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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...

Today’s society glorifies startup life. Most see startup culture as acquiring VC funding, getting a fancy office, and rapidly scaling. The problem is that no one wants to talk about the grueling path every startup must endure before acquiring funding— this is the side hustle stage. This means you are still working your full-time job and starting a business on the side which will eventually become large enough to be your new full-time priority.

Marc Andreessen stated that the life of a startup could be divided into two phases: before product/market fit, and after. The latter is the fun part – when VCs and scaling the business come into the equation. This article is about the former, less glamorous part of building a business. The part that ...

Acquisition is often the end goal for so many startups, especially if they took on venture capital at any point during their journey. Founders dream of multi-million dollar exits as they code for the fourteenth hour that day, when they skip meals because they’re on a roll, and when they forego (precious) time with their families.

Acquisition is the light at the end of the tunnel; the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a cliche for a reason, right?

The reality of selling a startup

If only the reality of startup acquisition matched up with the rosy vision many bootstrapped (and sleep-deprived!) founders envision in their few hours “off”.

Cahlan Sharp, founder and CEO of the coding school DevMountain, came to the realization pretty q...

Not so long ago, the word “outsourcing” had a bad rap as being synonymous with lost local jobs and greedy CEOs looking for dirt cheap labor. Today, however, busy entrepreneurs and companies everywhere are considering the advantages of virtual outsourcing.

There are many reasons for outsourcing to a virtual assistant, but it can be difficult to determine if the benefits outweigh the negatives. Here are some pros and cons of insourcing versus virtual outsourcing to consider before you decide if a virtual service is right for you.

Pros of Outsourcing to Virtual Teams

Lower Cost: With all of the expenses that go into hiring an in-house employee, such as recruiting costs, healthcare and other benefits, parking, office space, and supplies, outso...

Before you think about raising capital or growth strategy for your startup, ask yourself this question: “Exactly how much money do I need to feel rich?”

Raising capital implies trying to grow a business, and in many cases, creating a big financial outcome for you and your investors. But do you really need a big financial outcome? How big? Are you sure about that number?

Disclaimer

This article is going to talk about how to spend money. You may want to save it all, you may want to make it rain in the VIP balcony at the club. I don’t care how you spend it. I care that you know exactly how much money you need to achieve your goals, down to the last dollar.

Map Out Every Last Dollar

Before you answer with the typical “I want a $100 million exit...