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You’ve eaten your fair share of turds in the workplace and if you’ve learned anything, it’s that it stinks and often causes indigestion. Then the day comes when it’s your turn to deliver the turd and watch a workmate clean his plate. If the notion of delivering constructive criticism makes you want to click your heels and sing a little ditty, maybe you should refer to my last article, (‘How to Fire a Superstar Employee in 6 Dick Moves’) it may be quite informative for you.

But, dear reader, if the act of crushing souls is less preferable than a lemon-soaked paper cut, here is my recipe for a turd burger that may come out a little smoother on the other end. Sorry if my poo jokes are a little corny…I went too far there, didn’t I?

What is a T...

Kelly Cornell, Founder of the clothing and accessories line Seaton Cornell, never had to wonder what it was like to be a entrepreneur. The youngest son of April Cornell — who made her name in the ‘90s and early aughts with her lines of watercolor and travel-inspired clothing and housewares — Kelly grew up in a household bustling with the energy of a burgeoning business.

But while some kids might have felt deprived or left out growing up with parents who had so much else going on, he took it as an inspiration and an opportunity.

“I grew up with a lot of nannies,” Kelly says, laughing. “But that was a good thing! They exposed me to a lot of different people and cultures.”

India as inspiration

In addition to the people who helped raise him, Ke...

Hello, On Income Statement, are Owner Distributions included in Expenses? or come out of Net Income?

Hello, What would be the easiest way to reflect a equity crowdfunding round on here? I'm looking at Revenue Share 5-10% of revenue to 3x investment. Should that be listed under expense? debt? investment?

It’s a crying shame, really. I love Medium. It’s the best writing environment on the web, and they sweat the details like nobody else. The community too is just peach. This could have been a love story for the ages.

But I don’t think we’ll grow old together, Medium and I. I suspect it’ll end quite tragic, actually. $132,000,000 is a lot of money after all, and that’s how much venture capital Medium has been dipped in. Before having a prayer or a song about how to turn into that multi-billion-dollar business—It must to satisfy the required rate of return.

The clock started running three years ago when $25,000,000 of Series A growth dynamite was rigged. That means they’re about half ways until the bomb explodes, and so far the company doesn’...

The gender gap that persists in Silicon Valley and throughout startups in general needs no introduction. Fewer opportunities, fewer CEOs, less pay, less respect – to name just a few issues familiar to women. Laundry lists of ails and acknowledgement of the gender gap are common. What you encounter less frequently are solutions in progress, conversations that go beyond paying lip service to the obstacles women face.

Not so in this morning’s Startups Live Coffee Hour with special guest Lisa Wang. Here she walks us through her projects designed to empower women and talks us beyond the initial difficulties of discussing gender, making it easier to effect change for all who genuinely want it and moving us closer to healthier startup ecosystems.

The truth is most startups get acquired based on relationships they have built with trusted partners that evolve over time into something more substantial.

It's the equivalent of going from a first date to living together to full-blown marriage.

The trick is to understand how to develop that process over time versus waiting for an acquiring company to show up with a big check!

Should I be waiting for a company to call me?

Definitely not!

While it sounds amazing to have your dream buyer call you and talk turkey, we'll likely be sitting around for a long, long time waiting for the phone to ring.

Instead, the right move is to build relationships with all of the potential acquiring companies you can think of — whether as customers, partners...

You could be a video marketing rockstar. Just imagine it. Using a combination of animated brand overview videos, live-action vlog posts, high-quality screencast tutorials—and much more—you regularly deliver visual content that educates and entertains your potential customers and keeps them coming back for more.

Doesn’t sound half bad, does it?

But let’s be realistic. You’re more likely the “one hit wonder” equivalent of video marketing. Maybe you’ve got that sweet animated explainer video on your landing page, or perhaps you’ve got a handful of live-action client interviews collecting dust on your testimonials page. And that’s it. You stopped there.

Don’t get me wrong – these are good things, and even if you did stop with just one killer la...

Wil Schroter: Baremetrics did the unthinkable – it showed the rest of the world what other companies were doing in revenues – publicly. It pulled back the most sacred curtain. Why in the hell would you have ever thought that would be a good idea when so much common business practice does the opposite?

Josh Pigford: Our transparency is rooted in laziness! Back when I first launched Baremetrics I felt strongly about having a live demo instead of some screenshots. I could have generated an infinite amount of fake data, but that’d have taken a lot of time and I don’t think it’d have felt as authentic.

On top of that, my friends at Buffer and Groove and clearly had some success in being transparent, so figured what the heck!

At that point Barem...

Don’t miss out! Check out the previous editions here:

–Getting Your Idea Going: There is no perfect idea
–Getting Your Idea Going: Popular Excuses for Not Starting
–Getting Your Idea Going: When to Jump Ship
–Getting Your Idea Going: Don’t Quit your Day Job
–Getting Your Idea Going: Share your Idea with Everyone
–Getting Your Idea Going: How to Validate your Idea

The inception of your startup is by far the most overwhelming because every task is due immediately and all of them have to come together in order to get anywhere at all.

You need to incorporate (what the heck is a ‘Subchapter S-Corporation?’), you need to design a logo, you need to figure out how social media works.

It’s bananas.

If you keep thinking in terms of doing so many thi...

Today I’m ridiculously excited to tell you about a product I’ve been personally waiting on for a very, very long time – Startups Live!

Startups Live is a moderated, members-only Slack community where we’re pulling together the smartest Founders (and their teams) into a single discussion for one hour every day.

Real Time, Moderated, Focused

None of us have time for another forum or Slack community of random chatter. We’re not interested in sifting through trolls or hoping someone comes up with a topic that might be interesting in a chat room somewhere.

That’s why we’re keeping it short – 1 hour, every day – at 11a EST / 8a PST.

Each day we’ll be moderating the discussion to keep it fresh with new topics and adding in special guests and exp...