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In order to keep their sanity, investors have to look for signals to determine which emails to even open — much less respond to. This is where the art of contacting investors gets interesting.

How important are personal connections?

The most important, by far.

If we had to compare an email sent through a trusted connection with a crappy company versus a cold email with a great company, chances are the crappy company would get a response. That's because investors put so much weight on whether the introduction is being vetted through a trusted friend.

But my deal is so sweet, won't that help?

Not if the e-mail never gets opened or read.

The first goal in contacting investors is to get them to even look at you. The second goal is to get the...

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...

Today I’m really excited to share some great news: we’ve just completed the acquisition of Zana.io, a world-class educational platform for startups.

Zana is the brainchild of my friend Shea Tate-Di Donna. While at True Ventures, she created the well-regarded “True University” to help educate their 150 portfolio companies on the best practices for starting a company. That effort led to the formation of Zana as an extension of Shea’s dream to democratize the type of learning often reserved only for venture-funded Silicon Valley companies.

Educating entrepreneurs is one of the most critical initiatives we’ve embraced at Startups.co, and we couldn’t be happier to bring Zana into our family to help drive us forward.

Now 1 million startups on our...

I recently experienced the first time that an employee had been hired, worked in a position for a significant amount of time and then left the company before I had the chance to meet them. An entire employment life cycle had occurred without my direct involvement and influence. (Yay for effective systems that made this happen!). It was one of those times where I had to shake myself out of the denial that we are still a small company. We have grown to 5 businesses across three regions and I no longer see all the new faces upon hire. Though I prided myself on knowing everyone’s name the first few years and I can no longer say that to be true. That said, there are several things I know that need to happen for me to learn someone’s name very q...

Editors Note: Earlier this month Etsy revealed in its Q1 earnings report that the board is replacing Chad Dickerson, who has been CEO since 2011 and took the company public in 2015.

Josh Silverman, who joined Etsy’s board in November, will take over as CEO, while fellow board member Fred Wilson will be taking over Dickerson’s role as chairman of the board. Etsy is also losing CTO John Allspaw.

Dickerson said in a statement: “It has been an honor to lead Etsy as CEO for the past six years and the three years before that as CTO, the Board decided that it was time for new leadership to take Etsy forward and I support that decision.”

Here’s something you don’t hear in today’s unicorn “crushing it!” era of startups: “There’s something about los...

I read a popular article recently arguing why anti-lean startups are back because lean isn’t a…viable…way for ambitious startups tackling new domains, like artificial intelligence, to take moonshots.

Hmmmm…

As a practitioner of lean startup achieving high growth in Fin-Tech, I’m intrigued with counter-arguments to the methodology.

The article states getting paying customers is an anti-lean advantage:

“Anti-lean ventures, which have what lean startups sometimes lack, customers willing to pay for them. This fact alone upends the usual freemium model!”

Actually, points can be made that lean startups are particularly good with validating market (willingness to pay) risk.

Many lean startup experiment designs like ‘Wizard of Oz’ or ‘Concierge...

There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult. — Rainer Maria Rilke

In 1929 a collection of ten letters was published under the title “Letters to a Young Poet”, written by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old officer cadet. The young officer had written Rilke a letter asking for guidance and they corresponded — the two never met in person. In this piece are “double-quoted” extracts from Rilke’s letters.

An American invention

When the great business thinker Peter Drucker wrote that the “CEO” title was “an American invention”, he was referring to this label in the organizational charts of large corporations. What’s odd about this title in start...

What is company culture?

Despite how obsessed the startup world is with company culture, there’s no singular definition we can all turn to. But there are really two parts to it: Philosophical and practical.

On a philosophical level, company culture is the intangible atmosphere of your company. Some people call it the “personality” or the “glue that holds everyone together” or even the “soul.” It’s as much a feeling — of belonging, of shared purpose, even of similar ways of dress — as it is an aspiration for the entire company to contribute to.

“The truth is that culture – on its own – is not the thing that will bring you success in whatever way you may define it for yourself and your team,” Adii Pienaar, founder of Conversio, says. “Buildin...

When you’re at a startup and don’t have a budget for marketing, PR is a great way to get your market’s attention and foster growth. The right PR strategies will create awareness for your startup company and product and expand your reach.

There are so many articles on building long-term PR campaigns just to get one journalist’s attention, that it can be overwhelming when you’re looking for effective tactics that work right away. Luckily, you don’t have to wait months for one press hit.

Doing PR for startups can lead to massive growth

Here are five simple PR strategies that will drive instant results for your startup.

1. Find co-marketing partners

Co-marketing is a very effective way to broaden your reach by collaborating with another compan...

Marketing for a crowdfunding campaign isn’t exactly the same as traditional marketing.

Let’s say that marketing is cake. Traditional marketing is a standard cake you’d whip up from a box or simple recipe. Crowdfunding marketing campaigns, however, are their own kind of cake. They’re like a souffle. A souffle — when done right — delivers a kind of magical combination of lightness and richness. When done wrong, it just falls into a heap.

Souffles and crowdfunding can yield incredible results. But in both cases, you have to take a more nuanced approach to reach that outcome.

Baking Up Crowdfunding Success

A crowdfunding marketing campaign is different from traditional advertising efforts, and it needs to hit a specific sweet spot. The tone ca...