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At the top of the organizational food chain sits cynicism, consuming your carefully nurtured culture with an insatiable appetite.

Following my previous company’s acquisition, I saw the seeds of cynicism take root within hours.

I overheard top employees say things like, “The last great company I worked at was acquired. I know how this movie plays out.”

Team members began making assumptions (and voicing them) immediately. About decisions that hadn’t been made yet. Consequences that had yet to develop. And, what they plan on doing if and when their worst fears came true.

I even heard cynical perspectives on the growing level of cynicism.

“Jason, don’t work so hard at this. There’s nothing you can do. I have never seen an organization not becom...

Many leaders start their careers with hopes of reaching the top as quickly as possible, skipping past lower-level positions as they scale the corporate ladder. This is particularly true in the startup scene, where founders essentially choose their own titles and begin their careers in management positions.

My career did not have such a direct trajectory. I meandered through the insurance industry for decades before I finally secured a leadership role. I started out working for my parents’ company, doing the grunt work of the office. I generated invoices, processed mail, and even handled janitorial duties. I was the youngest person in the office and the lowest on the totem pole, so I didn’t have a problem earning my stripes. Some people mig...

Entrepreneurship demands more grit than glamour. As any professional on the other side of the uphill challenge knows, success often means making mistakes, bravely picking up the pieces, and trying again. The process is equal parts grueling and exhilarating.

As a strategic communications professional and business leader for more than 20 years, I’ve made plenty of my own mistakes. In the end, some of the biggest snafus provided invaluable training and helped carved my path to success. They’ve truly shaped my journey and helped us become one of the fastest growing PR firm globally.

Below is some advice for first-time entrepreneurs that I wished I’d had when starting out.

From One Entrepreneur to Another

Yes, mistakes are a part of any entrepr...

Continuing in Phase Four of a four-part Funding Series:

Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise

Phase Two - Investor Selection

Phase Three - The Pitch

Phase Four - Investor Outreach

• Part 1 - Investor Outreach

• Part 2 - Investor Introductions: How to Get Them

• Part 3 - The Investor Email Pitch ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 4 - How to Contact Investors

Let’s dive in!

Nearly all potential investors require a solid email pitch before they are willing to take a meeting with a startup. A great Email Pitch won't guarantee you a meeting, but a bad one will definitely prevent one! Therefore, creating the perfect Email Pitch is essential if you want an investor to respond.

The perfect Email Pitch is very tight — just a few very well-crafted sentences to create a great fi...

In this age of social media, entrepreneurship is at an all-time high. The time for creating a start-up company has never been more optimal, thanks to recent interest in technology and innovation. Profit valuations of successful start-ups have also skyrocketed in response to a rise in venture capital investors. Creating a start-up also celebrates low-cost entry, making it easier than ever to jump in and play a hand at the game of business. As many as 40 start-ups in 2013 were valued at $1 billion or more, according to a NY Times article.

But as effortless as it is to create a start-up business, the real challenge lies in evolving it. Only 1 out of every 10 start-up companies make it to the 5th year. What are the barriers that prevent the suc...

Rich Aberman and his co-Founder Bill Clerico were making great progress with their payment processing startup, WePay.

The platform – which made it easy for small businesses, organizations and nonprofits to accept credit card payments online – had taken shape over the course of six years. Revenue was growing month-over-month. Customers liked it, the press liked it — and investors had put in a lot of money to keep growing it.

But in 2014, Rich and Bill were getting ready to kill it.

The transition away from direct business

No, it wasn’t the startup equivalent of a suicide pact. They hadn’t given up – quite the opposite. Almost without meaning to, they had landed on an opportunity with the potential to leave the direct business in the dust.

Th...

What an exciting moment! You’re looking to scale up your startup and need to bring in a growth agency to help you do that. But, it’s a big decision. Choosing the wrong agency will lead to months of delayed growth, thousands of dollars in wasted spend, and difficult conversations down the line trying to understand where it all went wrong.

This means it is vitally important you make the right decision from the get-go. There are hundreds of marketing agencies out there, but if you are in the startup phase of growth I’d recommend going with a startup growth agency that has experience in the earlier stages.

I have done some of the research for you by putting together a list of the top 9 startup agencies I know deliver great results. So, at least...

Got questions? Ask thousands of world class expert mentors from Clarity.fm!

We are 3 co-founders in ideation phase of our SaaS product. How do we split equity fairly? When do we incorporate the company: now or later?

Alessandro Daliana, Leadership Coach and Consultant, answered:

Personally, I am a big fan of the consortium, or contractual joint venture, to get projects moving. In your case, the three co-founders write a contract setting out who is responsible for what work, who much they should be paid, estimate the hours, and so on, like any project. They nominate a lead, decide how to contribute any funds that are necessary, and anything else they may need. And, you conclude with a simple—or complex—way of converting all the resources al...

Today I’m really excited to share some great news: we’ve just completed the acquisition of Zana.io, a world-class educational platform for startups.

Zana is the brainchild of my friend Shea Tate-Di Donna. While at True Ventures, she created the well-regarded “True University” to help educate their 150 portfolio companies on the best practices for starting a company. That effort led to the formation of Zana as an extension of Shea’s dream to democratize the type of learning often reserved only for venture-funded Silicon Valley companies.

Educating entrepreneurs is one of the most critical initiatives we’ve embraced at Startups.co, and we couldn’t be happier to bring Zana into our family to help drive us forward.

Now 1 million startups on our...

In late 2013, I felt a strong calling to help build a tech company. That urge to create connected communities through empowerment became my life’s mission.

Those ambitions were the inspiration for my startup, Feel Free. The company was designed to bring people together through technology. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into making Feel Free a success.

When I founded the company, I never thought I would one day decide to give up my equity and walk away from my passion project.

Startup Success

Feel Free was intended to foster physical spaces where people could connect and collaborate. We wanted to create designated areas in coffee shops and co-working spaces that would encourage face-to-face interactions.

Visitors would use our app to au...