Investing in Recruiting Tech: Advice From the Experts
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: With robust investment demand and new companies launching every day, the recruiting technology startup environment has...
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Organizational Culture: 9 Tips for Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: When entrepreneurs are launching their startups, they have to think about the kind of company culture they want to build....
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Funding Your Startup: Self-Finance or Seek Investors?
Starting your own business can be a dream come true – but if you want the dream to continue and the business to stay afloat, you need to secure financing. There are two options available to you as an entrepreneur: self-financing or finding investors. Both options have their pros and cons. Let's take a look at each, so you can get a better idea of what you may be getting into. Seeking...
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Unhappily Married to the Business? 4 Tips on Restoring Work-Life Balance for Entrepreneurs
One of the biggest challenges that you will face as an entrepreneur is maintaining work-life balance. According to a survey from The Alternative Board, 19 percent of entrepreneurs work 60+ hours per week, 30 percent work 50-59 hours a week, and just 19 percent work fewer than 40 hours a week. Of course, no one said that realizing your dreams would be easy. You'll need to burn a lot of...
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3 Must-Have Tech Services for Every Growing Business
Starting a business used to require a lot of time and effort. All the paperwork needed to be filled out manually and submitted via snail mail. If you were lucky, you could go down to some clerk's office and submit the forms in person, but you knew it would be weeks before anyone looked at them. You cringed at the thought of your papers sitting in a wire basket on the end of someone's desk,...
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9 Things You Should Look for in a Mentor
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question on jobs data you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: Many experts say that entrepreneurs – especially those who are new to the startup life – should look for...
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4 Tips to Help You Find an Amazing Business Partner
Perhaps one of the most crucial hires that you will ever make is the hiring of a business partner. With many entrepreneurs working 50-60 hours a week, you'll be spending a big part of your waking life alongside your partner, which means you'd better be able to get on well in close quarters. You also have the added spice that if things go wrong between you and your business partner, you don't...
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7 Myths About Entrepreneurship – Busted
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: What, in your opinion, are some of the most common misconceptions about being an entrepreneur? Why are these misconceptions...
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Major Blunders to Avoid When Pitching to Influencers (Especially at SXSW)
Having been to SXSW numerous times before, I was delighted to have had the opportunity to attend again last year — this time, with a company of my own. Having my own venture to promote made me feel both excited and strangely vulnerable. Amid all the meetings, on-camera interviews, and speaking engagement, I found myself keenly aware of certain individuals I should talk to and connect...
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Make the Leap: One Entrepreneur's Story of Turning Passion Into Profit
Growing up as a gamer (JRPGs are my thing, personally), I often dreamed about how I could parlay my love of Final Fantasy and Suikoden into a viable career. As you can probably guess, I never did figure out that secret. Sure – I'm happy being a writer, but I still lose weekends to the Persona series on the regular. Someone who did figure out the secret to turning a love for video...
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5 Pop-Up Businesses You Can Launch in 7 Days
Many entrepreneurs enjoy the luxuries of time and healthy budgets when launching their new businesses. But for the 1.6 million Americans laid off or fired every month, time and cash are generally in short supply. It seems starting a business would be a bad move for them, right? After all, the fastest way to restore one's income – and make sure the bills get paid – is to go find a new...
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There Are No Drawbacks to Giving Your Employees a Living Wage – Just Ask Ken LaRoe
Ever since the Great Recession, banks have taken up a sinister place in the American imaginary. When you read the word "bankers," there's a good chance that it summons visions of Wolf of Wall Street-style greed and debauchery. Ken LaRoe, CEO of First Green Bank, knows this – but he also knows that it's not the whole story. "When society as a whole thinks of banks, they think of the...
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7 Types of People You Should Always Be Hiring
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question on jobs data you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: They say an organization can always use more great salespeople. But who else does your company always need to...
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The 4 Traits of Successful Founders
People from all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels have established successful companies. No matter their personal histories, successful business owners tend to share some common characteristics. Studies from the University of California-Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and the University of Maryland, among others, reveal that most successful company founders possess the...
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5 New Ways to Network at Your Next Conference
For those who, like me, attend conferences and trade shows often, networking can become mundane. We get used to doing the same thing over and over, from quick chats between meetings in designated coffee areas to huge parties thrown by conference sponsors at local nightclubs. And each morning, we get up and do it all over again. Due to the repetitious nature of conferences, I don't enjoy...
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The New (and More Effective) Way to Manage Your Startup Team
I hate managing by nagging. It's usually counterproductive, and it doesn't contribute to a great team environment. I've found through my own business and through working with others that managing by scorecards and metrics is a much better approach. It allows everyone to understand the organization's main objectives – and when scorecards and metrics are properly aligned with company...
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Building an 'Internal Brand': A New Approach to Keeping Employees Engaged and Fulfilled
Intrinsic rewards – like feeling fulfilled by the work you do, for example – are really important when it comes to engaging your employees. In fact, research suggests that employees who feel intrinsically rewarded by their jobs are more focused and effective at work than those who don't. But that isn't to say intrinsic rewards are entirely sufficient. You can't rely on them...
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Is World Domination Really Necessary? (Should I Keep My Business Small?)
Who ever said that all businesses must grow exponentially to be considered healthy? No one, that's who. And yet, there is still the popular notion that every startup should aim to be the next Starbucks or Facebook. Entrepreneurs who dare walk in to the Shark Tank with modest growth ambitions are often deemed heretics. Investors and the marketplace overall have a shared thirst for...
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2 Simple Ways to Further Personalize Your Marketing Outreach
When a new company attacks a market, it often takes a niche approach. The company tries to speak to an audience that is currently underserved by existing players with a message or feature that resonates. Whether you call it the "thin edge of the wedge" or establishing a "beachhead," the logic is that every group – all the way down to the individual person – has slightly different...
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5 Ways to Keep Your Eyes on the Prize as an Entrepreneur
When you're an entrepreneur, it is easy to get distracted and lose motivation as you are building your business. Whenever you switch on your computer or watch the news, you probably see all kinds of success stories about other entrepreneurs, and that may cause you to question your own approach and goals. You may begin to compare yourself to these people and wonder when – if ever – you'll...
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Let's Stay Together: One International Company's Approach to 'Holistic' Culture
Doug Smith is president of EDSA, a landscape architecture and urban design firm based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida – but when he started at the company 28 years ago, he was just a lowly entry-level employee. "I started here my first job out of school, and I'm still here," Smith says. Smith's story of rising through the ranks at EDSA is impressive, but isn't exactly unique: According...
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Dealing With a Toxic Employee? That Might Be Your Fault
Everyone has heard about the "toxic employee." There are books about this person. You pay consultants to show you how to deal with them. There are websites, articles, and social media posts dedicated to them. But how and why do employees become toxic? There are a lot of possible answers to this question, but I want to talk about one in particular today: The Toxic Customer I think it's...
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How to Find the Right Office for Your Startup: a Case Study
Finding an office for your startup can be a difficult process. It's imperative to select a space of the correct size, in the right neighborhood, and at a manageable price. A technology startup headquartered in San Francisco recently contacted us at TheSquareFoot about finding an office space for its growing New York City team. Before coming to us, the team was operating out of a...
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3 Ways to Turn Your Hobby Into a Small Business
Yesterday, I explored a few questions you need to ask yourself before you decide to give it a go and turn your hobby into a small business. You may find your hobby liberating and stimulating right now, but if you turn it into a job, you may find all the positive aspects of your hobby turning into stressful commercial baggage. Hence why I encouraged all potential entrepreneurs to do some...
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3 Questions to Answer Before Turning Your Hobby Into a Business
Does your job feel like a nine-to-five grind? That may be a sign that you need to make a change. A career change can be a great way to alleviate boredom and reengage yourself. The problem, however, is that making a career change often means you have to start at the very bottom and work your way up. If you've already climbed the ladder in your current career, the prospect of heading...
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4 Ways to Shake Up Your Performance Management Process
It's easy to talk about shaking up your performance management process, but when it comes to actually doing something about it, many employers fall short. Why is that? The answer is simple, really: Employers get busy, and they get stuck in their ways. Lacking the time to take on a comprehensive overhaul of their performance management processes, many employers just decide that their...
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Why Payroll Is Such a Bummer — and What You Can Do About It [Infographic]
Payroll is a necessary component of any business. Simply put: You can't run a company without paying some people to work there. The problem is, however, that payroll can be a tremendous pain. A new infographic from HR software purveyors Namely points out that a quarter of payroll leaders spend more than half their days on mundane payroll activities and that payroll mistakes cost employers...
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The Ins and Outs of Applying for a Small Business Term Loan
When most people are in the market for a small business loan, they think of a 3-5 year term with monthly payments. The problem with the business lending industry is that many business lenders are offering bad credit business loans. Small business term loans are very different from what the majority of the industry offers. My company, Ventury Capital, helps businesses access capital for...
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Ready to Promote an Employee? Read This First
If you've found the perfect person to take on more responsibility at your company, then it's your responsibility to make sure they're equipped to handle their new role. Many employees – especially the development-oriented millennials – expect their employers to train them as they climb the corporate ranks, but very few employers actually do. Be the company that defies expectations and...
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Entrepreneurship Advice: Whose to Take and Whose to Ignore
When you start your own business, everyone has an opinion. Your brother-in-law thinks you should hire his kid. Your neighbor thinks you should solicit investments from his friend, who is apparently a venture capitalist. Log into your social media accounts, and you become even more inundated. Put the word "entrepreneur" in your bio, and you'll find yourself spammed with advice from...
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Culture Q&A: No One Spends 30 Years at the Same Company — Except Happy Employees
The job-for-life is dead! As our own Kazim Ladimeji has pointed out many times, job hopping is the new normal, and the average worker only spends about 4.4 years at a given job. In short: Nobody stays at the same company for their entire career anymore. Thanks to the rise of telecommuting, the way the Great Recession radically reshaped the economic landscape, and the shifting desires of...
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Lessons Learned From Today's Top CEOs
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 to replace Gil Amelio as CEO, things turned around dramatically. Thanks to Jobs's vision to execute technological innovations, the company he founded in 1976 became an investor's dream. Jobs, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in October 2011 after resigning from his position as Apple's CEO, created one of the greatest success stories in the world...
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8 New Year's Resolutions for Entrepreneurs and Startup Leaders in 2016, Pt. 2
Following the somewhat hectic ramp-up to the holiday season, January can be a time of repose. In fact, studies show that the average worker spends fewer hours working in January than during other parts of the year. As a result, business leaders have a small window of opportunity during this time of the year to step back and think about how they can improve themselves and their...
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How Managers Can Leverage Top Values to Keep Employees Happy and Motivated
Keeping millennial workers happy is not as straightforward as providing a paycheck. Sure, compensation is a factor, but millennials are far more particular and exacting about what they want out of a workplace than previous generations. Not content to be "company" men and women, millennials hop from job to job, demand increasingly flexible and casual work environments, and seek satisfaction in the...
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Most Payroll Funding Contracts 'Suck' — But There May Be a Better Way for Your Startup
Staffing software company TempWorks has been offering payroll funding since its inception in 2007. For the most part, TempWorks used to play by the same rules as other payroll funding services: Startups and other small companies in need of financial assistance would come to TempWorks, sign a contract, and let TempWorks handle payroll for however long the contract stipulated. It's fairly...
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8 New Year's Resolutions for Entrepreneurs and Startup Leaders in 2016, Pt. 1
The start of the new year is as good a time as any to make some long-lasting improvements to the way you run your startup or small business. You've had that holiday period to wind down and take a step back from the daily grind, allowing you to see the big picture for the first time in a long while. This can provide you with some much-needed clarity and a new sense of focus. It's also...
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The First Leadership Skill Every Entrepreneur Should Learn
Entrepreneurs tend to be single-minded, a little obsessive (in a good way!), and completely convinced of their own vision. In the face of obstacles, this tunnel vision can be a very good thing, but if it is not tempered, it can also be an entrepreneur's biggest weakness. In fact, the singular focus of an entrepreneur may even bring about "founder's syndrome" and, eventually, the downfall of...
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The Secret Behind Real Startup Success
When your mind is constantly in motion due to the daily tasks and excitement of startup life, the best thing you can do to refresh is get away from it all. I would argue that intentional downtime is necessary for success – maybe as important as the idea for the business itself. Downtime not only helps keep the mind feeling fresh, but it also helps prevent burnout, something I faced...
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4 Ways to Re-energize Your Employees After the Holidays
Come January, your business will probably need a shot of adrenaline. Research suggests that, for many companies, productivity drops around the holidays, due in part to more employees taking sick days. Without doubt, you'll want to start the new year with a bang to make up for the lost output in December – but that's easier said than done. Once the holiday season comes to a close, many of...
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Culture Q&A: Good Things Happen When You Put Employee Happiness First
When you think of innovative company cultures, your mind probably jumps immediately to the tech giants of the world: the eternal summer camp vibes of Zappos, the "20 percent rule" at Google, and Airbnb's $2000 travel stipend all shine pretty brightly as examples of game-changing approaches to culture. Or maybe you go smaller. Maybe, for you, agile startups represent the epitome of unique...
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10 Best Tips for Empowering Your Team on a Daily Basis
Ever since I sold my first company, I've been thinking a lot about what I could have done to make it more successful. Some people might think that selling a company for a decent check is a good thing --and I would totally agree. But that doesn't change the fact that I could have done better, and I am always trying to achieve more. I have realized since founding my last successful company that...
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Are You Ready? The Value of Preparing for Meetings
Abe Lincoln* once said, "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe." Whether or not you agree with the proportion of time that Lincoln would have you spend on preparation, it's hard to argue against the idea that doing your homework will serve you well. How do you prepare for big meetings or presentations? Has that changed over time, or do you...
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Culture Q&A: At 15Five, Employees 'Work Toward Their Greatest Selves'
You would hope that 15Five, as the purveyor of an employee engagement solution, would have a great company culture. After all: If the employees at the company aren't engaged, why would you trust the company's product to make sure your employees were? Based on my conversations with some 15Five employees – as well as the CEO himself, David Hassell – I can confidently say there's no need to...
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4 Great Ways to Drive Down Startup Costs
Entrepreneurs are great at coming up with innovative products and taking the market by storm. Sometimes, though, they're also great at getting swept up in their own hype – and that can lead to a dangerous loss of financial perspective. In the early days of a startup, all eyes may be drawn to booming sales reports. Meanwhile, more mundane – but absolutely critical – metics fall off the...
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How the Grinch Stole Workplace Appreciation (and How to Get It Back)
It's a Christmas classic. Every year, we enjoy the journey of the Grinch -- from ninja-level curmudgeon, to repenter of his ways, and, finally, to the hero of the day. The Grinch remains an interesting character. He's so filled with anger and resentment that it clouds his vision and, certainly, his judgment. He embarks on a journey that he thinks will fill the hole in his small and fragile...
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How to Get Employees Excited About Your New Efficiency Initiative
Organizational efficiency initiatives are often viewed with skepticism – probably because they don't always work, and even when they do, many don't actually attribute the company's success to these initiatives. If this happens regularly, then employees in your company may simply view any and all productivity initiatives as nuisances and distractions. This, in turn, means employees will be...
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How Flexible Work Arrangements Can Make Your Startup Stronger
Starting a business used to be easy! Okay, it was never easy per se, but at least in the old days you could focus on your product/service and your company branding. In today's talent-starved job market environment, however, you also need to worry about employer branding if you are ever going to attract the best talent to your organization. If you need a skilled barista and not just someone to...
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When an Employee Isn't Working Out, Is It Better to Terminate or Reassign Them?
Today's question comes from a busy entrepreneur: Is it better to terminate or reassign an employee that is not working out? I have spent a lot of time training an employee. She is a great person, but I have to remind her several times to do something. I am not sure if she is just not in the right role or if she will always need so much oversight. I am curious how others have handled...
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