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ArticleForget Compensation, let's talk "Quality of Life"

Forget Compensation, let's talk "Quality of Life"

Would you rather make $200K with a shitty quality of life or $100K with an awesome quality of life?

In the startup world we all seem to understand that $200K is better than $100K, but we do a really lousy job of qualifying that difference based on what actually matters — our quality of life.

When we step back for a second, we may come to find out that "compensation" in strictly monetary terms, is a broken metric. We're all really trying to translate those dollar signs into how it will impact our quality of life.

So why don't we just start with what improves our quality of life and then figure out where money comes in?

What we really want is time.

Years ago at Startups.com, we instituted a work from home policy. At the time we were all sti...



ArticleLiving the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun

Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun

Legendary Founder stories are great — unless you're the poor bastard who had to live through it.

As Founders, we're regaled constantly of comeuppance stories of our fellow Founders who risked it all... almost lost it all... and then won it all in the end. It's entertaining, inspiring, and sometimes even true.

Often we wish we could have such an epic story ourselves. But what we rarely comprehend in those stories is that in order for the story to be so epic, someone had to go through a massive amount of pain to be able to tell it.

The reality of that pain and suffering is not only overlooked quickly but entirely justified by the outcome. But does that make it all OK?

The Against All Odds Legend

Recently a good friend of mine shared a tale of...



ArticleWhere was the entrepreneurial dinosaur when we needed him?

Where was the entrepreneurial dinosaur when we needed him?

When I’m listening to Naveen Jain describing his plan to create big business on the moon, it’s hard for me to grasp that he was once a poor child in India.

Today, Naveen is a billionaire and a very successful entrepreneur. His own recipe for success is, among other things, not knowing much and not being very good at anything. To me, that sounds like the opposite of what business life normally requires, yet Naveen isn’t joking, and his track record proves that he is not wrong either. After all, the young boy that grew up in poverty in India is today changing the world as we know it and has Sir Richard Branson and Google founder Larry Page as two of his good personal friends.

Jonathan: Naveen, I find it so inspiring that you have used entrepr...



ArticleSlacking Off

Slacking Off

Very few entrepreneurs have been are able to successfully create a viral, cult-like following around something as random as workplace collaboration software. But, if anyone could — it would be Stewart Butterfield, a two-time failed gaming entrepreneur.

When headlines circulated that Amazon was looking to spend some $9 billion to purchase Slack, it was another sign that this hot app wasn’t some overblown unicorn flash in the pan.

While Slack has a high valuation, it stands out from the current startup landscape. In a world of 24/7, party all night brogrammers, Butterfield says his offices are empty at 6:30 every night, and people work ~45 hours a week. He’s designed the company for people who have already lived the insanity of a boom and bus...



ArticleFinding “The One”: A Quest To Find The Perfect HR Professional

Finding “The One”: A Quest To Find The Perfect HR Professional

It’s all about finding “the one”. We have hired hundreds of people in the last 7 years and I will attest that ironically, the HR positions were by far the most challenging to hire for.

My “golden” question when interviewing for HR: “How have you handled a situation in the past where an employee asks to “speak with you in confidence” about a problem they are having with their manager?”

“I tell them absolutely, come on in”. Wrong.

“I take notes and launch an investigation”. Wrong.

“I ask them to tell me more details and I will handle the situation for them”. Wrong.

“I remind the employee that I am there to listen to them and advocate for them”. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Correct Answer: “I redirect them back to their manager and then to help coach...



ArticleMusic for Everyone

Music for Everyone

In 2008, the world got a new music streaming service named Spotify. It was developed in Stockholm, Sweden, and provided digital rights management-protected content from record labels and media companies. It may have started out as a local thing, but the freemium service quickly expanded. Today, Spotify has more than 140 million monthly active users and over 50 million paying subscribers.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Andreas Ehn, who was Spotify’s first employee and CTO. Andreas was responsible for the product and platform architecture as well as hiring a world-class engineering team, of which many have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs on their own.

After Spotify, Andreas founded Wrapp — a mobile online-to-offline customer...



Article5 Workflow Automation Tips For Your Team

5 Workflow Automation Tips For Your Team

You’re automating a majority of your work, but what do you know about workflow automation? Implementing tactics that decrease the workload of your team members and eliminate unnecessary routine is crucial to business success.

Here’s how you can automate your team’s workflows to create more efficient, productive work processes.

Why is Workflow Automation Vital for Success?

If you need a reason to implement automation into your workflows, just check out these key statistics from Cognizant’s 2015 business process automation study:

  • 20% of organizations who use process automation report at least 15% cost savings
  • Half of those implementing new automated workflow strategies see significant improvement in their overall systems within 3-5 years

T...



ArticleGetting to Startup Grind Mode

Getting to Startup Grind Mode

It’s a war of attrition, it really is. Most entrepreneurs in most industries just give up. So the question is — how long can you last? How long can you survive?

When I ask Derek Andersen about the biggest challenges of building his company, Startup Grind from the ground up, his response is refreshingly blunt: “All of it.”

“We didn’t have any money, so we couldn’t really hire anyone. We worked out of my garage for a year, just to just try to save money and run really really lean. We had no documents or templates or process for onboarding or anything.”

And on top of all those logistical challenges, there was this tiny one: “We didn’t have a brand, so nobody knew who we were or why we should exist.”

Funnily enough, the challenges that St...



ArticleForm an Advisory Board to help Raise Capital

Form an Advisory Board to help Raise Capital

Capital raising isn't about pitching investors, it's about getting in front of them to begin with. But how do we get introductions from investors if we don't know any?

We start with forming an Advisory Board.

The suggestion here isn't to form an Advisory Board specifically for raising capital — since there are a ton of benefits to having an Advisory Board. However, as a first step toward raising capital, it makes a ton of sense to surround ourselves with smart, well-connected people who believe in our product but also have been through the very gauntlet we're entering into. In the same way we'd hire a dev team to build an app, why wouldn't we round up a team of smart, well-connected Advisors to build our capital raise?

We don't need to be s...



ArticleEverything You Need to Know About Drafting an Operating Agreement for Your LLC

Everything You Need to Know About Drafting an Operating Agreement for Your LLC

##What is an operating agreement?

An operating agreement is a legal document that outlines the financial rules, responsibilities of founders, how disputes are resolved, and even more of a limited liability corporation (LLC). Other business formations, like corporations, have articles of incorporation and corporate bylaws, which are similar to operating agreements but not the same. Basically, they’re the way you and your cofounders will outline everything you need to know and do in order to successfully run your startup.

While only California, Delaware, Maine, Missouri, and New York actually require that an LLC has an operating agreement, we very, very highly recommend drafting one, regardless of where you’re located. If you decide not to h...



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