This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 24, 2017

I don't think there's ever a time when I feel more like I'm raining on parades as when founders tell me how interested other VC firms are in investing. I've seen it time and time again where founders, understandably apprehensive about fundraising, read too much into their engagement with investors--especially non-partners at firms. The founders will say things like the following--and then comes my splash of cold water, which is honest, but also makes me feel like the bad guy, or not enthusiastic

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2017

Many board meetings are bored meetings. Management teams whisk through slides trying to get through a presentation to share how great things are going and they are eager to get through the meeting so they can get back to their real jobs. This is a shame since the value that the right board could add is immense if you select the right board members and manage them effectively.

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board enablement strategy support 212

Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 22, 2017

Company retreats come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you opt for luxury accommodations or woodsy lodgings, what’s most important is organizing a variety of activities and workshops that bring out the best in your team. Research retreat ideas and come up with an environment that will work for your organization. Consider consulting with a professional retreat planner.

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coworking consulting construction culture 130

Startup Catalyst

AUGUST 11, 2017

Day 5 started with the teams getting a chance to pitch to Roee Tamari who is CEO at Greenergy Renewable Energy Ltd, Gideon Zusman who is co-founder & Managing Partner at GreenSoil Investments, Yoav Schwalb from the Agrilever Investment Fund, Dan Krasnostein who is a Partner Square Peg VC, Stephane Itzigsohn who is an analyst at Our Crowd VC, Linoy Katzav from Innovation Tech Terminal at Deloitte, and Ilan Cohen who is a Patent Attorney and Senior Partner at Reinhold Cohn & Partners Paten

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Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.

technology

Berkonomics

AUGUST 24, 2017

Close. Let me illustrate this insight with a personal story. As my enterprise computer software company which produced innovative lodging systems for hotels and resorts grew quickly, we found ourselves straining to keep up with the hiring and training of good customer support representatives, a critical part of the equation then and still so today in the 24-hour environment of hotel front desk operations.

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 8, 2017

I send out a monthly mailer of deals that I'm investing in that I'm looking for co-investors for. Because I'm investing so early, a lot of times these companies are not only pre-revenue, but they might also be pre-product. I also invest in a really wide range of opportunities, so many of them don't look like you're typical venture deals. Tinkergarten is one such company.

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disruption networking opportunity investing 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

There’s a lot of mystique about what happens at board meetings and a lot of imagined board-room drama. I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. The image of boards and of investors vs. founder conflicts has been so at odds with my experiences on dozens of boards over the past 20 years that I thought it was worth sharing what I actually see.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 3, 2017

Can an entrepreneur nurture a business and a family? Both demand time, energy and commitment. At times, these two aspects of life can seem mutually exclusive. Still, many entrepreneurs achieve a balance and do both well. How do they do it? We asked Don McDonough, regional executive at Merrill Edge, to share his thoughts on work-life balance. Q: Is work-life balance realistically achievable between the competing demands of a family and a business?

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education entrepreneurs financing finance 130

Gust

AUGUST 15, 2017

So you’ve developed a game-changing product, formed a business with a killer team, quit your job, and are rolling the product out to market. Your business is the next unicorn, and all is good in the world. Fantastic. Now only one thing is inhibiting your company’s growth: you have no money. For many founders of high-growth startups, bootstrapping has limits.

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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.

development

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Close. There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues.

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board VC development opportunity 97

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 10, 2017

Invest Like the Best is one of my favorite podcasts. Hosted by Patrick O’Shaugnessy, Invest Like the Best profiles investors from many different disciplines. Recently, New York seed investor Jerry Neumann spoke on the show and talked about three key ideas on the technology innovation cycle. First, he discussed reading Carlota Perez Technological Surge Cycle.

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Health Tech Capital

AUGUST 14, 2017

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health investing investment 52

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 16, 2017

It’s been a tough year globally. Many feel the division in our families and societies. It has been heart-breaking to see progress reversed and social & racial tensions exacerbated unnecessarily. Much of the focus on the public discourse has been how social media and the polarization of information sources has worsened the problem. We seem to be stuck on the narrative that our angst is tied to the arguments we’re having on Facebook, Twitter or the Thanksgiving dinner table.

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frameworks support media founder 202

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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.

opportunity

Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 30, 2017

Whether you lead an entire organization or only a team of people, it’s smart to be aware of the key trends in management and leadership. Knowledge Sharing and Cross Pollination. Rather than keeping workers divided into separate departments of functional expertise, businesses are encouraging employees to understand what is happening across the organization.

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leadership mentorship education culture 141

A Smart Bear

AUGUST 29, 2017

Top workplace complaints: 1) The way things are 2) Change. — ?????? ????TT (@akannett) June 1, 2015. This plays out in many important ways: Customers demand an improved UX , but they don’t want to learn a new UX. Team members want consistency but don’t want policies. Developers want to be more efficient but don’t want to change how they work.

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Startup Catalyst

AUGUST 11, 2017

Startup Catalyst’s purpose is cultural transformation – that means taking people to other startup hotspots to immerse them in the local culture to the extent that the participants view of the world is changed. So it was fitting that on the last full day of our mission (a Friday) we had a complete cultural and historical experience. We boarded a bus and headed to Jerusalem on a guide tour.

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Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 22, 2017

A founder asked me if we had reached the point that SaaS is commodified. “Can you build a venture scale SaaS company anymore?” He made three key points to support the argument. First, the technology barriers to starting a SaaS company continue to fall. Amazon, Google and Microsoft provide sophisticated, scalable, and easy to use infrastructure as a service.

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SaaS pitching venture capital development 74

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

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

B2B marketing

Berkonomics

AUGUST 2, 2017

Well, if you’ve had a computer long enough, it has certainly happened to you. Power surges, power outages, surges upon reinstatement of power, low or high voltage from your utility (brownouts or surges.) I’ve had all of these over the years and lost equipment from motherboards to microcells. And I’ve lost data due to sudden power loss. I have worried over every wind storm or thunderstorm.

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energy 106

Surdna Foundation

AUGUST 4, 2017

Anchor institutions can play a vital role in strengthening and connecting local economies, and can serve as powerful drivers for building inclusive and equitable communities. A new report issued this week by the Funders’ Network as part of its Anchors Institution Funders’ Group examines the potential these deeply rooted local enterprises hold to create lasting and sustainable change—and illustrates how funders are working with anchor institutions to create healthier, more equitable, and econom

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funders networking sustainability communities 28

Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 25, 2017

By Kristen Harris, EO Columbus member and Co-Founder of Portfolio Creative. . In hiring it’s important to remember people are not commodities, individuals are not interchangeable. Even with equal skills or experience, every person is unique, and so is every company and role. It’s important to find the right person for the right position—that’s an Ideal Fit.

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peer-to-peer creativity culture opportunity 130

A Smart Bear

AUGUST 22, 2017

Product teams have been repeating the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) mantra for a decade now, without re-evaluating whether it’s the right way to maximize learning while pleasing the customer. Well, it’s not the best system. It’s selfish and it hurts customers. We don’t build MVPs at WP Engine. The motivation behind the MVP is still valid: Build something small, because small things are predictable and inexpensive to test.

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transportation energy culture collaboration 280

Speaker: Wayne Spivak - President and Chief Financial Officer of SBA * Consulting LTD, Industry Writer, and Public Speaker

The old adages that "cash is king" and "you can’t spend profits" still hold true today. But however well-known these sayings might be, it requires a change in mindset to properly implement a cash flow management system that predicts your business's runaway as accurately as possible. Key to this new mindset is understanding the difference between the Statement of Cash Flows, a historical look at the source and uses of cash, and the Cash Flow Statement, which uses transaction history and forward-l

financing

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2017

On no sides is genocide an ok thing to promote with your free speech or to organize a group around. On no sides is the Confederacy, the sole purpose of which was to defend the institution of slavery, a thing to be admired. On no sides is the eradication of Nazis and the KKK a slippery slope to the end of free speech in our country. It is perfectly right and acceptable for a society to draw lines--to point to levels of despicable behavior and say "No--in no uncertain terms.

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Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 12, 2017

“Would you compare a bootstrapped SaaS company to a seeded company? At what point does the bootstrapped company have to raise if it’s profitable, if ever?” One founder asked me this question recently. I hesitate to compare and contrast bootstrapped and venture backed businesses, because I’m a venture capitalist and it’s very easy to dismiss any analysis as biased in favor of venture investment.

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capital startup frameworks financing 72

Berkonomics

AUGUST 31, 2017

Time bankruptcy results from the deliberate over-commitment of core resources. Close. You’d know the symptoms, if not the name. You’re fighting to put out the fires from customer complaints, or incomplete work, or are suffering from an inability to focus upon new development or new customers before cleaning up the mess inside your organization. I created the term “time bankruptcy” almost thirty years ago when the computer software business was young, and I was a software developer building a yo

construction 97

construction development 97

Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 16, 2017

Buying an established business has its advantages. For example, when you buy a business, you take over an organization that’s typically already generating revenues. There’s also usually a customer base, an established business reputation and existing operational procedures. However, just like any kind of investment, there are risks as well. It is important to do the necessary research and understand the factors that may affect the success or failure of your venture.

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Speaker: P. Andrew Sjogren, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Very Good Security, Matt Doka, Co-Founder and CTO of Fivestars, and Steve Andrews, President & CEO of the Western Bankers Association 

PCI compliance can feel challenging and sometimes the result feels like you are optimizing more for security and compliance than you are for business outcomes. The key is to take the right strategy to PCI compliance that gets you both. In this webinar, we have a great set of panelists who will take you through how Zero Data strategies can be used as part of a well-rounded compliance and security approach, and get you to market much sooner by also allowing for payment optimization.

strategy