Forums Search

Social Media is a great way to create buzz and connect with your users in a personal way. Since it’s free and open to everyone, instead of investing money as you would with traditional advertising, you need to invest time in building connections. This is easiest to do if you grow your social media presence along with your startup.

Friends become Fans

Beginning musicians fill their shows with friends and many entrepreneur’s first customers are there parents. The same is true with your start-up’s online presence. Invite every Facebook friend and every friend of friend to like your page. Many people are willing to do a little free press for someone they know personally. All you have to do is ask. By recruiting your inner circle to act as a fo...

Convertible debt can solve a very common problem for early stage startups: it allows founders to delay determining the value of their company and still take money from investors.

The Easiest Example Ever

Let’s say you come up with an idea for a coffee-flavored lemonade stand. You don’t know if this will be a total flop or the next Starbucks, but you need $50 to get this lemonade stand launched.

You go to Uncle Earl. He’s willing to contribute $50, but since you can’t figure out what the value of the lemonade stand is—it’s not even launched yet!—he agrees to give the $50 now and figure out what percentage of the business he will get later.

Earl only agrees to do this because you offer him 3 financial incentives which make it interesting to ...

They say nothing worth having comes easy – and that definitely holds up when it comes to acquiring customers for your startup.

Customer acquisition doesn’t just happen. Customers don’t just fall into your lap, ready to hand over their money. A customer’s business isn’t something that is owed to you – it’s an honor that has to be earned.

In a lot of ways, says growth marketer and Ghost Influence Founder Brian Swichkow, customer acquisition is a lot like going on a date. “The internet is the bar. Your website is your house. Your email list is your bedroom. Customer acquisition is, well… you know,” he says.

Cue the Marvin Gaye song.

So what does it take to, ahem, close the deal with respect to acquiring customers? Brian joins us to explore jus...

The publishing industry is both volatile and in many ways stuck in tradition, so if you’re trying to get a mention or more for your product or your startup, you need to understand the constraints and go through the right doors.

I’ve led Marketing and Content Analytics at The Huffington Post, VentureBeat, and Federated Media, and have seen the underbelly of the editorial business. And as a startup mentor and advisor, I’ve also seen many promising young companies struggle to break into the publishing world and go about it all wrong. If you’re trying to get media attention for your product or startup, read these tips first.

There are 3 ways to get published:

Work with a PR agency who knows the right people. Tread carefully on this path. PR ag...

Thanks to the internet, we’re riding the wave of a communication boom that makes the printing press pale in comparison. And during a time when inflation and economic instability has hit America’s working class the hardest, this boom has created huge opportunities for more people to claim their financial freedom — and to do so from the comfort of their couches.

Whether you telecommute, you sell products on Etsy, or you have started a new web-based business, an internet connection is the new cornerstone of commerce. However, the secret to success in this new frontier is not a secret at all. Hard work, persistence, and planning are still critical to taking your business from a pie-in-the-sky dream to a profitable business endeavor.

Success Sta...

Nancy Duarte is a pro when it comes to presentations. Not just giving presentations, but starting them, finishing them, and every step in between. Author and co-founder of Duarte Designs, Nancy Duarte is a seasoned veteran when it comes to incorporating storytelling into speaking and creating connections with an audience.

The below video is the second part in a series of 10 in which Nancy shares the key components to making a successful pitch using creativity and critical thinking. Find out what she has to say:

Why Your “big startup idea” Is Necessary

Before you take your place on stage and deliver your message to your audience, you need to have a big startup idea.

What’s a big idea? Well, according to Nancy, a big idea has two parts:

1. Y...

We're burnt out.

There's no version where "just pushing through another day" is going to make us more effective. In fact, it's the opposite. We're becoming irritable, anxious, frustrated and unhealthy.

When we hit a point of burn out it's important that we understand what to do about it. If we ignore it, the problem only gets much worse. So let's take a look at what Founders do to deal with burnout head on.

How do I take a break when there's SO much to do?

Chances are we can't "afford" to take a break because if we stop working the whole machine implodes (or so we think).

The traditional "I'll take a week of vacation" may simply not be an option. Instead, we may have to take our break in increments, in the form of half days or full days ...

Entrepreneurs know the truth of the saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” The right relationship can make the difference between a struggling startup and an overnight success.

But there are a lot of people in the world, and most of them don’t know who you are. You can’t sit back and wait for your audience to find you. To help your company succeed, you need to make the first move.

Savvy founders know that thought leadership is the first step to earning trust among a specific audience. And the trust you earn through a thought leadership strategy can help you build valuable partnerships, attract amazing talent, secure funding, earn press, increase sales, and more.

Grow Your Business Through Thought Leadership Content

Thought lea...

Stories are always part of any successful marketing including social media. At the heart of all social media best practices lies the customer experience. In particular stories around their experience. So in producing social media content for your business, you need to look out for:

• What matters to your customers?
• Why do you matter to them?
• What is it that you do or sell that fascinates them?

In other words, stories that further the customer experience are ones which serve as enablers of brands. They help brands to build personality and create a connection with their customers.

But is it possible to narrate a visual story on social media?

In case you are wondering about the power of visual content on social media the infographic below sho...

For busy startup teams, the name of the game — today more than ever — is productivity.

FitStars CEO and co-founder Mike Maser sums it up perfectly: “When you’re building a vision, a team and a product all at once, time is your ultimate currency. Every day presents both the opportunity to break ground and the risk of losing ground. At the end of the day I’d trade anything for an extra hour to ensure we’ve taken a step forward.”

And when you’re a startup, working at the breakneck speed of startups, it’s only natural that things start falling through the cracks. Social media gets neglected, correspondence goes unresponded-to. Every startup has a laundry list of items they should be doing but aren’t — or things they are doing, but could be doi...