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Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who look to put relatively small amounts of money into startups, typically ranging from a few thousand dollars to as much as a million dollars.

Angels are often one of the more accessible forms of early stage capital for an entrepreneur and as such are a critical part of the equity fundraising ecosystem.

The Benefits of an Angel Investor

The most beneficial aspect to working with an angel investor is that they can usually make an investment decision on their own. Not having to manage a partnership or corporate hierarchy of decision-making allows the angel investor to make bets that they feel comfortable with personally. Often this is what an entrepreneur needs, early in their startup’...

Social media is a marketing tool pre-Internet marketers could only dream of. A virtually complete directory of every consumer on the planet? Indexed and targetable by age, gender, location, and a hundred other identifiable details? Maybe in science fiction, a marketer of 40 years ago would have said.

Never forget, startup founders and marketers of the 21st century: we are living in the future.

But, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Social media is a tool. And, like, any tool, it is only as good as how it’s used – and what it’s used for. Nowhere is that more clear than in the world of social media advertising.

When it comes to social media advertising, execution is everything. And here’s the thing: ninety percent of t...

Creating an effective pitch deck is one of the most important tools for getting a new venture off the ground. It can feel like an impossible task — especially if you lack design skills or are low on funds.

However, this guide demonstrates a detailed and reliable process to create a successful pitch deck without having to outsource the work. Remain in control of your project and influence investors to get on-board. Let’s get started!

Importance of a Pitch Deck

Take this scenario as an example, my friend Luke and I have been bootstrapping a brand new project called Kangarooo. It’s a mobile interface with travel guides as well as the ability to search local activities and even book them right on the app, created specifically for travelers in ...

“Success can be achieved only through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents 1 percent of your work, which results only from the 99 percent that is called failure.”

It’s time to talk about something nobody likes to talk about. It’s time to talk about failure.

Failure is one of the most fundamental components of the startup experience – and one of the least talked about. There’s this weird thing that happens when people talk about failure: voices get hushed, people start looking around them, worried that someone might overhear.

Talking about failure is taboo #1 in the startup community – but that’s not doing us any favors. Because here’s the thing: startups fail all the time. And not only do they fail – failing at th...

The year is 1985, the month is June. Oakridge, Tennessee is hot and humid. I had recently watched a cartoon where the protagonists opened a lemonade stand, and I was inspired to do the same.

I faced a challenge in that our house was situated at the very end of a cul-de-sac and flanked by empty lots. Great for privacy, bad for foot traffic. The neighborhood was in a new area, and much of it was undergoing active development and construction.

So, in a move that predates the frenzied food truck trend by thirty years, I loaded an Igloo™ water cooler filled with fresh-made lemonade into my red Radio Flyer™ wagon. Armed with a sleeve of paper cups and my Ft. Knox combination lock piggy bank I headed down the street towards the nearest constructio...

In twenty years of covering the startup industry, this may be a first: A top VC advises people don’t follow in his footsteps. Specifically, Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson talks about his route to venture capital and how he succeeded by timing, luck, and taking longer to learn parts of the business than he may have if he’d had operating experiences.

He also talks about the ascendancy of the New York ecosystem, as a man with one of the most valuable front row seats. We talked about the ups and downs of several of his largest investments, including Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and Zynga, and he addresses the dangers of a lot of corporate venture capital groups… and putting too much time in building hype.

Fred Wilson: I was a slow starter. I...

Ever struggled to properly measure productivity within your business? You’re not alone.

A lot of growth-driven business owners have a hard time pinning down the productivity (and efficiency, for that matter) of their team members and of general operations.

As managers, we all care about productivity and the impact it has on the stability and success of our businesses. That’s why we often find ourselves thinking hard about questions like, “What is the monetary value of an employee working at maximum capacity?” and, “What processes are negatively impacting our bottom line because they’re inefficient?”

We all know how to identify productive and unproductive behavior, but the problem is, we don’t all inherently know how to best measure product...

“I remember the first time I got my own CRM system, nearly 10 years ago” recounts author and sales coach Adam Metz. “It cost a few hundred dollars all in and it was actually a desktop app that synced to the cloud once a day for backup. It now seems kind of quaint, but, it helped me start my book of business that today has over 10,000 contacts in it. I can say that I’ve had a personal conversation with almost every single one of them. And that’s thanks for the most part, to good data management.”

There are two main reasons CRM adoption fails for sales teams trying to increase their performance. But first let me get the basics out of the way to get everyone up to speed on the terminology and what a CRM is.

Download the checklist of the key f...

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...