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Let’s talk about the “f” word. No, not that “f” word. Let’s talk about startup fundraising.

We’re living at an exciting time for startups and funding. For a long time, access to capital was restricted to the elite “in-crowds” in marquee cities like New York and Silicon Valley. If you didn’t live in one of those select few areas, you basically didn’t have a prayer of seeing a check from an angel or a VC.

But the tide has started to turn. Innovation can come from anywhere, and now, thanks to the Internet, the JOBS Act, and the rise of crowdfunding, so can startup funding. Even VC’s are getting wise to the fact that the best investments may not all come from the same zip code.

So now that we’re living in this brave new world of democracy in st...

Are you the same person you were a year ago? Ten years ago? Of course not. We’re all destined to evolve due to a variety of factors, whether through sudden, life-changing experiences or a slowly morphing sense of self.

Why, then, are we as businesspeople shocked when team members no longer seem to be ideal for their roles? Shouldn’t we anticipate and plan for this reality? And if we did, wouldn’t it be so much easier to move our talented co-workers into positions that make more sense according to who they are, not who they were?

Entrepreneurs everywhere would be wise to think like a Vegas dealer and consider shuffling the deck once in a while to realign everyone’s priorities.

Why Employee Misalignment Happens

When businesses start out, tea...

Lisa Wang spent four years building SheWorx, a female entrepreneur networking group and community that helped nearly 20,000 women entrepreneurs build and scale their companies. Now, the company has been acquired by the equity crowdfunding platform, Republic, with the goal of expanding their reach even further.

While SheWorx focused primarily on addressing the gender gap in venture capital funding, Republic has traditionally focused on equity crowdfunding. But Lisa tells Startups.com that her thinking about “what it actually takes to close the funding gap” for “diverse entrepreneurs” has changed during her time running SheWorx.

“If you’re going to create any significant change, you can’t keep going down the same old path you’ve always been ...

On a first foray into crowdfunding, a founder might find that things are more complicated than they thought at first. What are the best practices? What type of crowdfunding should they do? Which of the many, many sites should they go with? It becomes clear very quickly that while they might be experts in their fields, they’re certainly not crowdfunding experts.

There are plenty of perspectives out there on what to do and what not to do; plenty of crowdfunding experts who are offering their advice to new entrepreneurs. (If we’re being honest, there are probably too many.)

The same issue comes up: How do you know who to trust?

So a good plan when tackling a crowdfunding campaign is to ask the experts. From other entrepreneurs who have been t...

I’ve been a digital nomad (or “slow traveler” or “location independent worker” or whichever buzzword you prefer) for over five years now. I quit my life in 2011 after the Great Recession meant there was no way out of my dead end job as a social worker and bought a one-way ticket to Argentina. Since then, I’ve lived in more than 20 countries, worked in coworking spaces, cafes, and on trains, planes, and — yes — automobiles. And everywhere I go, the one thing that people always ask me is “What’s your favorite place you’ve lived?”

My response is immediate: Guatemala. And, to be more specific, the colonial town of Antigua Guatemala.

Four things are important to digital nomads and bootstrapping startups:

1. Reliable wifi.

2. Low cost of living.

As is the case with most big projects, crafting a business plan is one of those things that takes an incredible amount of diligence and no shortage of courage. After all, your business idea is probably more than just some passionless money-making ploy — it’s your dream that you’re getting ready to lay bare for the world to scrutinize!

Never fear!

We have 4 sample business plans here to make it all less scary.

If you approach this with a firm understanding of what key information to include in each section of your business plan and know how each section works together to form a cohesive, compelling, and — above all — persuasive whole, it will make the writing process a whole lot less daunting.

We’re about to help you do exactly that by deconstru...

There’s the developer’s vision of a mobile app and then there’s the reality of the app in the hands of users. The only way to make sure that the two are one and the same is to conduct beta tests.

If you find beta testing complicated – or you’re not even sure where to begin – then Ubertesters is the tool for you. Ubertesters is a cloud-based platform for managing the beta testing process of mobile apps “to ensure an accurate, fast and cost effective mobile testing process that results in a high-quality, flawless, mobile app.”

Figuring out if beta testing is right for your mobile app, as well as the perfect time for testing, is a good place to begin. Kissmetrics offers excellent recommendations to help make these decisions.

At some point, ho...

What is a B Corp?

Before we even dive into what a “B corp” is, we need to talk about terminology. Like a C corps or an S corps, people are often referring to a “benefit corporation” when they say “B corp.” But B corp is actually different from a benefit corporation, although they’re related.

A benefit corporation is…

A benefit corporation is a type of formal legal business structure, like a C corp or S corp. In addition to making a profit, shareholders hold benefit corporations responsible to contributing in some way to the public good. In some states, benefit corporations are required to produce proof that they’re contributing to the public good. They’re taxed the same way as C corps, which means they’re subject to double taxation.

Benefit...

As an employer, I hate what I’m about to tell you.

The best way to fund your startup company is to stay at your current job.

I’m not suggesting you stay employed so you can steal office supplies and clients. What I’m telling you is that you can make starting a business significantly less burdensome if you’re still pulling In a regular paycheck.

As long as you’re willing to invest your moonlight hours to develop your business, continuing to take a salary while launching your startup company is basically like asking your current employer to fund your new startup – without actually asking them.

There’s a way to have your cake and eat it too. It has less to do with deception and trickery, relying instead upon commitment and focus. The goal is t...

Women are starting businesses at impressive rates — but they’re still not getting as much money to fund those new businesses and startups as men are.

According to research from Kaufman, 40 percent of first time entrepreneurs in the United States are women. Even more impressive? The number of women-run businesses in the US is growing at twice the rate of man-owned businesses.

But women aren’t getting nearly as much money for those businesses as men are. In the startup world, women founders got only 2 percent of VC funding in 2017.

That means women are forced to look to other money sources when they’re looking to launch a startup or small business. And many are looking specifically for business loans for women.

However, there aren’t actually...