August, 2023

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How Entrepreneurs and Founders Can Avoid “Capital Tunnel Vision”   

Entrepreneurs' Organization

As an entrepreneur or founder starting a business, you may think of capital as purely monetary. Capital is often viewed only as an opportunity for an infusion of money into a business to get it started or grow and scale your company. Unfortunately, without a solid grasp of how capital — in its many different forms — can influence a business, too many founders make decisions early on in their companies that have unintended consequences down the line.

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How to Fuel Your Startup’s Growth Engine

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Image: Created by author To keep close to the startup community, I chat with founders often. I’ll frequently get asked about what growth is, how you apply it to startups, and when you should focus on it. So to help with those conversations, I put together a quick “Growth 101” doc to answer some of the most common questions I get from founders. As a side benefit, my parents might have some idea of what I actually do for work.

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Mean Reversion: When Will Startup Investing Return to Normal?

Tomasz Tunguz

The post-Covid surge in venture capital pushed valuations & activity to record breaking heights. Since then, investing activity dropped precipitously. When a collapse follows a surge, mean reversion suggests behavior should revert to a reasonable baseline. By building a linear model we can hazard a guess of when that might be. The blue line shows actual Seed, A, & B activity by quarter.

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The BS List - We Don't Like This Space (No. 52)

This is going to be BIG.

One of my favorite startups to have backed was a travel company called Noken. You answered a few basic questions about travel preferences, like pace, the fanciness of the hotel, etc., and then BOOM they sent you a link to an app with your whole trip, completely booked, with a map driven itinerary and a text concierge available to make last minute changes, etc.

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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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Three Places At Once: Challenges VCs Face In Managing Their Time [Part II]

The Seraf Compass

In Part I of this article we talked about the challenges and responsibilities General Partners face managing a fund. Now let's take a closer look at the time commitment involved when you're ready to invest in a company, what's required when serving as a board director, and how GPs should handle communications with their LPs.

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Run Your Business for the Present

Entrepreneurs' Organization

How Entrepreneurs Can Create Meaningful Impact through Philanthropy, Part II A three-part series showing alternative paths to the traditional model of making a boatload of money at all costs and then giving it away. Read Part I: Run Your Non-Profit Like A Start-Up. Contributed to EO by Brandon Hatton , an EO member in Miami and the founder and CEO of Conscious Wealth , which helps its clients live abundant, intentional lives.

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Sarah Says: How To Leverage School Breaks To Advance Your Innovation

Venture Well

Welcome to Sarah Says, a series by VentureWell Program Officer Sarah Wharmby. Sarah will address commonly asked questions raised in our E-Team Program workshops, Pioneer. The post Sarah Says: How To Leverage School Breaks To Advance Your Innovation appeared first on VentureWell.

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Psychological Safety & #LovinglyCritical

Paul G. Silva

A few years back Google published research on what made their teams thrive. By far the most important attribute was Psychological Safety. Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive.

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The BSList: You Need a Co-Founder (No. 93)

This is going to be BIG.

A recurring theme in a lot of my BSList posts is that, if an investor thinks they can make a boatload of money with you, they’ll go to all sorts of lengths to invest. That includes investing way earlier than they would normally, investing outside of scope, investing with their personal capital outside of the fund, etc. So when someone gives you a single, declarative reason for a pass, they’re either saying one of two things: In my experience, companies that have this particular attribute have an

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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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To Follow-On or Not to Follow-On - That is the Question

The Seraf Compass

As your angel career develops, and you start to build a larger portfolio of companies, you are increasingly asked to make follow-on investments. Not only do companies need investment to get off the ground, the faster they grow, the more cash they need. Whether to follow-on, and how to follow-on, are questions which have long given rise to angel debate.

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YLAI4All Playbook: A Guide to Inclusive Business, Partnership, & Community

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

Young people across the Americas are brimming with creativity, diversity, and potential. As we move toward a more inclusive hemisphere that embraces the value of marginalized communities, we must also be honest about the history that has prevented marginalized groups from enjoying the full benefits of growing, dynamic economies. Nurturing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in our communities fosters belonging, improves livelihoods, and creates the conditions for prosperity and opp

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5 Entrepreneurial Trends That Never Go Out of Fashion

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Fast money, big dreams, and never-ending hustle. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about, right? I take a different view. To me, entrepreneurship is about more than making a quick buck. It’s about building something that lasts. Something that makes a difference in the world. At age 21, I took control of the debt-burdened family business my parents started many years earlier.

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Top 5 Cross-Border Acquisitions To Eye for in 2023

AsiaTechDaily

Bookmark ( 0 ) Please login to bookmark Username or Email Address Password Remember Me No account yet? Register The tally of recognized startups and acquisitions, burgeoning to 84,012 in 2022 from a mere 452 in 2016, is a testament to the positive impact of investment incentives and simplified business regulations, as highlighted by the Economic Survey 2022-23.

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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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Thoughts on: From Innovation Theater to Growth Engine

Paul G. Silva

Alexander Osterwalder and the team at Strategizer published a small eBook chock-full of best practices on corporate innovation called From Innovation Theater to Growth Engine. Ahead of the book they also released a set of videos explaining some of the concepts. Strategizer is likely one of the top innovation consultants out there. They don’t build the innovations, but they do teach you how to find, vet, and manage a portfolio of innovative ideas.

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CEO 360s

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

I’ve written about this topic before. It is an important topic and I want to raise it again. Boards often discuss CEO performance without really knowing how things work inside the company. And CEOs often have very little visibility to how they are doing and what the board thinks about their performance. When you work for one person, your boss, it is typical that you will have regular catchups and at least an annual review of your performance (ideally more frequent).

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This week in AI: Amazon ‘enhances’ reviews with AI while Snap’s goes rogue

TechCrunch

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of the last week’s stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. This week in AI, Amazon announced that it’ll begin tapping generative AI to “enhance” product reviews.

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GEN New Zealand releases manifesto to encourage greater entrepreneurship

NZ Entrepreneur

Watch the video interview now A network of more than 140 entrepreneurial businesses and organisations warns New Zealand is in danger of being left behind due to a lack of resources and insufficient policies to progress entrepreneurship. The New Zealand chapter of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) wants to see local and central government politicians initiate policies to make entrepreneurship easier and more effective.

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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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5 Activities That Require Hybrid Employees To Come To The Office

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Hybrid employees don’t hate the office — they hate commuting to it , surveys show, since commuting can take over an hour per day and cost several thousand dollars per year. Peer-reviewed studies find clear associations between longer commuting times and lower job satisfaction, increased stress, and poorer mental health. Given that data, when I consult for organizations on determining hybrid employee work arrangements, a primary consideration involves minimizing staff commuting time.

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Superbank and Genesis Join Forces to Inject $40 Million into Indonesian Startups

AsiaTechDaily

Bookmark ( 0 ) Please login to bookmark Username or Email Address Password Remember Me No account yet? Register Indonesian digital bank Superbank , supported by Grab, Singtel, and Emtek Group, is collaborating with Singapore’s Genesis Alternative Ventures to offer a financing package of $40 million for startups in Indonesia. Through a joint announcement, the entities unveiled their intention to combine conventional bank credit with venture capital investment, all while ensuring minimal eq

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Lightspeed VC Michael Mignano on Why Apple’s Threats Influenced His Decision to Sell Anchor to Spotify, Why No FOMO in Venture is Good (AI Aside), & What NYC Founders Need to Realize

Hunter Walk

Investing in someone is primarily a business relationship. It doesn’t mean you don’t develop a personal affinity – it’s best when you do! – but creating an enduring bond transcends the question of founder:VC dynamics and is often not even directly correlated with economic outcome. Our participation in Anchor ( later acquired by Spotify ) generated both a return and a friendship between us and the founders.

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How Azibo’s Vikas Gupta is on a Mission to Streamline Property Management for Independent Real…

Jason Malki

How Azibo’s Vikas Gupta is on a Mission to Streamline Property Management for Independent Real Estate Investors I had the pleasure of interviewing Vikas Gupta the CEO of Azibo , a unified financial and property management platform for independent real investors. Prior to Azibo, he was the founder at Nodabl, an HR-tech SaaS startup. Before that, Vikas ran product and strategy for The Baby Box Co, a Series A digital education platform for expecting parents.

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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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Disrupt is around the corner — Here are the fintech players taking the stage

TechCrunch

In this week’s edition of The Interchange, we touch on the resilience of BaaS in a sometimes messy fintech space, earnings highlights, and much more. If you want to receive this in your inbox every Sunday, sign up here. It’s hard to believe it but TechCrunch Disrupt — only one of the most engaging, fun, well-attended startup events in the world — is around the corner, taking place September 19–21!

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19 Strategies for Managing Risk in a Startup

Startup Blogpost

19 Strategies for Managing Risk in a Startup In this article, we explore nineteen different strategies for managing risk in startups, shared by founders, CEOs, and other industry professionals. From adopting the “Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs” strategy to avoiding risky investments, these insights offer a wealth of knowledge for any entrepreneur looking to navigate the uncertain waters of startup success.

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7 Ways to Tell Whether Your Digital Marketing Agency is an Asset

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Designing a results-driven marketing strategy is an essential priority for business leaders who want to stay competitive. As Gartner noted in a 2022 report , about half of CEOs planned to push growth. And it’s impossible to expand or scale without a well-executed marketing plan. But it can be tough to do it alone. That’s why so many companies — including 90% of smaller companies — outsource their most pressing marketing needs , like graphic design, copywriting, and video production.

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Startup Island TAIWAN Unites Taiwanese and Vietnamese Tech Startups in Ho Chi Minh City

AsiaTechDaily

Bookmark ( 0 ) Please login to bookmark Username or Email Address Password Remember Me No account yet? Register Startup Island TAIWAN, an initiative backed by Taiwan’s National Development Council, recently joined forces with domestic venture capitalists and listed companies to present a significant event showcasing the prowess of Taiwanese digital tech startups.

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Digitalization: 5 Tech Updates That Will Help You Survive The Recession & Thrive

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.