July, 2017

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Some Rules for Fundraising

This is going to be BIG.

Fundraising sucks. No one likes it. Founders don't start companies so they can spend half their time asking people for money and VCs don't love the dance either. However, it's a necessary animal, so the least everyone can do is act professionally, and most of all value each other's time. That's what I'm most frustrated by--the lack of respect for other people's time.

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Turning an Addiction into a Dream Job

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Brad Stevens is an EO Atlanta member, Chair of that chapter’s Accelerator program, and founder and CEO of Outsource Access , which helps companies grow by providing highly skilled virtual assistants. We asked Brad about his history as an entrepreneur, below. In part 2 of this article , he explains how he helped grow EO Atlanta’s Accelerator program.

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Working From Home Can Be A Productive Perk, But It's Best Done With Some Rules

FundersClub

Most offices, whether at a big company or at a startup, allow employees to work at home from time to time. It's not exactly a perk, but it does allow people to better manage work and their lives, as neither of those things adhere to perfect forms of time or place. Some studies, including one carried out by Nicholas Bloom at Stanford, suggest that letting employees work from home is not only a sellable benefit when recruiting, but it also leads to higher productivity for most people.

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Find your “teacher customer.”

Berkonomics

Your customers know what they want more than you do. Find one to teach you. Close. This week’s insight came from personal experience and from a good friend who advanced the notion of the “teacher-customer” years ago. I internalized this phrase, recalling the many times I had partnered with customers to design new feature-functionality into my hotel computer system back when such systems were brand new to the industry.

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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Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business.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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The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

Tomasz Tunguz

Bloomberg published a post this weekend called San Francisco’s VC Boom is Over. The article pointed to the seeming collapse in the amount of venture capital raised by San Francisco startups relative to other regions. The slowing of venture investment more broadly across the US serves as a backdrop to San Francisco’s particularly strong correction.

More Trending

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There's Always Other Money

This is going to be BIG.

In reading the NYT piece about the negative experiences of female founders raising, one quote stuck out to me: "They put up with the comments, Ms. Renock said, because they “couldn’t imagine a world in which that $500,000 wasn’t on the table anymore.” If you've ever had to fundraise, you can understand this. It's an extremely vulnerable time where you're getting a lot of rejection.

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Mali Rising Foundation Works to Empower Youth Through Education

Entrepreneurs' Organization

It’s a shocking statistic: In Africa, where nearly 50% of the population is under age 15, seven out of 10 rural children have never set foot in a school?nor will they ever do so. In the West African country of Mali, 69% of children are enrolled in primary school. However, only 34% continue to secondary school. Reasons for this steep drop in attendance include an inability to pay school fees, a lack of middle schools accessible to rural populations and gender inequity.

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FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - July 13, 2017

FundersClub

FundersClub Portfolio News. OnboardIQ makes applying for hourly work easier, and raises $9.1 million to expand their product and customer reach in " OnboardIQ raises $9.1 million to automate hiring for hourly workers. " LedgerX is granted the status of a swap execution facility (SEF) by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), making it "the first federally regulated bitcoin options exchange and clearing house to list and clear fully-collateralized, physically-settled

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Everything changes from concept to release.

Berkonomics

Close. You can take this headline as a rule, not an exception. You’ll recognize the truism, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy” first stated by German Field Marshall von Moltke way back in the 19 th century. Our variant of the “battle plan” truism is important to internalize. A product at the concept stage contains feature-functionality that customers may not want or be willing to pay for, or which just might not work well enough for release to the public.

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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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The Quickest Way to Estimate How Much Your Startup Needs to Raise

Tomasz Tunguz

Tell me three numbers and I can estimate the amount of capital your startup will need to raise. Which figures are those? The startups’ revenue target, the average revenue per customer and the average cost of customer acquisition. For example, I’d like to estimate the cost for my SaaS startup to reach $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

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U.S. VC Process for India Startups

Startup Lawyer

As an India-based startup, closing on U.S. venture capital is similar to doing so if your company was completely US-based, with a few notable differences. In the past several years, I’ve represented several India-based startups through venture capital financings. To name just a few, clients have included Freshworks (formerly FreshDesk), WizRocket, and Shopalyst.

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What are the odds of that?

Derek Sivers

Three true stories: In 1992, in Tokyo, I dated a girl named Masako. After our month together, she moved to London. We lost touch. In 2008, I was in London for a few days. I wondered if Masako still lived there, sixteen years later. A minute later, she walked by. “Masako!”. “Derek?!”. In 1993, I had a pen-pal from Argentina named Lucia. She was studying Norwegian and planned to move to Oslo, Norway, some day.

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Raising Capital Part 2: Equity vs. Debt

Entrepreneurs' Organization

By William Lieberman, member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization New York and founder and CEO of The CEO’s Right Hand, Inc. In the first part of this blog , William shared how to assess your needs for capital and explains potential sources for raising it. Below, in part two, he explores the characteristics of debt and equity investments, ways to figure out which might work best for you and your business, and the importance of investor “fit.”.

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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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FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - July 6, 2017

FundersClub

FundersClub Portfolio News. Coinbase added one million new users in June, demonstrating a massive increase in its user base in a relatively short period of time in " Bitcoin User Base Surges, Coinbase Adds 1 Mln Users in 1 Month. " Thalmic Labs has filed a patent as it continues to work heads-down on its next product that describes a wearable heads-up display, a photopolymer “often using in holography,” and curved eyeglass lens designs in " Thalmic Files Patent Describ

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Don’t rest until you test!

Berkonomics

So, you have a great new product or service that you and your associates love. Early adopters should climb all over each other for a look. But what have you done to test the concept against the realities of the marketplace? Have you developed a prototype, alternate pricing schemes, even a PowerPoint mock-up to show to potential buyers? I would be very, very nervous without testing the product in the market as early as possible, ready to make changes and enhancements before committing to prod

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The Best Book on the Fundamentals of Selling

Tomasz Tunguz

I’ve asked many VPs of Sales the same question. Which is the best book on the fundamentals of selling? Almost unequivocally, they respond, “Miller-Heiman.” The New Strategic Selling is an updated version of the original Strategic Selling, which was published in 1988, and describes the key activities of successful sales people. I resonated with two concepts in the book: the 4 Seller Response Modes and the authors’ recommendations on how to prioritize a salesperson’s

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#NewOfficeView - start the day with sunshine & fresh air !

Thomas Grota

#NewOfficeView - start the day with sunshine & fresh air !

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Statement of Cash Flows vs. Cash Flow Statement

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

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I Only Have 7 Trips Left. On Managing Work / Life Balance, Love & Family

Both Sides of the Table

Like many people these days, I spent much of my 20’s and early 30’s thinking about work & fun and not too much about “the future.” Like characters from one of my favorite novels “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being ” life seemed very light. My first son was born the day before my 35th birthday so the decade that followed was very heavy and consequential.

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How to Establish a Legal, Effective Hiring Process

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Vethan Law Firm P.C. for Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Are you an entrepreneur or startup founder who is starting to hire employees? Then it’s critical to be aware of the legal considerations of hiring. The Federal Department of Labor enforces legal policies for employment and is the organization responsible for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), which oversees the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

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Five Years of FundersClub [INFOGRAPHIC]

FundersClub

This week, the FundersClub community celebrates its 5th year anniversary. We are deeply grateful for the support of so many incredible startup founders, investors, VCs, and other community members since our inception. We've put together a visual to help you explore our community's progress and story to date. View the interactive infographic.

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Boy! If I had only learned this before spending a million!

Berkonomics

Know your market and competition, or don’t spend a dime on anything else. I love absolutes – statements with no wiggle room for gray-area responses. Well, here is one of those, and it deals with market research first and foremost. Close. Let me tell you a short story at my own expense. In 1994, (I know a long time ago), I invested over a million dollars into a company whose entrepreneurs had a vision that I bought into for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had industry experience

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How to Avoid the Pain and Cost of PCI Compliance While Optimizing Payments

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.

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Patterns in Startup M&A Processes

Tomasz Tunguz

At some point in the life of your company, you may consider selling the business. Every acquisition process might run a little bit differently, but these are some of the patterns that I have observed after about nine years in the venture business, and also having evaluated a handful of acquisitions when I was at Google. There are two key constituencies within the buyer: the business owner and corporate development.

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Why hasn't anyone else funded this?

This is going to be BIG.

This is the worst question a VC can ask. It presupposes that the only good deals are the ones they can't get into--which is an odd way to think about the world. I suppose the only club deal they would want to get into is the one that doesn't want them as a member. There are lots of examples of huge deals that could have been had by anyone early on--Airbnb, Casper, Uber, etc.

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What Does it Mean to be American? Why Trump is Just a Blip on the Radar

Both Sides of the Table

Starting back in 2015 and throughout much of 2016 people started commenting that my blog had become a lot more political. I guess I didn’t see it quite that way. My blog has always been a mixture of what was on my mind and a blend of venture, startup life, tech views and current society events that related to my interests: Venture, startup & tech.

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4 Reasons the SWOT Tool Is Not Effective

Entrepreneurs' Organization

By Ashton Bishop, CEO at Step Change. Recall the last time you conducted strategic planning with your team. Did your plans turn out to be successful? Or were you frustrated that last year’s SWOT analysis proved to be lacking? In this blog post, I’d like to reveal the four reasons why you need to rethink using the SWOT tool —the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis—for your next strategic planning, and I’d like to share with you the tool I’ve been using. 1.

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in