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The web has made it possible for everyone from prospective customers to business partners to potential employees to see at the click of a mouse or the tap of a screen what companies have to offer. If upon first glance they see unhappy customers or poor reviews, there’s a very real potential of permanent damage to a business’s bottom line.

Companies’ online reputations reflect how the businesses conduct themselves and how they operate on a daily basis. Increasingly, customers are turning to the information they find online when deciding whether to engage with a brand.

To cultivate a healthy online presence, companies need to constantly demonstrate why people should come to them as industry leaders and trustworthy partners — both in daily cus...

Don’t miss out! Check out the previous editions here:

–Getting Your Idea Going: There is no perfect idea
–Getting Your Idea Going: Popular Excuses for Not Starting
–Getting Your Idea Going: When to Jump Ship

Every entrepreneur daydreams about walking into their boss’s office to proclaim: “I quit!”—and then loudly declaring “Freedom!” a la WIlliam Wallace in Braveheart.

However—If you recall—this also involves the part where you get ceremoniously beheaded which (let’s face it) kinda-sorta ruins the whole celebration.

Before you quit your job and get all pumped to be the Founder of a new startup that writes checks instead of cashing them—let me give you a few things to think about.

You Need Personal Runway

Everyone talks about how much “run...

You’ve probably heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, right? Just in case you’ve been living under a rock — here is a quick recap:

In 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow proposed that humans have a five “levels” of needs, usually drawn in the shape of a pyramid.

The needs at the bottom of the pyramid are physiological needs that are necessary for survival: food, water, warmth, rest.

The next level up is “safety,” followed by “belongingness and love,” then “esteem,” and, at the very top of the pyramid, “self-actualization.” The basic idea is that humans need to meet those basic needs first, before they can be concerned about the needs further up the pyramid.

Makes sense, right? You can’t really think about transcendence when your stom...

It’s hard to think of anything more closely associated with the startup experience than pitching to investors.

Think about it: virtually every hackathon ends in a pitch competition. The promise of pitching to real, live investors is the grand prize at incubators everywhere. There are whole television shows devoted to following people as they pitch their company. Podcasts, too.

And no wonder: when you’re pitching to investors, you’re putting your heart on the line, spilling your guts about why you believe down to your bones that this business needs to happen – and you need to be the one to lead it. It’s not hard to see why that makes for compelling viewing/listening.

But there’s another reason the investor pitch is so iconic: because it’s so...

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...

Vacation. A concept that sounds nice in theory, but is a total bitch for startups to pull off. Or is it?

For a startup founder, the logistics are terrifying. Who’s going to meet with those investors? Who’s going to start that COO search you planned a month ago? Who’s going to run your next evaluation? (Heaven KNOWS Jim can’t do it.) That generously crafted vacation policy that you dangled as an incentive to your early employees doesn’t apply to you, right?

According to a report from Project: Time Off, created to cast a new light on our country’s view of vacation days, we leave an astounding $224 billion in unused vacation time on balance sheets each year. The workaholic tendencies are even worse for startup founders, who have no “vaca...

Looking for minority business loans? You’re not the only one. It’s no secret that the tech world is overwhelming male and overwhelming white. Study after study has shown that not only do underrepresented groups pitch less to angel investors and venture capitalists, they also receive less money when they do pitch. And when it comes to loans? Same problem. Underrepresented groups consistently receive less money than white men on loans.

For example, a 2014 study from researchers at Brigham Young University recruited nine “mystery shoppers” to go and seek small business loans. Three were black; three were Hispanic; and three were white. They all wore the same clothing, had nearly identical backgrounds, and asked for $60,000 for identical busine...

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 have a confession to make: I’ve left my one-time beloved SoulCycle for a younger bike. For a Peloton.

It’s fitting that the two places I keep seeing Peloton ads are on cable news commercial breaks and in my social feeds: Because that’s where all my unhealthy election angst is generated, and there’s no greater way to deal with that angst than 45 minutes of balls-to-the-wall intense cardio.

“Y’all came to slay!” my favorite Peloton instructor likes to say as if he can see my sweat through the tablet screen. Yep, slay my workplace stress and slay my fear of Donald Trump being president—all in one spot. That marketing can’t be an accident.

Peloton– in case you don’t spend as much times in those mediums as I do– is the in-home answer to the...

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.