Remote work. Work from home. Telecommuting and teleworking. Whatever you call it, distributed teams are becoming increasingly popular… and it’s here to stay.

A recent Gallup Poll noted that, in the U.S., telecommuting for work is up 37% in the last decade. 34% of business leaders surveyed at a recent Global Leadership Summit in London predicted more than half of their company’s global workforce would work remotely by 2020. Around the world, more and more companies are building distributed teams, just like we have at Mailbird.

When you look at the benefits of having a distributed team, it’s understandable why we chose to build our team this way. Happy people make great work and, generally speaking, those who work remotely are happier, more ...

Today’s Favorite Find: Simple Poll

Elevator Pitch

Simple Poll is a Slack bot that lets you make — you guessed it! — simple polls.

Why We Love It

Another day, another Slack bot, amirite? Seriously though, as Slack continues their crazy momentum of 2015 into 2016, and quickly works toward their world domination of all of our offices, both remote and IRL, we’re only going to see more and more Slack bots pop up. And from my view right now, at the onset of 2016, it makes a lot sense: Slack shows no signs of slowing down.

(Check back this time next year, and we’ll see if I’ve had to eat my words or not. To steal the iconic line from Project Runway: In tech, one day you’re in and the next day? You’re out.)

The latest Slack bot to catch my eye is ...

The business of buying or selling a startup is a murky world that most folks have no concept for. We hear about the end result – one hot company gets bought by another. But we rarely know what goes on behind the scenes to get to that point.

Let’s talk about just that.

I’ve had a fair bit of experience on both sides of this equation, as I’ve sold a few companies and have also purchased a few (Launchrock, Clarity.fm, and KillerStartups) quite recently. At Startups.co we talk to a lot of companies about potential acquisitions. (If you’re in the startups space and have a great product, feel free to email me about it.)

In the past six months, I’ve explained our process of acquisition to dozens of companies, and it has become clear that people do...

Question: What is one thing to look for when investing in a startup?

The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

How Customer Focused They Are

I ask every founder, “How many sales calls did you make in the last week?” If founders spend more time perfecting features than speaking with potential customers, their focus is in the wrong place. They might have a great product. It might look like a business. But without customers, it’s not a business. If the ...

Nextdoor is backed by some of the largest and hottest VCs in Silicon Valley, including Benchmark and Greylock, which share LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Uber as recent hits among them. Nextdoor is growing steadily and has raised some $200 million in capital. Nothing about this company isn’t a Silicon Valley and startup success story.

And yet, amid the current climate, Nextdoor is an outlier in almost every other way. It has grown slowly, not just relying on building local city-by-city network effects like an Uber or Postmates, but building neighborhood-by-neighborhood network effects.

It’s essentially vying to be another great social network, while Twitter and Pinterest struggle to grow, LinkedIn has already sold, and even Faceb...

This guest post is by one of Clarity’s top experts when it comes to pitching your idea – whether it’s to investors, the press or potential customers he knows all the tricks of the trade to help close the deal. Tyler Crowley (@steepdecline), Founder at Skweal, whose extensive background includes:

• Assisting over 500 startups and almost a 1,000 individuals with perfecting pitches through TechCrunch50 and the LAUNCH conference
• Has been the “pitch doctor” for notable startups like Dropbox, Yammer, Mint, Fitbit, Powerset, Redbeacon, Space Monkey, Brilliant and Room 77

Let me start with a question… What was the last PowerPoint or pitch deck you saw? Can you recall what was on slide 5?

Let me ask you another question… Ever see the movie Top Gun?...

The benefits of being productive are obvious:

What Is Startup Funding?

Startup funding — or startup capital — is the money needed to launch a new business. It can come from a variety of sources and can be used for any purpose that helps the startup go from idea to actual business.

What are the top sources of startup funding?

While we often hear about venture capitalists and angel investors when it comes to startup funding options, it turns out that’s just one of the six top sources of startup capital. Of the $531 billion raised in startup capital each year, $185.5 billion is from personal savings and credit, $60 billion is from friends and family, $22 billion is from venture capitalists, $20 billion is from angel investors, $14 billion is from banks, and $5.1 billion is from crowdfunding....

The success of your campaign depends on the number of people you can reach, engage and motivate during your campaign and the weeks leading up to it.

This is a tall order for an already busy entrepreneur. Many campaigners are now realizing the most effective way to run a crowdfunding campaign is by utilizing a Virtual Assistant—Like the ones at Zirtual.

Tim Ferris recently said: “The #1 resource we found for outsourcing is Zirtual… Do not run a Kickstarter campaign (or your life) without…”

By delegating crowdfunding work to your VA, you can focus on what’s important.

Your VA works behind the scenes and allows you, your product, and your launch to shine.

So, how exactly do you use a virtual assistant to boost your crowdfunding campaign effort...

When you’re looking at grants for nonprofit startups, you’re looking at an area that’s crowded with a lot of competition. But, if there’s one thing startup entrepreneurs are known for, it’s tenacity.

The reason there’s so much competition is, a) there are a limited number of grants and, b) grants — unlike other forms of funding — don’t have to be paid back. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

But if there’s one field that’s very familiar with grants, it’s the nonprofit field. Here’s an overview of how to secure grants to start to nonprofit startup, as well as a few types of grants for starting a nonprofit.

What is a nonprofit?

A nonprofit is an organization that puts their social mission before profit. In contrast, a social enterprise is a for-p...