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There are busy entrepreneurs, and then there are people who live, eat, breath, and sleep work. They’re driven by a passion for getting the job done, and they are most happy when they’re being productive. In fact, a study from the University of Warwick found that happiness can make people up to 12% more productive.

Are the most effective, successful, and productive entrepreneurs killing it with their daily schedule because they’re happy, or is there something else driving them?

I recently sat down with serial entrepreneur Neil Patel, someone I consider to be one of the busiest, hardest-working people I know.

With multiple successful startups under his belt, like Kissmetrics and Crazy Egg (and a constant stream of new content on NeilPatel.c...

Don’t miss out! Be sure to check out Chapter 1!

CHAPTER TWO: Create Tools To Prioritize, Deflect & Destroy

In This Chapter:

1. Create a priority contact list to sort email quickly
2. Buy more time to respond with time-delaying filters
3. Send unnecessary emails to purgatory

Take a few minutes and reflect on what you’ve accomplished this past week. We’ll wait.

Ready?

How much of your day was spent handling random, one-off things that either could have been handled by someone else, or took priority over what you really needed to get done?

Yeah, we thought so. Fortunately, we have got you covered. We can get through this together.

While we suggest joining forces with one of our stellar VA’s—You can take care of the enemy that is email by doing...

One year. Did you know that’s the average tenure of an employee at giants like Google and Amazon?

When the average salary for a Google software engineer is $111,149, you can’t really argue that the tech giants underpay their employees. So why do good employees leave high-paying jobs so quickly, and what can companies do to combat it?

Motivation and “Progress”

Harvard professor Teresa Amabile conducted a study observing the daily activities and motivations of several hundred employees over the course of a few years and found external incentives, such as salary and perks, have little to do with employee tenure.

She notes, “the key to motivation…doesn’t depend on elaborate incentive systems” at all. In fact, Amabile’s study reveale...

So, you want to fire an enigmatic, high-producer who is loved by all? Maybe you feel threatened by them, maybe you’ve realized they’re better than you, or perhaps you just can’t stand them. The most diabolical managers, such as yourself, know that you must create, at least, a modicum of just-cause (even in a no-fault state) to fire someone and avoid accusations of wrongful termination. It can be especially tricky to fire someone who is, begrudgingly, doing a great job. So to help you get rid of a perfectly good employee who’s done nothing to deserve it, we have put together a list of 6 superbly butthole moves that will get the job done and leave you smelling like roses.

1. Give them an impossible problem to solve

Your superstar employee w...

"Oh look! Someone just sold a company similar to ours for a million billion trillion dollars. And look at that, they raised a bunch of money along the way. I bet if I had raised money I would be a huge success too."

Whether or not we think about it daily, many of us have this nagging thought in the back of our minds of the "what if?" of raising capital. We picture this alternate universe where we took on investor funding and grew to become the next great darling of our industry.

The problem with that thought process, though, is that it puts "raising capital" in the same bucket as "executing properly" which is very different.

There's a time and a place where raising capital absolutely makes sense, but often we're either not there or we misu...

Great business mentors are one of the most valuable assets a startup Founder can have. They can shave years off of your startup journey simply by avoiding costly newbie mistakes. They can make life changing introductions to investors, customers and key executives. They can accelerate your ability to grow your startup by orders of magnitude.

But they can’t do any of that unless you know exactly how to use them.

On it’s surface, it sounds easy enough – find someone who seems to be an expert and ask them lots of questions. Yet if you’ve ever sat in the business mentor seat as I and thousands of others have done, you know that the value you get is directly tied to exactly how you manage the mentor relationship.

If you have a business men...

Let’s face it, while launching your own business can be incredibly rewarding, it can be also be just plain stressful. We had the opportunity to speak with Charlie Hoehn, best-selling author and launch strategist, about some of his tips for combating startup burnout.

Charlie graduated in 2008 from Colorado state with a degree in Marketing and Media Studies. Like many of us, he didn’t know exactly what he what he wanted to do right off the bat. What he did know was that he didn’t want to work for a big corporation for the rest of his life. Since graduation, he has worked with bestselling authors like Seth Godin, Tucker Max, and Tim Ferriss, and wrote Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety. His work has been featured by NPR, The N...

In order to keep their sanity, investors have to look for signals to determine which emails to even open — much less respond to. This is where the art of contacting investors gets interesting.

How important are personal connections?

The most important, by far.

If we had to compare an email sent through a trusted connection with a crappy company versus a cold email with a great company, chances are the crappy company would get a response. That's because investors put so much weight on whether the introduction is being vetted through a trusted friend.

But my deal is so sweet, won't that help?

Not if the e-mail never gets opened or read.

The first goal in contacting investors is to get them to even look at you. The second goal is to get the...

CHAPTER SIX: Make Your Calendar Thoughtful

In This Chapter:

–How to hack your calendar to be more thoughtful
–How to never forget your moms birthday

Your calendar can keep you smart about meetings—But, what if we told you it can also make you a bit more thoughtful?

You may have a handful of important dates like your spouse or kids’ birthdays or perhaps some holidays sprinkled in your calendar. But what about all the other “mini anniversaries” and holidays that may be important to others that may not be easy to remember?

A great way to keep you looking 10x more thoughtful than you could ever be is to populate your calendar with a cross section of “events” that you’d love to respond to when they come up. Can’t think of any? Well, friend, th...

Today I’m really excited to share some great news: we’ve just completed the acquisition of Zana.io, a world-class educational platform for startups.

Zana is the brainchild of my friend Shea Tate-Di Donna. While at True Ventures, she created the well-regarded “True University” to help educate their 150 portfolio companies on the best practices for starting a company. That effort led to the formation of Zana as an extension of Shea’s dream to democratize the type of learning often reserved only for venture-funded Silicon Valley companies.

Educating entrepreneurs is one of the most critical initiatives we’ve embraced at Startups.co, and we couldn’t be happier to bring Zana into our family to help drive...