August, 2022

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MEDU takes in $4M to develop reusable personal protective equipment

TechCrunch LA

In otherwise normal times, hospitals generate more than 5 million tons of waste each year, according to Greenhealth. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was in short supply over the past two years, and it was widely reported that some had to reuse what is typically a single-use item, like surgical gowns. MEDU , a Mexico-based startup, wants to reduce that waste and replace single-wear medical garments through the creation of a line of sustainable, virus-resistant reusable pieces, including surgi

Develop 257
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Is “management by walking around” an outmoded fad?

Berkonomics

Let’s set the scene. One of the CEOs I used to coach started his day by walking the floor of his extended facility and checking in with managers and employees of the various departments, especially the call center. He tried to feel the pulse of the company by the intensity of motion, the metrics of backlog, and the stated problems brought to him as he asked.

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5 Ways The Right Leadership Culture Benefits Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Many entrepreneurs still don’t understand that building a business culture today of doing good, like helping people (society) and planet (sustainability), is also a key to maximizing profit. Employees and customers alike are looking for meaning, not simply employment and commodity prices. Every company needs this focus to attract the best minds and loyalty in both categories.

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Startup San Diego Welcomes 6 New Board Members!

Startup San Diego

At Startup San Diego we’re mainly led by a volunteer group of entrepreneurs, founders, and community leaders that want to see the organization grow and create a more inclusive and innovative startup ecosystem. Over the years we have welcomed a diverse group of board members to join our team to help guide our programs, events, […]. The post Startup San Diego Welcomes 6 New Board Members!

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Aero raises $65M for its semi-private airline

TechCrunch LA

Aero Technologies , which describes itself as a “next-generation air travel company” which currently operates on a limited number of routes in the U.S. and Europe, today announced that it has raised $65 million, with $50 million of those as a Series B funding round co-led by Albacore Capital Group and $15 million in convertible notes. Expa and Keyframe Capital, as well as new investor Capital One Ventures also participated in this route.

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Star-studded digital avatar startup Genies launches NFT fashion marketplace

TechCrunch LA

Digital avatar startup Genies , known its for high-profile partnerships with celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Migos and Cardi B, has just released its long-anticipated NFT storefront, “The Warehouse.” Genies last earned a $1 billion valuation from heavy-hitting tech investors including Silver Lake and Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital during its most recent raise, a $150 million Series C round announced in April.

Geni 219

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Boulevard books $70M to help beauty and wellness salons with their bookings

TechCrunch LA

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to getting ahold of an appointment for your hair or another treatment…that’s a different story: The bespoke nature of a lot of the work has meant that a large swathe of the professionals providing these services have stayed offline when it comes to interfacing with customers. But that is changing, and today, Boulevard — one of the wave of software companies that’s building a route to digitizing booking appointme

Help 195
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Nothing negative about Positive Food’s meal expansion plan after $7M investment

TechCrunch LA

Positive Food Co., providing freshly packaged salads, heat-and-eat prepared meals and vegan overnight oats, raised $7 million in funding as it goes after the $34 billion fresh prepared foods market. In 2018, co-founders Schuyler Deerman and James Chan started selling healthy meals at WeWork offices around Los Angeles out of giant Yeti coolers, standing around the kitchens during lunch time.

Invest 175
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Stop managers from gaming the system!

Berkonomics

Does this really happen? Business unit managers are under lots of pressure to perform, and occasionally are tempted to step over the line finding ways to look better than reality reflects. Of course, this has never happened to you, and you have never done this in your past. So, we are speaking of a theoretical manager here. Of course. Well, how to prevent it from happening?

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HIRE for talent. RENT for experience.

Berkonomics

Want the best way to create your core competency quickly and inexpensively? . Think like a startup, with little resources, a limited window of time, and few dollars to spend on expensive experts. Divide the hiring decision into two boxes. This insight comes from a fellow CEO who explains that he leverages his financial resources for growth by dividing his hiring decision into these two boxes.

Resource 156
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Why should you explain WHY?

Berkonomics

Remember the five “W’s?”. In my early journalism classes, I was taught the five “W’s” of good news stories, and that most should be in the first paragraph at that. Who, what, when, where and why are the five, with sometimes a “how” thrown in for those followers of the macabre. Which of the five is most important for you? But of the five, “why” is by far the most important for business leaders to consider and communicate.

Journal 156
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8 Ways To Create Balance Between Logic And Creativity

Startup Professionals Musings

Traditionally, the majority of entrepreneurs have been logical thinkers, problem solvers, with full attention to details. These are the stereotypical left-brain engineers. Yet I see a big shift from the knowledge age, with its left-brain foundation, to a critical focus today on visualization, creativity, relationships, and collaboration, which are more in the domain of right-brainers.

Guide 137
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10 Tactics For Driving Disruptive Startup Innovations

Startup Professionals Musings

How is it that only a few business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to drive exceptional results and disruptive innovation in this rapidly changing market economy (marketquake)? These few seem more adept at executing market and technology turns, not just incremental evolution. They consistently take bold steps to stay ahead of the curve, often contrary to conventional wisdom.

Startup 134
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5 Business Growth Drivers Facilitated By A Co-Founder

Startup Professionals Musings

In my experience, some of the best businesses have multiple partners, with complementary strengths. Starting and running a business requires many different skills and interests, and not many of us have all of them. For example, I’m an introverted product guy who doesn’t care so much about building the personnel relationships needed to keep a motivated team.

Mentor 133
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10 Leadership Actions To Drive Effective Team Results

Startup Professionals Musings

Getting things done effectively in a startup requires total individual and team accountability. You can’t afford excuses and multiple people doing the same job. In my view, “taking responsibility” is the core element behind accountability. Many people hear responsibility as an obligation, but I hear it as “the ability to respond.” Unfortunately many people don’t have the ability to respond, because they lack confidence in themselves, or simply don’t have the skills required.

Tool 129
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Practice The Art Of The Pivot Before The Next Crisis

Startup Professionals Musings

You will be pivoting your business in your lifetime, whether you are a new startup, or a mature company like Motorola or IBM. You can count on it and plan for it, or you wait for the next survival crisis brought your way by this rapidly changing world. You can even give it a more elegant name, like “market-focused reinvention,” but it won’t be graceful if you don’t take the lead.

Course 127
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10 Keys To Building A Business Image To Be Remembered

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur and business leader waits too long before really working on the legacy that he wants to leave to society and his family. They realize too late that they don’t really want to be remembered for how many hours they spent on airplanes, how many emails they produced, or even how much money they made for the business. If you disappeared today, what would your legacy show?

Guide 126
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6 Information Surges Raise Huge Startup Opportunities

Startup Professionals Musings

A tidal wave of valuable data is surging from the Internet and connected devices today, and the volume is growing exponentially each year. It’s enough to drown any business which tries to fight it or ignore it, and it’s an opportunity to ride higher and faster than even the successes of Google and Facebook, for those startups that use it as their driving force.

Startup 126
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8 Organizational Cultures Boost Output And Cut Costs

Startup Professionals Musings

The new era of highly connected and interactive technology is changing not only how business employees interact with customers, but also how they interact with each other, and with their company. I am happy to see reports that young companies are leading the way in these trends, on both the customer and the employee side. Both are required to stay competitive.

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4 Entrepreneur Categories Hunt For Market Innovations

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs believe they are “different,” but they can’t quite understand how. They usually explain it by insisting that they are driven to follow their passion, need to be their own boss, want to get rich quick, or want to change the world. I now believe that the roots of the difference may go back more than 10,000 years, when hunting and farming became two different lifestyles.

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For Many New Ventures, Location Is The Key To Success

Startup Professionals Musings

Even in this age of globalization and virtualization, the geographic area where you choose to live and work can still make or break your startup business. I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. get the attention of the market they choose.

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10 Tips On Self-Promotion To Solidify Your Leadership

Startup Professionals Musings

During my many years of mentoring professionals and entrepreneurs in business, I more often see people focusing on how to get their ideas heard , than how to promote themselves. I’m convinced that great results are better than great ideas, and a great perception of you as a person is better than both ideas and results. Your first priority should always be to sell yourself.

Tips 121
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7 Risks Of Not Leveraging Team Member Data Analytics

Startup Professionals Musings

Even after many years mentoring entrepreneurs and advising businesses, I continue to be surprised by the primary focus on products and processes, and the often incidental attention to hiring and nurturing the right people. Employees are still too often thought of as a commodity, to be acquired “just in time” for the lowest cost, and managed as a disposable asset.

Tool 121
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8 Marketing Multipliers To Boost Your Business Growth

Startup Professionals Musings

The concept of “ force multipliers ” originally was developed in military science, but certainly applies equally well to business. It refers to multiplication factors that occur when complementary actions or approaches are used together for greater impact. In my role of business advisor to startups, I often recommend these to increase initial brand identity and market penetration.

Marketing 119
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7 Startup Leadership Keys To Ramp Up Team Commitment

Startup Professionals Musings

It takes an engaged team , or a group of well-connected teams , to build and run a business today. The days of a single autocratic leader are gone. In my consulting work with small businesses and startups, I find that real teamwork is still a rare commodity. Fortunately, it’s a skill you can start to develop at any stage in your career, which will pay off now, as well as in future leadership roles.

Startup 119
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6 Secrets To Making Your Pitch To Investors Stand Out

Startup Professionals Musings

In my role as a mentor to entrepreneurs and an angel investor, I find that too many are stuck in this myth that a good pitch, and good marketing content, should consist of more product features, and more hype on customer benefits. Naturally, these are important, but real winning content has to start with a story that excites people’s imagination, and pulls them in emotionally.

Startup 117
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6 Ways To Build And Capitalize On Personal Leadership

Startup Professionals Musings

In my experience as an advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs in business, one of the biggest failures I see is a lack of self-leadership. You can’t lead a business to success, if you can’t lead yourself. I define self-leadership as the capacity to set direction and make decisions, to positively drive your own performance. Leadership in business starts with making good personal choices.

Capital 114
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10 Creativity Mistakes Jeopardize Long-Term Survival

Startup Professionals Musings

Success in any business these days requires a constant flow of new and innovative solutions, to keep up with changes in the market, competition, and to attract new customers. Yet in my role as a small business advisor, I still see a singular focus on achieving repeatable processes and “cookie-cutter” manufacturing. I don’t believe these two objectives have to be mutually exclusive.

Ideas 111
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10 Principles Define You As A Design Thinking Leader

Startup Professionals Musings

As a business advisor, I strongly believe that continuous innovation and design thinking are the keys to long-term viability and success. A classic survey of design professionals shows strong agreement, but 92 percent expressed some lack of confidence in their organization’s design vision. They are always on the lookout for ways to prepare current and future design leaders.

Design 106
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10 Ways To Prepare Your Team For Business Leadership

Startup Professionals Musings

The largest and most successful businesses of the past have been traditionally driven by autocratic and powerful leaders who managed a highly structured organization of subordinates. I see that model changing today to one of team collaboration and decision making, per companies such as Amazon, Google, and Zoom. Where do you see your fit in this leadership transformation ?

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10 Key Business Founder Checks Needed Before The Plan

Startup Professionals Musings

Most business advisors I know will say that writing a business plan is the first step to starting your own business, but I believe that a better first step is to do a self-analysis of your real drivers, strengths, and assumptions before committing to this lifestyle. As a result, you may tune your plan, or decide that running your own business is really not the dream you thought it might be.

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7 Key Factors Obscure Your Customer Acquisition Costs

Startup Professionals Musings

As a business consultant and angel investor, I often ask for your own assessment of marketing ROI , or customer acquisition cost (CAC). While I realize that a high level of certainty in these numbers is an elusive goal, the value of doing the work, and benchmarking your business against competitors is well worth the effort. Are you making the proper investment, and is it paying off?

Customer 100
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A16z-backed Shein challenger Cider is growing rapidly

TechCrunch LA

Shein has shown the world how combining social media marketing, data analytics, and China’s well-oiled supply chain has created a $100 billion fast fashion behemoth. Its success naturally spawns imitators and challengers. Among its fastest-growing challengers is Cider, which, like Shein, relies on China’s responsive clothing manufacturers to sell affordable, trend-led pieces to customers around the world.

Startup 217