Sat.Mar 21, 2020 - Fri.Mar 27, 2020

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Startup Pitching 101

Paul G. Silva

As a mentor once told me… It doesn’t matter if you have the best opportunity in the world, if you can’t communicate it you’re dead. This is obvious. Yet… I’ve seen thousands of presentations and the vast majority of them were confusing as heck. Those presenters almost always failed to get whatever they wanted from the audience.

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Why the Accelerator Model is Broken—and how 500 Startups is Fixing it

500

No one would’ve envisioned me as a venture capitalist. I was raised in rural Wyoming, far from the high stakes and deep pockets of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But from a young age, going against the grain was in my DNA. It’s what led me to San Francisco, and, ultimately, what drew me to 500 Startups. When I moved to San Francisco in 2012, I was working on my fourth startup and looking to join an accelerator. 500 immediately stood out to me, not only for their reputation as one of the top acc

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Angel Investing in Challenging Times

The Seraf Compass

It’s amazing how the world economic situation changed seemingly overnight with Covid-19. One moment we were enjoying a healthy economy with a robust outlook on the future. Suddenly, a pandemic crisis sweeps over the globe creating uncertainty in all aspects of our lives. We’ve been through economic downturns before, yet this time it feels different.

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Things Will Be Different

This is going to be BIG.

I remember looking at other people on the street the day after 9/11. Everyone was just so sad. It was a shared moment in time where nothing needed to be said, and all we could muster was a slight nod to acknowledge that what you were feeling, everyone else was feeling, too. It felt like things would never be the same. Yet, it wasn’t very long after before I was on a plane.

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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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COVID-19 can’t stop us: behind-the-scenes of virtualOPEN 2020

Venture Well

OPEN 2020 put our core value of living innovation to the test. Due to the rapidly changing situation regarding COVID-19, we transformed our annual in-person conference into our first-ever virtualOPEN live. The post COVID-19 can’t stop us: behind-the-scenes of virtualOPEN 2020 appeared first on VentureWell.

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Developing Rapid-Response Plans for Cities to Help Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses in This Time of Economic Crisis

Forward Cities

As the extent and impact of COVID-19 becomes more apparent, entrepreneurs and small businesses are on the front lines of its devastating impact–and with their demise comes potentially catastrophic economic losses for local communities. According to JP Morgan Institute , 50 percent of small businesses have less than 30 days of cash on hand. With 50 percent of Americans working for or owning a small business, the failure of our small business economy could have a widespread and long-standing impac

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In the News: Startups Equipped to Combat the Coronavirus

OurCrowd

It’s been another intense week as the global community continues to combat the coronavirus pandemic. I am proud of my team, working day and night to support our companies playing a part in this effort, mobilize our global community to join that effort in fighting the pandemic, and to identify selective opportunities to get in front of it. Read more about how OurCrowd is working through this period in my interview with CTech.

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Impact Hub Oakland leaves Impact Hub network

Impact Hub

Impact Hub Oakland has always been a lighthouse for driving the inclusion and equality agenda of the Impact Hub Network in North America. After six years of successful operations, we are sad to see Impact Hub Oakland leave the network. The team decided to follow a more hyperlocal approach to deepen their roots and broaden their reach throughout the city continuing their commitment to the evolution of equity and inclusion in Oakland under the name of Evolve Oakland.

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Startup Pitching 301

Paul G. Silva

This is the 3rd post in the “Startup Pitching” series. In this post we’ll go over advanced-level (301) techniques. 1. The one (maybe two) number rule. Most people can’t hold multiple numbers in their head. You can put as many numbers on a slide as you like, but people won’t process them. In fact, if you show too many numbers they’ll almost certainly process the numbers incorrectly!

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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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HPA Resource Guide During COVID-19

HPA

Over the last couple weeks, HPA has been working diligently to build a resource guide with aggregated content. As an organization, we hope to help keep you informed on the latest news with how COVID-19 is affecting our nation and the marketplace. As we all navigate this unprecedented time, we wanted to equip you with helpful information and important resources as it relates to your business.

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OurCrowd Portfolio Companies Taking On the Coronavirus

OurCrowd

The reality of the corona crisis for startup companies – and really any business – is that they need to stay as relevant as possible in this new, uncharted environment. Many of the long term trends that were evident before the crisis such as distance learning, working from home, or e-commerce, are now reaching an inflection point. These trends have been accelerated beyond belief in the last few weeks and a snap back to the prior status quo seems unlikely once this crisis is over.

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Open Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: Resilience through Collaboration

INBIA

The post Open Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: Resilience through Collaboration appeared first on InBIA.

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Startup Pitching Checklist

Paul G. Silva

This is the checklist / boil down of the techniques listed in the pior 3 posts in the “Startup Pitching” series. After you complete a draft of your pitch, go over this list to make sure you’ve applied as many of the techniques as possible. Beginner (101). One rehearsed presenter – Pick one person to deliver your presentation, don’t tag team your pitches.

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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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Teaching Online

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

I have been teaching in one form or another since college. I helped pay for graduate school by teaching other grad students. For most of my life, teaching has meant standing up in front of a group of people and explaining things to them in a large group setting. But, like many things, that is quickly changing right now. I mentioned that we have a new group of analysts at USV.

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Startups Taking on the Coronavirus Pandemic

OurCrowd

The reality of the corona crisis for startup companies – and really any business – is that they need to stay as relevant as possible in this new, uncharted environment. Many of the long term trends that were evident before the crisis such as distance learning, working from home, or e-commerce, are now reaching an inflection point. These trends have been accelerated beyond belief in the last few weeks and a snap back to the prior status quo seems unlikely once this crisis is over.

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How one woman is facilitating responsible financial management in Belize

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

2018 YLAI Fellow and co-founder of L3G’s & Associates, Fatima Chi, is empowering businesses in her community in Belize to take control of their finances. L3G’s & Associates, founded with Fatima’s sister, Yadira, provides accounting and bookkeeping services, assisting clients by providing them with a wide array of professional business knowledge to help them better manage their finances and overall business operations.

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Startup Pitching 201

Paul G. Silva

This is the 2nd post in the “Startup Pitching” series. In this post we’ll go over intermediate-level (201) techniques. 1. Front load credibility. Investors are cynical. They have to be because about half of all angel/VC investments lose every penny invested. Any claim you make is therefore treated with suspicion. But… if you place some major credibility-enhancing facts into your second or third slide, the audience spends most of the presentation positively inclined to you

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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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Data Lake Engines - The Essential Layer of the Next Generation Data Architecture

Tomasz Tunguz

In 2015, we partnered with two young founders to build Dremio. Tomer Shiran and Jacques Nadeau had just left MapR, and they came to work from our offices in Menlo Park. We shared a vision for a new way of working with data. Today, the company is announcing a $70M Series C to help them along that journey. More data is being stored in data lakes like Amazon S3 and Azure Data Lake Storage.

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Business Unusual: Time for Tech to Move Fast and Fix Things

OurCrowd

The rapid spread of the coronavirus has thrown our vision of a connected digital world poised to solve any crisis through global communication into disarray. We must acknowledge that despite the incredible advances our society has made as a result of technology, we failed to spot the patterns of this pandemic before they spread. COVID-19 has changed the world, creased the social fabric, upended business, and threatened supply chains.

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FINALISTS IN BEN FRANKLIN’S BIG IDEA CONTEST ANNOUNCED!

Ben Franklin Technology Partners

Over the course of the past two months, hundreds of people located in the counties of Bedford, Blair, Fulton, Cambria, Huntingdon, and Somerset in Pennsylvania visited BIGIDEA.BenFranklin.org to check out the rules and the easy application process for our recent $50,000 contest. This week, our team had the difficult job of identifying just six finalists from all the applications received from the region’s emerging tech-entrepreneurs, innovators, and small manufacturers.

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COVID-19: A message to business owners from our Editor

NZ Entrepreneur

In this message for New Zealand business owners, Richard Liew, founder and editor at #nzentrepreneur magazine shares some words of advice and encouragement for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch now: UPDATE: 3.25pm 23 Mar 2020. Please note this message was recorded prior to the NZ Government raising the New Zealand COVID-19 alert level to Level 3.

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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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Whiteboard Technology and the importance of growing sales for a startup

Innovation 2 Enterprise

By Scott Meacham. Growing a successful startup company is all about growing sales. And growing sales is an expertise that Brian Bomar, CEO of Whiteboard Technology knows very well. Bomar took everything he learned from 15 years in the mortgage industry, and before that several years more working for a local technology startup to create a best-practices customer relationship (CRM) platform specifically for the mortgage industry that accelerates sales and revenue growth.

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Mental Health Should Be Your Top Priority Right Now. Here’s Why

Entrepreneurs' Organization

As COVID-19 devastates nations and businesses, there’s a potential casualty you may not have fullly realized: your mental health. Uncertainty around the health of your family, company and employees can be overwhelming. We asked Dandapani —a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and highly rated speaker for Entrepreneurs’ Organization —how to manage stress and the mental health of your staff during this difficult period.

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Firefox Better Web (with Scroll)

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Ad blockers are hugely popular. Close to 800mm people around the world use them to avoid intrusive ads and data collection. I do not use an ad-blocker but I completely understand why one would choose to do so. And yet much of the media business is supported by advertising. There are a growing number of subscription-based media services, but many people cannot or won’t pay for content and the vast majority of content consumed on the web is advertising supported.

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How Big Business Could Help Small Business in Kansas City

Source Link

For the first time, our small businesses are leading the recession. An article by Joel Mathis in The Week puts the crisis for small businesses in stark terms. “Amazon seems to be doing well in the current crisis — it announced Monday it will hire 100,000 new workers for increased demand for delivery services. Mom-and-pop businesses, the kinds of establishments that make up the backbone of a community, stand to do much worse.

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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!