Getting a startup off the ground isn’t easy. Instead of focusing solely on your baby, as in the actual product or service that you’re selling, you’ll also have to deal with administrative headaches. Managing your startup finances is one of these necessary evils. Here’s everything you need to know about finances for your startup.

As a business owner, you’re going to have to get involved with the financial side of things. There are no two ways about it. Here’s what you need to know to steer your company’s finances in the right direction.

Manage Your Finances 

Entrepreneurs will generally do everything except manage their finances properly. Making money is obviously a major concern and often a big driver in starting the business, but actually taking care of the day to day finances tends to take a backseat. And that’s a recipe for disaster. 

Managing your finances should be one of your top priorities. No “We need to focus on our product,” no, “I’m not a money person,” or “We’ll figure out the finer details later.” In short, no excuses. Manage your cash or you’ll go out of business, period. 

Your Accountant is Important

I’ve already emphasized that managing your money is super important. Accountancy deserves its own headline, as it’s the crux around which your financial health will be measured. Without it, your paperwork will be a mess, the IRS will start sending you threatening letters, and you won’t have a clue about how much money you really have.

Of course, a startup doesn’t always have the cash reserves to spend money on a fancy (and generally quite expensive) accountant. In the beginning, you’ll be able to do it in-house. You’ll need to brush up on your skills, however, and a course that covers the accountancy essentials should be plenty for Year one, either for yourself or for one of your designated employees. Once your numbers start getting a bit more complicated, hire a pro. 

Expensive Credit = Big No No 

You’re just starting out, which means you need money. And quickly. Trust me, as a former small business owner, I get it. When banks and credit card companies start sending you leaflets offering you a bunch of money and all you need to do is fill in a form, it’s easy to fall prey to temptation. 

I’m going to spell it out with some big letters (just to put some extra emphasis and also to be slightly annoying): NEVER GO FOR EXPENSIVE CREDIT.  It’ll (almost always) end in tears. If you’re relying on credit to get your business off the ground, you’ll likely run out of money before you can start paying it back. 

Keep Your Expenses Low

Working out of your basement or getting a cool office? Hiring a battalion of employees or working 18-hour days and hiring freelancers? Logo designed by expensive hipsters or something you got off Fiverr? 

These are choices you’ll be faced with, and while I’m not saying you should cut corners at every opportunity, keeping costs low, to begin with, are key to survival. You don’t want to burn through your finances in the first few months, nor do you want to get saddled with long-term contracts you can’t get out of. Spend money when you need to, but don’t be frivolous.

Don’t Merge Personal and Business 

There’s business, and then there’s personal. They always say you should never mix the two, and ‘they’ are right. When you launch your startup, you’ll need a commercial bank account. For any business expenses, use this account only. 

Never, ever, use your personal bank account to cover any expenses. Even if it’s a short bridging loan or a matter of convenience. There are simple reasons for this:

1) You won’t be tempted to make it a regular occurrence and 
2) It makes doing your taxes a lot more straightforward. 

Know Your Tax Deductions 

Tax deductions can seriously lower your expenses. You should know them inside out, or hire an expert who does. You’ll be surprised by the type of things you can include: 

• Utilities. You can deduct electricity, gas, cell phones, internet connection, you name it. And yes, you can even claim this stuff if you work out of a home office. 

• Travel. If you need to go to a conference or on a business trip far from home, make sure you keep all of the receipts.Fully tax deductible. 

• Advertising. Whether you try and get the word out through the Google Ad network, Facebook ads, or traditional snail mail, the costs are fully deductible. 

• Business lunches. The government will pay 50% of your business lunches, as long as the expense can be substantiated (just check the small print first).

Aim for Market Rate Pay 

Most entrepreneurs won’t give themselves a salary. They’ll work day in, day out, and take a little bit of money when they desperately need it and the company can afford it. It makes sense; you’re just starting off, why waste cash? 

The problem with this ethos is that it creates an unsustainable business model and an unworkable financial picture. Long term, it just doesn’t work. You should either pay yourself what your role demands or fit it into your short-term financial plans.

Expect a Rainy Day 

You have a fantastic idea. The buzz seems promising. People are buying what you’re selling. It’s all looking good. Until it doesn’t. No matter how good you are at your job or how rosy things look, there’s almost always a bump in the road somewhere.

Budget for a rainy day. Keep a buffer for the times when cash flow isn’t good. Retain quality employees even if you’re going through a rough couple of months. Keep your doors open while you weather the storm. Having a rainy day fund will get you out of the tough spots, so make sure you build a decent one. 

Even If You Know Everything, It’s Still Hard! 

Startups are exciting, liberating, and have the promise to give you professional satisfaction and making you (potentially) millions of dollars. On the flip side, running a business isn’t a cakewalk.

Even if you know everything there is to know about startup finance, it’s not going to be an easy ride. With that in mind, equip yourself to deal with those difficult days. Keep learning about the dollar side of things as often as time allows. And don’t be afraid to call in the experts when you need to. 

https://samplecic.ch/everything-you-need-to-know-about-finances-for-your-startup-2.html

The world has changed. You can crash and burn or you can get the right tools and information now and change your life, your business and the lives of your employees.

In this episode of How to CEO, I welcome Han Jin, the co-founder, and CEO of Lucid.

Han Jin and his partner created Lucid in 2015. Their company produces software and artificial intelligence. I invited Han Jin to talk about the various characteristics and skills that a CEO should have. Being a founder and CEO are two very different things and Han Jin helps us to differentiate both roles. He also shares his experiences and the challenges that he has faced switching back and forth between both of these vary complex roles over the past two and a half years.

Han Jin tells me at Lucid, “we have created software and artificial intelligence to capture 3D on mobile devices, or any device that has cameras.”

Every year we work toward becoming better CEO’s and building a better company and product. My co-founder worked in robotics  and worked on at improving things in the robotics field for a few years. He really wanted to humanize and leverage only the software. This decision was before we met. After we met we decided to “productize” the software and make something that would be sellable to the masses.

I asked Han Jin how much money they have been able to raise for their company.

Han indicated to me that this is not much money — but it sounded rather great to me. 2.6 million he told me — but adds that they have been able to raise that sum up to seven or eight digits. Remarkable in the short three and a half year span that they have been building the company.

What does it take to do the fund raising and what does it take to grow a company?

“This journey has been a lot of personal growth and mental growth.” Han says that it really isn’t about the title of being a CEO. It’s much larger than that.  Just the mindset takes more that the title says it is. Jin says that everyone should try to be the founder of their own company because of what you will learn.

You can grow your own company better that anyone else can do it. You’ll notice what you need to double or triple your company growth and revenue to address all of the requests for your product. Because you are right there at the top of your company you can see what has to be done and you do it. There is no waiting around for permissions or other help to come. You learn to grow yourself and your company at the same time.

Lucid now has over 50 people working in the company worldwide. Fantastc growth, but Jin says that he is not the perfect CEO yet.  He explains to me how much growth there is in growing with your people and learning how to “do” that growth. “Hopefully as I go through all of the stages in building a company I’ll become better and wiser in our company I will be able to learn.”

What personality differences are there to being a 10k company or a 50k company?

Every scale and stage of a business requires a different skill set. You become a better employer and CEO with each year that you practice this job. You get much better at hiring — because you have to get the right people in your company that you can trust. As the founder, co-founder and CEO you have to have more trust in your employees as each year goes by. You can’t always be there to manage them — they have to handle the day to day business for you, wherever they are.

Do you find that your employees then bring in other people that join your company?

Yes, each of the employees that you have hire end up bringing in people that they know and you have to have trust in that process too. You have to start breaking down your business into units of work and sections of work. You have to decide who to put over each section of work. The heiarchy must also grow so that you can keep growing. Again — every stage takes a great amount of trust, time and money.

What is the hardest thing you have had to teach your employees?

I have had to teach my employees about making mistakes. I have had to tell them not to worry about making errors. I have to actually encourage the employees to make mistakes and not worry about those issues. They have to get better at their jobs and better at coming up with new ways to build their section of the business. The only way to get better at your job is to go through the mistakes. If you’re a “little off ” or not doing well as a CEO or a team member — that not too bad. But I have to train the team to be okay about errors and to get over it and move on. I train the team to handle the errors — because they will make mistakes.

You have been in business three and a half years. If you could go back and say something to yourself three and a half years ago, what would that advice look like?

In what ever job you decide to do in your business it’s best to learn that a founder and CEO are totally different jobs. They require different strengths and you will have different weaknesses. You have to ask yourself if you even want to be a CEO because this job is certainly not for everyone. It’s a difficult journey. I asked my dad about this topic. He told me that if you are going to be a CEO, you have to be good at three things:

• Fundraising.
• Recruiting.
• Seeing — having the vision and seeing the future of the company.

At one point I really struggled with funding raising. I went through 300 rejections in a row from the investors. I questioned myself and told myself if I wanted to be a CEO I needed to stop whining and stand up and be the best fundraiser there was.

Where do you see you growth coming from in the future?

I want to see a bigger picture and see ahead to a bigger market and to new markets that come along. Getting in to new markets and growth will be required if we are to keep growing. I take the example of Uber. They changed the entire taxi system. The founder just wanted to make his product and go home and he couldn’t. The app came and he had to keep going.

What questions do you ask yourself as a founder?

• Are you willing to grow and willing to learn?
• What will happen if you stop growing?
• What type of business are you trying to build?  A lifestyle business, or a Google?
• What is your mindset?

Where do you go when you don’t have the answers you are searching for in your business?

Many people say to get an executive coach. I decided to seek out and find different adviors; these are paid advisors. The information that my advisors give is for the financial gains. But I have realized that many of the people that help me build Lucid, also care about the relationship. Many relationships in our company have become important with our coaches, mentors and adviors.

How do you find this sort of people?

Finding the right type of person goes back to any type of hiring or any type of finding. You will look for these people, but they will also begin to come to you for this work. You will look for the best of the best and these greats will usually be people who have gone through this startup up journey. They know what you are going through and what you need and they can help you. You need someone who has had a startup first of all. I look and keep an eye out for these people. We have been lucky to find individuals who care for our company, and also care about me and my co-founder personally.

Join  me here for other How to CEO podcasts.

https://samplecic.ch/how-to-ceo-podcast-interview-han-jin-ceo-of-lucid-2.html

Before we take a plunge into the Startup culture of India, let us first try understanding what exactly a startup is, and how does it function? Then we will tell the evolution of startups in India and the story until now.

What is a Startup?

Investopedia defines a startup as “a young company that is just beginning to develop.” A startups seeds are sown and sprouted either because the founder(s) have come up with a unique solution with a product (like a software or a physical product) or service. Usually, a product or service is to erase a complicated problem.

Many times the startups product or service is to provide a more efficient way around recreating and distributing a product or service that is already a business.

Success has its age-old formula inscribed in golden letters on every wall that reads:

“In order to become the one percent, you must execute the right idea, in the right direction, at the right time.”

When these three elements work in tandem, the output increases, the customer base expands, and the company automatically starts to grow exponentially.

Why do certain start-ups succeed when others fail?

Looking deeply into what does and doesn’t work for a startup, you will find that there is a lot more to a startup’s success than mere good luck and excellent conditions and coincidences.

Having good luck, having favorable conditions, and experiencing great coincidences are only a small part of the business. You will need to:

• Have an idea that is exciting, effective, and feasible.
• Hard-working management that knows how to bring the best in their employees.
• Ability to anticipate future trends and adapt quickly to the rapidly changing business environment.
• Presence of experienced Mentors who can effortlessly guide the team through tough times is always beneficial.
• Building a workplace that values purpose before profits

Failures, on the other hand, occur majorly due to the following reasons:

• Quitting too early in the process; lack of persistence
• Running out of money.
• Conceiving a wrong notion about the market: incorrect pricing, too slow on pick up, late in execution, etc.
• Afraid of taking risks, experimenting, and diving all forces in.
• Fearful of changes; inability to adapt.

Now that we know what sets a successful startup apart from an unsuccessful one let’s take a peek into India’s work ecosystem.

How did India utilize its resources to become a startup generating machine?

India is a young country with 65 percent of its population falling under the age bracket of 25 to 35 years. The rise of startups in India didn’t happen overnight but slowly, over a gradual period. It was in the year 2008, after a global recession hit the world, that the first startup revolution began to take shape.

The Great Recession caused businesses to reallocate their resources and lay off employees in large numbers. In India, it mostly affected the IT professionals, who grew extremely fearful for their jobs. This little fear, along with an insatiable aspiration to prove one’s mettle, shook the young nation. It didn’t take the countrymen long to break the shackles of mediocrity and rise above the challenge.

The Startup Ecosystem as it is TODAY.

Successful Startups almost always follow the same ideology:

“Chase the vision, not the money, and the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh

In India, Startups are known for their flexible work culture, late-night parties, and an impartial and transparent work environment. According to Inc42, “India boasts more than 6,000 startups, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is confident that 44 percent of these startups are based in Tier II and Tier III cities. And their numbers are only rising.” At the moment, India is the second-largest startup ecosystem in the world.

According to a survey report by Innoven Capital, the major factors that make India one of the world’s most startup-friendly nations are:

• Cost of doing business is pretty low.
• Customers and vendors live nearby.
• With 7 million graduates passing out every year, the size of the domestic market is pretty encouraging.
• India has the 2nd largest internet user-base in the world.
• Earlier, the best talent was limited to big corporations only.
• The element and potential of entrepreneurship are seeping into Indian culture.
• More individuals and professionals have started to dissociate themselves from the more prominent brands.

As Sanjay Nath, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, tells YourStory:

“Indian entrepreneurs never lacked imagination. But, in the last 10 years, the best talent has been limited to corporations. Now, that gap is being bridged. This reverse flow of talent is the most inspiring thing about the B2B startup sector right now.” 

List of 5 Indian startups that have done exceptionally well for their size and age.

Take a look at these picks — as described in their websites. As a startup, you can always learn and imitate a successful business to build your own success. I have chosen these sites for their excellence.

1. Milkbasket– delivers milk, bread, eggs, butter, juices, and other daily need items every morning, right at your doorstep, free of charge.

2. Epigamia– is a Greek Yogurt brand that has taken the yogurt shelves in India by storm.

3. StoryXpress– a Techstars-backed company, is an end-to-end video marketing platform that enables brands and retailers to convert their e-commerce product catalogs into videos at a fraction of the time and cost as compared to traditional video production houses.

4. Forest Essentials– is an authentic, traditional skincare brand with its foundations in the ancient science of Ayurveda. A pioneer in the Luxury Ayurveda segment, today it has become the quintessential Indian beauty brand that combines the ancient beauty rituals of Ayurveda with a stylish, modern aesthetic for a more relevant emphasis on efficacy, sensorial experience, and pleasure of usage

5. Paytm– is India’s largest leading payment gateway that offers comprehensive payment services for customer and merchants. We offer mobile payment solutions to over 7 million merchants and allow consumers to make seamless mobile payments from Cards, Bank Accounts, and Digital Credit, among others.

The Indian youth and community aren’t afraid of casting aside their 9 to 5 jobs.

These entrepreneurs are all set to break the glass ceiling and attain powerful leadership roles in their businesses, cities, and globally. As more Indian startups and entrepreneur become professionals, they look for increasing ways to succeed. New entrepreneurs and companies are encouraging their employees to express themselves freely. The new freedom to speak up and share ideas is allowing the Indian culture to get all manner of ideas for their success. Success builds on success. After all, even more than having an idea is the culture of the freedom to voice your ideas. The generation of new ideas in the workplace will decide whether or not that startup is going to succeed.

https://samplecic.ch/the-evolution-of-startups-in-india-the-story-up-until-now-2.html

The jobs act promised small individual investors the ability to invest in the next Google. It also pledged founders an alternative route to raising money. Why should only the already rich get the benefits of investing in the next Google or Amazon?

Less risk for the new startup investors.

According to Entrepreneur, “Seventy-five percent of venture-backed startups fail.” Investing in startups is a risky affair, yet investors are will to take these risks because of the potential of significant upsides.

For founders, having a new source of capital has a definite upside.

Having access to crowdfunding platforms are not just for small startups anymore. As of 2018, “since its launch, nearly 1,000 companies have registered with the SEC on 50 platforms, and over $127 million has been committed to campaigns.”

Before acquisition the then SeedInvest CEO Ryan Feit previously said, “With over 37,000 accredited investors, SeedInvest is by far the largest platform in terms of the number of high net worth investors. Also, unlike other platforms, we have family offices, venture funds, and high net worth individuals who can write checks between $250,000 and $2 million.”

Platforms are changing; not all platforms are the same.

“This sets us apart from all other platforms and ultimately results in larger raises for startups on SeedInvest. We have never been interested in simply trying to list more startups than other platforms or generate the most investment volume. Historically we have only launched one percent of the startups that apply to raise capital, and we invest meaningful time in those startups we select.”

Andy Pandharikar, Commerce.AI CEO, said, “Commerce.AI is building a billion-dollar company. Part of our mission is to democratize artificial intelligence. We originally planned to raise an initial $100,000 on the platform a year ago. The opportunity was 700 percent oversubscribed. We literally had to turn down investors. This funding helped us grow our company while progressing our mission.”

Raising more money in a different way.

“Now, a year later,” says Andy, “we are back to raise more money. This time we are raising an additional $750,000 capital from SeedInvest. We want to offer seed investors the opportunity to be part of our success before institutional VC’s take all the allocation. We plan to raise a limited amount from SeedInvest first, and then get institutional investors for the rest as we scale revenue.”

According to Andy, “Since the last round, we have had 890 percent growth in revenue and achieved great customer success. We have signed paid deals with large enterprise brands such as Cisco, Chanel, Netgear, Coca Cola, Midea, USPS, and SC Johnson.” Overall, Andy continues, “We have been delighted with the seed funding process.”

New platforms allowing additional and varied investments levels will catapult opportunity in the crowdfunding space.

While not everyone will experience the same results as Andy and Commerce.AI, platforms like SeedInvest mean you no longer have to have a black book of contacts. No longer must you have a list brimming with top-tier Angel Investors or Venture Capitalists to help you build tomorrow’s technology today.

The bottom line is that crowdfunding platforms for startups might just be the best new way to secure the funding you need to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

https://samplecic.ch/crowdfunding-your-startup-at-700-percent-oversubscribed-2.html

Earlier this year, Twitter quietly removed its vowels and released Twttr, a platform that essentially acted as a prototype for design changes and feature tweaks the company was considering for its regular site. By creating a separate application under the platform’s original name, the company signaled an attempt to get back to its startup roots. Unlike its more popular brother, Twttr is a place where the company can (if it wants) fail fast and often to find out what truly works best for users. You can create a product that truly delights customers.

For entrepreneurs, this prototype should serve as an example of what it takes to build a continuously successful product.

By introducing this platform, Twitter is attempting to create something that does more than keeping the lights on: It’s trying to create a minimum delightful product or MDP.

The pure beauty of an MDP

Many entrepreneurs are already familiar with the concept of a minimum viable product, or MVP, which is meant to do the fewest things required to accomplish a goal. Fewer may be familiar with the idea of an MDP.

An MDP is essentially what happens when you take an MVP and add a second goal of user enjoyment and engagement.

Where an MVP can mainly be developed in isolation from the real world, an MDP requires regular interactions with potential users to create something people will use regularly.

For entrepreneurs, an MDP is what should eventually come out of that first spark of inspiration. It shows that a startup is not only thinking about the business side of a product but also about its target audience. When an application is streamlined and engaging, it’s clear that it’s been put in front of potential customers and that developers have thought through what the user approach will look like each day.

To create and maintain an MDP, it’s essential to have the right processes in place. 

After all, finding a problem that needs to be solved — and figuring out how to solve it in a way that pleases users and keeps them coming back — is far from simple. Luckily, there are a few steps startups can follow when developing a project that will help keep users coming back for more:

1. Identify an actual problem.

An idea that exists only in a vacuum will ultimately result in a product that’s set up to fail. It might seem like the most brilliant thing in the world, but if an idea isn’t solving a problem that a wide variety of people have, there will be no compelling reason for anyone to use it.

Tinder is a good example of a company that had an idea that was not only a smart design choice but solved a problem people regularly dealt with. To connect on other dating sites before Tinder, a person mostly had to shoot a stranger a message and pray the other was remotely interested. Not ideal for either party.

Tinder, on the other hand, offered an easy way for two people to signal they were interested in each other without one party having to put him- or herself out there first. The swipe was a simple and elegant solution that kept people coming back.

Ask three questions to figure out whether the path you’re heading down is a useful one: What problem is being solved? How is this product’s solution better than the competition? Is this an issue that occurs frequently enough to keep customers coming back? These questions are critical to a development process that will result in more than something that just seemed like a good idea at the time.

2. Figure out how the product will fit into users’ daily lives.

While it isn’t possible to check out every single use case for a product before it’s released, there are ways to get an idea of what typical use might look like. Develop representations of a variety of users with their own stories surrounding when and how they use the product. Knowing what the user is doing with your product helps bring a project into focus and indicates which features will be useful in the final product and which can be scrapped or delayed for future versions.

Many modern companies rely on user stories to develop and target their products, including Apple and JetBlue, but it’s a practice that’s been around for a long time. In the 1940s, the magazine Seventeen created a hypothetical reader known as Teena to pinpoint the type of audience the publication was trying to reach. In 2019, the magazine is still going strong.

3. Perform frequent A/B tests.

Just because a product works well for developers doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to do the same for real-world users. To avoid succumbing to unseen biases, perform A/B testing when possible to better capture customer preferences.

When my company worked with the cash-back application Dosh, A/B testing was a significant part of the process. Features, approach, design, and branding, were modified throughout multiple prototypes to best drive user behavior and increase audience buy-in. One wrong turn could have taken the whole project down the wrong path, but A/B testing helped us steer it right.

For a product to survive in the long term, it generally has to reach the MDP stage at some point.

Sometimes, it’s after the harsh reality of a market failure. Other times, it’s from soliciting feedback from paid users to figure out why a product isn’t working, or why some other part of the market isn’t currently working.

It’s not necessary to get there the hard way, however.

By being mindful of the problem that’s being solved and testing directly with users, entrepreneurs can create a product that will delight customers without bogging them down in bloat.

https://samplecic.ch/how-to-create-a-product-that-truly-delights-customers-2.html

Within this format of podcast and content, I want to provide you with the best tools to become a fantastic CEO. I realized that the most beneficial way for me to add value to your life so that you can stay relevant (both professionally and personally), will be to place some of the best CEOs in the world — in front of you. Here is the first of the How to CEO podcast interviews.

You can use each of these CEO podcasts to put together your own combined knowledge to become the qualified, quality individual you are working toward becoming. Make yourself a leader that merits being listed here among the “greats.”

In this episode, I welcome Cynthia Johnson, my first guest on the podcast.

As the co-founder and CEO of Bell + Ivy, a marketing and PR firm in Santa Monica, CA, and Las Vegas, NV. Cynthia talks about the lessons that kept her going as she tried to start her own company. Cynthia also reveals her favorite management books and her takeaways from them. Cynthia shares that being a CEO takes a lot of hard work.

Cynthia was listed as top personal branding experts in 2017 by Entrepreneur, top 50 marketers on SnapChat by Mashable, top 12 Female Entrepreneurs that Inspire by Darling Magazine, and the Top 20 people in SEO by Guardian. She is a contributing columnist to Entrepreneur and has had work published in Forbes, TIME, and several other industry-specific and top-tier publication.

I have known Cynthia Johnson for about ten years and wanted you ( the reader) to be able to follow her journey of excellence. One of the things that Cynthia points out is that you have to have people you can lean on as you build a life and a company. You’ll need friends, and you are going to need advice along the way. You can’t plan for the type of information that you are going to need to be a CEO. One day you will need some advice, and you hope that you have someone to turn to.

Personality traits can help aspiring leaders get to the top of their respective companies.

Cynthia shared her tips on how to become an approachable yet confident and assertive CEO. When you become a CEO, the world, and everything around, you will change. You can take this tremendous opportunity and make of it what you will, to either crash and burn or ultimately rise and succeed. Either way, the direction of being a CEO will have changed your life.

As a keynote speaker, Cynthia has spoken for companies and events such as the Alibaba Group in China, World Government Summit in Dubai, Global Ventures Summit in Indonesia and Mexico, and Web Summit in Lisbon, among others. She has participated as an influencer in marketing campaigns for PayPal, Joseph Carr Wines, and several other leading brands.

Notably, Cynthia has had her first book Platform, The Art and Science of Personal Branding, published in February 2019 with Penguin Random House.

I have read her book and can recommend it to anyone. Cynthia’s Book: Platform; The Art and Science of Personal Branding. This book fits in with her business because it is mainly for people in the branding field. The book guides people to see what they may be missing in their work. The book can guide IT people and other experts in opening their eyes to other possibilities.

Management Book finds.

Cynthia has recently enjoyed are: Leaders Eat Last, and The Dumb The Things Smart People Do With Their Money. You have to understand the business from any angle and be able to identify if someone needs you, or if they are having a hard time. You need to be able to lead the way rather than merely directing the way. In the book: The Things Smart People Do With Their Money, Jill Schlesinger tells about someone who was asked to speak at a conference. As the speaker arrived to talk, they brought him a cup of coffee.

The next year, when this speaker came to speak and asked for a cup of coffee – the people pointed to where he could get his own coffee. The speaker later said that the cup wasn’t for him; the cup represented the position he had held. Cynthia uses this analogy to remind herself that you may not always be a CEO.

When looking for the type of personality, it takes to be a CEO.

Cynthia readily replies she feels a needed personality type for a CEO is the quality of being agreeable. You can’t always be pleasant, so you have to learn how to balance this attribute. Thoughtfulness would be the next personality trait to work on – but with the ability to decide at any time. She says that people get on board early and you have to be able to step away and think through the problems.

One CEO style to keep foremost in mind  — autonomy.

“I can’t hold everyone’s hand. I want the employees to grow, and their growth will leave me room to get my work done.” As this seems to be the time of women stepping forward to take their place, I wondered if Cynthia had seen business problems with women or being a woman in business, herself? She mentioned that sometimes there are people with extensive careers who are older, and you have to draw a line — in a clear way to be heard and taken seriously.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to learn not to use trite words or the often standard verbiage, such as the term, “elephant in the room.” You need to skip past silly words, right there at that moment, face the issues right then by stepping up and addressing the current issues in precise terms and with eye contact.

To carry on duties as a CEO, and still keep some balance in your life.

Keeping fit is probably the essential piece to keep in mind in your life, Cynthia tells me. Exercise will help you to be able to think and be transparent. The next key would be the prioritization key. This element and reflects what you will cut out.  Lean on your team and let them be responsible. You have to know that everything will not work out. I have found the same thing as Cynthia as I’ve had a child join the family.

Speaking events. How and why?

I believe that speaking events help you connect with people. Then as you get to know the events and the people who are putting on these events and you’ll gain a personal connection. You find when and who you can get advice from. In attending events, you tend to become friends with people who are doing the same thing you are doing — finding those who are like you while traveling and connect to become better.

One piece of advice.

Don’t put it all on your own shoulders and don’t blame anyone else. Remember to get and consider outside perspectives for success.

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Cloud adoption is picking up steam and for a good reason. There are myriad advantages to running a business in the cloud and fewer risks than ever before. According to a LogicMonitor survey, 83% of enterprise workloads will be cloud-based by 2020.

While the odds are good that your business could reap significant benefits, cloud adoption isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

Instead, you must create a well-defined strategy for your cloud endeavor to help your company realize its vision.

What’s Your Intent?

The first step of plotting out an ideal cloud strategy is determining what type of cloud environment will best meet your needs. If your primary goals are flexibility and scalability, internet-housed public cloud models such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure are optimal.

On the other hand, a private cloud allows you to maintain some on-premise resources and deliver computing power over a secure and private network. In industries where compliance is a significant issue, private clouds check all the right regulatory boxes.

If both public and private environments suit your company, you might want to consider a hybrid cloud solution that balances both approaches. For example, you might run high-volume applications in a public cloud while keeping a tighter grip on high-risk apps through a private cloud. Hybrid clouds allow these two environments to meld seamlessly. While this sort of strategy can be more expensive to implement, it can provide the best of both worlds.

Identifying your preferred cloud model dictates how everything else develops from there.

If you take the time to identify your goals and outlook before investing in a cloud approach, you’ll be set up for a smooth transition.

Create Your Cloud Adoption Strategy

Without a smart cloud adoption strategy, you risk investing in a cloud environment that doesn’t meet your expectations. In the worst case, you might end up with a cloud infrastructure that is a step down from your original solution — leading to lost customers and revenue. Avoid this scenario by creating a clearly defined cloud strategy with these five steps:

1. Create an in-house committee. 

Appoint a committee of stakeholders to evaluate possible cloud implementations. This group might include employees who use the applications regularly, IT data analysts, and other personnel.

If a committee is impractical, work with your cloud provider to determine the right adoption path for your company.

Most service providers will offer a free or low-cost consultation to give you an idea of price, and many will help you make the migration in increments to keep costs low and establish early buy-in.

2. Develop decision criteria. 

Consider your current environment — including the types of applications you rely on and their technical characteristics — the needs and constraints of your data, any regulatory requirements you must meet, and your performance requirements for managing workloads effectively.

All of these different factors must work together to deliver an optimal user experience while avoiding costly mistakes. Cloud solutions are flexible, so you’ll have many decisions to make. Determine the criteria you need to consider so that the cloud strategy you choose can best serve your operations.

3. Conduct an analysis of benefits and risks. 

Create an overview of your most common use cases, examining their potential benefits and risks. In many cases, you can take steps to mitigate the risks — or it’s possible the risks you perceive might be based on myths.

Get in touch with your qualified cloud provider to find out how to reduce or negate those risks. If you’re still left with a long list of liabilities, a private cloud environment might be most appropriate.

4. Ease in with cloud-based applications. 

Instead of jumping into the cloud, consider replacing some of your current applications with a software-as-a-service equivalent. That will make deployment, updates, scaling, and a ubiquitous computing environment more accessible.

Having the system and operation accessible can go a long way toward limiting disruption once it’s time to migrate to the cloud. When your organization operates in a partial cloud environment, there will be less of a learning curve associated with complete cloud adoption.

5. Create or update your disaster recovery plan. 

Part of the cloud’s appeal is its role in disaster recovery plans. The cloud can handle the heavy lifting when it comes to recovering data or limiting downtime. If your on-premise server goes down, you can flip a switch and operate out of the cloud in the meantime.

You also have a partner in recovery: Generally, the burden can shift to your cloud provider. Make sure your plan is clearly articulated, so stakeholders know what to do when disaster strikes. If an outage is due to your internet service provider, for example, one part of the plan would be to failover to your secondary line.

If your cloud servers go offline because of a disaster, then you might need to repoint your systems to new IP addresses temporarily. Be prompt about putting this into action so you can continue operations until the original servers or services can be restored.

Cloud adoption represents an exciting opportunity, but it’s not something that companies should rush into.

For the best results, organizations should develop a clearly defined cloud strategy that outlines implementation in a logical and well-thought-out fashion. A cloud strategy doesn’t just ensure that you reach the best possible end result — it also minimizes the amount of experimentation and the number of iterations necessary to get there.

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Today, we have millions of cameras deployed throughout various industries, organizations, and global borders around the world. However, with each of these individual cameras monitoring continuously and collecting vast amounts of data points, what good is it if not actionable or context applied?

Trueface, a US-based leader in computer vision, utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment camera data into actionable intelligence. This technology is working to make both public and private environments safer and smarter.

Computer vision as a market was valued at $9.28 billion in 2017 and is set to grow towards $48.32 billion by the end of 2023, according to Market Report World. As adoption continues to increase, we’ll see computer visions being applied to several industries, including entertainment, gaming, manufacturing, supply chain, retail, hospitality, healthcare, and financial services.

The company has now raised $3.7 million in seed capital led by Lavrock Ventures with participation from Scout Ventures and Advantage Ventures.

“This round of funding will help us expedite our efforts in making computer vision affordable, effective and trustworthy,” says Shaun Moore, CEO of Trueface.

Computer vision deployments have impacted and provided benefits to enterprises throughout multiple industries. Today, casinos are leveraging age detection technology like that created by Trueface to ensure that those entering the gaming floors are of legal age. As a result of this type of implementation, the pressure on security teams is drastically reduced and allows for focus on more critical tasks.

The United States Air Force sees the technology as a market leader as they have recently partnered with Trueface to enhance base security through smarter access control.

With all client deployments completed on-premise, the Trueface team has designed their technology with data privacy at its core by implementing blurring and fleeting data in appropriate deployments, the personal data of those who have not opted-in is never recorded.

Furthermore, the team is working on efforts to allow their computer vision solutions to become plug and play, opening up the market for even those who are non-technical or don’t have engineering resources to benefit from their solutions.

Disclaimer: Trueface and parent company, Chui are an alumnus the ReadWrite Labs accelerator program. Kyle Ellicott is also an advisor to the company.

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Let’s say a startup has defied the odds and survived its first several years. The entrepreneur has found a niche market, launched a product, secured funding, and continued to assemble an effective team. The business is moving forward. As the business grows, and entrepreneurs feel they have a safety net where there was none before. But how to stay hungry? Helping startups commit to improvement at every stage has to be the goal.

Staying Hungry: Helping Startups Commit to Improvement.

When things are tough — a startups attitudes and sense of urgency often begin to change. A startups’ attitude changes when they feel that all is well. As the company milestones become less urgent, the intensity of their attention ebbs and start to diminish. This relaxing time is the period when it is most likely to see competitors swoop in and gain market share. Using an improved product offering, or a better customer service, or just a better market strategy might help.

I’ve seen companies come out of the gate and tenaciously follow their North Stars, only to lose focus later on. They start to get comfortable — in some cases, too comfortable. The initial hunger subsides, and employees gradually become less motivated to make the extra effort to drive the company forward.

I implore every company I work with to combat this kind of stagnation by identifying what they can do better at every stage of the company’s life cycle. The critical question is: How do some startups manage to avoid the pitfalls of complacency when others don’t?

Two words: Continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement is valuable at every stage of a company’s life cycle. While it is crucial to set a course for your employees by setting key performance indicators that will ensure the company meets or exceeds its goals, it is equally important to adjust those goals over time as market conditions and customer demands change.

As those goals evolve, it is also critical to stay focused on the company’s best practices to provide a baseline for ongoing changes that can significantly improve growth, profit margins, and retention rates. A constant focus on continuous improvement also helps employees stay intrinsically motivated and challenged, making them less likely to feel stagnant in their current roles.

Progress By the Numbers

Having a reliable way to track progress is key to continuous improvement. Each functional area of your company should have its own KPIs to strive for, each of which should align with your company’s central mission. Choosing the right KPIs is critical — not only will they provide a roadmap for your employees.

But they will also help startups demonstrate to investors that the company is on the right track toward meeting its goals. Management should also ensure that each functional area has its own KPIs that will reinforce broader company goals that can be measured at the individual department level.

Because your goals need to evolve as the company hits various milestones, a KPI dashboard, which show progress toward goals, is a critical way to help teams prioritize their work. For example, if a sales manager shows his team a P&L, balance sheet, and a statement of cash flow, it can be unclear what employees need to focus on next. But if he shows that the customer retention rate is 80 percent when it needs to be at 95 percent, the team can use its KPI dashboard to take action on that data.

Customer needs and behaviors change regularly, but many companies only alter their approaches long after a problem has been identified. To avoid this pitfall, be sure to reexamine your standard processes continuously and to adjust your KPIs with a view to the future. It is always better to get ahead of a problem than to trail behind it with a quick — and potentially ineffective — fix.

Keep an Eye on the Lag and Lead

By documenting standard processes thoroughly and making sure all relevant data remains at hand, management should be able to determine more easily where changes need to be made. To help managers figure out what needs to change (and how), it is useful to turn to lag measures and lead measures.

Generally speaking, a lag measure is retrospective data that is too late to change, such as the previous month’s revenue. A lead measure tells you whether you’re on track to hit a goal in the future. For example, if a company is trying to increase its conversion rates, the lead indicators might be the number of phone calls.

Maybe the problem will be the number of demos that a sales team makes with potential clients. Later, the team would examine the lag measure of the number of demos that didn’t convert. Both measures are key indicators of a company’s progress, and they can inspire procedural changes to help teams meet their goals.

When processes are standardized, a single small change can alter the course of an entire functional area. If everyone isn’t doing things the same way, change becomes more difficult. With thorough, up-to-date documentation, everyone from a new hire to a seasoned manager has something concrete with which to gauge themselves.

At any moment, there can be a downward turn when unexpected obstacles emerge. More importantly, each person has documentation of what worked before showing them a precise roadmap of what needs to go right, which is crucial for continuous improvement.

The Lifeblood of a Startup: Motivated Employees  

Management needs the right data to make informed decisions on how to improve, but employees are the ones who truly move the needle. The manufacturing-era “carrot and stick” method of motivating employees, in which workers are given compensation for jobs done well and penalties for under-performing, no longer works—and it is especially ineffective with millennials.

Extrinsic motivation, in the form of raises and promotions, is also unsustainable. Companies that rely on a purely monetary reward system run the risk of paying their people too much too soon and being unable to retain them as they continue to advance in their careers. Today’s employees need to be motivated intrinsically to do better.

KPI dashboards are a fantastic intrinsic motivation tool. They not only allow employees to track their progress; they also will enable them to pinpoint areas in which they can do better. To improve employee performance at my old company, Affiliate Traction, we developed an online KPI scorecard.

Each employee was given five goals to accomplish, and employees could view each other’s progress toward those goals in a live spreadsheet. This gamification of work caused a noticeable uptick in employee motivation and productivity —and it didn’t cost us a dime.

The most successful companies I’ve worked with have been learning organizations — ones that take the time to figure out what makes them successful, to document those strategies and procedures, and to reassess them as the organization grows.

Employees are far more likely to stay motivated if they are continually learning and growing along with the organization. As with any learning process, mistakes are inevitable. But in my view, mistakes are only failures if you cease to learn from them.

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Paying back small business loans (SBL) has become a nightmare for so many entrepreneurs in this millennial age. The research by Main Street Lender on over 10,000 business loan applicants in the U.S disclosed that about 64 percent of applicants were unable to secure any type of financing. About 82 percent of applicants were denied financing by their bank. There are four painless ways to pay off small business loans early.

While several factors make it difficult for small business owners to meet their loan payments, there are unconventional ways to pay off you SBL early and with ease. #1 Apply for a loan that doesn’t exceed your current business worth:

While getting a SBL from a finance company to expand your business is part of your business plan, working towards paying back what your borrowed shouldn’t be left out.

Interestingly, one of the ways to pay off your small business loan earlier than expected is to apply for a loan within the range of your business worth. For example, if your small scale business worth $4000 and you want to apply for SBL to boost your business growth, it’s pretty much advisable that you apply for a loan within the range of $3000-$4000.

With the loan within your business worth, you’ll be able to manage and track your business growth much better compared to when you apply for a loan beyond your business worth. For example, if you apply for a loan of $6000—this will not only make you think that your business has already increased but might also feed you with the notion that you have excess to spend.

If you’re weak in managing your finances, with time, you might end up finding it challenging to pay off your debt.

Note: The U.S Small Business Administration has emphasized that the success of any business lies in its management. And that poor management of small business loans is cited as the reason behind business failure.

#2 Invest more on item(s) with high selling power:

Practically, investing more on item(s) that sells pretty fast in your company/store is not just a strategic way of increasing your business profit. But, it can be a way to pay off your debt earlier, and with ease. How do you spot out the best moving part of your business?

All you have to do is to study, keep track of both the previous and current sales records of each item sold in your store/company. Let’s say you run a retail store where you sell provisions, toiletries, and vegetables. And the average weekly sales report of each item for the past six months is as follows:

• Provisions: 345 pieces.
• Toiletries: 200 pieces.
• Vegetables: 150 pieces.

From the above results, you’ll discover that ‘Provisions’ have more selling power than Toiletries. Toiletries have more selling power than Vegetables. Learn early that it is wise to invest a higher percentage of the loan on what is selling the best in this case — provisions. Then use a moderate percentage of the loan on toiletries, and a lesser percentage of the loan on vegetables.

Thus, this technique ensures the constant availability of items with higher selling power — which will result in more profit.

#3 Save 20 percent and invest 80 percent of the entire loan into your business:

Saving 20 percent of the SBL received, and invest 80 percent of the loan into your business. This way of spending is a smart way of preparing for an emergency monthly loan repayments.

With the saved money (or backup money) you can easily pay up your SBL monthly refund without going through stress — especially during low sales seasons and still, secure your reputation with the lending agency.

Hence, if sales are friendly enough, it’s advisable to pay off your monthly returns from the money realized through sales and still leave the saved money for the raining day.

#4 Adopt the two-week half-monthly payment system:

Several analytical kinds of research have proven the ‘two-week payment system’ to be a reliable technique that clears debt earlier than expected. The Mortgage Report affirms a two-week half monthly mortgage payment system to be a program that short-circuits any loan amortization schedule.

A two-week, half-monthly payment system is simply a scheduled payment system whereby a borrower pays off half the monthly loan every two weeks.

Interestingly, instead of you paying off your SBL of $3000 in three-months — you will be paying $1000 every month. You can make up six full payments of $500 in 84 days in this way. This way of payment is less than three months (90 days) using this type of payment system. Thus, the two-week half-monthly payment system has earned you six debt-free days compared to the standard monthly payment method.

Note: This technique can be used for any form of loan you have or want to apply for.

Conclusion:

There is no doubt that the challenge to pay back small business loans (SBL) has become a nightmare for many entrepreneurs, but with the above tips you should be able to make your full payment early, and with ease. Also, you have to be consistent in your payments to guarantee a reliable result.

Image Creds: vitaly-taranov-145502-unsplash-825×510

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