Tue.Jul 27, 2021

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Growth with purpose: Q&A with a YLAI Fellow small-business expert

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

By Bryce Kelly. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses faced challenges staying open and growing. As changing conditions create a path to returning to normal, many businesses that persevered through these challenges are seeing rapid growth during the recovery. While everyone wants to see their business do well, making your business bigger can be just as difficult as going through hard times. 2021 YLAI Fellow Kenna George knows this well.

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Cash on Cash vs IRR

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

The two most used measures of a venture fund’s performance are the “cash on cash” return and the “internal rate of return” (IRR). One measures how much an investor got back divided by how much they put in (cash/cash). The other measures what the effective rate of return is on the investor’s money. You might think these measures go hand in hand, but that is not the case.

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HandHero: how early-stage support transformed a scientist’s career

Venture Well

Learn how early-stage support helped E-Team HandHero helped transform a scientist’s career trajectory. The post HandHero: how early-stage support transformed a scientist’s career appeared first on VentureWell.

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Finding your target audience with help from a YLAI Fellow design expert

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

By Yarielka Arrieta Batista. For businesses to have a successful marketing strategy, they must first have a defined target audience. Along with making sure your brand reflects your business, who your brand targets is also an important consideration. Business owners who understand their target audience are successful at reaching customers who fit their niche and better understand who they can reach beyond that niche.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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Free Money for Student Tech Founders

David Teten VC

Starting a new business as a student is daunting. How can you get free money and other support for your business idea? . Right here. We have collected a wide range of freebies, contests, accelerators, online communities, and VCs designed for student tech founders. I have been researching this both to support Versatile VC ’s portfolio companies and also as part of research for my new book, To University and Beyond: Launch Your Career in High Gear.

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More Trending

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South African payments startup Yoco raises $83M Series C backed by Dragoneer

TechCrunch

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute heavily to the economic success of many countries, particularly those in the developing world. They are the backbone of most economies: Globally, SMEs represent about 90% of existing businesses and create more than 50% of employment. In South Africa, these businesses contribute around one-third of the country’s GDP.

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What Does Michigan Venture Capital Look Like Today? These 3 Business Moguls Discuss

StartupNation

StartupNation founder and CEO, Jeff Sloan, shares a conversation with Ara Topouzian, e xecutive director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association and RJ King, editor of DBusiness Magazine , on the status of venture capital in Michigan today. Related: WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: Michigan Leads Nation in Venture Capital Investment (Episode 229).

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African startups join global funding boom as fintech shines

TechCrunch

The Exchange is on a trip around the world, poking our heads into various startup markets to better understand how different geographies are faring during a historic boom in venture capital activity. Globally, the venture capital world is afire , pushing record sums into upstart technology companies. But the capital is not flowing evenly. For example, the explosion in capital raised by U.S. startups this year is contrasted by a modestly cooling Chinese venture capital scene.

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4 Lessons on Following Your Dreams from My Friend Who Quit His Job on a Whim

Entrepreneur's Handbook

“All of the sudden, I was doubting and being scared, panicking.” Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

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BoldVoice wants to help nonnative English speakers find (and flaunt) their voices

TechCrunch

When Anada Lakra and Ilya Usorov first moved to the United States, they struggled to find their voices. They both knew and understood English, but when it came time to speak up, their accents became a hurdle. Usorov, for example, watched his Russian-born parents struggle to advocate for themselves, which limited work opportunities. While Lakra, who just started college at Yale University, was constantly asked to repeat herself.

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5 Hidden Expenses That Can Destroy Your Startup When You Least Expect It

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Don’t get blindsided by a $30k unexpected bill like I did. Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Twitter ‘acqui-hires’ the team from subscription news app, Brief

TechCrunch

Twitter’s recent acquisition spree continues today as the company announces it has acqui-hired the team from news aggregator and summary app Brief. The startup from former Google engineers launched last year to offer a subscription-based news summary app that aimed to tackle many of the problems with today’s news cycle, including information overload, burnout, media bias and algorithms that promoted engagement over news accuracy.

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Branding 101: A Complete Guide to Building a Relatable Brand

Entrepreneur's Handbook

And what not to do Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Monetizing Analytics Features

Think your customers will pay more for data visualizations in your application? Five years ago, they may have. But today, dashboards and visualizations have become table stakes. Turning analytics into a source of revenue means integrating advanced features in unique, hard-to-steal ways. Download this white paper to discover which features will differentiate your application and maximize the ROI of your analytics.

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How RapidSOS used creative tactics to build partnerships and a BD engine at scale

TechCrunch

One of the most challenging aspects of leading a startup is the seeming impossibility of building partnerships and executing business development. Large companies are sclerotic and bureaucratic, taking eons in terms of startup years to make decisions that for them are small, but for a new company, can be life itself. Every startup ultimately needs to break through those logjams, and sometimes, they need to lock in quite a few partnerships to be successful.

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Crecer con un propósito: Entrevista a una becaria de YLAI experta en pequeñas empresas

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Por Bryce Kelly . Debido a la pandemia de la COVID-19, muchos negocios afrontaron retos para mantenerse a flote y para crecer. A medida que el cambio en las condiciones abre una senda para volver a la normalidad, muchos negocios que perseveraron ante estos retos están experimentando un rápido crecimiento durante la recuperación. Si bien todos quieren que sus negocios marchen bien, aumentar la escala de un negocio puede ser tan difícil como hacer frente a épocas duras.

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Edtech’s venture-backed globalization pauses at China

TechCrunch

Edtech investors based in the U.S. are increasingly going global, but recent regulatory crackdowns in China , which instructed local K-12 tutoring startups to go nonprofit, have led to a chill among check-writers looking at the country. When I first started reporting on edtech over a year ago, U.S.-based investors often cited China as validation of the opportunity for direct-to-consumer businesses in the K-12 world.

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Crear una comunidad: Consejos sobre el desarrollo de marca del becario de YLAI Luisfer Pelayo?

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Por Luisfer Pelayo, fundador de ATÁLIA . Al lanzar una marca, pocas veces comenzamos por pensar en la comunidad que la rodea. Algunos negocios tienen mercados para los que es más fácil crear una comunidad en torno a la marca que para otros, pero lo cierto es que todos los negocios u organizaciones tienen una audiencia con la que podrían crear una comunidad.?

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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Wiliot raises $200M as it preps a SaaS pivot, licensing its ultralight, ambient-power chip technology to third parties

TechCrunch

Wiliot — the IoT startup that has developed a new kind of processor that is ultra thin and light and runs on ambient power but possesses all the power of a “computer” — has picked up a huge round of growth funding on the back of strong interest in its technology, and a strategy aimed squarely at scale. The company has raised $200 million, a Series C that it will use toward its next steps as a business.

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Encuentra tu público meta con la ayuda de una becaria de YLAI experta en diseño

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Por Yarielka Arrieta Batista . Para tener una estrategia de mercadeo exitosa, los negocios deben primero definir su público meta. Además de asegurarte de que la marca represente tu negocio, también es importante considerar a quién está dirigida. Los dueños de negocios que entienden cuál es su público meta logran llegar a clientes de su nicho de mercado y entienden mejor a quién pueden llegar más allá de este.

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What I’ve learned after 5 years of buying common stock in startups

TechCrunch

Jamie Goldstein. Contributor. Share on Twitter. Jamie is the founding partner of Pillar VC , a Boston-based seed-stage venture capital firm. He has spent the last 22 years investing in early-stage startups. More posts by this contributor. Introducing the term-sheet grader. From day one, Pillar VC has offered to buy common stock in startups. Instead of the standard 10-page venture capital term sheet riddled with terms and conditions, our team believed that a far simpler structure where we owned t

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How to Scale a Business Successfully in 4 Simple Steps

StartupNation

As a new founder at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you have many tasks at hand and little bandwidth to do them all. There are countless responsibilities, from everyday tasks like investor pitch decks and elevator pitches to longer-term tasks like business plan revisions , product launch strategy and much more. How do you know if you are putting your time and energy into things that matter?

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How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics

Just by embedding analytics, app owners can charge 24% more for their product. How much value could you add? This framework from Software Pricing Partners explains how application enhancements can extend your product offerings. You’ll learn: How to take a disciplined approach to pricing The three elements of the Packaging Decision Framework Ways to structure your new embedded analytics offering Download the White Paper to learn about How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics.

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Robotic AI firm Covariant raises another $80 million

TechCrunch

In May of last year, Covariant announced that it had raised a $40 million Series B. It was a healthy sum of money for the young company, bringing its total funding up to $67 million. Just a little over a year later, the Berkeley-based AI startup is adding another $80 million to its coffers, riding on a wave that dramatically accelerated interest in robotics and AI during the pandemic.

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Find a remote or in-person job at a YC startup from the most recent Winter ’21 batch

Y Combinator

Y Combinator hosted our Summer 2021 Career Expo last month, which included 34 founders — many of whom graduated from YC’s most recent W21 batch. Many have customers and revenue and completed a fundraise; all are hiring early team members in engineering, product, design, sales and more. This event was fully virtual and included YC startups from across the world, including Seattle, Toronto, New York, Barcelona, San Francisco and more.

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Indonesia-based grocery app HappyFresh reaps $65M led by Naver Financial and Gafina

TechCrunch

HappyFresh , the on-demand grocery app based in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $65 million Series D. The round was led by Naver Financial Corporation and Gafina B.V., with participation from STIC, LB and Mirae Asset Indonesia and Singapore. It also included returning investors Mirae-Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund and Z Venture Capital. The company’s previous round of funding was a $20 million Series C announced in April 2019.

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How Much Should Startups Pay Their Key Advisors?

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Offer stock options based on engagement, responsibilities & company stage Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.