May, 2023

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Are you at risk for tech killing your job?

Berkonomics

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. “My job as a (newspaper publisher telephone installer, stockbroker, travel agent, retail store manager) writer, poet, commercial artist – is safe as this economy continues to grow.” Yup. Thought so. We are in a decade of creative destruction that will affect most everybody. And the prime motivators of this massive destruction are the same class of entrepreneurs and innovators that have done it before.

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8 Top Capabilities Of Most Successful Business Owners

Startup Professionals Musings

In my experience in large businesses as well as years of advising startups, I see far too much focus on product skills, and too little on people and process skills. In my view, this focus on the wrong skill set is the primary reason why over half of new businesses fail in the first five years, and only one out of a hundred startups get their requested funding from professional investors.

Startup 154
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20 Best Free and Paid Tools for Startups in 2023

Tech.Co

Launching and growing a startup is one of the biggest missions an entrepreneur can undertake. But while competition remains fierce, the advancement and accessibility of smart solutions are making it easy than ever for startups to find their feet. Business tools — from customer relationship management ( CRM ) platforms to accounting software — help to save startups time and money by automating key processes and maximizing efficiency.

Tool 131
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Five Ways AI is Transforming the Startup World

Startup San Diego

The post Five Ways AI is Transforming the Startup World appeared first on Startup San Diego.

Startup 88
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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Don’t Be Stingy on Employee Health Benefits: Here’s Why You Should Cover Dental for Your Staff

AllTopStartups

As an employer, you have a responsibility to take care of your employees’ well-being. One way to do this is by offering dental coverage as part of your employee benefits… The post Don’t Be Stingy on Employee Health Benefits: Here’s Why You Should Cover Dental for Your Staff appeared first on AllTopStartups.

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Sharpen your business vision!

Berkonomics

I love absolute statements. Pardon my English. But this is one of my favorite statements. You’re at the ignition stage of your newest business venture. Of course, you have a vision for what you will do to change the world. Let’s stress test that vision and sharpen it further to help ensure your success. Stress-testing your vision. First, if your vision is limited and you will be happy with a successful local dry-cleaning enterprise or small restaurant around the corner, you are not the target

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Is it YOU or your great plan?

Berkonomics

So, what do you think is more important? There may be more choices here. But the most important ones for any size business, including start-ups, is: Do you believe it should be the quality of your management team, or the plan you execute so brilliantly toward your success? Do you want a unanimous answer right away? Checking with professional investors from angels to VC’s, the answer appears to be near unanimous: the quality of the proposed or actual management team comes in a strong first before

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5 Keys To Capitalizing On Nondisruptive Business Growth

Startup Professionals Musings

Most of the entrepreneurs and aggressive business owners I meet in my consulting practice are focused on finding new disruptive solutions and killing competitors as the key to success. If you are one of these, you may be missing win-win opportunities to incrementally expand existing markets, create new ones enabled by new technologies, or do good for society in this new age.

Capital 142
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8 Priorities When Offering A New Product Or Service

Startup Professionals Musings

Every one of you business owners I know periodically introduces new products and services to sustain growth, fight off competitors, or take advantage of new technologies. Often, despite your passion and expectation, customers don’t immediately see the value and need that you see, and you have no idea why the initiative is stuck , and what could be the real customer issue or fix.

Product 141
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5 Keys To Personalized Team And Customer Connections

Startup Professionals Musings

The days of leadership without engagement are gone. With interactive social media and video everywhere, everyone needs to feel they have a relationship with their leaders, and every brand needs leader personification for customers to relate. Soon you won’t be able to name a business as one of your favorites if you can’t personally visualize and relate to company leadership.

Customer 140
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7 Likely Criticisms Every Founder Needs To Anticipate

Startup Professionals Musings

In business, and in your personal life, the ability to anticipate and overcome criticism is one of the biggest differentiators between leaders, who make things happen, and followers, who may have great ideas but never seem to get things to go their way. In fact, leaders are not remembered for their dreams, aspirations, or intentions – they are remembered because they achieved results.

Ideas 136
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8 Keys To Improving Your Image And Career Advancement

Startup Professionals Musings

Based on my own career as a business owner and angel investor, in this age of change, I still see key successes and growth from the same team member work qualities. These haven’t changed much over the years, but still seem to be often overlooked by business professionals and leaders in their haste to keep up with peers, competitors, and customers in today’s volatile environment.

Startup 121
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6 Ways To Get Credible Data To Support A New Venture

Startup Professionals Musings

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. They don’t realize that business projections with no third-party validation have no credibility with investors, and smart potential investors will walk away.

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6 Keys to Superior Thinking in Business Innovations

Startup Professionals Musings

As I work with aspiring entrepreneurs and business professionals, I often hear about stress and disappointment from a great idea or innovation that failed for reasons that you don’t understand. When I dig deeper, I find that many of you are easily excited by a great new idea, but fail to diligently follow a validation process to test the limits of your thinking, before proceeding to rollout.

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7 Keys To Making You A Team Leader And Future Manager

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the things I’ve learned in working with aspiring entrepreneurs is that managing and leading a team is a scary venture into the unknown for many people, even if they have worked as a business professional for years. Having worked in my own career on both sides of the fence at various times, I recommend that everyone practice thinking like the boss in every role to prepare.

Training 116
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5 Keys To Leadership While Working With Remote Teams

Startup Professionals Musings

The current surge of working remotely, driven by the pandemic and international freelancing, has challenged our thinking on collaboration and leadership, both within teams and outside, to other organizations. In my consulting work, I am finding this brings a need for more focus on the human side or empathetic leadership , rather than a reliance on the “ command and control ” paradigm.

Startup 113
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6 Values And Priorities That Investors Will Relate To

Startup Professionals Musings

Young entrepreneurs often are so excited by new technology or their latest invention that they forget to translate it into a value proposition that their customers or potential investors can understand and relate to. They become frustrated with investors, senior executives, and even customers who don’t seem to “get it,” with the result that everyone loses.

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7 Ways To Validate Your Business Idea Before Starting

Startup Professionals Musings

In my experience, consummate entrepreneurs tend come up with more startup ideas than they can ever implement, and some of the ideas may not even make business sense. But how does any entrepreneur know which ideas to implement, and which ones are best left behind? After all, most great breakthroughs, like a computer in every home, seemed like a crazy idea before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates made it happen.

Ideas 106
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10 Ways To Get The Capital You Need For Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” I always answer that there isn’t any magic, and contrary to the popular myth, nobody is waiting in the wings to throw money at you, just because you have a new and exciting business idea. On the other hand, there are many additional creative options available for starting a business that you might not find for buying a car, home, or other major consumer item.

Startup 106
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6 Keys To Adding Customer Value In Marketing Content

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. The days are gone when marketing was all “pushing product.” Now customers seek out people who are willing and able to add value, with expertise and insight, even before they have a product.

Content 104
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8 Tactics For Every Entrepreneur To Manage Technology

Startup Professionals Musings

Technology is so key to every business these days that experienced business-smart but non-tech entrepreneurs are feeling deeper and deeper in the hole. Even if they realize that they need real technical strength at the top, they are not sure how to attract and select the talent and expertise they really need. Should they go after high-tech nerds for partners, or professional technologists?

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5 Keys To A Viable Spending Rate And Cash Management

Startup Professionals Musings

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent or looking for the next refueling from investors. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

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5 Equity Distribution Parameters For Key Contributors

Startup Professionals Musings

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a cofounder or two. You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. So, the first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Giving a cofounder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want.

Equity 99
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8 Ways Different Team Members See Efforts To Innovate

Startup Professionals Musings

Every business organization, large or small, has a variety of individual and team member types that factor into your ability to innovate and change the business to meet evolving customer needs and competition. In addition, in my experience as a consultant, I have found that it is important to have the processes and discipline in place to integrate and manage the innovation you need.

Coach 96
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6 Approaches To Problem-Solving From Today’s Leaders

Startup Professionals Musings

All the business leaders I know have noticed that the problems we all face today are becoming more complex, multifaceted, and our customers are more demanding. Everyone wants to know how to become a better and more timely problem solver, as well as a more creative solution provider. The challenges for every business are now more global and multi-cultural than ever.

Demand 84
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7 Viewpoints Required To Be A Satisfied Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

As an angel investor and a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always disappointed to see founders who seem stressed out most of the time, and more annoyed than energized by the abundance of challenges they see in building their startup. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is a tough one under the best of circumstances, and it’s one you have to love in order to succeed.

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Meet Our AI Panelists for the Upcoming 1st Mondays

Startup San Diego

The post Meet Our AI Panelists for the Upcoming 1st Mondays appeared first on Startup San Diego.

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PetPath Reimagines the Doctor-Patient Relationship – Startup Incubator Alumni Success

Startup San Diego

The post PetPath Reimagines the Doctor-Patient Relationship – Startup Incubator Alumni Success appeared first on Startup San Diego.

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7 Ways To Prepare For A New Venture As A Side Hustle

Startup Professionals Musings

Many experts will tell you that you can’t succeed as a part-time entrepreneur, as any good startup will require a 100 percent commitment of your time and energy. But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. Thus I often recommend that entrepreneurs keep their day job until the startup is producing revenue.

Startup 110
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10 Practices That Have Led To Multiple New Businesses

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs who experience success with their first startup are often amazed to realize that the risks and fears of doing it right the second time go up, rather than down. Encores are tough, especially in the high-risk world of startups, yet every entrepreneur I know can’t wait to start over and do it again. Sometimes their haste or ego causes them to ignore basics, and they fall hard.

Startup 91