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Fail fast. Fail forward. Those are just two of the mantras you’ll see hanging in startup offices and incubators across the globe. In the startup world, a failure is considered a learning opportunity, at the least; a feather in the cap of the Founder, at best. We fetishize failure. We normalize it.

But as much as we talk a good game about failure, the reality is that failing sucks. Just as no one goes into their wedding day planning for divorce, no one starts a company thinking, “Yeah, this one will just be my starter. I’ll get it right next time.” No wants to fail, and yet the majority of startups do fail.

According to an examination of startup businesses (by which they mean new companies in general) in the United States conducted by Stati...

Interest in content marketing has exploded over the past decade, with good reason. It works.

A study from Conductor showed that education content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy. But it’s not just for B2C, with B2B brands seeing value, too. And it works, for less. One estimate claims content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, while generating approximately 3 times as many leads.

Sounds like an easy decision to get on board with.

What is content marketing?

Before we dive into how to do content marketing, let’s take a step back to rehash what it is. We’ve heard all about content marketing and how awesome it can be for your business (see above!). But let’s be clear on what we are talking about.

Content marketing is st...

The conventional wisdom in the startup community these days is that to create a successful startup, you need to move at breakneck speed in everything you do.

And, to facilitate this, you should consume as much money as you can get your hands on along the way to make sure you’re removing all obstacles from getting to market. The perception is that if you move too slowly at the beginning, you’ll miss the market and, even worse, you won’t get funding.

But, is this correct?

While we completely support the idea that getting a great product to market as quickly as possible is a cornerstone of startup success, we just don’t buy that frenetic speed is the best way to do it. It’s not what has worked for us, nor for any of the successful startups we’...

If there is one quintessential task a startup CEO needs to be in charge of is not letting the company running out of money. Being on top of your Financial Model and business budget can make a difference and can enable managers and founders to make game-changing decisions. To give you an example, about nine months ago a quick prediction in our financial model enabled us to make our company profitable while duplicating our marketing budget.

The spreadsheet we use is an evolution of a template created by our investors at Carao Ventures. Over the years, I’ve simplified it to remove unnecessary modules and adapted it to serve the purposes of our SaaS business model. I’ll elaborate on the main features we used to make the model work in our favor-...

Trying to figure out a way to make those big startup business goals reachable? Not a fan of visual mapping or assigning each of your goals to a hierarchy?

Well, you’re in luck. Setting S.M.A.R.T goals is a tried and true method that has worked for a lot of people.

The idea of S.M.A.R.T. goals traces back to 1981 — so the meaning has changed a little big over the years. Originally, the acronym stood for

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time bound

Over the years, different meanings have been added to those letters, but we’re going to stick with the old school, for now.

Specific

Let’s start with “Specific.” When you’re figuring out if your goal is specific enough, ask yourself the five “W” questions: Who, why, what, where and which. Fo...

One of the biggest reasons that a startup’s marketing initiative fails is because they aren’t treating potential customers like people. It’s an easy mistake to make.

When you have target KPIs to meet, you need to be thinking in terms of numbers and metrics. But if you start seeing the world merely through the lens of numbers and begin to neglect the human element, your message is unlikely to connect with your target audience.

What’s the solution? Buyer personas.

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data and categorized by market segment.

When you envision a composite “person” as you’re creating your marketing content and messaging, you’re more likely to create something that’s relevant and mea...

I’ll admit, I’ve fallen horrible victim to the entrepreneur’s trap of trying to work on multiple startups at once. During the 2000’s I once had 5 startups that I was running at the same time. I used to think it was a badge of honor, that I could manage so many priorities at the same time.

I learned over time, it’s just a horrible strategy that works for pretty much no one and will likely lead to startup failure.

I get tons of emails from aspiring entrepreneurs that are some version of “Hey Wil, I’m working on these 2-3 startup ideas and trying to figure out which one to pursue. What do you think?”

I’ve answered this question so many times that I figured I may as well just give you the detailed version once and for all.

What is a private investor?

The short answer: A private investor is a person or company that invests their own money into a company, with the goal of helping that company succeed and getting a return on their investment.

The long answer: The field of private investment is more varied than the short answer might make it seem at first. It's important to note that while some types of private investors may be from firms that focus solely on investments — like VC firms and angel investors — they are never from banks (for example, SBA bank loans).

The four main types of private investors

a. Friends and family

Family and Friends are often the first private investors that startups and small businesses turn to. They're a great resource for seed funding a...

You probably know the saying: It costs money to make money. And with 50 percent of new businesses failing within five years — and 70 percent failing within 10 — marketing is more important than ever. Marketing is what fuels business growth, and it’s one of the most important things to consider in a business plan. Without a solid marketing strategy in place, you’ll find that you’ll be spending a lot of time and money on trying to grow your business with little to show for it.

As a new business owner, it would be great to see high-impact results immediately. Without millions of dollars from venture capitalists, though, gaining results can be a long road. However, while there is no magic formula to marketing, there are some easy, high-impact ...

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ah, rejection. The early-stage Founder’s bread and butter.

When you’re building a company from the ground up, you kind of get used to hearing the word “No.”

But Saasmetrics Founder Leo Faria: he didn’t just get used to it. He broadcast it for everyone to see.

A few weeks ago, Leo published a post on Medium that he called “Lessons learned from a startup rejected by 500 Startups, Techstars and Y Combinator.” In the post, Leo digs into his experience applying for the US’s three most prestigious accelerators — and (spoiler alert) getting rejected by each and every one. He even goes as far as to include the actual text of the actual emails he received from each accelerator, and you can just imagine what it must have felt like to se...