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In the popular 1980’s movie “Dune,” man learned that by “folding space” the distance between two points shortened and he could cover those distances faster.

Around 1995, we found a substance that could bend time in the business community – it was called Venture Capital. With enough of it, we could compress the evolution of a startup company from a few decades to a few years. Companies like Amazon, eBay and most recently Google showed us that billion dollar companies could be built in years, not decades.

What was more interesting is that these companies began growing faster even as the venture capital markets dried up completely. They found a better approach to growing at a dizzying rate – by compressing time.

Compression in Action

Compressi...

If there’s one thing that’s more available than ever for founders in 2018, it’s advice. Not a day goes by without someone recommending a book, blog, podcast or conference that I can’t miss, or someone I ‘have to meet’.

On the other hand, we all know that the secret to success is not as simple as following instructions from [insert your favorite unicorn]’s playbook and just doing what those before you have done successfully.

Perhaps this explains why it is so easy to forget the obvious source of insight, advice and perspective that you have right in front of your nose, the people that you have spent the most time courting and that have cost you the most – your team.

This article shares some of the reasons why our own team has become one of t...

Startup Grind sat down with Minerva Tantoco, New York City’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer. As CTO, she is working to develop a citywide tech strategy and to encourage collaboration across other government agencies. While the Mayor’s Office of Technology isn’t classified as a startup, Tantoco argues that with the right mindset, you can turn any job into a startup.

“Working for a small company molded the rest of my career”

Tantoco’s first 5 years of employment were for an artificial intelligence startup in Silicon Valley. Being a young woman trying to fit in definitely had its challenges. She wasn’t even old enough to rent a car! While she looks back on those years as some of her best and worst experiences, she made sure to note that t...

John Tabis was doing fine at his old job. More than fine, actually: he was Director of Corporate Brand Development at Disney.

But instead of continuing to rock the cushy corporate life, John teamed up with his friend Juan Pablo (JP) Montufar-Arroyo and launched The Bouqs, an online flower delivery company. Neither of them had very much money so they went to friends and family and pulled together $13,000 to get started.

That was four years ago. Today, they’re working with nearly $20 million in VC money — and John definitely doesn’t miss Disney.

A native Ecuadorian who grew up on a rose farm, JP witnessed firsthand the low prices, slow payment, and rampant waste that plague the traditional flower supply chain. And on the online branding side ...

Technological advancements and an improving economy suggest a bright future for graduates seeking employment, but there is still great debate over the necessity of a degree for prospective employees. The global job market is shifting and still relies heavily on the structure of academia, but there are steps that you can take outside of structured education that increase qualification for esteemed careers.

1.9 million graduates from America’s ‘Class Of 2017’, are set to enter a working world that offers more potential than ever before. Employers will hire 5% more graduates compared to last year, and a burgeoning gig economy offers a lucrative channel for new entrepreneurs to launch their own careers.

As business environments develop in tand...

In programming, there’s a concept called “technical debt.” It’s the idea that you can build something well or you can build it quickly — but not both. A site or an app that’s built super fast is going to be buggy; that’s just the reality of the limitations of human creation. But sometimes — especially in the fast-paced world of startups — it’s worth it to release something quickly, bugs and all, with the knowledge that you’ll fix it (i.e. pay off your technical debt) in the near future.

Didier Elzinga, CEO of Culture Amp, borrowed the concept of technical debt and created the idea of “diversity debt.” It applies to hiring practices in any company, where every time you make a new hire, you’re either incurring more diversity debt or paying it...

Most startups find their first lawyers via their personal network.

“I know a guy who knows a guy.” — Saul Goodman

That’s how I started, too.

My co-founder and I got an intro to Orrick who temporarily delayed our first $10,000 of legal fees until we raised a seed round.

The first $10,000 included our company’s legal structure, incorporation, cap table, and our first convertible notes.

It was definitely more expensive than it had to be.

From there, my co-founder and I personally handled a lot of the duplicate work for our seed round raise, as well as drafted our own legal documents with help from free legal document templates online.

That saved us around $40,000 if we were going by Orrick’s rates ($200-$800/hour).

The other $60,000 was saved...

Out of the hundreds of thousands of people using my company Open Listings to shop for and buy homes, I thought I knew who our worst users were — even by name.

There was Sarah* in San Diego who went on 134 home tours before finally buying one. Then, there’s Dan in San Francisco who’s asked our in-house agent team questions about nearly 1,000 properties but hasn’t submitted an offer on a home yet. And, there was Chris, who tried to negotiate our already low fee down to zero by blackmailing us with negative online reviews.

As CEO, I cared deeply about all users and every shred of feedback. I read every review, internalized problems, and prioritized solutions. I felt confident that we were super customer-centric and solving the most important p...

Imagine having easy access to the information spread across all of your devices and apps. Really, take a moment to think about how being able to quickly find anything you’ve seen in your digital life might transform your world.

Consider the hours, the days you’ve lost… Various studies show that workers spend 20% of their time searching for information and gathering data.

We are remarkably bad at retrieving information that we’ve already seen. So bad, it brings to mind the George Carlin bit on little moments that we all share: Did you ever look at your watch and then you don’t know what time it is? So you look again, and you still don’t know the time. And you look a third time, and somebody says, “What time is it?” and you say, “I don’t know...

Entrepreneurs are lone wolves by nature. Even those who successfully lead great teams tend to work the longest hours and make the greatest sacrifices for their companies. That resolute independence is essential to bring projects to fulfillment, but when it comes to healthy living and personal growth, it is less beneficial.

Gallup’s research found that 45 percent of entrepreneurs report feeling stressed, a slightly higher rate than that of the average worker. Feelings of loneliness and isolation can worsen the stress brought on by already substantial workloads.

Despite the risks, entrepreneurs do what it takes to succeed. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt famously worked 100-hour weeks for more than 20 years. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz l...