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"I'm seeing these events and groups popping up everyone asking me to network with other Founders, other marketers, devs, growth hackers, or anyone else in the startup community.

Between all the events, conferences, groups and whatnot — should I be spending my valuable time network or just focusing on my startup?"

If you have to ask, the answer is "No"

Most networking is a waste of time.

That's not because having a useful professional network isn't helpful, it's because how we often go about it is really unfocused.

Avoid random networking events

Sure, it's possible that if we go to SXSW we might happen to run into someone that can somehow be useful... someday...maybe.

But wouldn't it make more sense to put that time and expense toward set...

If a company could receive Vitamin C, what form would it take? Coordination, collaboration, communication. Startup Collabe offers the three in one multipack, bundled together in the form of a “team communication platform designed to streamline internal communication for modern teams spread across the globe.”

Recently launched, Collabe aims to deliver that elusive, perfect mix of flexibility and organization that lets teams get work done with optimal efficiency. Availability across all platforms and devices starts Collabe off on the right foot.

Slack users will find noticeable similarities, which isn’t a bad thing – many of us have adopted Slack as our preferred communication tool. For Collabe’s part, it allows users to form teams, public a...

It’s no secret that college in the United States has become incredibly expensive.

Student debt in the US is currently close to $1.5 trillion in total and people graduate with an average $37,172 in debt.

And while politicians debate about what to do about it and investors tell young startup founders to quit the college rat race altogether, one company is working on a solution from within the system to help people afford their degrees.

That company is OnlineDegree.com, a free platform that helps students reduce the cost of college by around 30 percent.

As “a modern alternative to junior college,” OnlineDegree.com lets students accumulate up to 44 transferrable credits via their online classes.

All of the courses can be completed at the st...

This is a stupid idea. Why did I quit my job? Why did my friends say they liked this idea? I bet they were just humoring me. What if nobody likes it? I have no clue what I am doing. I should ask for my old job back.

If you are even a month into starting your own business I am going to hazard a guess that at least one of these thoughts has popped into your mind. You’re not alone. Self-doubt is natural even for the most confident of people, your business is essentially a highly visible, physical manifestation of your beliefs and thoughts. So yes, it is scary exposing yourself in that way, the same way it would be scary if you were to share your love letters (Snapchats nowadays) with the world.

But this is not a good reason to stop or slow do...

Do you know all of the possible types of business your startup could be? It’s probably not at the top of the list — but it should be. The legal formation of your business — or, in other words, the type of business you form — affects everything from the structure of your company to your personal and professional liability to how you pay taxes. It’s a lot — we know.

And when you’re setting up a startup, you have a lot going on. You have to figure out your market. You have to determine what you’re going to sell them. You have to create a website, social media presence, a blog. You have to pitch and find investment and, and, and…

The list is so long that it can be overwhelming. But if you’re committed to getting a startup going, then you’re com...

Mergers and acquisition–commonly referred to as M&A–can be an exciting and even critical part of a company’s growth strategy. When done right, a successful M&A can help two companies gain valuable market share, expand their product portfolios, increase profits and inject more equity into their brands. But when M&As go wrong, it can be quite a different story, involving cultural clashes, litigation, epic losses and even bankruptcy.

Way too many companies rush headlong into these professional marriages without spending the time to first carry out their due diligence. Yet, an M&A is one of the most important decisions you can make for your company’s future and sufficient research needs to be conducted.

What Does M&A Due Diligence Involve?

M&A...

Let me first admit: I am a recovering long-hour champion.

For nearly 3 decades, if you asked me how many hours I work, I would just say "All of them." I wore it as a badge of honor. For almost 20 years it never occurred to me that you could drive to or from work in daylight. For my first three years of my startup career I didn't see my family or celebrate Christmas.

Now let me admit what a colossal flipping waste of energy that was.

Yes, I created great startups and had some success. Yes, a lot of that "hard work" was necessary. But now, with the benefit of history and having watched thousands of startups go from zero to something, I've come to learn something:

Those long hours were a symptom of inefficiency, not a default badge of honor ...

A Founder that doesn't understand startup finance is a liability to the company.

The very survival of a startup comes down to whether we have enough cash to survive. If the Founder can't answer that question, it'd be like hopping on a jet with a pilot that doesn't understand how to read the altimeter, compass, or fuel gauge. They might be a great pilot, but without knowing the fundamentals, that trip is going to end poorly.

Fortunately, Founders don't need an MBA in finance to be competent, we just need to understand a few basic principles very well. While I'm the Founder + CEO of Startups.com, I'm also our CFO. That's because I learned long ago that with a solid understanding of just a few key principles, we can make (and avoid!) really cr...

As Founders, we spend an inordinate amount of time setting and pursuing goals, yet the ones that truly matter — the ones that affect us personally — are often amorphous. If we're spending every waking moment working toward a goal, it stands to reason that our goals should have an insane amount of fidelity.

Where Does it all Start?

I remember my early years as an entrepreneur. I had a lot of ideas about what success meant for me and for the company that I was building. But, it wasn't until I had spent several years working on my business that I finally realized why felt unsatisfied.

I didn't have a clear definition of success.

This is a problem that plagues many entrepreneurs who want to build something great, but don't know how to define su...

Who cares how fast we can scale if we're not around long enough to do it?

That was our motto at Startups.com since Day One. While it's a ton of fun to think of grand growth strategies to take over the world, it kinda helps to be solvent enough as a company to see them through (at least that's what we've heard). What we've developed over the past decade are essentially two strategies for every major initiative — a "Downside Strategy" where we plan out the worst that could happen and an "Upside Strategy" which considers growth.

Most startups don't actually do this. Instead, we have basically a growth strategy and then in the back of our minds, we sort of formulate this "Oh Shit! Strategy" which loosely envisions what could happen if this does...