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Seneca once said that “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” I truly believe that we can help luck along by being prepared for opportunity when it knocks.

And one of the must-have tools in our storytelling arsenal is the infamous Elevator Pitch – or the “Quickpitch” as I often dub it. And you never know where the opportunity might knock – at a networking event, in an Uber Pool, or even in line for coffee at Starbucks.

If you find yourself conversing with someone who could be a potential investor/user/partner/connector – are you ready to pitch them in a fast, powerful way?

I heard the amazing Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube speak this year, and she said that it usually takes people about 15 minutes to exp...

It’s all about finding “the one”. We have hired hundreds of people in the last 7 years and I will attest that ironically, the HR positions were by far the most challenging to hire for.

My “golden” question when interviewing for HR: “How have you handled a situation in the past where an employee asks to “speak with you in confidence” about a problem they are having with their manager?”

“I tell them absolutely, come on in”. Wrong.

“I take notes and launch an investigation”. Wrong.

“I ask them to tell me more details and I will handle the situation for them”. Wrong.

“I remind the employee that I am there to listen to them and advocate for them”. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Correct Answer: “I redirect them back to their manager and then to help coach...

What does beta mean? Unfinished? Imperfect? Flawed?

Not so much. Try growth, hustle, and an endless quest to be better. If you’ve ever read The Startup of You from Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Chairman of LinkedIn and Ben Casnocha, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Life Under Construction

Ask a room full of founders what scares the living sh*t out of them, and you’ll probably hear the word ‘irrelevance’ a lot. When you’re hustling day in and day out to change the world, the thought of being forgotten by history can shake even the most confident founder to the core.

But here’s the best part – staying relevant doesn’t mean bringing a new product to market every few years. It’s a hell of a lot simpler than that.

Like Reid explains, real...

Sales leaders tend to have a strong opinion on the value and use of incentives. Their views are based on firsthand experiences and beliefs, and are often unconscious. As a result, their approach to sales compensation design can be biased toward past experiences, dismissing a broad range of options and philosophies available to drive the desired behaviour.

For example, most organizations believe salespeople possess a binary motivation to maximise their earning potential. However, other companies are purpose-driven and reward their sales teams based on group performance. We frequently hear how the millennial is “purpose-driven”, but the key to any incentive plan is to define the word “purpose”.

I recently asked a millennial sales leader if h...

The quickest way to halt productivity is through ineffective business communication. For people to do their jobs properly, they need to know exactly what is expected of them. In small business setting, a specific set of guidelines should be followed.

How will your team members know how to effectively interact if you don’t know how to do that? As a leader, it is your duty to understand how effective business communication affects your bottom line. To optimize success, here are three lessons small businesses should learn.

COMMUNICATION Lesson #1: Ensure transparency

When teammates are on different pages, the stage is set for disaster. If Johnny didn’t tell Charlie the “whys” and “hows” of the new retail displays, Charlie might end up deliveri...

One of my goals as the CEO of Litmus is to build the company I want to work for. It’s the reason we offer 28 days of paid vacation, the best equipment, Spotify accounts, retirement plans, stock options, and so on.

It’s also the reason we give our employees the freedom to work anywhere.

The decision to become a remote-first company — i.e. work wherever you feel empowered to do your best work — was an important inflection point for the organization. We’d spent years hiring local talent in Boston and London, all the while making exceptions for great people in other cities and countries.

Inequalities developed. Our remote workers felt comfortable taking a break to run a quick errand or go for a run. Our local employees adhered to a more tradit...

If you’ve been in the startup world for more than five minutes, you’ve heard the term “venture capital.” Maybe you even know founders who have raised VC money themselves. But you might be wondering: How does venture capital work?

What is venture capital?

Venture capital is financing that’s invested in startups and small businesses that are usually high risk, but also have the potential for exponential growth.

The goal of a venture capital investment is a very high return for the venture capital firm, usually in the form of an acquisition of the startup or an IPO.

How does venture capital work?

A venture capital firm is usually run by a handful of partners who have raised a large sum of money from a group of limited partners (LPs) to invest ...

Let’s get one thing out of the way quickly, the following tactic is not how to raise capital from Angels.

Selected this example because the sender clearly has ‘1 mutual connection’ and yet it wasn’t worth their time to use that connection to get a warm intro.

Cold introductions are infertile ground.

This is true not only of capital but most other lead types also.

With that out of the way, one way to approach the question of Seed capital for your startup is to understand what it isn’t.

Seed Capital is not

• a way to fund building your minimally viable product
• a way to avoid using your own cash to get started
• a bridge loan to your Series A funding
• a way to get free incubator office space

Seed Capital is…

Money to help raise a toddler.

Allow...

Warren Buffett, at the ripe age of 18, learned to grow his wealth in a way many young startups couldn’t. Buffet and a high school friend bought a pinball machine to put in a barbershop, hoping to make a few bucks. However, he didn’t run out and spend his earnings on new sneakers or a cool car: He reinvested them.

Buffet and his friend bought more pinball machines, eventually stocking eight local barbershops. When they sold the fledgling business, he used his profits to buy stocks and start another company. Today, Warren Buffet — who once was nothing more than a kid with an arcade game — is worth more than $67 billion.

Why should I reinvest?

Regular reinvestment has huge benefits for startups. Reinvesting increases working capital and leads ...

Several years ago, we joked that Lyft’s investors— a motley crew that includes Japanese conglomerates, billionaire hedge funds, other ride-sharing startups, sharp elbowed activists like Carl Icahn — and major venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Floodgate — as the coalition of billionaires investing against Uber as much as they were investing in Lyft.

On October 19, another one joined the ranks: Alphabet — Google and Waymo’s parent company — lead a new $1 billion Lyft round. The same one embroiled in a multi-billion trade theft lawsuit with Uber. The same one that was once also an investor in Uber. This has never been an industry where allies stay allies forever. And Lyft’s co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green ...