6 Ways To Cultivate Creativity In Your Company

The startup scene today is an overcrowded space where companies are constantly vying for talent. But hiring talented people is only the first step in cultivating an innovative and creative environment. Building a workplace where there is a constant exchange of ideas involves finding the right formula for your company and culture.

You can’t force creativity, but the right setting will put your team in the right frame of mind to find imaginative solutions. Here are six ideas to help cultivate creativity in your company:

1. Be easygoing.

A relaxed and flexible work environment increases your team’s productivity by letting ideas flow. Encourage an atmosphere where the boss is more likely to make you a coffee than expect you to make them one.

Let go of the traditional 9-5 work week and have team members come in to work when they are rested and at their best. Not everyone is an early bird, and that’s good! Embrace your employees’ natural rhythm — they’ll show up to work fresh and ready to go.

2. Hire for culture.

Look for team members who understand your vision and align with your culture. Having a team that shares one vision and works together helps the organization run smoothly. This doesn’t mean only hiring people who always agree with you, though. Encourage different perspectives — it will help your company stay ahead of the curve.

3. Bring on people who love what they do.

Hire people that are passionate about their work. You want people at your company who really care; people who are excited to go to work everyday because they believe in the product. Adding people that want to improve your product will be the most beneficial for your company.

Point #2 goes hand-in-hand with this one. It’s far more pleasant to work alongside interesting, friendly, and driven people working towards the same goals.

4. Encourage diversity.

Put together a team with different backgrounds, passions, and capabilities. Having a group with a diverse set of ideas and problem-solving approaches helps push your product forward. Embrace and celebrate your team members’ individuality — out-of-the-box ideas and problem-solving approaches help push your product forward.

5. Incorporate sprints

The hustle and bustle of daily office life can wreak havoc on your concentration: emails, phones, meetings — the distractions are endless. That’s where a “sprint,” a set amount of time in which your team works to finish a project, can be the solution.

Startups develop quickly in the early stages because everyday interruptions are at a minimum. When your company has started to grow into individual teams, having them work in a remote location surrounded by nature is a great way to center your focus and take up a project from start to finish.

6. Take ample time off.

Communicate how important taking vacation is. Our brains are constantly on and connected, taking time off for some R&R is crucial for a healthy work/life balance. Wore-down workaholics don’t produce the highest quality content, you want your employees to be fresh and excited to be at work. Convey to your employees how important time off is — and make it non-negotiable.

There are plenty of roadblocks your team will have to overcome to breakthrough in your industry; the company’s work environment shouldn’t be one of them. Reimagine what “work” should look like, and you’ll be surprised at the impact it will have on your team’s energy and creativity. The best takeaway for your employees? They won’t be boxed in by rigid rules and can focus on building the next game-changing feature instead.

What’s your favorite way of breaking the mold?

Christian Springub started his first business at the age of 12 buying and reselling kinder suprise collectible toys at flea markets. Three years later he switched to creating websites for small business in his hometown with Fridtjof. Christian moved to San Francisco in 2011 to build Jimdo in the USA.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons

Startup Tips: How To Mine Your Customer List For Sales Gold

As a business owner, your biggest potential gold mines are often closer than you think — it’s just a matter of knowing where to look. By going beyond what’s worked in the past and being open to new strategies, you’ll be surprised by how many untapped profit centers are just within your reach.

Uncover Hidden Gold Mines

You already have one major profit source at your fingertips — your customer list. Tap into this often overlooked gold mine by implementing the following strategies:

Reengage lost customers. Most of your customers, clients, or patients don’t stop doing business with you because they’re dissatisfied; more often than not, life gets in the way. In my business, we created a three-step strategy for regaining them (our Customer Re-Engagement Strategy™). This tactic generated over 100 percent increase in sales in less than five days. How? We simply created an email for our client’s list of existing customers, expressed our gratitude for past business, and expressed concern for having not heard from them in a while. We then made a time-limited, preferred customer offer and followed up on that.
Upsell and cross-sell. If customers are offered a complementary product, service, or add-on during the time of purchase, they would happily invest in it. For example, our team helped a client recognize the potential to offer a free, one-month trial for ongoing service and support. Approximately 65 percent of people who purchased the original product agreed to the trial, which added tens of thousands of dollars in additional profits in the subsequent months.
Tag team. Some of the biggest companies in the world owe their success to joint venture partnerships. Look for opportunities to leverage the trust and goodwill you’ve created with your customers, reach out to a company that offers a complementary product, and make that product available to your customers for a share of the profits. When I owned a real estate development company, we did something most of our other competitors were not doing — we struck deals with related businesses to provide “preferential pricing” to our clients. Pairing up with furniture suppliers, security companies, and other related industries resulted in one of the largest profit margins in the industry.

Fix the Leaks

Most entrepreneurs believe the only way to grow a business is by acquiring new customers. Meanwhile, their existing customers are being ignored.

The truth is that your competitors are working every day to win over the hearts of your customers. People want to feel valued, special, and appreciated — if you’re not communicating this to your prospects, they’ll find someone who does. By taking time to engage in an ongoing dialogue with your prospects, offering them valued information, and providing them with incentives to return, you’ll see a better, more consistent flow of income.

Convey Your Value

Choose advertising and lead generation opportunities that make sense for your business, and position your product or service as the obvious choice in your market. In addition, ask for references from your happiest customers. Simply asking for — and rewarding — referrals will engage current customers and instill confidence in new ones.

When it comes to increasing profit centers, the outcome is dependent upon your approach and strategic thinking. Continue to pursue new strategies, seek fresh ways to engage current customers, and capitalize on opportunities to increase the perceived value of your products.

Because when you do strike gold, everyone wins: You’ll experience reduced business costs and increased profits through more efficient operations, and your customers will get exactly the experience they were looking for.

Charles Gaudet’s controversial marketing insight has earned him the title of “The Entrepreneur’s Marketing Champion” by both his clients and Insiders’ for his ability to help them out-compete, out-market and out-earn their competition. As the founder of PredictableProfits.com, he’s an expert at helping entrepreneurs radically improve their profits through a series of effective marketing strategies.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Now check out 5 Tips For Young Entrepreneurs Who Want To Be Taken Seriously

12 Tips For Crowdfunding Your New Startup

Choose an Entrepreneur Facing Platform

“Spend some time researching successful projects. You’ll notice that there are core elements of a successful campaign: compelling rewards, a powerful story, and out of the gate support from friends and family. At Fundable, we coach our clients through best practices, and provide them with resources to increase their chance of success. Every entrepreneur should look for that type of support.”

– Eric Corl | President + Co-Founder, Fundable LLC

Read the Fine Print

“Read the fine print of what the future ramifications of fundraising are for your business after taking on crowdfunding. Walk through the different scenarios for future funding and analyze whether crowdfunding your first round will be a turnoff for other potential investors.”

– Abby Ross | Co-Founder & VP Operations, ThinkCERCA

Solve a Problem, Don’t Create One

“When it comes to crowdfunding, the best and most successful ideas come from entrepreneurs that are trying to solve a problem, not create one. If you have a product that will solve a problem that everyone has, you’ll have a good chance of succeeding with your crowdfunding efforts.”

– Derek Johnson | CEO/Founder, Tatango

Understand the Downsides

“Crowdfunding is not a panacea for first-time entrepreneurs. While it can reduce the regulatory burdens of initial capital raising, it comes with downsides. You need to ask yourself whether you want to deal with information requests from 100 shareholders, trying to convince a seed or VC to join that quagmire or the potential of losing your friends’ and families’ savings. ”

– Peter Minton | Founder & President, Minton Law Group, P.C.

Build Momentum First

“Crowdfunding campaigns can become “stale” over time, much like a house that has been on the real estate market for a while loses luster. Make sure to launch your campaign after having folks commit to participate, and then try to schedule a dripfeed of interesting news throughout your campaign. Show momentum — everyone wants to back a winner!”

– Aaron Schwartz | Founder and CEO, Modify Watches

Tap Into the Power of Video

“If you’re looking to crowdfund a new idea I’m going to assume you’ve done your research and have determined it’s a good route to take. Many crowdfunding success stories have said a great video was key to their success. A study by Econsultancy said people are 97% more likely to buy your product after watching a video of it. That’s huge!”

– Natalie MacNeil | Emmy Award Winning Media Entrepreneur, She Takes on the World

Develop a Network of Influencers

“Crowdfunding websites are simply funding platforms. That means you can’t rely on them to market and find funders for your venture. You’ll need to do your own marketing and develop critical mass to get your project funded. Increase your chances of getting crowdfunded by developing a strong network with plenty of influencers.”

– Benjamin Leis | Founder, Sweat EquiTees

Build Your Own Platform Instead

“Follow Lockitron and App.net’s path. They built their own platform to crowdfund, and it worked — so now they don’t have to share a percentage. Lockitron even recently opensourced the code to do so. Check it out here: http://selfstarter.us.”

– Ben Lang | Founder, Mapped In Israel

If You Almost-Build It, They May (Still) Come!

“For physical products, I think crowdfunding presents a unique opportunity to test a market before spending on inventory. That alone is a great reason to build a campaign to sell something that you’re fairly sure the market will love. That said, get as far into the design/build process as possible, so potential customers know you’re serious, and so you identify challenges/costs early.”

– Derek Shanahan | Marketing, Playerize

Plan Your Next Move

“It’s important to have clear plans for how you will use the funds you raise and how you will sustain your success. Be sure that the funds you raise can serve to launch a profitable venture.”

– Lisa Nicole Bell | Founder/CEO, Inspired Life Media Group

Only Raise What You Need

“Despite the big numbers that often grab headlines, most companies don’t need millions of dollars to build a minimum viable prototype (MVP). Spend as little as possible to validate your business idea and then you can attract more capital on better terms. ”

– Robert J. Moore | Co-Founder and CEO, RJMetrics

My Advice? Don’t!

“Your ability to raise money on crowdfunding sites is not correlated in any way to your ability to run a business. If you need outside financing, force yourself to raise money from professional investors — have the door slammed on you a few times! Crowdfunding is “safe,” but a first-time entrepreneur needs to experience hardship, and understand what experienced investors look for in a business.”

– Sunil Rajaraman | CEO/Co-Founder, Scripted.com

So what’s this Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference?

Startup Tips: 6 Tips For Negotiating Effectively

The word “negotiating” often brings to mind hard-nosed business people in suits stubbornly bidding over the details of a deal. It’s assumed that if one person “wins” the war, someone has to lose. Not so. Business has evolved past the point of needing to be a tug of war between ego-driven people who refuse to lose. Here are six tips for negotiating effectively:

1. People should always come before profits.

Relationships are the currency of influence and success in business. No matter how badly you want the deal or a certain outcome, do not use, manipulate, insult, or demean people to get it. Not only does it create bad energy that will come back to you, it also sets you up to be found out and have people walk away from the deal unhappy. While you can’t control anyone’s opinion of you, you can do everything you can to operate in integrity and treat other people with respect. This is the first and most important rule of negotiating.

2. Know who’s on the other side of the table.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to negotiate a deal and had people make all kinds of wild assumptions about me, my company, and my partners. A lack of research on your part says that you either don’t care enough to prepare properly or you’re an amateur who isn’t savvy enough to research the other side.

Take the time to understand who you’re negotiating with – what makes them tick, what that might want in the deal, why they might want what they want, what’s urgent versus important for them. As with sales, the more prepared you are, the more effective you’ll be.

3. Know what you need, want, and would like to have.

Before you arrive at the negotiating table, know what you absolutely cannot compromise and what you’re willing to concede. This prevents the temptation to get caught up in emotions and the desire to reach a conclusion. Even when it’s uncomfortable, it’s important to keep your objectives in the front of your mind and advocate for them.

4. Create leverage.

In many cases, you have advantages in a negotiation that are not obvious to you or the other party. To fully maximize your opportunity, it’s important to think about what advantages you have that make your proposal more desirable for the other party. It could be a strategic partner that the other party wants to work with or it could be a future promise that you could easily fulfill. Keep 2-3 leverage points handy and use them if negotiations begin to stall or go south.

5. Give something meaningful.

The best way to start a negotiation is with a meaningful gift. In his classic book, Influence, Robert Cialdini explains the concept of reciprocation, which says that when we give something to someone, they feel indebted and want to create balance by returning the favor or gift. The reason to give is not to get something in return. The purpose is to set the tone for the negotiation.

If you’re a genuinely kind and generous person, you’ll want to do things that create goodwill. The gift could be something as big as courtside tickets to a sporting event or something as simple as a Starbucks gift card for $10. The gift is less important than the proper motivation and follow-through.

6. Close quickly and gracefully.

If you’re a fan of the ABC television show “Shark Tank”, then you’ve probably witnessed people talking themselves out of deals by not knowing when to stop talking. Going back to point 3, identify a point that’s satisfactory and immediately close. Don’t linger or talk out of nervous energy. Simply state the terms, seek confirmation, and then discuss next steps. Don’t give the other party the chance to change their mind and spend time waffling over inconsequential details. Be clear, be firm, and be progressive.

– – –

Want more advice? Check out Influence by Robert Cialdini and Getting Past No by William Ury – both books are fantastic primers on negotiating and personal selling.

What negotiating strategies do YOU use?

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Lisa Nicole Bell is equal parts artist, businesswoman and motivator. Lisa is the Founder and CEO of Inspired Life Media Group where she and her team meld art, social change, and commerce to create economically viable media properties.

4 Startup Lessons You Won’t Learn In Business School

My co-founder and I both attended Wharton as undergrads, where we “concentrated” in entrepreneurship (in addition to finance, accounting, legal studies and philosophy). We wrote multiple business plans, negotiated the details of term sheets and collaborated on teams vying for theoretical capital within the confines of a semester.

While the skills learned no doubt gave us perspective and provided a structure for entrepreneurial thinking, after two-plus years of living a startup, it’s become apparent to me that studying entrepreneurship was just as abstract — if not more so! — than my studies in philosophy, especially with respect to starting and building a bootstrapped company.

The lessons outlined below may not be as sexy as term sheet negotiation and capital raising, but they are core to the success of a resource-constrained startup — and make a world of difference between success and failure:

1. Learn how to sell, quickly.

You need to be profitable from day one, and consequently, you need to think about what you’re building as a sustainably profitable venture with a real business model. You do have investors, but they’re your clients, and they’re not giving you money because of an impressive management team, large addressable market, previous accomplishments, or world-scale strategy.

They care only about your ability to address their specific needs in a better way than the current solution. Can you fix their problem? They don’t care about anyone else’s.

2. Learn how to build relationships.

You may be without financial or strategic advisors, but no one understands the problem that you’re trying to solve better than the customers you’re courting. Your first set of customers will effectively become your advisors and most valuable advocates, providing deeper insight into the issues you’re trying to solve and giving you a better grasp of customer needs.

Your first 10, 50 and 100 clients will define your brand and help you shape your business, so make sure you listen to them vs. trying to expand too rapidly. Better insight and understanding of your customers in the beginning is key to setting your business in the right direction.

3. Learn how to engage client referrals and leverage the media.

You may not have the budget for marketing programs, but even if you do, there’s nothing better than a referral from a satisfied customer. Word-of-mouth marketing from current customers creates a trusted network that results in a supportive, invested client ecosystem.

With regards to PR, take the opportunity to engage writers directly with your story. It means a lot to a writer when they receive a custom note from a founder instead of a templated message from a PR firm or marketing rep.

4. Understand the scope of what you’re embarking on — and the significance of determination and perseverance.

This is where our traditional entrepreneurship curriculum failed most fundamentally. Successful entrepreneurship rarely happens within the confines of a year, let alone a single semester, and our half-hearted attempts at starting businesses every semester (only to let them die at winter and summer breaks) reinforced a misleading expectation: that success can be validated quickly.

Building a successful company takes time and patience, two assets that you can’t raise from any venture capitalist. Yes, capital can help you hire and attract resources, but in the early stages of a startup, doing all the work yourself will provide you with perspective on the full scope of what you’re building.

Being in control of your own destiny also uniquely allows you to go at your own pace. While you obviously need to be aware of market pressures, without the pressure from outside investors, you can take the time to better lay the foundation of your business — a foundation that, one day, might support an empire.

Zach Yungst is the Co-founder of Cater2.me, a company founded in late 2010 focused on revamping the corporate catering industry. Zach grew up in Sarasota, Florida and graduated with degrees in Finance and Philosophy from Wharton / The University of Pennsylvania. Post graduation, Zach worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in New York and in private equity for TPG in San Francisco.

Quick tip, this can be a fundraising deal breaker.

Startup Tips: How To Know When You Need A Contract

Do you sometimes lie awake at night wondering what will happen if your biggest customer doesn’t pay you? How about if the vendor handling your website upgrade takes off with your thousand-dollar down payment? These scenarios would be a nightmare for any bootstrapping entrepreneur — and they happen all the time.

The Problem

Here’s a pretty typical scenario. One of my clients, who owns an Internet-based consulting firm, was hired to create a new website for a client a few months back. He received a $500 deposit for several thousands of dollars worth of work. Then he hired a web coder, with whom he had a good relationship, to handle certain aspects of the design. He and the coder completed the work, and guess what happened next?

The client stiffed him. And not only him, but also his colleague, because he didn’t have the money to pay the web coder out of his own pocket. This caused a strain in the relationship between the consultant and his coder, and a major strain on his pockets.

Several months later, the consultant hired me and I used my magical lawyer ways to collect all of the money from the client. (Note: magical lawyer ways = calling the client, announcing that I am a lawyer and demanding payment. Okay, okay, it was more complicated than that but, most importantly, it worked). He was happy to get fully paid, but the strain on the relationship could not be erased, he lost the time value of the money he was paid in January instead of August, he spent a lot of time chasing this guy instead of working on other projects, and he was out the attorney’s fees he had spent, too.

The Solution

How would this scenario have been different if the consultant had a contract for both relationships? First of all, in his initial strategy session with me, I would have advised him that his payment collection method wasn’t working and we would have set up a better payment system. Additionally, the client contract would have required the client to pay interest on late payments and court fees plus attorney’s fees if he wound up having to take him to court. This makes it really easy to sue and win.

With such a contract, the chances of getting an enforceable judgment (read: getting paid) jump sky-high — and it won’t cost you money, since the client has to pay your lawyer’s fees.

The lesson? When you show clients that you are professional and serious about your business, they will think twice before trying to stiff you.

Regarding his relationship with the developer, an independent contractor agreement that stated that the coder would get paid when the business owner gets paid would have eliminated the bad blood between the parties.

So, Do You Need a Contract?

I often tell my clients, “Everyone is an enemy to your business!” Your business partners, customers, vendors, employees, etc. all have the ability to screw your business over. So you have to treat everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) like an enemy on paper. Only then are you free to treat them like a friend in person.

How do you do that? By having a contract for every relationship your business enters into.

Here’s my rule of thumb that will protect your business from all manner of headaches, financial loss, emotional distress and yes, lawsuits as well: Have a contract for every single relationship your business enters into. You and your buddy starting a new business? Create a contract that governs that relationship. Selling your new widgets in that new widget store up the street? Draft an agreement between you and the widget store owner. Setting up a website to advertise and/or sell your services? Have a privacy policy and/or terms and conditions to govern your relationship with people who check out your website.

These contracts do not have to be complicated. In fact, they can be pretty simple, but they do need to protect you from all (or at least most) of the ways the relationship can go wrong. And please don’t forget the all-important boilerplate at the end of the contract, because it provides lots of protection and will save you money, time and headaches.

Once you have an agreement with your independent contractors, vendors, clients and business partners, you can go back to getting enough sleep at night because you know you’re well-protected in any situation.

Note: This article is a resource guide for educational and informational purposes only and should not take the place of hiring an attorney. No information in this article creates an attorney-client relationship between the author and the reader.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Rachel Rodgers is a business lawyer for women and/or young entrepreneurs. She runs her practice, Rachel Rodgers Law Office, entirely online. In addition to practicing law, Rachel blogs about virtual law offices and teaches a popular workshop for women lawyers who want to practice law online through her website, Her Virtual Law Office.

Now check out these startup marketing tips from everywhere else.

Top Resources For Understanding Startup Funding

It’s no secret that many activist investors are frustrated with the lack of financial literacy among entrepreneurs today. In my own battle against the blank face in the boardroom, I’ve been following the work of Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, and Fred Wilson (in addition to asking some of our great investors questions directly).

Some of these online works can be a little overwhelming, however, with Fred Wilson’s MBA Mondays alone returning over 90 posts. Here are a few places to get started — followed by some additional resources I’ve found useful.

Brad Feld’s Finance Fridays

Brad’s professorial writing style explains the context around numerous accounting mechanisms and why they matter. Brad will get you thinking about the big picture before you dive into vocabulary.

Select Picks:

Jason Mendelson’s Convertible Debt Series

Convertible debt (and convertible equity) is popular for seed stage companies in Silicon Valley. Jason’s series will help you get comfortable with the levers behind most seed stage negotiations.

Select Picks:

Brad Feld’s Term Sheet Tips

Don’t forget to plan for success! Get familiar with what a term sheet looks like before you get one.

Select Picks:

Fred Wilson’s MBA Mondays

Fred’s posts are among my favorite. Not only does he share concrete examples, he uses simple terms to get you familiar with almost every major financial metric that will have an impact on your business. I even printed Fred’s posts and annotated them rigorously until I understood how everything fit together.

Select Picks:

Additional Resources:

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Tyler Arnold is Co-Founder and CEO of SimplySocial Inc., a software tool that helps large companies create great content for their social media profiles. As CEO, Tyler assists with key accounts, business development, and talent acquisitions as SimplySocial grows its presence around the world.

Now read 12 of the hardest questions venture capitalists will ask you

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10 Great Productivity Apps For Entrepreneurs

Getting more done throughout your day isn’t simply a matter of sitting down and working harder. Instead, being more productive requires that you work harder on the right things, in addition to tackling them as efficiently as possible. Fortunately for entrepreneurs, there are plenty of apps out there that will help to both organize an overwhelming workload and provide the motivation needed to get things done.

The following are 10 of my favorites:

Evernote: The beauty of Evernote (which is available for free in Web, iOS and Android versions) is that it can be whatever you need it to be. Need a simple place to store notes or track thoughts as they occur? Evernote has you covered. Want to set up a complete David Allen-style “Getting Things Done (GTD)” environment inside the program? Evernote can do that too.
Dropbox: As with Evernote, it probably isn’t a surprise to see Dropbox on a list of recommended productivity apps. The program’s value has been pretty well-established, all though chances are good that, even if you do have this program installed on your computer or mobile device, you still aren’t getting as much out of it as you could. To expand your usage, check out Macworld’s article on “62 Things You Can Do With Dropbox” (many of which work no matter what platform you’re using).
Lastpass: In an age of digital insecurity, forming secure passwords is an absolute must – but who has time to remember all those different combinations of letters and numbers? If you struggle to keep your online accounts secure, Lastpass can help by generating, storing and automatically recalling strong passwords for all of your Internet logins. It’s free to use on both PCs and Macs, though you’ll pay $12/year to have the premium version available for download to your mobile device.
Remember the Milk: Remember the Milk (RTM) is a widely-used to-do list management program that’s worth a look if you’re having trouble tracking your tasks. It’s highly flexible and easily customized – and can even be used to implement a GTD-style system. The Web version and basic iOS and Android apps are free to use, though daily syncing will run you $25/year.
Wunderlist: If RTM lacks in any one area, it’s visual appeal. So if you’re a more graphically-inclined entrepreneur, take a look at Wunderlist – a perpetual favorite on lists of the best “to do” trackers. The program is easy to navigate and can be used to quickly and efficiently track important tasks from within its free desktop, Web, iOS and Android versions.
Things: Although Things is only available on Macs and within Apple devices, it still warrants a mention on this list, given how intuitive the program is to use. While some users find that the RTM interface has a learning curve to fully utilize, Things makes it easy to start tracking “to do” items as quickly as possible. And, as an added bonus, it’s totally free to use!
Instapaper: Coming across interesting articles is one of the best parts of the Internet – and one of the worst things for your overall productivity levels. Instead of reading through new posts whenever you encounter them, save them to your Instapaper account. Your selected Web pages will be automatically saved for later browsing, when they’ll be displayed in a reading-friendly format for free on your computer, iPhone, iPad or Kindle.
Yast: Nearly all professionals can benefit from some type of time-tracking program – whether this type of tool is used to report billable hours back to customers or to simply measure how working hours are being spent. Yast provides an incredibly easy-to-use solution (just press the “Play” button to start tracking time to a specific account) that’s free to use for personal time tracking. Business accounts for entire teams are available as well, starting at $14/user per month.
Focusbooster: Plenty of entrepreneurs use the Pomodoro Technique (which alternates 25-minute long working blocks with short breaks) in order to maintain sustainable, long-term productivity. And while there are plenty of different Pomodoro timers out there, one of my favorites is the Focusbooster App. It’s free to use and provides a simple way for business professionals to stay focused over long periods of time.
Leech Block: If you find that the Pomodoro Technique alone isn’t enough to maintain productivity (which – let’s face it – isn’t that much of a challenge in today’s digital world of easily-accessible distractions), you may need to call in the big guns. In this case, you need Leech Block – a Firefox add-on that allows you to lock down specified websites. It’s easily customized to suit your unique working habits, and even provides a helpful reminder to get back to work when you stray to one of your blocked sites.

These are just a few of my favorite productivity apps. If you have others that you couldn’t get through the work day without, share your recommendations below!

Sujan Patel is the founder and CEO of Single Grain, one of the top Digital Marketing agencies in San Francisco, CA. With more than 10 years of Internet marketing experience, Sujan leads the digital marketing strategy for companies like Sales Force, Yahoo, Intuit and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.

4 Decisions Every Startup Should Make Before Launching

Owning and operating your own business is exhilarating. It’s a time to work as your own boss and create a successful path for yourself. Yet, starting a business is also quite daunting. While every business owner shouldn’t hold back in terms of goals or strategy, he or she should also take plenty of time to get a deep understanding of what having a business actually means. This includes all of the caveats, legal responsibilities and financial risks that come with it. Before launching your start-up, make these all-important decisions

When you have your own business, it’s tempting to simply write off everything and anything at tax time. Deciding ahead of time what to write off will eliminate any confusion from business owners and employees on what is a practical write-off, and in effect, reduce the chances of getting audited come April 15^th.

Travel, cell phone use, home office, rent and business supplies are all popular write-offs, but the important thing is to decide on a policy, and understand the regulations, up front. Preparing your taxes at the end of a new business’s first fiscal year is no joke and making the right preparations months in advance is crucial in helping owners avoid financial issues down the road.

How will you structure your business?

In the beginning stages, a decision about business structure has to be made. Ask yourself these important questions about how you’ll structure your start-up business:

Do you want to have a business partner?
How much liability do you want to have personally versus liability for your business?
Do you want yourself, and any partners, to have a lot of flexibility in the handling of the business?
How many tax liabilities do you want to be responsible for?

Depending on the answers to these questions, you might be looking at forming a Limited Liability Company, a Standard Corporation, a S-Corporation, a Professional Limited Liability Company, or something similar. Each option incurs different taxes and has its own caveats and structures. It is wise to consult professional help to see exactly which structure is right for your business.

Which banking option is for you?

In the time leading up to starting a business, it’s important to create a cushion for yourself. After all, many start-up businesses fail and it’s important to have a back-up plan or exit strategy should your business model go south. Start off by looking into the rates, yields, minimums and other options for different banking accounts. Setting up the right type of banking option can make help to alleviate some of the financial risks that come with launching a new business.

Each bank offers its own set of advantages for business owners. For example, those who choose to do online banking at Discover Bank can opt-in for various rewards and cash bonuses for making businesses expenses. By establishing a financial cushion and working with companies you trust is one of the most sure-fire ways to stay afloat in the awkward launch process.

Who will you employ?

After deciding on the industry of your business and going through the preliminary steps, it’s time to decide who you’ll hire and what those individuals will be doing. It’s a very delicate line when trying to hiring a proper amount of people to complete all tasks.

Hire too little and you risk exposing your team to over-extension leading to faster burnout and lower employee retention. Hire too many and you run the risk of confusion over responsibilities and a bloated payroll you can’t justify. The best course is to find qualified individuals for the job who you know you can trust. A few bad eggs can take down companies with even the most sound business models.

Even though launching a start-up isn’t the easiest of tasks, especially among the new information and rules that need to be learned and understood, decisions made ahead of time will make the process as simple as possible. Tasking yourself with making these important decisions from the beginning will help you draw a navigable path into the future.

About the author

DJ Miller is a graduate student at the University of Tampa. He is an avid gadget geek who spends most his time writing on anything tech related. In his spare time he likes to travel, play soccer, and watch movies. You can follow him on twitter @MillerHeWrote

10 Rules For A Great Startup Idea [infographic]

As entrepreneurs we’ve been hammered over the head with the idea, that ideas are worthless without execution and follow through. But how do we know if our ideas are even good enough to pursue.

If you’ve vetted your idea and you think it may be a great startup idea, but you don’t have a team, one of the best places that you can go to vet the idea and get started is a Startup Weekend event. So how do you get to that point?

Founder Institute Founder and CEO Adeo Ressi has a structured approach to analyzing ideas. He shares it at most of the Founder Institute events across the country. Well now the Founder Institute has made that wisdom available to everyone via this infographic checklist below.

Passion, simplicity, revenue, customer knowledge, market knowledge, market size, secret sauce, vetting and killing and sharing your idea are all part of this important approach. You can dive more into these ideas below.

10 Rules to a Great Startup Idea infographic

You can find out more about Founder Institute and their programs across the country at fi.co

Now check out 8 bits of awesomness outlining startup life.

Startups Here’s A Better Way To Ask For An Email Introduction

I ask for and receive a lot of requests for introductions. Whether it’s someone at a company looking for a partnership or job, an investor, a journalist, or someone else, it’s an integral part of pretty much any profession. At the same time, such requests often arise in the least efficient way possible for the middleman: in person, in the middle of another email exchange talking about the other party, or simply with no details at all.

Once I got involved in the startup scene with Fetchnotes, I found that the startup crowd has email introductions down to an exact science. I’m sure similar rules apply outside our bubble, but inside it there are a very specific set of expectations, and it was a bit cryptic and counterintuitive to pick up at first. But hopefully this helps you maximize the success of your introduction requests.

First of all, no matter where the request for an intro arises, always send a separate request email. That way, the receiving party can act on it directly (since most intros are over email). You’re asking someone to spend their social capital on you, so your number one goal is make it as easy as possible. Here’s how:

—

Hey Alex,

Hope all is well! I saw you’re connected to Mark Zuckerberg (contact) on LinkedIn. I was hoping to connect with him about a partnership (reason), the details of which are below. Do you know him well enough to make an intro (gives middle-man a way out in case they don’t know each other well)?

StartupWithFriends is an awesome new app that lets you start a company with your friends, right on Facebook (what you do). We have 150K+ active users, and on average they’re starting 1,000 companies per day (credibility + traction). We’ve been integrating with OpenGraph already (shows you’ve done work already, otherwise they often point you to their API page) but we think that we can make it a huge revenue driver for them if we get access to some of the data not available in their APIs, specifically the number of times a user looks at the profiles of their ex-girlfriends (basic benefits + needs outlined).

Let me know if you can make the connection. If not, no worries, I can reach out cold (shows them you have confidence that this is going to happen one way or another).

Thanks!
Networker McAwesome

—

When I receive an email like this, I forward it to my contact and ask, “Hey, these guys were looking to connect. Can I make an intro?” If he says yes, I make the connection. If not, I say I tried but he doesn’t want to talk. Unless you know someone really well (or know they are looking for such opportunities), you want to give them a chance to say no. Otherwise, they’ll feel obligated to take it and have bad feelings toward the person from Day 1. Not only is it just good etiquette to give them a choice, but it prevents the value of your introduction from being diluted too.

Is it contrived? Obviously. Does the other party realize its contrived? Usually. And yet I write every email intro request in this exact format because it does three really, really important things:

Makes it easy for the middleman to make the intro (just hit forward and type a sentence)
Gives the person you’re trying to get connected with a basic overview (so they feel more comfortable taking a meeting)
Limits the amount of aggregate back-and-forth.

That makes the intro more likely to happen, the person you’re trying to meet more likely to take the meeting, and most of all, makes the most efficient use of everyone’s time.

Happy connecting!

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Alex Schiff is the founder and chief executive officer of Fetchnotes, which makes productivity as simple as a tweet. Prior to Fetchnotes, Alex was the vice president of Benzinga and a student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Check out our interview with FetchNotes here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else

5 Steps For Calculating Your Startups Costs

You can’t create a realistic business plan without knowing how much it will cost to get your business up and running. If you don’t have an idea of your startup costs, you won’t know how long you’ll have to bootstrap, how much funding you’ll need, how quickly to scale. In other words, without calculating your startup costs, you don’t really know where you’re going — or how you’re going to get there. And your company could fail before you even hit the break-even point.

Some entrepreneurs believe that calculating their costs is all about listing and tallying their cash outlays. This is an essential step, of course, but calculating startup costs is much more than a simple exercise in addition. Equally important is to set some milestones and build your financial plan around hitting these goals.

Here’s how:

#1: Identify your milestones.

To determine the major milestones for your company, you need to assess where you are and where you want to be. You can’t begin to identify your costs until you know what you want to accomplish. What are the important milestones for your company to achieve? Some possible milestones could be to get out a beta product, get a first product, or to gain a solid understand your market. Try to create discrete milestones rather than bundle them together.

#2: Determine what you need to do to accomplish your milestones.

Once you’ve identified your milestones, you need to think about the resources necessary to hit these milestones. Consider the following costs:

Human resources. This is often the greatest startup expense. Figure out who you will need to build your company, and then calculate their projected salaries and wages (depending on whether you hire employees or outsource). Remember to include recruiting, benefits, taxes, and other related HR costs.
Operational costs. These are the day-to-day costs of keeping your business running, including such things as your internet service and office supplies, and other inventory and equipment expenses.
Professional services. You’ll need to include costs for essential professional services, such as an accountant or attorney. Also consider what permits or licenses you may need.
Facilities. Determine, what, if anything, you will need in terms of facilities or office space.
Marketing. Your company won’t be very successful if nobody’s heard of it! Consider the cost of marketing materials, your Google AdWords campaign, or other marketing costs.

#3: Consider funding sources.

Next you need to determine if you are going to bootstrap the entity or if you want to/need to/can raise funds. To do this, calculate your burn rate (the amount of capital you will go through every month), using your total expense calculation. If you realize that you will need to raise money to cover your monthly costs, decide what potential funding source you’re going to target: friends and families, angel investors, or venture capitalists.

#4: Establish your funding goal.

There are pros and cons to each funding source, but there is no right source for all companies. It depends on your company niche, what stage your company is in, and what else you are looking for — and not looking for — in a funding partner. And, of course, it depends on how much money you need.

You may think more money is better, but this is actually a mistake. Use your expense calculations as a baseline for how much funding you will need. Add in a bit of a cushion, since it’s common for startups to underestimate their cost — but don’t add in too much. Raising what you need (and no more) is called capital efficiency– and it’s a much more telling indicator of your company’s success that your capital access.

#5: Balance your milestones against your funds.

Once you have determined what you need to hit your milestones, you need to go back and balance that against your funds. Balance your way between what you can do and what you can afford in order to reach each milestone. This isn’t a one-time process; you’ll find yourself constantly dancing between these two points.

Admittedly there will be surprises as you launch and grow – that’s why you don’t want to start with a five-year financial plan; it’s just not possible to accurately project that far out. Instead, you just want to calculate your initial costs and create a budget, and update that budget, on a quarterly basis. If you can start with a reasonable estimate of your projected costs, you’ll be better prepared to write your business plan — and positioned to build a successful company.

David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, a financial services firm providing a complete suite of financial services to companies at every stage of the development process. He’s a financial expert and startup mentor, whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best. Follow David @EarlyGrowthFS.

Hiring A Web Developer? 4 Interpersonal Skills To Look For

The Internet and smartphones help us to bring our ideas to life more easily and cheaply than ever before. But before you can get your big idea out in front of the masses, you need that idea to transform from a sketch in your notebook into a working website or mobile app.

Which, in most cases, means you need a great Web or mobile developer.

However, if you’ve never looked for a quality Web or mobile developer before, the task can feel extremely daunting. Many people waste a lot of time and money running through multiple developers before they find the perfect one. Why? It’s often because you aren’t on the same page as the developer with regards to what you want, how much it’s going to cost, and how long it’s going to take.

Nevermind technical skills (those are easy enough to verify) — if you’re working on a high-tech project, interpersonal skills are just as important. These 4 qualities will help ensure you find the partner you’re looking for — the one who can bring your idea to life without wasting any of your time or money:

1. Trustworthiness.

A great Web or mobile developer isn’t just another contractor you hire to get some work done. Ideally, they become your partner. They bring skills and tools to the table that breathe life into your idea and turn your grand vision into a distinct reality. If your gut says you don’t trust them, you’re never going to feel comfortable working with them.

Without trust, chances are you and your developer will never be on the same page with anything. In the back of your mind, you’ll always be second guessing the developer’s decisions and motivations. Moving forward will become increasingly difficult as the process slows down because of the lack of trust in the partnership.

2. Passion for their work.

Someone who has a deep passion for their work is often palpably excited and positive about that work. This excitement spills over into their interactions with you.

If your developer isn’t excited to be working with you, that sentiment is going to show in their communication and demeanor — walk away!

3. Previous (positive) experience working with clients.

Some developers create incredible, high-quality work and are amazing at what they do, but they’re simply not that good at working with clients. They’re not “people” people. If your developer doesn’t have previous experience working with clients, that’s going to be a problem.

Previous experience working with clients means your developer will have an existing process and workflow in place, which creates a much smoother experience for you. They’ll be able to help prevent common problems that could arise during your project, saving you time and money.

If you’re not sure about your developer’s capacity to deliver in this respect, ask for references.

4. Excellent communication skills.

Given our increasing reliance on email as a primary form of communication, it’s easy to misinterpret what somebody is saying or how they are feeling. If your developer isn’t very good at communicating in this way, you’re likely to lose track of what’s going on with the project.

A developer who is also an excellent communicator will ensure you always have a clear overall view of the project. They’ll explain everything in layman’s terms and not drown you in confusing technical jargon. It’s part of the developer’s job to make you feel more comfortable overall about your project.

Tim Jahn is the co-founder of matchist, a curated service for freelance developers to connect with quality clients and projects. He’s also the co-founder of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, an events and media company that helps entrepreneurs move their businesses forward. As an active member of the Chicago tech community, Tim has made his mark interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the world.

3 Key Questions To Ask Before Hiring For Your Startup

One of the hardest but most exciting things about being a young entrepreneur, first-time business owner or even a startup manager is the hiring process. But there are a few things you have to think about before green-lighting a new startup employee, especially in the earliest stages of starting up.

Here are 3 questions to guide you:

1. Do you really NEED another employee?

When you’re first starting out, you’re hiring someone for one of two reasons: (1) because you have pushed your own limits of how much you can work in a day (aka you’re going insane by working so much), or (2), the person you’re hiring has a skill that you simply don’t have and the time spent learning that skill would not be worth it for your business.

Think of yourself — how many hours you put in, how much work you do to spur your business or the business you’re working for. Now duplicate yourself. Is there actually enough work to be done that there could be a clone of you working simultaneously and not be bored or off-task throughout the day?

And if you simply don’t have a skill needed, rethink that aspect of your business. Is there anyone else already on the team that has that particular skill? Is that task that you think needs to get done absolutely core to your business? If yes, then hire. If not, then hold off until it’s absolutely necessary.

2. How do you hire? Immediately, or a trial period?

Companies bring new hires onto the team in different ways. Some startups tend to hire people like developers on a Friday as salaried employees, and ask them to be at work on Monday — mostly because their skill set is definite and because their job takes place in a space that needs to be confined. (We can’t have our engineers working from Starbucks while writing all of our code to improve security on our site.)

Hiring business teams works a little bit differently. Many of these jobs rely on longer-term objectives and relationships that take time to build, combined with some sort of measurable ROI. At MySocialCloud, we help our employees transition from previous activities (working at another company, going to school, unemployment) to working on our team with a two-week “trial period.”

We give them a couple of tasks and some actionable items for the two weeks. They can choose how and when they go about accomplishing the tasks by the set date. After the two weeks, we go through an evaluation process: Did they complete the actionable tasks? How well were they completed? Did they go above and beyond? Did they, as ambitious people who know it takes more effort to work at a startup, take the initiative to add their own tasks to that list to help spur the business?

If all of these tasks are completed at a level that exceeds your expectation, it’s time to hire!

Pro tip: Interview A LOT of people. Look at a lot of different candidates. At the very least, it gives you a perspective of who NOT to hire, which helps you hone in on the qualities and skills of a person who truly fits on your team.

3. Do you offer equity and if so, when/how much?

When it comes to equity in a new company, there are two main pitfalls to avoid.

One is the overly generous mentality. There are some first-time founders who hand out equity for their startup like nobody’s business. They give equity to every new employee, and anyone who has helped them with advice or getting a meeting with an important person. DON’T do this! Equity at a startup is worth next to nothing, and the only way it becomes something is if you make it something. Only give it to people who really contribute (e.g. another co-founder, a technical lead on your team, etc.). And don’t forget to make it vesting.

The flip side is the “hoarding” mentality. These are the founders who know for a fact that their business is worth bazillions of dollars and they want to have it all. DON’T be this person, either. As mentioned above, startup equity means nothing unless your team makes it worth something — you can’t build a business by yourself.

You do need some people on your team to have equity (maybe not all of them, but definitely some of them). At the very least, it motivates them to work harder knowing they have a large potential payout once you reach your goals.

Stacey Ferreira co-founded MySocialCloud, a technology startup that allows people to store their usernames and passwords for all their online websites for auto-login and share websites with friends easily, during her senior year of high school with her brother, Scott. When she was just 18, she raised a seed round of funding of just under $1 million from Sir Richard Branson and Jerry Murdock.

Check out the hiring for your rockstar panel at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, EE14, Early Bird tickets and booths still available.