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Like any relationship, sometimes the spark gets lost and we want to move onto something else. The problem is, we're often incredibly tethered to what we've built.

What do we do about it?

Should I feel guilty about this?

Nope.

There's nothing that says just because we invented a job that it has to be our favorite job of all time. We love pizza, but that doesn't mean it should be the only food we eat for the rest of our lives.

Our interests absolutely change over time, and there's no reason our interest in our startups shouldn't change too.

What are my options if I want to bow out?

It depends on the quality of our team (if we have one).

The strongest move would be for us to level up all of the people around us so that they can have more ...

Startup failure is knowing our friends aren't asking about our startup because they already know we've failed.

It's knowing we're the punchline of community gossip, sometimes from fellow Founders who might have a right to joke, but mostly from those who don't.

It's about trading that exciting victory we dreamed about for the nightmare that kept us from sleeping at all.

Anxiety can be a Powerful Ally

Anxiety, however, can be a powerful motivator.

It's often a terrible, awful kind of energy that rots us to the core while accomplishing nothing useful. That's unless we judo-move that energy into something that powers us toward something positive.

We can stay up all night with our anxiety or we can stay up all night working on our next great ...

Nancy Duarte is a pro when it comes to presentations. Not just giving presentations, but starting them, finishing them, and every step in between. Author and co-founder of Duarte Designs, Nancy Duarte is a seasoned veteran when it comes to incorporating storytelling into speaking and creating connections with an audience.

The below video is the fifth part in a series of 10 in which Nancy shares the key components to making a successful pitch using creativity and critical thinking. Find out what she has to say:

Getting creative (and comfortable) with startup presentations

Back when startup presentations were nearly all slide-based, Nancy used to have a general rule-of-thumb: one slide would equal about two minutes of talking. This was a tim...

In my last blog post, I spoke about siloed content caused by silos within an enterprise. Moreover, about the guy who is on the hook to drive the business, generate leads and protect the brand. In most organizations they call him the Chief Marketing Officer or CMO. He is focused on the connected, consistent customer journey.

Yeah, this feels like herding cats — an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic.

Because in a larger organizations, everyone creates content. Sometimes people do not even know that this content ends up being customer facing. Some folks in Support writing some messages in support systems — but is it necessarily on brand and on target?

Let’s break down the customer journey — ...

…when I started StartupList, I didn’t know where it would lead or even that I was actually creating a startup. It was just a project I was working on to learn more about startups and how to build a website. It evolved into something I never could’ve imagined at the time.

There is no better way to hear the story of how Nick Frost came to champion startups than to hear it straight from his mouth. Startups Live was incredibly fortunate to have such an opportunity.

Often this collection of Founders turns over nitty gritty details of building startups, examining a particular question or aspect of the work. This talk does some of the same, but it also brings the role of fortune into the field of play – not luck, or the unexpected influence of out...

Stuart MacDonald is a digital business guy who loves making customers happy and building great teams. A mentor, investor, consultant and frequent speaker on things digital and entrepreneurial, Stuart is the veteran of several startups including starting Expedia.ca in Toronto. Stuart went on from there to become CMO and SVP Packages of Expedia.com in Seattle. He also co-founded mesh, Canada’s web conference discussing how the Internet is impacting how we live and work, and meshmarketing, Canada’s one day digital marketing power conference. Most recently, Stuart joined FreshBooks as the CMO, responsible for marketing, sales, support and revenue.

Q: You founded Expedia.ca and changed the way Canadians book travel. How were you able to change t...

Years ago, I was having ice cream with my wife on a hot summer night and I overheard a group of 16-year-olds talking about how one of them went to work with his dad. I remember him saying:

“I went to his office and it was so boring. Everything was bright lights and pale colors. If I had to be in an office all day I’d make it just like my bedroom and enjoy hanging out there.”

I distinctly remember looking at my wife and saying, “That kid has it figured out. I spend 14 hours a day in a room I don’t want to be in with a job that I love.” I vowed one day to change that.

That was ten years ago. It apparently took a really long time for me to act on this one, but I finally did, and I have to say – the kid knew what was up.

Love Your Workplace

In ...

Getting taken seriously as a Founder is real work.

It's not some entitlement that's handed to us when we've achieved some career milestone. No matter who we are, we all have to fight for our ability to get taken seriously.

Why do I need to work so hard, shouldn't people reserve judgment?

That would be fantastic, but the world just doesn't work that way. Especially among Founders whose credibility is tested on so many fronts — from acquiring customers, to pitching investors to hiring staff.

Our ability to establish our credibility early and often is critical to our success from the moment we found the company.

How can I change the way I present myself in a room?

Believe it or not, body language sends huge signals.

A well-presented Founder ...

As a founder working on his newest project, Andy needed really good leads. But most “email list” companies sell you a load of crappy emails; and only emails.

He wanted key influencers, specifically at tech companies, and he wanted email and phone and social links. So he built BreakoutContacts to do it.

It uses some pretty slick AI (artificial intelligence) to comb through, analyze, and validate hundreds of data points per company and person. Then, and this is the part that too many services skip, good ol’ fashioned human effort kicks in to manually re-verify everything.

The process is slow. Like, never-will-this-ever-scale slow. But, Andy has been able to get a 100% conversion rate on the contacts he’s reached out to. There’s nothing more ...

The past few years have seen an explosion of podcasts — it seems like everyone wants to get in on the audio. And startup founders (many of whom have probably been listening to podcasts since they started in the early aughts) are no exception! But how do you know what to listen to in this vast sea of startup podcasts?

Don’t worry — we have you covered. Here are the top 20 best startup podcasts as we head into 2020. Grab your noise cancelling earphones — and get listening.

1. Startup Therapy

Hosted by Startups.com founders and serial entrepreneurs Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan, Startup Therapy is an inside perspective on issues startup founders really care about. From what to expect in your first year after launching to how to deal with the e...