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As a founder working on his newest project, Andy needed really good leads. But most “email list” companies sell you a load of crappy emails; and only emails.

He wanted key influencers, specifically at tech companies, and he wanted email and phone and social links. So he built BreakoutContacts to do it.

It uses some pretty slick AI (artificial intelligence) to comb through, analyze, and validate hundreds of data points per company and person. Then, and this is the part that too many services skip, good ol’ fashioned human effort kicks in to manually re-verify everything.

The process is slow. Like, never-will-this-ever-scale slow. But, Andy has been able to get a 100% conversion rate on the contacts he’s reached out to. There’s nothing more ...

This is Part I of our interview with Rhone co-Founder and CEO Nate Checketts. Check in next week for Part II!

Hey, do we really want to do this? We don’t have to be starting a business. We have good jobs. We both have families and mortgages. We don’t have to do this.

When you’re starting a new company, the week your site launches is pretty much guaranteed to be the most stressful week of your life, even under the best circumstances.

The circumstances that Nate Checketts was dealing with in the week leading up to the launch of his company, Rhone? Let’s just say they were a little less than the best.

“A week before the launch, my co-founder’s kitchen caught on fire and nearly burned his house down. So he and his family – he had three kids a...

Startup Equity: What Should You Ask For?

If you’re already in the startup world, there’s a strong likelihood that you Founder equity (we’d be surprised if you didn’t!), but if you’re new to the industry, understanding how much to ask for in any given opportunity might be somewhat of a mystery to you. We are here with the help of fellow entrepreneurs in our community to share insights, guidelines, and other resources for anyone in the position to ask for (and receive) equity compensation from a company.

What is Equity Compensation?

Equity is the value of a company's stock, which you earn as a percentage of the company’s profits (or losses). Equity compensation can be thought of as an investment: when you own equity in a company, you're putting...

It’s time we admit the obvious: The classic business differentiators have become obsolete. Customers expect the best quality, the lowest possible price, instant delivery, and an experience that wows them every time.

Despite this change, most companies are terrified to implement the “novel” technique of being honest with customers.

Modern buyers focus intensely on customer experience and touchpoint impressions, not on which products perform well. Why? Blame the Japanese Kaizen movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s if you’d like.

Not only did Kaizen spark the total quality management movement, but it also brought defects down to negligible amounts. Customers got high-quality products, and companies suddenly found themselves competing mainly on p...

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...

CHAPTER SIX: Make Your Calendar Thoughtful

In This Chapter:

–How to hack your calendar to be more thoughtful
–How to never forget your moms birthday

Your calendar can keep you smart about meetings—But, what if we told you it can also make you a bit more thoughtful?

You may have a handful of important dates like your spouse or kids’ birthdays or perhaps some holidays sprinkled in your calendar. But what about all the other “mini anniversaries” and holidays that may be important to others that may not be easy to remember?

A great way to keep you looking 10x more thoughtful than you could ever be is to populate your calendar with a cross section of “events” that you’d love to respond to when they come up. Can’t think of any? Well, friend, th...

Startup Founders are busy. In the long list of things competing for your attention, cap table management is probably not high on the list. However, not having an accurate record of your company’s ownership structure can lead to costly mistakes down the road. Employee trust can be undermined if stock option grants are not handled properly, and closing a round of finance can be delayed, or even placed at risk if cap table errors or omissions are revealed during the due diligence process.

Captable.io is a cloud-based tool designed to make cap table creation and scenario modeling as easy as possible. Built by Founders for Founders, Captable.io is a free product that guides you step-by-step through the cap table creation process, prompting key ...

The customer experience. The task of any business is to shape the experience – to decide what it should looks like, figure out how it can be improved, and to listen to your customers. And, as Lara Crystal speaking about her company Minibar Delivery reveals, who you partner with, tech, company culture and more can play both direct and indirect roles in determining the quality of the customer experience that you provide.

…even when the outcome is something as universally appreciated as having wine brought to your doorstep, there’s so much that could go wrong. Or, if you wise up as to how things are done at Minibar Delivery, so much that can go right…

This morning’s Startups Live chat began with Lara Crystal introducing herself: “I’m the co-f...

“Micro-aggressions are the biggest barrier. They add up until people feel completely hopeless about ever being included.”

– Michelle Glauser, Founder and CEO of Techtonica

Under the big tent of Startups Live, it’s easy to forget that not everyone feels equally welcome at the startup table. Issues of diversity and inclusion – gender inequality being a big one – are real and pervasive.

But, if the movement to address such issues is going to gain traction and unleash widespread transformation, there is no better space for it to happen than here. Today, our featured guest and the movement’s conductor is Michelle Glauser, the Founder + CEO of Techtonica.

“Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself before we get started?” invited mo...

Like a lot of ambitious young women, Lisa Wang, co-Founder of the female entrepreneur networking group and community SheWorx, didn’t think that her gender was holding her back — until it did. Lisa’s first career was as a US National Champion Hall of Fame gymnast, where she was surrounded by talented, competitive women. This was followed by a short-lived career as an equity research analyst right after college, but chafed in that highly-structured environment. So, like so many talented millennials before her, she turned to tech.

“I realized that the work I was doing in finance was simply not aligned with my values,” Lisa tells Startups.co. “Having creative ownership, autonomy, and making a clear impact that aligned with my personal mission w...