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Someone holds the elevator for you. No “thank you”? You end up waiting in the lobby next time. You spend all weekend helping a friend move and at the end of it, all they say is, “Well, I’ll see you around.” Looks like someone just made your Nixon-esque enemy list.

Those two simple words could be the difference between a functioning society and an admittedly exaggerated chaos, but even if that chaos is exaggerated, there are plenty of reasons to remember to say “thank you.” Here are just a few.

You’ll Make More Money

It’s true. There are economic benefits to be gained by merely expressing gratitude. Don’t buy it? Check out this study about how waiters who write “thank you” and personalized messages on receipts get larger tips than their less...

I am swamped. Requests from colleagues, friends and family leave me with no time to do any actual work. I can’t ignore any of the aforementioned things and it’s impossible to cram them all into an eight-hour day.

But time management isn’t about taking shortcuts in your thinking time, it’s about finding shortcuts for the mundane, administrative and repetitive, in order to make way for the creative, strategic and dare I say… fun? As a busy carpooling mom of three boys (two of them teens!), a CEO of a company that grows 500 percent year over year and a happily married lady with lots of extended family, here are the time savers that allow me to make the most of every hour of every day.

Email Templates and Autoresponders

The Issue: Email is a hu...

Let me start off by clarifying that this is not your average ‘ i-was-broke-and-about-to-lose-everything-when-I-hit-the-jackpot-that-saved-my-startup type of story. On the contrary, this story is about the 99% that struggles with starting & growing a business and still fails. I’m one of them. And unfortunately, we don’t hear from them as much as we should do.

Broke in Bangkok

When I was in college in 2010, I never had money problems. I was working around 30 hours a week, lived with my parents, had a car and always money in my pocket. I was ‘’comfortable’’ for my age. But I was always wary of getting money-problems. Whenever I had the slightest of uncertainty or risk coming up, I would panic, freak out and go through a ton of stress. I wa...

Being a founder is hard — and we should be grateful for that.

We don’t feel grateful all the time. At least not when we’re lying awake at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling wondering how we have created so much debt in such a short period of time and then looking over at our spouse who is probably pretending to sleep — pondering the same question.

But, I believe it is the sleepless nights, the awkward conversations at family dinners, the long days without measurable progress and the other thousand things that most people wouldn’t tolerate that makes the solutions we build valuable — and the pursuit worthwhile. We relish the challenge as much as the outcome.

As the holidays quickly approach, perhaps you’re like...

Nancy Duarte is a pro when it comes to presentations. Not just giving presentations, but starting them, finishing them, and every step in between. Author and co-founder of Duarte Designs, Nancy Duarte is a seasoned veteran when it comes to incorporating storytelling into speaking and creating connections with an audience.

The below video is the third part in a series of 10 in which Nancy shares the key components to making a successful pitch using creativity and critical thinking. Find out what she has to say:

The importance of storytelling in business

When Nancy identified a gap between storytellers and presenters, she was determined to figure out what caused the disconnect.

Referring back to Step 2 of her talk, Nancy formulated her big i...

As an expert SEO, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades.

You need to understand link building, marketing, public relations, psychology, and technology.

At a certain point, there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything you’d like to do.

But you can save quite a bit of time and effort on small things by using browser extensions.

You can install them with one or two mouse clicks and access them with ease to the right of your address bar.

They will help you:

• analyze website performance quickly
• examine code behind websites
• build links better
• save time by improving your task efficiency

I’ve put together a list of 28 browser extensions I consider to be the best. I encourage you to give a few of them a try.

A quick heads-up: most of thes...

Don’t miss out! Check out the previous chapters here:

–Chapter One
–Chapter Two

CHAPTER THREE: Appear Super Responsive All The Time

In This Chapter:

• Write stock templates for frequent scenarios
• Tips to master the art of deflection
• Create an auto-responder to deploy for specific filters

Have you ever had one of those days where you wish there were two of you? You could finally unglue your fingers from your iPhone and maybe grab lunch with a friend? Or, go on a long run without feeling like things are falling through the cracks?

Well, what if I told you that we have the technology? We can clone you!

You get to be “fun clone”. The other clone—The other clone is “robot clone”.

While you’re out having fun, robot clone is going to do all of...

“Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” — Patrick Lencioni

One of the most under-appreciated and underrated attributions to a quickly growing company is this: business infrastructure.

For most entrepreneurs just entering the space, for any many naive executives, business infrastructure comes secondary before everything else.

Sure, your team is important. Your customers and users are critical. Your branding is key to having that lasting impression you want everyone to have.

I don’t want us ever to miscommunicate and state those aren’t important.

However, the real secret sauce to running a successful company comes down to the partnerships and trust you have, not ...

“Micro-aggressions are the biggest barrier. They add up until people feel completely hopeless about ever being included.”

– Michelle Glauser, Founder and CEO of Techtonica

Under the big tent of Startups Live, it’s easy to forget that not everyone feels equally welcome at the startup table. Issues of diversity and inclusion – gender inequality being a big one – are real and pervasive.

But, if the movement to address such issues is going to gain traction and unleash widespread transformation, there is no better space for it to happen than here. Today, our featured guest and the movement’s conductor is Michelle Glauser, the Founder + CEO of Techtonica.

“Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself before we get started?”...

Entrepreneurial success isn’t an achievement — it’s a process. No matter how big you make it, there’s always a new challenge over the next hill.

The best entrepreneurs welcome this never-ending cycle of improvement. Even heavy hitters like Bill Gates and Elon Musk continue to seek out new opportunities. To a layperson, these two have obviously done enough, but in their minds, they can still do much more. That ceaseless drive separates the truly successful from the also-rans.

Continuing to Climb

As a home-schooled child, I loved my free time. I would do math problems in my head and think about my schoolwork while I was playing so that when the time came to test, I would be prepared and not have to study longer.

I graduated from high school e...