Thu.Apr 08, 2021

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Bootstrapping, managing product-led growth and knowing when to fundraise

TechCrunch

Product-led growth is all the rage in the Valley these days, and we had two leading thinkers discuss how to incorporate it into a startup at TechCrunch Early Stage 2021. Tope Awotona is the CEO and founder of Calendly, which bootstrapped for much of its existence before raising $350 million at a $3 billion valuation from OpenView and Iconiq. And on the other side of that table and this interview sat Blake Bartlett, a partner at OpenView who has been leading enterprise deals based around the prin

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4 Business Communications Tactics for a Better Customer Experience

Smart Hustle Magazine

Insights on how to have a better customer experience from Anusha Venkat, Senior Product Manager for Plivo’s , a messaging API. Businesses have worked hard to adapt to changes the pandemic brought with it. In most cases, companies have been forced to reevaluate and change their entire customer experience strategy. As life starts to return to normal, business leaders must now grapple with how to extend these changes for what will effectively be a hybrid—a mixture of remote and in-person—way of con

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Messaging platform Gupshup raises $100 million at $1.4 billion valuation

TechCrunch

A startup that began its journey in India 15 years ago helping businesses reach and engage with users through texts said on Thursday it has attained the unicorn status and is also profitable. San Francisco-headquartered Gupshup has raised $100 million in its Series F financing round from Tiger Global Management, which valued the 15-year-old startup at $1.4 billion.

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[The Bouqs in Rolling Stone] Entrepreneurs: 12 Tips to Improve Collaboration and Move Your Business Forward

OurCrowd

Collaboration is often the key to creativity and progress in business. However, busyness can sometimes get in the way of purposeful collaboration across an organization. Finding time to brainstorm and work with other teammates can be a challenge when you’re bogged down with a lengthy to-do list, but it’s essential to prioritize cross-team communication if you want to move your business forward.

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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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Butter is building an ‘all-in-one’ platform to run virtual workshops

TechCrunch

Butter , a startup registered in Denmark but operating fully remote, is building an “all-in-one” platform for planning and running virtual workshops. Offering video software and other features dedicated to workshopping, the idea is to pull people away from using more generic tools, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which, arguably, aren’t well suited to workshops.

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As working out goes virtual, Moxie raises $6.3M seed+ round led by Resolute Ventures

TechCrunch

With the pandemic sending the planet indoors to work out, the at-home fitness market has boomed. It was only in October last year that three-year-old Future closed $24 million in Series B and Playbook (streaming for personal trainers) raised $9.3 million in a Series A. Into this market launched Moxie , a platform that allowed fitness instructors to broadcast live and recorded classes, access licensed music playlists and deploy a CRM and payment tools.

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How an NFT Artist Used Banksy’s Popularity to Make $1 Million in Sales

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Some call it Appropriation Art; others call it fraud Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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TrueLayer raises $70M for its open banking platform

TechCrunch

TrueLayer , the London startup that offers a developer-friendly platform for companies, including other fintechs, to utilise open banking, is disclosing $70 million in new funding. The Series D round is led by new investor Addition. Existing investors, including Anthemis Group, Connect Ventures, Mouro Capital, Northzone and Temasek, also participated.

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What Is Transactional Marketing? – Examples & Strategies

Feedough

Every business’s objective is to sustain by increasing sales and maximising its profits. These organisations employ different sales techniques for achieving the same. Some build consumer relationships and capitalise on pull marketing. While some focus on realising a transaction or sale, in a way using push marketing tactics. Transactional Marketing is one such push marketing approach that targets a large group of individuals to achieve substantial sales.

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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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Egypt’s Paymob closes $18.5M Series A to expand payments services across MENA

TechCrunch

While Nigeria and Kenya have been at the forefront of African fintech innovation, activities in Egypt are beginning to shape up nicely. Right now, Egypt is home to a burgeoning fintech startup ecosystem, and today, one of its biggest players, Paymob announced that it has completed an $18.5 million Series A round. In July 2020, Paymob raised $3.5 million as its first tranche of Series A investment.

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Why “Quit Your Job” Is Terrible Advice For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Most people will need to keep their jobs while starting new businesses Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Setting up a management board for success with Dave Easton

TechCrunch

Viewed from the outside, board selection and corporate governance can seem like a bit of a black box — particularly at a startup. Generation Investment Management partner Dave Easton spoke at TechCrunch Early Stage about how to build a board as a founder, and specifically how to build a board you can live with. Easton’s own ample experience serving on boards as both a full member and as an observer, as well as Generation’s focus on building sustainable, ethically managed, mission-dri

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Sales Emails Are Dead. Blog Posts as Emails Are the Future.

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Here’s how to do it Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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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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Realworld raises $3.4M to help Gen Z navigate adulthood

TechCrunch

Realworld has a big vision — founder and CEO Genevieve Ryan Bellaire told me her goal is “simplifying adulthood.” And the New York startup has raised $3.4 million in seed funding to make it happen. Apparently that’s something Ballaire struggled with herself in her early twenties. Despite being a lawyer with an MBA, she said she found herself “just totally unprepared for all these real world things,” whether that was figuring out housing or heath insurance — somethin

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Six ways to make your site-app-product go viral.

Berkonomics

It doesn’t happen by accident. Not every new game-related site is a Steam, and surely not every social network is a Facebook. And not every texting application is a Twitter. A story of an app from nowhere to near dominance. Then how did Discord “suddenly” become so hot that even Microsoft was rumored to want to buy it for staggering amount? Discord is a great example of a company going viral mostly from word of mouth.

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Formation raises $4M led by Andreessen Horowitz to train truly ‘exceptional’ software engineers

TechCrunch

Sophie Zhou Novati worked as a senior engineer at Facebook and then Nextdoor, where she struggled to hire great engineers for her team. Frustrated, she decided to try training engineers to meet her team’s hiring standards by mentoring at a local coding bootcamp. After two and a half years of mentoring on nights and weekends, Novati decided to turn her passion into a career.

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One Plus One Equals Three

The Seraf Compass

The story of Adam Martel, Rich Palmer and their startup named Gravyty is a story about great leadership. These two relatively young founders created and succeeded with a completely new category of product in a difficult and conservative market. They overcame the odds and did so with leadership and talent. And, they would not have been given the chance to do so had investors not spotted those leadership skills.

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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!

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Mercato raises $26M Series A to help smaller grocers compete online

TechCrunch

The pandemic upended the way people shop for their everyday needs, including groceries. Online grocery sales in the U.S. are expected to reach 21.5% of the total grocery sales by 2025, after leaping from 3.4% pre-pandemic to 10.2% as of 2020. One business riding this wave is Mercato , an online grocery platform that helps smaller grocers and specialty food stores get online quickly.

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7 Common E-Commerce Pain Points (and How to Fix Them)

StartupNation

Customer pain points refer to problems that shoppers experience that prevent them from making a purchase. For example, a customer may be interested in your product, but limited payment options may deter him or her from following through and making a purchase. Meanwhile, others may be discouraged from making a repeat purchase due to a poor experience the first time around.

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Yext co-founder unveils Dynascore, which dynamically synchronizes music and video

TechCrunch

Howard Lerman, the co-founder and CEO of Yext , has a new startup called Wonder Inventions , which is officially launching its first product today — Dynascore. Let’s focus on Dynascore first. Lerman said he and his team created the product to solve the problem of the ever-growing demand for video content, which often relies on stock music. But by its nature, stock music isn’t designed for a specific video or a specific length, which can lead to some awkward fits, or require producers

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Startups: Tools Are Bought, Transformations Are Sold

OnStartups

One thing that I wish I had learned earlier in my entrepreneurial career is this: Tools are bought, transformations are sold. Here's a clip of a talk I gave at the SaaStr conference that elaborates on this. First, let's talk about the difference? What do I mean by tools, and what do I mean by transformations? Tools. Sometimes, the product you are selling is in a category that is well understood.

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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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Spend management startup Ramp confirms $115M raise at a $1.6B valuation

TechCrunch

This morning, Ramp , which provides corporate cards and spend management software, announced that it has closed $115 million across two investments, the latter of which valued the company at $1.6 billion. The Information first reported that Ramp was raising new capital. TechCrunch confirmed the news prior to the company’s announcement earlier today.

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[NeuReality in Globes] Israel seen as major player as global chip war intensifies

OurCrowd

With Intel’s global chip hegemony being challenged, “Globes” surveys Israel’s pivotal role in the battle, as high-tech salaries surge. Recently, Google “poached” former senior Intel executive Uri Frank to lead its strategic chip development activity in Israel. Frank had headed Intel’s semiconductor development for data centers and personal computers, responsible for some $30 billion in revenue each year.

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Apply to Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021

TechCrunch

Do you have what it takes to be a Startup Battlefield champion? All you need is a killer pitch, an MVP, nerves of steel and the drive and determination to take on all comers to claim the coveted Disrupt Cup. If you fit the description, apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. Top early-stage startups from around the world — from any country and industry — will compete for a shot at $100,000 in equity-free prize money.

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[Hailo in Globes] Israel seen as major player as global chip war intensifies

OurCrowd

With Intel’s global chip hegemony being challenged, “Globes” surveys Israel’s pivotal role in the battle, as high-tech salaries surge. Recently, Google “poached” former senior Intel executive Uri Frank to lead its strategic chip development activity in Israel. Frank had headed Intel’s semiconductor development for data centers and personal computers, responsible for some $30 billion in revenue each year.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.