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Let’s stop work shaming people that like to work hard and using “work/life balance” as an easy expression to do so.

“I work to live, I don’t live to work”

“I really need a work/life balance”

Whenever someone says this or any variation of this as though it is a new idea I can’t help but roll my eyes and think “Duh”. People say it as though there is someone in the room that feels differently or will argue with them…as though someone is going to stand up and challenge them to say “I put work above my family — you should too!”… Please.

The truth? The conversation isn’t about family at all. These conversations tend to come up when someone is feeling like they aren’t doing well at work or aren’t doing well at home, though somehow it get’s twist...

We all dream about it. Cashing out, getting The Big Check™ and going on a shopping spree with “Bentleys and Benjamins”. But, once the fanfare wears off — What actually happens to all of us?

Do we walk away with a perma-smile until the day we die? Or do we just trade one set of problems for another? Are we actually happier?

As a Founder with a few exits of my own, I’ve had this conversation with dozens of Founders post-exit who have had anything from a $1 million exit to a multi billion dollar exit. What’s fascinating is that all of our outcomes tend to tell roughly the same story — and it’s rarely what anyone thinks it is.

Everyone has their own version of their outcome, but if I were to generalize my observations after some very deep ...

If you’ve arrived at a crossroads in your life when you’ve realized that making another buck won’t make you any happier or more fulfilled, you’re not alone. The question is, what can you do about it?

It took being in a morphine-infused, bedridden state in a hospital at age 39 for me to reconsider what business meant to me.

Staring my own mortality in the face, I asked myself the question: “If I died today, did I make difference?” The answer was a resounding no. There was so much more I could be doing. I knew that success is not about what you “get” in life, but about what you give. From that moment I vowed to become a “go-giver” instead of a “go-getter” and to instill a new conscious capitalist mindset into how I approached doing business.

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...

Crowdfunding at a glance

Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital through the collective effort of friends, family, customers, and individual investors.

This approach taps into the collective efforts of a large pool of individuals — primarily online via social media and crowdfunding platforms — and leverages their networks for greater reach and exposure.

How is crowdfunding different from other types of finance?

Crowdfunding is essentially the opposite of the mainstream approach to business finance. Traditionally, if a person want to raise capital to start a business or launch a new product, they would need to pack up their business plan, market research, and prototypes, and then shop their idea around to a limited pool or wealthy indiv...

Today’s Favorite Find: GoDaddy Logo Design Service

Elevator Pitch

GoDaddy’s new Logo Design Service is “professional web services offering that enables GoDaddy customers to refine their online image with a logo professionally designed and customized to their requirements.”

Why We Love It

I’ve spent a good portion of the past four years on the internet. Scratch that — I’ve probably spent the majority of the past four years on the internet. As a professional blogger and a startup-focused professional blogger, specifically, I’ve looked at way more than my fair share of company logos over the years. There have been some good, some bad, and some terrible (looking at you with that new nonsense, Uber). And I’m here to tell you that your logo de...

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...

How Hard is it to Get a Business Loan?

Unfortunately, business loans can be difficult for startups to procure.

That’s because while some funding sources in the startup ecosystem — like VCs and angel investors — are looking to take big risks, traditional financial institutions like banks generally aren’t.

You’re going to need to show that you have perfect personal (and probably business) credit and they might even require that you’re profitable or on track to become profitable. Generally, banks prefer businesses that have a proven track record when they’re handing out loans.

But that doesn’t mean business loans are impossible for startup founders! It’s just something to keep in mind when you’re considering a bank loan as a funding source.

How much should a startup Founder pay themselves?

Should we show our commitment and work for nothing? Or should we try to at least match how much we made at our last jobs? How do we have a salary discussion with ourselves? What about our co-founders or investors?

The problem with negotiating a startup salary, even if it's with ourselves, is that we often compare this discussion to how we've thought about salaries in the past. We use the false comparison of a traditional company salary, or we go to the other extreme and assume we have to work for nothing but high fives.

Neither is true.

Startup Founders and their teams simply need to calibrate compensation to how startups themselves grow: dynamically and based on milestones.

Startups Don...

Access is power, and customers have never had more access than they do today. The Internet brings products and services worldwide right to a customer’s fingertips — and simultaneously brings the customer’s experience to the world. With an abundance of choice, dissatisfied (or bored) customers can brand-hop with ease. And with a tweet or a Facebook Live post, customers can make or break a company’s carefully crafted image.

But knowledge is also power, and startups can take advantage of it. If you truly know your customer and understand what it takes to transform new customers into loyal fans, you can restore the balance of power, ensuring revenue is headed in the right direction.

Customer Experience Drives Revenue Growth

A 2016 study by For...