One of the most powerful sales tools that companies have are the stories people tell about their products and services. A good story can captivate potential customers and compel them to engage with their brand. But a lot of companies have a hard time convincing customers to share stories beyond a standard testimonial or review. Read more>>
Monthly Archives: October 2018
A stretchy stick-on patch can take blood pressure readings from deep inside your body
The last time you had your blood pressure checked, it was probably at a doctor’s office with a bulky cuff wrapped around your arm. One day soon, perhaps, you will just need a simple stick-on patch on your neck, no bigger than a postage stamp. That’s the goal of Sheng Xu and his team at the University of California, San Diego, who are working on a patch that can continuously measure someone’s central blood pressure. Read more>>
30 YEARS, 30 BUSINESSES, 16 STARTUPS, 3 LESSONS LEARNED
I have worked in a lot of businesses over 30 years. I have been fortunate enough to work with what was futuristic speech recognition technology at Dragon Systems back in 1991 (now Nuance). All told, I have worked at or advised almost 30 different businesses including 16 startups. I have learned many things. Here are three of them. Read more>>
How to Shape Remarkable Products in the Messy Middle of Building Startups
Behance founder Scott Belsky has lived and studied technology startups from a number of vantage points — as advisor (Uber, Pinterest, sweetgreen), author (Making Ideas Happen), investor (Benchmark), and Adobe’s Chief Product Officer — and observes that the most critical part of a startup’s journey is the least discussed and most misunderstood: the middle. Read more>>
Overfishing is destroying the world’s oceans. These start-ups think growing fish in a lab can help
Lab-grown fish may hit your dinner plate sooner than you think. A couple years ago, there were no companies focused on lab-grown seafood. Now a handful have cropped up, including Finless Foods, Blue Nalu, Wild Type and Seafuture. Their founders hope fish grown in a lab can help them break into the more than $120 billion seafood market, and make it more sustainable in the process. Read more>>
The Downside of Applying Lean Startup Principles
The Lean Startup is a bestselling business book by Eric Ries that has become a global revolution with followers in 17 countries. Its principles have been adopted by early-stage ventures, Fortune 500 companies and even the U.S. government. Its core principle is to test a “minimum viable product” early and gather information to further fine-tune development. The idea is to mitigate risk in the product development process. Read more>>
Crucial Things You Must Do to Stay on Good Terms With Your Investors
If you’ve successfully landed investors for your business, you know that keeping them happy is a key part of your job. Yet sometimes that’s easier said than done. Everything from personality conflicts to deep-seated differences of opinion about how to fix problems can sour your relationships. So how exactly can you keep your money people happy? Read more>>
The Fine Line Between Stubbornness and Stupidity
Stubbornness isn’t necessarily bad and can in fact be a virtue. Stubbornness makes us persevere. It helps us stand our ground when everyone else is trying to tell us that we are wrong. Used with discernment, stubbornness can be a strong leadership quality and a key determinant of success. Read more>>
Growth at All Costs is Perilous — This is How to Scale Sales Sustainably
In this exclusive interview, Karen Rhorer codifies what she’s learned about scaling sales hiring across her career. She shares how leaders can push past the pressures to spin up sales quickly by walking through the four levers for sustainable headcount planning and detailing the key calculations for avoiding a painful future of upside-down metrics that burn through cash. Read more>>
Space Mining — Learning How To Fuel An Interplanetary Gas Station
Starting this semester, the Colorado School of Mines is offering the world’s first degree programs in Space Resources — essentially mining in outer space. It’s not just academic institutions like the School of Mines taking note; a small but growing number of startups expect this to be very big business sooner than a lot of us might think. Read more>>
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