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I bet, even if it was just once, that many of you set up a lemonade stand as a kid. As we grow, we begin to experience the world and all of it’s challenges.

And many of us experience our moments of brilliance in the shower. You know what it’s like when you’re soaking under hot water, your mind begins to drift and suddenly you have great idea. Sometimes it’s a solution to a current problem, sometimes it’s a business concept and sometimes it’s both.

Generally people solving their own problems make the best entrepreneurs, especially if they have industry or market experience.

Now, to give you some context here, I have background in professional photography. So, a couple of years ago, on sunny spring morning, I’m in the shower, reflecting on m...

As Founders we’ve all more or less come to the conclusion that if we work really hard and make lots of sacrifices, one day we’ll actually be able to pursue our real passions.

We’re willing to trade a painful now for a pleasurable later.

But what if we didn’t have to do that? What if instead of putting ourselves through the ringer to – maybe – get to that place we really wanted to go, we instead started by aligning our startup with our passion now. In a way, it’s like starting with your “retirement job” and working backward.

Deferred Living is a Mistake

Before Startups.co, I spent nearly 2 decades building 8 different startups. It was mostly fun, but required a ton of sacrifice and essentially took “deferred living” to a whole other level. ...

“It’s the same as having the proper form with lifting weights; if you don’t have the right form, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

–Joshua Davidson, Six Customer Service Principles To Abide By

Taking care of people. It’s a calling, an art. It’s a service. It can also be a way of life, company culture, and doing business. Joshua Davidson is somewhat of an evangelist on the topic of customer service, preaching the principles of outstanding customer service with the conviction of a man who has religion.

And his principles, the quality and clarity of his thinking – are all of the highest level. The same can be said for the questions posed to him during this Startup Live chat, as well as this discussion on customer service as a whole. Given the u...

Most early-stage startups that are fundraising automatically go to angel investors or traditional financial VCs; however, for founders who are starting to worry about the “funding crunch,” think strategically about the venture arms of Fortune 500 companies.

There are an incredible amount of dollars invested in corporations, and increasingly, corporations are recognizing the disruptive power of smaller startups.

How should you approach corporate VCs? What questions should you come prepared to ask?

6 Best Questions to ask corporate VC’s

1. Are there any conflicts of interest?

Founders’ biggest fear is often that someone else, especially a big company with significantly more power and money will rip off their idea.

While this shouldn’t pre...

Entrepreneurs often ask themselves when the right time to launch a company might be. They hang around waiting for the stars to align, for their moment of inspiration to hit, and for their career to prepare them for something big.

There really is a right time to start your company, and it’s called “today.”

Well I have some bad news for you. The stars will never align. The brilliant flash will probably never come, and nothing you will learn or do working for someone else will make you more ready to launch your own company.

Now here’s the good news – none of that matters. The truth is that you’re already ready. There’s absolutely nothing to hold out for in order to start your company. You really just need to get off your butt and get started. ...

Truly, it has been a busy and productive year! Here at Startups.co, we will be taking it easy, spending time with our families and drinking way too much ‘nog until the New Year.

While we are on this short hiatus — lets take a stroll down memory lane and review the top 17 articles that we published in 2017.

Read them all at once, or portion them out like a kid trying to make Christmas candy last until Easter. Either way — we won’t judge. Enjoy!

1. How to Write a Business Plan For Investors (That They Will Love)

A good business plan should do more than explain what your company does, how you earn money and what you want to do. It should also tell a persuasive story and illustrate the many ways that your company and product are Grade-A Awesom...

So you’ve made the leap into the unknown and committed to finally starting your own business. Now what? The to-do list you have created looks huge and overwhelming, where do you start?

Business to-do lists will vary hugely from business to business, but there are a few questions you can ask yourself to decide which are the tasks you should be working on:

1. What will have the largest impact on my business?

Are there any tasks that have a leverage or scaling effect i.e. a little effort (or even a lot of effort) creates a much greater return on the time invested? For example; you may need to update your financial ledger with invoices paid and also come up with a new referral scheme, do the one first that has the biggest multiplier effect (...

Question: HOW do you find beta testers for your new product or service?

Finding the right pool of beta testers isn’t as easy as it sounds. Our startup founders share their personal experiences and best practices to find beta testers for your new product or service.

The answers below are provided by members of FounderSociety, an invitation-only organization comprised of ambitious startup founders and business owners.

1. Interest-Based User Groups

At Salty Girl Seafood, we’ve chosen to categorize our potential customers by interest. We reach out to specific groups in our community, such as yoga studios, university programs, alumni networks, job-posting listservs, food bloggers and athletic teams to use their contact lists. When people hear t...

You may be an entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean you’re running a startup. A startup isn’t just a new company — it’s a new company that’s designed to grow fast. Think about how Google would have made decisions early on compared to a new restaurant in your town.

For startups, this focus on growth should extend beyond setting goals. It should extend into the culture that pervades the business.

Many founders of startups are naturally focused on growth, and they assume this attitude will automatically trickle down to the rest of the company. But developing a growth-focused culture among a team that’s constantly adding new people is something you have to work at.

We went from five people on our team to 35 people in a matter of months, and it p...

While it was once an afterthought, cybersecurity should now be a priority for every business. Large businesses are still the preferred target for hackers, but this trend is shifting, as more small businesses are targeted by adversaries each year.

However deciding which cybersecurity product to invest in isn’t easy. For one, the market is rapidly changing and it’s difficult to keep up to date on the best methods. Additionally, there is no all-in-one comprehensive package for a company’s cybersecurity needs. Most times, businesses have to buy each security software individually – including firewall, anti-virus, and spam-filter solutions, among others.

But just because security tools might be difficult for some small businesses to navigate, d...