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The words “successful startup” seem pretty straightforward at first glance. But, what do you picture when you hear them? A unicorn? A world-famous company, like Twitter or Facebook? A small company bootstrapping and grinding through the night, with steady growth? A lifestyle business? A thriving brick-and-mortar shop? A string of failures, followed by the perfect product/market fit?

Like so many things in the startup world, the definition of what a successful startup truly is can be elusive — and frustratingly subjective. While some founders might strive for that billion dollar valuation, others measure their success by how happy their customers are or the biggest impact they’ve made on the world. When we dig past the visions of unicorns da...

Let’s talk top startups of 2018. But first of all, did you know that entrepreneurs create more than six million new businesses in the United States every year? Sifting through those multitudes is impossible, even for startup junkies. And when you consider the high number of startup failures, the shifting sands of the startup landscape become even harder to track.

So how can you possibly know what’s good? How can you separate the wheat from the chaff? How can you ever know what the top startups are?

Well, one way is by relying on experts who interact with new companies every day. And it doesn’t get more expert than the team at Fundable, the largest business crowdfunding platform that’s exclusively about helping startups raise money. Fundabl...

It was one of the first gut-check moments where you have to prove to yourself how much you want it.

Corey Egan and his co-Founder Swapnil Bora were feeling pretty good about the direction their company was headed in in summer 2014. ” We had gone through a series of business competitions, we had filed patents, we had built out prototypes,” Corey remembers.

Not only that – when they looked out at the market, Corey says: “We were the first ones we had seen to put anything out there.”

Then one morning, Corey woke up and everything had changed.

“I woke up and I had like ten text messages from folks that I knew saying, ‘Hey Corey, this just launched on Kickstarter today,’ ” Corey remembers. “And it was a crowdfunding campaign for what is now one ...

How are angel investors different from venture capitalists?

We’ll dive into the details of the differences between angel investors and venture capitalist below, but here’s a wide angle of view first:

Angel investors are wealthy individuals (or groups of wealthy individuals) who invest their own money into companies.

Venture capitalists (VCs) are employees of venture capital firms that invest other people’s money (which they hold in a fund) into companies.

Now let’s take a closer at the two, before diving into the specific differences.

What are angel investors?

Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who invest very early into the formation of a new startup company, usually in exchange for equity or convertible debt. The ro...

What is customer segmentation?

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing a large group of customers into smaller groups, based on certain characteristics. It’s also sometimes called “market segmentation.”

Why is customer segmentation important?

Customer segmentation is important because it helps companies market more effectively to their customers. If you want your marketing budget to go as far as it can, it’s essential that you know who you’re marketing to and what they respond to when it comes to advertisements.

For example, if your company had a customer base that included both 14-year-old boys and 45-year-old men, you wouldn’t use the same marketing techniques with the two groups, would you? But you can’t even know that you have ...

If you’ve been in the startup world for more than five minutes, you’ve heard the term “venture capital.” Maybe you even know founders who have raised VC money themselves. But you might be wondering: How does venture capital work?

What is venture capital?

Venture capital is financing that’s invested in startups and small businesses that are usually high risk, but also have the potential for exponential growth.

The goal of a venture capital investment is a very high return for the venture capital firm, usually in the form of an acquisition of the startup or an IPO.

How does venture capital work?

A venture capital firm is usually run by a handful of partners who have raised a large sum of money from a group of limited partners (LPs) to invest ...

Your team can make or break your startup. Seriously. This is so true that is has become a cliché.

Think about it. You’re going to be spending a lot of time together. You’re going to go through a lot of super stressful situations. You may or may not go broke at some point — together. So, when you’re forming your startup team, it’s really important to make sure you’re asking the right startup interview questions.

Sure, we all know the standards. What are your greatest weaknesses? Why do you want to work here? What was your biggest accomplishment in your last job? And a bunch of those standards made it onto this list. (After all, they’re standard for a reason.) But there are other questions you can ask applicants to your startup team that real...

Science Fiction Fact

Now, the core technology that was once merely the product of science fiction writers’ imaginations is less science fiction than it is, well, actual science.

Fear not. Unlike their fictional counterparts — which inevitably go haywire and become less prone to “protect and serve” than “attack and sever”— the increasingly-prevalent bots of the real world are mainly concerned with using actionable data in the fight against crime.

Welcome to the dawn of the Age of Security Robots, where a new crop of tech companies are (literally) rolling out fleets of artificially-intelligent crime-fighting machinery and jockeying for position to revolutionize the $500 billion security industry.

While there are several promising entrants in...

When it comes to financing a startup, government grants for small businesses aren’t the first thing most founders look toward. And they shouldn’t be. While it’s great to get “free money” if you can, federal grants are only available for specific fields and specific uses — and they’re not easy to get.

However, if your startup does qualify for a government grant for small business, then they’re potentially a great source of funding that you don’t have to pay back.

But unlike other industries, startups have another source of funding that we don’t have to pay back, at least immediately: Venture Capital.

Venture capital is also hard to acquire and certainly comes with stipulations — including giving up equity in your startup — but it’s usually ...

What are angel investors?

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who invest in startups, usually at the early stages. Sometimes angel investors pool their money with other angel investors, forming an investor pool.

The typical angel investor is someone whose net worth is likely in excess of $1 million or who earns over $200,000 per year. Incidentally, those look a lot like the credentials of an accredited investor.

Realize, though, that the angel investor is playing with their own money — not invested capital — so even though they may be a high net worth individual, they are still looking at money coming out of their personal bank account.

Federal angel investment tax credits

When you’re talking about federal angel investment tax credits,...