Long after our startup is done, no matter what the outcome, our Founder reputations will live on.

And for many of us, that could actually present a real problem.

Unlike our resumes, which present essentially one dimension of our lives (our job performance), our Founder Reputation is built on how our performance affects so many people — employees, investors, customers, the media, and even our personal relationships.

Founder Reputations are Easy to Tarnish

From the get-go, we have two huge obstacles working against creating a great reputation.

First, we're about to build an organization that will likely (statistically) fail. It's sort of hard to build a winning reputation on the back of a potential failure that could result in the loss of job...

Retirement is a beautiful lie we Founders tell ourselves.

We fantasize about one day selling our startup, retiring, and living this gifted life that makes all of our sacrifices worthwhile. We see this perfect existence that was only constrained by the shackles of our work and the drudgery that was our startup.

Yet it turns out while it may be a fantasy for us, many enterprising Founders before us have actually playtested this fantasy for real. As it happens, nearly all of us develop some version of the same fantasy and later on come to the same (much more sober) reality.

It turns out, it's really easy to tell ourselves what we're going to do when we retire, but actually doing any of that stuff is harder than building the startup it took to ...

Fundraising is the lifeblood of any non-profit. Unfortunately, it also takes a significant amount of time and volunteer effort to make outbound calls and knock on doors. Since most of your volunteers aren’t professionally-trained fundraising experts, it can be difficult to solicit donations and support.

Traditional channels for fundraising are also less effective than they once were. You’ll need to pivot and try new avenues to gain donor support in a digital age.

How to Leverage Content Marketing to Attract Donors and Supporters

Today, much of the marketing and advertising done by major brands and successful nonprofits is based on content. Content marketing takes a variety of forms, and for the nonprofit it offers a great way to share the ...

What happens when the people who helped start a company are no longer qualified to work there?

▸ What about Kimberly who became CFO because she was the only person at the time who had taken an accounting course?

▸ How do you find a home for Willis who was the jack-of-all-trades …but now is the master of none?

▸ Should Arnold still be leading the engineering team even though he has less experience than the entire team now?

As our startups mature, we are quickly faced with the harsh reality that the folks that were critical at one stage of our growth are woefully under-qualified for our current state of operations. Things get weird. We can feel the tension mounting as we try to wrestle with our own evolution and how it impacts each team membe...

I think I’ve won the startup game. No, I didn’t sell my company for a billion dollars. I didn’t raise at a unicorn valuation. I’m not headlining TechCrunch Disrupt.

I won because I decided to not give a shit about any of that. I opted out. I focused on my own business and stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing.

It was the most life changing thing I ever did. And, now I’m hoping you join me.

I GREW UP WHEN I SHUT DOWN

My victory didn’t come from what I did – it came from what I stopped doing.

• I stopped paying attention to what other people posted on social media.
• I stopped worrying about what was reported in startup news.
• I stopped comparing my success to how my friends were doing.
• I stopped trying to sell people at coc...

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.

Stream keys, bitrates, codecs. If you’re familiar with live streaming, you know why these terms make people reach for aspirin. If you’re curious about live streaming and interested in jumping in yourself, you can be thankful that you’ll never have to trouble yourself with issues related to these words.

Lightstream is “a beautiful, intuitive, drag-n-drop broadcast studio in your browser that makes it easy for anyone to become a streamer.” No downloads required. No technical expertise necessary. Free of charge.

Set up an account and you can stream directly to platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, or Beam. Simple drag-n-drop lets you easily add assets such as webcam, art overlays and display feeds. Basically, going live is as easy as clic...

How are angel investors different from venture capitalists?

We’ll dive into the details of the differences between angel investors and venture capitalist below, but here’s a wide angle of view first:

Angel investors are wealthy individuals (or groups of wealthy individuals) who invest their own money into companies.

Venture capitalists (VCs) are employees of venture capital firms that invest other people’s money (which they hold in a fund) into companies.

Now let’s take a closer at the two, before diving into the specific differences.

What are angel investors?

Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who invest very early into the formation of a new startup company, usually in exchange for equity or convertible debt. The ro...

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.

Crowdfunding is a rapidly growing industry. Below, we explore key statistics including the average raise sizes, the impact marketing has on average raise, and the underlying demographics driving crowdfunding.

KEY CROWDFUNDING STATISTICS

Crowdfunding has Raised A LOT of Money

What may have seemed like a niche way to raise money at first is now a major force in fundraising. Worldwide, companies and individuals ha...

It’s so easy to get hung up on the details. Don’t get me wrong, they are all important. Your logo, for example, is a key piece of your branding. But should you spend months agonizing over the fonts and icons used in your logo? Should you wait until you can afford a professional designer to create a logo before you go forward with your startup?

If your answer to those questions is “Hell, no!”, then you’ll want to have a look at MakeLogoOnlineFree.com (MLOF). MLOF is a simple tool that enables anyone to create a free logo in minutes – and not some napkin doodle logo, but a professional logo that will make your business proud.

Making a logo truly couldn’t be any easier than using MLOF’s free logo generator. You enter the name of your brand, e...