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You know how the rest of that sage advice goes. Dreamers can only take an entrepreneurial venture so far, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t vital. However, dreamers need to be balanced with doers.

It’s the doers who get the funding – and without funding, you don’t have a business. In this video by StartupGrind, founders and investors talk about what actually gets a check written.

George Zachary of Charles River Ventures says he’s just recently figured it out after 17 years of being a venture capitalist: “Almost all the investments I wrote a check into, I had to have the feeling, ‘Would I be a co-founder of this company?’” In other words, are you barking up the right tree with investors?

This doesn’t mean a venture Zachary passed on wa...

Partha Unnava is the CEO of Better Walk, a company focused on developing a new type of crutch that improves the experience of a crutch user. Partha broke his ankle and had to hobble around on crutches for six weeks, he decided to develop a better set of crutches that wouldn’t kill his armpits. I spoke to Partha about his experiences launching the venture and his journey as an entrepreneur.

Determination

Q: What are some challenges you faced when developing your venture?

I’ve faced issues from cofounders leaving the company to fluctuations in funding and flat out denials from investors. I think I’ve been through almost every single up or down you can go through when you start a company, but I learned that the only limiting factor is the inf...

In my last blog post, I spoke about siloed content caused by silos within an enterprise. Moreover, about the guy who is on the hook to drive the business, generate leads and protect the brand. In most organizations they call him the Chief Marketing Officer or CMO. He is focused on the connected, consistent customer journey.

Yeah, this feels like herding cats — an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic.

Because in a larger organizations, everyone creates content. Sometimes people do not even know that this content ends up being customer facing. Some folks in Support writing some messages in support systems — but is it necessarily on brand and on target?

Let’s break down the customer journey — ...

…when I started StartupList, I didn’t know where it would lead or even that I was actually creating a startup. It was just a project I was working on to learn more about startups and how to build a website. It evolved into something I never could’ve imagined at the time.

There is no better way to hear the story of how Nick Frost came to champion startups than to hear it straight from his mouth. Startups Live was incredibly fortunate to have such an opportunity.

Often this collection of Founders turns over nitty gritty details of building startups, examining a particular question or aspect of the work. This talk does some of the same, but it also brings the role of fortune into the field of play – not luck, or the unexpecte...

It’s no secret that our time in history is unique. Our times are unique in a myriad of ways, but an area of some concern is the state of entrepreneurship in the world of technology.

In recent decades fund-raising has become not only much easier, but also more popular. Even businesses with seemingly little potential to truly become scalable, try to raise money, and they even sometimes succeed. While fund-raising is a decent way to scratch that entrepreneurial itch, it’s not end-game for aspiring entrepreneurial-Napoleons.

In some ways, the entrepreneurial scene hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years. For example, the average age of entrepreneurs today is not significantly younger than 100 years ago.

Steve Blank considers...

Most people who start their own businesses must make a transition from employee to entrepreneur. There are some exceptions, such as people who are brought up in a family of business owners. For the most part, though, society trains us to be employees. This starts in school and continues as we begin to earn money with part-time and full-time jobs.

So when you decide to take the plunge and start your own business, it can be easy to unwittingly bring an employee mindset with you. Here are some pointers to keep in mind to help you make this crucial transition:

Consider a Gradual Transition

There are both pros and cons of leaving your job and putting all of your energy into your own business. On the one hand, you can devote all of your time to ...

Stuart MacDonald is a digital business guy who loves making customers happy and building great teams. A mentor, investor, consultant and frequent speaker on things digital and entrepreneurial, Stuart is the veteran of several startups including starting Expedia.ca in Toronto. Stuart went on from there to become CMO and SVP Packages of Expedia.com in Seattle. He also co-founded mesh, Canada’s web conference discussing how the Internet is impacting how we live and work, and meshmarketing, Canada’s one day digital marketing power conference. Most recently, Stuart joined FreshBooks as the CMO, responsible for marketing, sales, support and revenue.

Q: You founded Expedia.ca and changed the way Canadians book travel. How were you able to change t...

Do you find it hard not to micromanage every little aspect of your business?

Are you guilty of wishing that you could just clone yourself?

You’re not alone, but you can become far more effective when you outsource everything you don’t absolutely HAVE to be involved with. Plus, there are some tasks that — sorry — someone else could be doing much better — as challenging as that can be to admit to yourself.

Here are three essential keys to make sure that delegating part of your work is as painless (and even as enjoyable) as possible.

Choose Tasks to Delegate

These are the things that you don’t really want to do, but are scared to let go of. Some examples might include work-related minutia, like posting to social media, filter...

Years ago, I was having ice cream with my wife on a hot summer night and I overheard a group of 16-year-olds talking about how one of them went to work with his dad. I remember him saying:

“I went to his office and it was so boring. Everything was bright lights and pale colors. If I had to be in an office all day I’d make it just like my bedroom and enjoy hanging out there.”

I distinctly remember looking at my wife and saying, “That kid has it figured out. I spend 14 hours a day in a room I don’t want to be in with a job that I love.” I vowed one day to change that.

That was ten years ago. It apparently took a really long time for me to act on this one, but I finally did, and I have to say – the kid knew ...

Question: What is the No. 1 thing I should avoid when making my first-ever pitch and why?

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

Not Communicating Your Value Proposition

Don’t lose focus of the overall goal of communicating your value proposition. If the prospect fails to see it, you’ll never get them sold no matter how hard you tried or how much effort went into your sales deck.

— Steven Newlon
SYN3RGY Creative Group

Winging It

The best pitches look like they’re off-the-cuff, but they’re not. Smooth delivery and confidence comes from a lot of practice. I’ve heard so many people say, “I speak...