Sat.Feb 23, 2019 - Fri.Mar 01, 2019

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How to Be a Good Board Member

Both Sides of the Table

I have been writing a series on how startup boards get selected, who sits on them and what to avoid. I will also delve into how to prepare for them, how to make the meeting effective and how to best follow up to make sure people take action. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash In response to one of my posts I saw this great Tweet by Bilal Zuberi and it resonated.

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Intensive Design Experience: Preparing Engineering Students for the Real World

Venture Well

An intensive design experience simulates a high-performance team situation to show students what it takes to succeed in the workforce or as an entrepreneur. The post Intensive Design Experience: Preparing Engineering Students for the Real World appeared first on VentureWell.

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The Best Countries in Europe for Startups—and Why

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Written for EO by Erin Yurday. Erin Yurday is the founder and CEO of NimbleFins , a startup that aims to educate consumers with data-driven research so they can make the best financial decisions for their individual situation. . While any great business starts with an idea—that “aha!” moment—we all know there’s a lot more to running a successful startup than just the initial inspiration.

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AI Superpowers - A History of Chinese Startups and the Implications for the Future of Startupland

Tomasz Tunguz

I remember the first time I visited China. We landed around 11pm local time in Beijing in the midst of the summer heat wave. As we landed, humidity fogged the Boeing’s windows, and the runway lights projected mirages from the haze. I could have sworn that heat was the product of a billion people’s fervent labor to advance their country and pull themselves into a new era.

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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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What Makes a Great Independent Board Member?

Both Sides of the Table

When you set up a board it is often initially a combination of the founders and the early investors. It can start 2–1 founders to investors and then sometimes moves to 3–2 but sometime around the A, B or C round the idea of “independent” directors comes up. This post sets out how I believe founders (and investors) should think about independent board members having worked with many of them for the past 20 years.

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners to Appear Before PA Senate Appropriations Committee – 3:00 PM, Wednesday, March 6, live-streamed: [link]

Ben Franklin Technology Partners

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners (Ben Franklin) Pennsylvania statewide network will present before the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee regarding the proposed 2019-2020 Pennsylvania budget at 3:00 PM on Wednesday, March 6, live-streamed here: [link]. The Ben Franklin Program invests in and supports technology-based start-ups, innovative manufacturers, and a technology-based ecosystem throughout the state.

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Should Your Startup Employ Both Assisted and Unassisted Trials to Acquire Customers?

Tomasz Tunguz

A founder posed me a question earlier this week: Do you have any data/perspective on whether it’s worth keeping the unassisted free trial flow vs. providing only one path which leads to a demo and an assisted free trial? This is a complex question. Let’s break it down. The unassisted free trial has benefits. There’s a deeper discussion in this post: Confessions of a Perpetual Freeloader.

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High Functioning vs. Low Functioning Startup Boards

Both Sides of the Table

I’ve sat on many boards over the past 2 decades and seen my share of high-functioning boards and low-functioning boards. Here are some observations I have from this exposure: If a company moves from strength-to-strength with predictable outcomes, easy financings, low staff turn-over, limited competitive threats then the composition of the board probably doesn’t matter as much.

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Acceleration Startup Law Book Title and Cover Design

Startup Lawyer

Thought I might take some time to explain the origin of the title and the book cover design for “Acceleration: What All Entrepreneurs Must Know About Startup Law“ The Title — Acceleration Quite often a new client will start off our first meeting with something like “We messed up the legal at. The post Acceleration Startup Law Book Title and Cover Design appeared first on Startup Lawyer.

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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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Where does Pa. rank for tech-based investments?

Ben Franklin Technology Partners

Everyone knows a good thing when they see it. That’s why Ben Franklin Technology Partners, created more than 35 years ago with broad bipartisan support, has become one of the most widely known and emulated state technology-based economic development programs in the nation. Since its inception, Ben Franklin has invested in more than 4,500 technology-based companies and boosted the state economy by more than $25 billion , helping to generate 148,000 jobs through investments in client firms and spi

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Kung Fu

A Smart Bear

Startup strategy is like Kung Fu. There are many styles that work. But in a bar fight, you’re going to get punched in the face regardless. I can only teach you my style. Others can only teach you theirs. This is my style. “MVPs” are too M to be V. They’re a selfish ploy, tricking people who thought they were customers into being alpha testers.

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How to Prepare for a Board Meeting to Make Sure you Crush It

Both Sides of the Table

Most board meetings are administrative updates that accomplish very little other than inform board members about the performance of the company since the last board meeting. That’s certainly one function of every board but if your board is your “brain trust” and the people you can most use as a sounding board to help you make the toughest decisions in your company and if its the one group truly privy to your most confidential information and your hardest choices then it’s a shame if you don’t ge

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So I wrote a Startup Law Book called “Acceleration”

Startup Lawyer

If you follow this blog, then you probably know new posts have been harder to find than a four-leafed clover in the desert. But I had a good reason — I’ve spent the good portion of the last 3 years putting together a startup law book, when I wasn’t doing. The post So I wrote a Startup Law Book called “Acceleration” appeared first on Startup Lawyer.

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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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What Could Stop Your App From Succeeding?

Entrepreneurs' Organization

So many factors, it seems! Harnil Oza, CEO of Hyperlink Infosystem , outlines the many obstacles that face mobile app developers. . Mobile apps—software applications designed to run on mobile devices—are in high demand. In fact, some estimates put the number of apps downloaded during 2017 at 178.1 billion. Industry sources expect the mobile app market to expand by a whopping 270% to US$189 billion by 2020.

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A Lasting and Enduring Gift

Tomasz Tunguz

When I was a teenager, I read many books about Dr. Richard Feynman. The irreverent but kind Nobel prize winner in physics became famous for his contributions to quantum mechanics. Though I’ve never understood quantum mechanics all that well, I’ve always admired Feynman, like many others. To read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman is to hear about his upbringing in Queens, New York, where as a boy Feynman teaches himself advanced math, plays practical jokes and fixes radios durin

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How to Stop Your Board Meeting from Going Down a Rat Hole

Both Sides of the Table

Photo by Filipe Delgado from Pexels We’ve all been in meetings that get off track?—?sinking ever down the proverbial “rat hole,” from which rescue feels impossible. How does it happen? And how can you avoid it? This is part of a series on Managing Boards. In my last post I wrote about board preparation before the meeting and frankly this can be applied to any type of meeting.

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Money Out of Nowhere: How Internet Marketplaces Unlock Economic Wealth

abovethecrowd.com

(*) Benchmark is/was an investor in companies labeled with the asterisk. In 1776, Adam Smith released his magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , in which he outlined his fundamental economic theories. Front and center in the book — in fact in Book 1, Chapter 1 — is his realization of the productivity improvements made possible through the “Division of Labour”: It is the great multiplication of the production of all the different arts, in consequence of the

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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.

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#BeLikeableDay Aims to Increase the Positivity in Social Media

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Featuring Dave Kerpen, cofounder and chairman of Likeable Media and EO New York member. Here is a statistic that may astound you: Of the 7.7 billion people in the world, 4.2 billion are Internet users. And even greater than these numbers is the impact of the Internet on how we connect and communicate. Social media has taken over our lives as a primary way to stay informed, to engage and to debate.

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Would you sign a personal guarantee if you have investors?

Berkonomics

It’s a fact of life that a banker, lender or lessor will ask for a personal guarantee from the founder or entrepreneur most every time. But what if you’ve diluted your interest from 100% to something less than 50%? Should your investors expect you to carry 100% of the risk? The short answer is “yes.” Seems unfair, doesn’t it? To most lenders, the guarantee is still a requirement, putting the entrepreneur in a position of additional risk that is not spread among the shareholders.

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MedStack (Dreamit HealthTech 2016) Closes $2.4 Million Seed Round

Dream It

MedStack , a Dreamit HealthTech alum whose platform provides a privacy and security compliance solution for healthcare apps, recently closed a $2.4 million round of funding. TELUS Ventures led the round with participation from ScaleUP Ventures , Panache Ventures , Ontario Centres of Excellence , and several angel investors. Companies that want to develop digital health products and connected devices have to comply with regulations like HIPAA in the US and PIPEDA in Canada in order to work with p

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Why Investor Titles are Important

This is going to be BIG.

The other day, I generated a lot of buzz and feedback around my assertion that calling yourself an “angel investor” should require a little more than small syndicate investments: You are not an angel investor if all your investments are less than $10k, made through @AngelList syndicates, and the founder doesn't even know who you are because you've never met.

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Enhance Customer Value: Unleash Your Data’s Potential

The complexity of financial data, the need for real-time insight, and the demand for user-friendly visualizations can seem daunting when it comes to analytics - but there is an easier way. With Logi Symphony, we aim to turn these challenges into opportunities. Our platform empowers you to seamlessly integrate advanced data analytics, generative AI, data visualization, and pixel-perfect reporting into your applications, transforming raw data into actionable insights.

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The Free Trial Survey on the Saastr Podcast and Hitting a Blogging Milestone

Tomasz Tunguz

Last week, the dynamic Harry Stebbings and I recorded episode 213 of the Saastr podcast , where we discussed the learnings from the free trial survey in a bit more detail. Harry’s a wonderful interviewer, and moves effortlessly from topic to topic. I made him laugh once later in the show when I told him about the last book I read. Normally, he’s the one making me laugh.

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