From Mark Twain to Mark Zuckerberg, some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century were renowned for their lack of organization. Indeed, Einstein famously said that “a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,” permanently cementing, for better or worse, the association of brilliance and disorganization in the popular imagination.
This dynamic seems to have carried over to the theater arts as well. Aspiring writers, performers, and producers won’t find a single, clear avenue for proceeding from proof of concept to execution. Unlike other industries (such as publishing), the theater arts don’t have an effective progression for stories to grow from an idea in a writer’s mind into a fully-fledged musical ready for the public.
The sol...
Starting a company is downright difficult and anyone that has done it before will tell you that is an understatement. What they also might mention is in our day and age, Founders don't have to jump off the proverbial cliff head first without a parachute anymore.
The world of podcasting has opened a door into the minds and experiences of many thought leaders and seasoned Founders that offer a "tell-all" experience into their startup-building journey. It's like getting first-hand mentorship without paying a dime, and with the number of entrepreneur podcasts increasing in recent years, there's no shortage of information to take advantage of.
For startup founders embarking on the entrepreneurial journey for the first time, or even for the serial ...
When we want to achieve a certain goal or go somewhere, we plan for it. Why? Simply because taking action and not thinking of the consequences that goes along with it produces chaos and a waste of resources such as time, effort, and money.
For instance, our lives. I’m pretty sure we all have a plan for our own lives. We want to achieve this and that by a certain age. We look forward the next day because we have a plan to fulfil.
Why do we do this? It’s not because we’re bored or nothing better to do but because we value our life. We want it to be meaningful. We don’t just want to survive, we want to live.
And for this same thing, we need to have a startup business plan. We didn’t think of building i...
Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act way back in April of 2012 — and the startup world rejoiced. Finally, we’d be able to raise money through non-accredited investors, just like all of our friends were doing to pay for their EPs and trips to South America and medical procedures! Crowdfunding — which the startup world invented — was finally a legal option for startups.
So what’s so great about the American JOBS Act, anyway? The ability to raise equity crowdfunding without having to make a public offering is probably the most significant change that the JOBS Act made, of course. Any startup founder can tell you that raising money from friends and family — or, if you have the right type of product, running a crowdfund...
I never expected to be an entrepreneur. My first business, the mobile user interface (UI) company The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), was set up by six friends who wanted to work with something we loved and learn from our own mistakes rather than from others’. I am not even sure that it actually felt like a startup. TAT became a completely unexpected giant success both personally and financially (the business was bought by Blackberry for $150 million).
When I started my second business, I wanted more than financial success; it had to mean something to me. I believe that an entrepreneur’s true purpose is to try, learn, and experiment rather than follow more conventional ways of achieving success. Therefore, there is more room for failure, which is ...
Founder success is almost never what we picture it to be.
When we think of wildly successful Founders our minds easily jump to billionaires like Branson, Blakely, and Musk, balancing a life of magazine cover story photoshoots with keynote presentations and TV interviews. Our most "successful" Founders often have this air of glamour around their success.
But as it happens, Founder "success" feels way less glamorous. In fact, the most exciting success milestones are often so mundane when they occur that we don't even realize they happened. But this success is a culmination not of a single event, but a series of tiny events that we later look back and realize was when our success was truly defined.
For most of our journ...
I was fortunate enough to travel to San Francisco for a week in early May and on one of my evenings I attended a pitch night which was moderated and judged by 500 Startups. These tips don’t just apply in the startup-world, but also apply for any type of persuasive presentation environment. Here’s what I learned:
I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times. However, what does that mean? For starters, when you’re explaining your product, don’t be so transactional — e.g. try not to explain your pitch as follows “if you struggle to track your logistics when you go for traveling, use our app.” It won’t help you to connect with your audience, it won’t help your audience remember your solution, and your audience won’t be able to r...
Search engine optimization is an area of digital marketing that involves using certain tactics to help your website climb the search engine results pages for queries relevant to your business.
Focusing on boosting your SEO should be a key part of your plan to build an audience, as it can help you to reach a lot more of your target customers.
In this guide, we are going to outline 7 different tips for improving your on-page SEO and improving your site’s search engine visibility. Read on to find out more.
When we talk about on-page SEO, we’re referring to changes you can make to your own website in order to boost your search engine rankings. This can involve writing optimized copy, creating SEO-friendly content, and e...
As the founder of a start-up and new app, I’m in the position of being in a brand new position over and over again.
Pretty much daily, in fact, like all entrepreneurs, I’m confronted with a barrage of new questions that require research, testing, intuition, and unforeseen obstacles that keep me up in the wee hours of night.
“What’s the right minimum viable product? Which feature will drive active users most? How do I get event insurance? Do I have the right ASO? Which marketing spend is most efficient? Can I remain mission-driven while monetizing?”
So many new things to learn, so much to navigate.
It’s those endless beginnings, however, those unknown situations when I’m standing on the edge of foreign terrain with no roadmap that keep me ...
We opened our doors in 2010 with less than 100k in revenue. Despite bringing in money the first year, I technically lost money due to start-up and capital expenses. I even had to get a loan from the IRS to cover taxes that year that took me four years to pay off.
It was my first exposure to the “Oh wow, THIS is how businesses fail”. I had to grow quickly and with a sense of urgency to keep enough cash coming in to pay for the baseline business expenses. I was hustling while crossing my fingers that my hard work would pay off. It did. I grew so fast that I had to hire people quickly that cared as much as I did….and I did. The second year we grew by 630%. We followed that first year burst with an average of 73% growth every year for the next ...