gomberg I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve Gomberg and he is a seasoned executive whose career spans general management, finance, and corporate development across a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. Steve has worked with numerous companies in a state of flux — experiencing both rapid growth and serious problems. From 2006 to 2010, Steve served as Finance Director and a corporate director for Asia Biogas Company, a pioneering developer and operator of waste-to-energy power plants t

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Sidus Space CEO Carol Craig Showcases U.S. Aerospace Innovation at 2025 Global Summit of Women

American Entrepreneurship

CEO Craig spoke at the Summit’s Women Entrepreneurs Forum that highlighted her success as founder of Sidus Space and her ongoing commitment to STEM education and inclusion. Carol Craig, the Founder and CEO of Sidus Space, elevated the voice of American aerospace innovation at the 2 025 Global Summit of Women in Berlin. As the sole representative from a U.S. commercial space company, Craig underscored the growing influence of women-led enterprises in the future of global technology, defense, and

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What is AI orchestration? A guide to intelligent systems

The Zapier Blog

My house has a graveyard. It's not in the backyard—it's a drawer in the entertainment center, and it's filled with remote controls. There's one for the sound bar, one for a Blu-ray player (RIP), two for gaming systems I don't use, and one that might control a ceiling fan in someone else's house for all I know. Each was once a technological marvel, but now they're an assemblage of expensive, plastic failures, incapable of performing the one task I need: turning

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From Curiosity to Competitive Edge: How Mid-Market CEOs Are Using AI to Scale Smarter

Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage

This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.

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A Startup Financial Playbook: Budgeting, Funding and Risk Management

StartupNation

Starting a business is an exciting adventure. But it still brings its fair share of financial hurdles. You’ll need to balance your budget, find the right funding, and navigate risks carefully. A misstep in any of these areas could set you back. But with a strategic financial plan, you can position your startup for sustainable growth and a strong future.

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Blackstone Makes $25B+ Investment in Pennsylvania’s Digital and Energy Infrastructure

American Entrepreneurship

The funds from Blackstone Infrastructure and Blackstone Real Estate are expected to draw in an additional $60 billion in private investment, accelerating the State’s Innovation Ecosystem. In a transformative move for Pennsylvania’s economy and innovation ecosystem, Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, has announced an unprecedented investment of more than $25 billion to develop and expand digital and energy infrastructure across the Commonwealth.

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Stripe vs. PayPal: Which payment processor is best? [2025]

The Zapier Blog

As far as I'm concerned, a card swiper is a card swiper—I'm not paying attention to the specific logo on the device when I'm making a purchase. But what might be a pretty inconsequential difference to consumers like me will have a big impact on sellers. Sell more and keep your customers happy Automate your eCommerce You need to make sure the processor you choose can integrate with your selling platform, that it supports the transaction types you use, and that it has the features

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Navigating the Gig Economy: How Startups Attract and Retain Top Freelance Talent

StartupNation

Hiring a freelancer can feel like a leap of faith. Will they deliver? Will they fit your team? Or will you waste time chasing someone who ghosts mid-project? The key to freelancer success is hiring the right contractor for your company and role. And with the ideal freelancer, you’ll see benefits you might not expect. Freelancers offer speed, flexibility, and niche skills that full-timers don’t always bring to the table.

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[Island in Business Wire] J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners invests in Island’s Series E investment round

OurCrowd

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Island, the Enterprise Browser company, announced the participation of J.P. Morgan Private Capital’s Growth Equity Partners as a strategic investor in its previously announced Series E funding round. Coatue Management led the round, which valued Island at nearly $5 billion. Read more here.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Ultion Technologies Secures Series A Funding to Expand U.S. Battery Manufacturing

American Entrepreneurship

Ultion’s expansion of domestic battery manufacturing will strengthen the U.S. supply chain when the global battery energy storage market is projected to exceed $1.2 trillion in investments by 2034 which has been trending toward overseas suppliers. In a decisive step toward U.S. energy independence, Ultion Technologies, a Nevada-based battery manufacturing company, has closed its Series A funding round which was led by Utah-based Torus that is a pioneer in full-stack energy storage systems.

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The 2025 Zappy Awards Application Is Now Open!

The Zapier Blog

Every year, Zapier users automate billions of tasks, including more than 250 million AI tasks. To celebrate the builders and innovators behind these workflows transforming the way we work, the Zappy Awards are back! Submit an application and tell us how you’re leveraging Zapier and AI to transform the work you do for your team, customers, or industry.

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Private Debt Financing for Small Business: Fast Capital, Real Costs

StartupNation

Private debt is often viewed as the nimble entrepreneur’s shortcut to capital. However, its growing popularity reflects fundamental changes in how businesses access financing, particularly as traditional lenders pull back. Since the 2008 financial crash, banks have been steadily retreating from small business lending. Even with reforms in place, risk-averse behavior still dominates, pushing banks toward larger, more stable clients.

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Tick Testing at Home: LymeAlert’s Bold Vision for Early Lyme Detection

Venture Well

LymeAlert, which recently completed the VentureWell-led National Institutes of Health (NIH) Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, created a kit to help people identify whether a tick carries Lyme-causing bacteria—right at home. The post Tick Testing at Home: LymeAlert’s Bold Vision for Early Lyme Detection appeared first on VentureWell.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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How YouTuber Nischa made her millions and cracked the Youtube algo

Founder Bounty

I thought I would write this as I have seen Nischa rise from a small amount of subscribers to amassing over 1.72M YouTube subscribers. We both have similar backgrounds, having also been working in investment banking. The differece is that i have sold a SAAS business and been backed by top US VC's for previous startups. She seems to have gone straight to try the YouTube game and won it!

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The 9 best accounts payable software in 2025

The Zapier Blog

Getting paid is great, but paying others? That can quickly become a relentless, soul-crushing deluge of invoices, receipts, and approvals. One minute. you're managing a handful of vendors, the next, your finance team is playing Whac-A-Mole with overdue notices, drowning in an inbox full of emails with the subject line "bumping this." Save time and reduce errors with accounting automation Learn how I've been there.

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Sole Proprietorship vs. LLC for Side Hustlers: Pros and Cons

StartupNation

You’ve finally launched your side hustle. Maybe it’s freelance writing, selling handmade products, or building an app on weekends. But now you’re wondering … should you stick with a simple sole proprietorship … or take the next step and form an LLC ? This question often trips up many early entrepreneurs. On one hand, you don’t want to overcomplicate things too early.

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Specificity: A weapon of mass effectiveness

A Smart Bear: Longform

A Smart Bear » Specificity: A weapon of mass effectiveness All Articles Topics Author Moon Sun All Articles Topics Author Subscribe By Jason Cohen on March 28, 2011 Reading time: 5 min Simple eReader (Kindle) Rich eReader (Apple) Printable PDF Specificity: A weapon of mass effectiveness by Jason Cohen on March 28, 2011 Want to write better? Swap generic words for specifics to make your text clear, powerful, engaging, and even funny. source My single best advice about writing⁠—whether fo

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How Top Tech CFOs Solve Annual Planning’s Biggest Challenges

Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.

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From the backyard to Bonno – a uniquely Kiwi dog chew with global potential

NZ Entrepreneur

It started with a fishing trip, a smoker, and a piece of Mānuka wood. A few years later, a simple stick has been transformed into an exciting natural pet product – Bonno , a uniquely Kiwi chew for dogs. But Bonno is more than just a dog chew. It’s a product with iconic New Zealand roots, created by a couple with a shared love of dogs, the outdoors, and sustainable innovation.

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5 ways to automate Grok with Zapier

The Zapier Blog

As far as chatbots go ( and there are plenty of them ), Grok by xAI is a worthy addition. It can carry out research across the web, brainstorm topics with you, and create any sort of image with a simple prompt. But if you're constantly writing elaborate prompts , sorting through its answers, and moving that data to other tools, you're not utilizing Grok to its full potential.

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HPA Invests in Empirical Security’s $12M Seed Round to Stop Attacks with Custom Cybersecurity AI Models

HPA

HPA is excited to announce its investment in Empirical Security ’s $12 million Seed Round alongside Costanoa. The round also saw participation from DNX Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, and strategic investors Jonathan Cran, founder of Intrigue (acquired by Google/Mandiant), Wade Baker, creator of the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report and founder of The Cyentia Institute, and Gerhard Eschelbeck, former CTO of Qualys and CISO of Google.

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Why We Flipped the Model: A New Era for Higher Ed Innovation

Venture Well

By Demetria Gallagher After nearly three decades of catalyzing faculty-driven innovation and cultivating thriving on-campus innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems through our Course & Program (C&P). The post Why We Flipped the Model: A New Era for Higher Ed Innovation appeared first on VentureWell.

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Your Fractional Finance and Accounting Team

Mighty Financial specializes in supporting the financial aspirations of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With our comprehensive bookkeeping and precise accounting expertise with decades of experience across diverse financial roles, our team offers tailor-made services ranging from essential bookkeeping to strategic fractional CFO support, catered specifically to the unique challenges of technology companies, startups, and SMEs.

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Why Coworking is the Third Place We Need — and What Switchyards is Bringing to Austin

GCUC

Why Coworking is the Third Place We Need — and What Switchyards is Bringing to Austin In coworking, we talk a lot about community—but too often, that word gets reduced to surface-level connections. Real community is deeper. It’s about showing.

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Document automation: How to get started with Zapier

The Zapier Blog

In a perfect world, we'd have our documents all neatly organized in a centralized location. In reality, that's rarely the case. We have documents, PDF files, emails, forms, and more… all scattered across different apps. You probably feel like you spend half your life copying and pasting information and files from one location to another. What if, instead, these tasks happened automatically in the background?

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4% Medicare cut will hurt medical innovation

Health Tech Capital

The 4% Medicare cut—especially if combined with other sequestration measures—could have a chilling effect on healthcare innovation, particularly in areas that rely on high-cost technologies, specialized care models, or l.

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[Stellar Cyber in Stellar Cyber] Stellar Cyber 6.0.0 accelerates the shift to a human-augmented autonomous SOC

OurCrowd

The post [Stellar Cyber in Stellar Cyber] Stellar Cyber 6.0.0 accelerates the shift to a human-augmented autonomous SOC appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!