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Data has shown that companies with more women leaders are also more profitable. At Plated, an NY-based company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes each week, women leaders are committed to growing and developing a culture of female empowerment and leadership from the bottom up.

BAWS (Bad Ass Women’s Society), Plated’s internal women’s group, was born from the realization that Plated was a first job or a first startup environment for many of the women working in HQ.

“Having this group here to meet and do things every week makes us happier employees who work better together on their own, so the return on investment is clear. Having a support group helps us all work better,” said Elana.

Besides helping the team work better tog...

Have you ever wondered why people like, comment, and share on Facebook? If you haven’t, you should. Why? Because understanding why people enjoy doing these things will help you generate more Facebook traffic.

So, if you want to get more Facebook traffic, first you need to understand what motivates people to use Facebook. I’ve created this infographic to help you gain that understanding:

Click on the image below to see a larger view:

Click here to view an enlarged version of this infographic.

Conclusion

When it comes to generating traffic from Facebook, I’ve seen firsthand that writing blog posts that are interesting, important, timely, and funny usually does the trick.

By leveraging the data in the infographic above, you should start seein...

Years ago, I was having ice cream with my wife on a hot summer night and I overheard a group of 16-year-olds talking about how one of them went to work with his dad. I remember him saying:

“I went to his office and it was so boring. Everything was bright lights and pale colors. If I had to be in an office all day I’d make it just like my bedroom and enjoy hanging out there.”

I distinctly remember looking at my wife and saying, “That kid has it figured out. I spend 14 hours a day in a room I don’t want to be in with a job that I love.” I vowed one day to change that.

That was ten years ago. It apparently took a really long time for me to act on this one, but I finally did, and I have to say – the kid knew what was up.

Love Your Workplace

In ...

Question: What is the No. 1 thing I should avoid when making my first-ever pitch and why?

The answers below are provided by members of FounderSociety, an invitation-only organization comprised of ambitious startup founders and business owners.

Not Communicating Your Value Proposition

Don’t lose focus of the overall goal of communicating your value proposition. If the prospect fails to see it, you’ll never get them sold no matter how hard you tried or how much effort went into your sales deck.

— Steven Newlon
SYN3RGY Creative Group

Winging It

The best pitches look like they’re off-the-cuff, but they’re not. Smooth delivery and confidence comes from a lot of practice. I’ve heard so many people say, “I speak best when it’s not rehearsed” or “I...

Getting taken seriously as a Founder is real work.

It's not some entitlement that's handed to us when we've achieved some career milestone. No matter who we are, we all have to fight for our ability to get taken seriously.

Why do I need to work so hard, shouldn't people reserve judgment?

That would be fantastic, but the world just doesn't work that way. Especially among Founders whose credibility is tested on so many fronts — from acquiring customers, to pitching investors to hiring staff.

Our ability to establish our credibility early and often is critical to our success from the moment we found the company.

How can I change the way I present myself in a room?

Believe it or not, body language sends huge signals.

A well-presented Founder ...

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 ...

The past few years have seen an explosion of podcasts — it seems like everyone wants to get in on the audio. And startup founders (many of whom have probably been listening to podcasts since they started in the early aughts) are no exception! But how do you know what to listen to in this vast sea of startup podcasts?

Don’t worry — we have you covered. Here are the top 20 best startup podcasts as we head into 2020. Grab your noise cancelling earphones — and get listening.

1. Startup Therapy

Hosted by Startups.com founders and serial entrepreneurs Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan, Startup Therapy is an inside perspective on issues startup founders really care about. From what to expect in your first year after launching to how to deal with the e...

Cameron Herold is an accomplished entrepreneur and growth guru, having built 4 companies to over $100 million in revenue. He is also the author of Double Double, a guide to doubling revenue and profit in 3 years. Cameron sat down with us to share three of his best growth strategies for building a successful company. Read more below or watch the full video here.

Create a Vivid Vision

This “vivid vision” is a 3-4 page written description of exactly what you want your company to be three years from now. More specific than a mission statement, this paints a picture of your ideal company and makes it easy for employees to work towards that vision. Once you have the final plan, it is easy to reverse engineer and create manageable steps to get to...

Why are Founders often so lonely? It's a combination of things.

First, unlike most other jobs, Founders often don't have a lot of relatable peers in their close-knit group. Most people can sit at lunch and complain about their jobs and get a bunch of nods.

Us Founders often explain what we're going through and get the "thousand-yard stare" from someone wondering how to get out of the conversation.

What do Founders do in this case?

The first thing they do is to find other Founders to meet up with.

The one amazing thing about Founders, by the way, is that they immediately tend to connect with and appreciate other Founders.

It's amazing.

Every Founder understands what it means to be staring into the abyss daily, and how those feelings are...

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.” It’s inspirational, always calling the team to try harder and do better. It works to undermine excuses for poor or shoddy work. And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Especially in teams that are managing by objectives (or OKRs), the pressure to deliver is intense. Under such pressure, the temptation to cut corners, to quit prematurely, or to hand off shoddy work to another department is overwhelming. It requires courage to stand up and say: “this work is simply not good enough. Sure, we could get away with it, but that’s not how we work.” Good managers work hard ...