Spreading your entrepreneurial wings: Expanding your startup outside the U.S.StartUp Beat 5.7.14Doing business internationally is almost essential to obtain a larger market, so if you want to see significant growth in your business, looking internationally is certainly the way to go. In order to successfully expand your business into other countries, you need to have a global mindset. Do not assume your customers are only in the U.S. or only in your state. If you have a good product that can be used abroad by someone, you have a global product offering.Draft Day Lessons For EntrepreneursAlleyWatch 5.9.14I recently went to the theater to see Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in “Draft Day.” Don’t worry, I won’t ruin the movie for you by exposing key details but I will share the undertones that added fuel to the entrepreneur fire inside of me.Who, Why, When: 15 Minute Due Diligence for the Modern InvestorGrowthink 4.30.14Over the last two weeks we have discussed the motivations of private equity investors, and then characteristics of companies with breakout potential. So now we are at brass tacks: actually making Yes/No decisions on specific deals and opportunities. In other words, handicapping the probability of a company’s investment return projections actually coming to pass. And relatedly, fair pricing and terms upon which to consummate a deal.5 Free Platforms Entrepreneurs Should Be Using To Manage And Streamline Their BusinessYoung Upstarts 5.9.14Starting a business comes with great excitement and emotion, the challenges involved in turning your idea into a viable business are many and when you overcome those challenges you feel like you’re on top of the world. Now that you have your business up and running you must sustain and grow it, but how do you do that?How to media hack your startup to awarenessPollenizer 5.4.14It’s easy to mistake our own passion in our new startup. We’re so excited we think our mum, our spouse and even our friends might be as excited as we are as we enter the launch phase of our commercial baby. But the truth is that they don’t really care, and that it is really too much to expect anyone to care until what we’ve built starts creating some value and utility for others.How to Not Waste Money on Your Event MarketingFounder Institute 5.9.14You wouldn’t embark on an online advertising campaign without defining clear goals, designing a strategy, and then evaluating your performance with metrics... right? Of course not. That would be a waste of money. So why do most companies treat their event marketing initiatives more like “fun excursions”, and less like marketing campaigns with real costs and expected returns? Most people buy a table, print some flyers, bring along an intern, and “wing-it.”How to Ask Family and Friends to Fund Your BusinessBplans 5.7.14Asking for help is one thing; asking for financial help is another beast all its own. Yet many entrepreneurs turn to family and friends to help fund their business. A recent study from the National Knowledge Commission shows that 63 percent of entrepreneurs “self-financed” their business, but that doesn’t mean every owner saved up their own money. Upon closer investigation, at least half of these entrepreneurs asked friends and family for financial support.With $3M Total In Funding, Shakr Makes Video Ads Affordable For Small BusinessesTechCrunch 5.9.14Shakr Media announced today that has raised a total of $3 million in funding to expand its tech platform, which enables small companies to automatically create video clips from snippets of information. This amount includes its previous seed round of $700,000. Shakr’s latest investor is POSCO Venture Capital, which also helped secure matching funds from the South Korean government.Startups: Try 'hot coffee sprints' to keep your mojoVentureBeat 5.8.14Crafting and communicating killer and persuasive messaging are some of those foundational skills that every marketer must master. Like many things, these skills atrophy if not continuously exercised. That gets increasingly likely as you rise in your marketing career and become less hands-on or as you become specialized in a particular function.Pitch to people, not companiesSmartBrief 5.8.14The idea of a pitching to a big brand is undeniably exciting, but focus on connecting with the person with whom you are meeting, writes Rebekah Campbell, CEO of Posse. "[T]here is no such thing as pitching to a company; I can only pitch to one or two people who happen to work for that company," she writes. "I have to sell to them."Sometimes, the Video Doesn’t Have to Go ViralNew York Times 5.4.14In the early days of my company,RJMetrics, we didn’t have much to stand on: no funding, a fledgling product, and about 50 square feet of space in my attic. So we did what any self-respecting Internet start-up would do: We made a rap video.The 7 Most Important Hires for Your Small BusinessMashable 5.8.14Almost all small businesses start out as one-man bands. While one day a founder might be taking care of CFO responsibilities, like figuring out how to allot company funds and obtain outside financing, the next day he or she might be hitting the phones and cold-calling for sales leads.Eager to Join a Startup? 3 Tips to Engineer a Mutual MatchEntrepreneur 5.6.14As the time arrives for graduating college seniors to secure jobs, some are shying away from the thought of joining a large corporate structure. Instead they are looking for jobs at startups as a way to make money, assume a position with responsibility and play an integral role in a company’s growth and success.SmartyPants Raises $2.2M to Make Gummy Vitamin Brand a Household NameWall Street Journal 5.5.14SmartyPants Inc., a startup that makes gummy vitamins for kids and adults, has raised $2.2 million in new venture funding, according to Courtney Nichols Gould, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $4.8 million. For a second time, SmartyPants raised capital using the equity crowdfunding platform from CircleUp Networks Inc.The $3,000 Six-Day Summer Camp That Turns Teens Into EntrepreneursForbes 5.8.14When you’re sixteen, people want to help you, teach you and mentor you. But by the time you’re eighteen the world expects too much and offers too little, thinks David Fagan, the founder of a summer camp for teenage entrepreneurs that promises to be a mash up of Shark tank and American idol. He thinks we’d be better off if half of sixteen year olds just quit school and become entrepreneurs.5 reasons every startup needs an explainer videoVentureburn 5.9.14Pre-millennium, online businesses were going from multimillion operations to flame-outs as quickly as small town gossip spreads, taking less than a year to transform into liquidated botches. In this dot-com nightmare, it was easy for a solitary coder named Drew Houston to melt into the digital landscape unnoticed. Houston muddled through the creation of a tech file storage service with the help of some of the world’s best engineers. Steve Jobs labeled the company a ‘half attempt’, and consumers seemed to agree.Real lessons learned from a startup that took risks – with Jason ShenMixergy 5.2.14Jason Shen is the founder of Ridejoy, a community marketplace for long distance ride shares. I invited him here to hear how he built up the company and what happened afterwards.6 Ways For Startups And Small Businesses To Help Reduce CostYoung Upstarts 5.5.14There are two ways for a business to increase its profits. The first is to bring in more revenue, whether it’s by raising prices or just selling more of a product or service. Another way is to decrease cost. When running a business, specifically a startup, it’s easy to get fixated on the idea of making money. While money flowing into your business is almost unquestionably good, the money leaving your startup is just as important. From the creators of Wendr, [L]earned Media is a New York based branded content company that focuses on social, mobile and earned media. We develop products and provide services for both agencies and brands. Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggers.com Follow our Twitter updates at @MediaBizBlogger The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggers.com management or associated bloggers. MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries.
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