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In the startup world, we like to think of customer experience as this mystical, ineffable thing: a magical alchemy that happens at the intersection of our product and our audience.

And the thing is – it is. When the right product finds the right audience with the right problem at the right time, the result really is magical.

Some people will try to tell you can’t systematize magic. But those people have never been to Hogwarts. Or Startups.co.

To quote the old business idiom, “People make processes. Processes make a business.” Putting a process around your customer journey doesn’t destroy the magic of customer experience – it makes it better. When you systematize your customer experience, you turn customer delight into a process you can rep...

There’s an old adage that says “Entrepreneurs do what other people won’t in order to do what other people can’t.”

The suggestion there is spot on – that the entrepreneurs who get to live the life people dream about did so because they were willing to make the sacrifices it took to make that life happen.

So the question really is: can you afford not to be an entrepreneur?

If the answer is “yes,” your life will probably be just fine doing whatever it is that you enjoy doing. But if you really want a taste for what it means to control your own world and reap the benefits of taking risks, starting off on your own is really the only option.

A Paycheck versus a Payout

Most people equate starting and growing a business to the financial rewards of ...

Question: What is one major lesson you learned from a failed company?

The answers below are provided by members of FounderSociety, an invitation-only organization comprised of ambitious startup founders and business owners.

Don’t Stop Innovating

Before there was Yelp, there was CitySearch. It was a similar concept and was the go-to site for finding places around the city. But just as quickly as it rose, it declined. It stopped innovating and updates to the site were slow. From the outside, it seemed as if hubris and failing to innovate killed them. The lesson learned for me is when you stop innovating, your company fades away.

— John Arroyo
Arroyo Labs, Inc.

Don’t Rush to Expand Geographically

As the founder of a rapidly growing food startu...

Starting a startup isn’t just about opening your doors or launching your website. Long before that happens, it’s about planning to launch.

There’s a real art form in the planning, and those who have launched a lot of startups — as we have — approach launching a new idea very differently from someone who’s just taking on their first startup.

Simply put — we emphasize spending as little time as possible on chasing ideas that may not work. We’re nuts about efficiency.

We know that time is both our friend and our greatest enemy. And we do everything we can to protect our time so it’s spent in the most efficient way possible.

So what does that actually look like? Here are 10 steps to launching a startup, from someone who’s been there (a few time...

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...

Unless you spent July of 2017 living in an underground bomb shelter with no Internet, you probably heard something about a certain Google memo, in which a Google engineer attempted to argue that the company was putting too much emphasis on diversity.

The memo quickly went viral, first within Google, then around the tech-sphere, and finally across the country. But somehow, amidst the storm of tweets, posts, and think-pieces on the subject, the most important points got lost: why team diversity matters in the first place, and what startups and other companies can do to make sure they’re building the strongest, most diverse, most kickass team they can.

So, we decided to devote a session of Startups Live to talking about exactly that. Joining u...

Many startup founders find themselves taking out their first business loans as they’re working to get their company launched. But, like so many other things in the startup world, it can be really harrowing to approach first time business loans — because you haven’t done it before! So here’s your comprehensive guide to first time business loans, including what to expect, how to prep, where to find them, and how to apply.

Should startups apply for first time business loans?

Unfortunately, first time 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 ar...

Everyone talks about starting companies — yet no one ever tells us how to shut them down.

That's because by the time startups go into this dark, hazy abyss called "shut down" mode, things get really quiet. We stop hearing from Founders, investors start talking about other "hot new investments," and the media has moved on long ago.

That doesn't change the fact that most startups fail, and with that, Founders need to have a grounded understanding in how to wind down their startups gracefully.

This is very difficult advice for a frustrated Founder to seek because it's often embarrassing to even ask, or in some cases, the people they need to seek counsel with are actually connected to the business.

So for all of my fellow Founders who are wre...

Growth won’t happen without some sacrifices. One of those sacrifices that has to be made is surrendering your ability to do it all (that is, all aspects of your business) by yourself. Tim Ferriss summed it up well when he said, “Focus on being PRODUCTIVE, instead of simply BUSY.”

Productive founders know that in order to scale their businesses, they need to be able to get out of the daily details, and into big picture thinking. But in order to do that, they have to outsource.

From Virtual Assistants, to freelance support, to hiring an expert to handle specific tasks, outsourcing means less hours spent tearing out your hair over tedious tasks, and more time pushing your company forward into the future.

You can do that, too. To help get the ...

As entrepreneurs, we identify problems in the market, think up potential solutions and jump right into building a product. Sadly, we often skip the most important part of building a startup — customer validation.

As entrepreneurs, why do we make this mistake over and over again?

Our instincts are to focus on tactical work that is within our control. Building a product is heads-down, tangible work that can be done day and night without any outside dependencies slowing us down. We open our laptops and start designing and coding. But, we get so caught up in our passion for building that we lose sight of the target customer’s perspective.

Why should you validate your startup idea before you build?

Many founders brush aside the importance of ea...