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Master The 4-Day Workweek with Natalie @ WildBit.com — Escape Velocity Show #26
By: Dan Martell
Tags: Founders, SaaS, Leadership, Startup, B2B

I want you to meet someone who I have huge respect for:

Natalie Nagele.

Not only has Natalie been working in the SaaS and software space since her late teens, but she’s been courageous enough to experiment with optimizing her team.

…even if it means asking them to work less.

She is the CEO of WildBit, a tech company with 3 big products:

Beanstalk: Code revision and deployment software

Postmark: Transactional email service

Conveyor: Task management for software teams

I had the pleasure of interviewing Natalie on the latest episode of the Escape Velocity Show, and you can tell that she truly loves her team.

In fact, she loves them so much that she’s willing to try anything to make their lives better.

She saw a boost in productivity by moving them to a 4-day work week, she onboards all her staff by giving them 2 books she swears by, and she’s experimented with many different productivity apps.

Her team is largely remote but she’s managed to make that their strength, not a weakness.

Listening to her experiences is like spying on a test lab training the perfect SaaS team.

If you’ve ever wanted to build a deeply loyal remote team, then you’ll get a lot out of this interview, so check it out:

I’m grateful for Natalie’s willingness to share her biggest lessons from 16 years in the tech industry. In this interview, she talks about:

Why “If you build it they will come” is a bad strategy

Learning how to pay yourself <- HUGE

How to avoid getting screwed in an acquisition

The 2 books she gives to every WildBit employee

How hiring a business coach was like marriage counseling

The company value: “Don’t be an @sshole”.

Whether Slack helps or hinders your team

Natalie’s journey to success doesn’t follow the conventional bravado that many businesses try to project.

Even on WildBit’s website, they list their company timeline, including shutting down products that just didn’t work. It’s not embarrassing… it’s history.

The company that is willing to innovate even if it’s risky is the company that will find diamonds. And WildBit is living proof that not all innovations work on the first try.

Plug in your headphones, and get your dose of SaaS wisdom right here.

Digging what you hear? I’d love it if you left a review in your favorite podcasting app.

P.S. Prefer audio? Subscribe to Escape Velocity directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and make sure to leave a rating and review if you find the show helpful.

—

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get access to all my latest business hacks.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited three tech companies: Spheric, Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.
What’s New in Femtech This Week?
By: Femtech Insider
Tags: Femtech, Venture Capital, Womens Health, News, Startup

What’s New in Femtech This Week?

“Dorsata’s advanced clinical rules engine improves diagnosis, treatment, and documentation making day-to-day patient care experience a delight while ensuring patients receive the right care at the right time.”

Highlights

Maternity management startup Dorsata closes a $5.2M Series A; The UN Population Fund warns the COVID-19 pandemic could have serious consequences for women’s health; Rhia Ventures presents a new issue brief about COVID-19 and Reproductive Health; Yes Health, a digital health service focused on nutrition counseling raises a $6M Series A; The FDA relaxes requirements for digital products helping patients with psychiatric disorders during the COVID-19 crisis; According to a recently published Crunchbase report, only 3% of business funding goes to women; With Covid-19 delaying routine care, chronic disease startups brace for a slew of complications; Rare disease drug research platform RDMD closes a $14M Series A

Company Spotlight

This week let’s talk fertilify benefits!

Carrot offers a fertility benefit for modern companies, focused on making fertility care easier, accessible, and more affordable. The company partners with modern companies to provide fertility coverage for the millions of employees.

Progyny is a leading fertility benefits management company that combines clinical and emotional guidance and support, science, technology, and data to provide comprehensive, inclusive, and effective value-based fertility solutions for self-insured employers

Fertifa is a UK-based fertility benefits company and helps employers support their employees through affordable, one-stop, bespoke fertility care enabling for a more positive outcome.

In the Know

Fertifa Founder Tony Chen: “The significant number of employees impacted by fertility Issues is a major challenge for employers. And yet it remains a taboo subject.” (Femtech Insider)

Call for Participation: Cambridge University Explores the Intersection of Women’s Health and Digital Tools (Femtech Insider)

COVID-19 is normalizing telehealth. And that’s A Good Thing (Fast Company)

Chaving Against Regulation, Silicon Valley Pivots to Pandemic (Wired)

‘A Lifeline’: The Doulas Guiding Clients Through Childbirth — From a Distance (Guardian)

How to Build an Ecosystem of Digital Health Partnerships. Interview with Eugene Borukhovich, former Global Head of Bayer G4A (R2G)

The Coronavirus Will Make the Digital Divide Even Worse (Bloomberg)

COVID-19 is Forcing Hopeful Parents-To-Be to Put Their Family Dreams on Hold (Well+Good)

Who’s Hiring?

Ovia is looking for a Digital Content Editor.

Ruby Cup is looking for a Digital Growth Analyst.

Clue is hiring a Senior Android Engineer.

Niramai is looking to hire a Senior Executive — Quality & Regulatory.

Alva is hiring a Product Designer.

Want more jobs? Click here.
Interview with Team WiMi
By: Kei Hysi
Tags: Team, Tech, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Teamwork

How did you hear about Tech Challenge and why did you decide to join?

I have joined a couple of other TechTalents courses before, and everybody recommended me also to try the TechChallenge… definitely worth it.

How did find each other and why did you decide to make a team together?

In the teambuilding phase, we focused on a broad range of backgrounds and skills in addition to the personal match. In the beginning, we weren’t sure which challenge we would take, so we wanted to set up a team that can cope with any tasks. We then found each other mainly in the team building sessions offered by Anastasia from TechTalents.

What did you learn from this experience? Did it meet your expectations at the end of the course?

The best learning for me was to experience the Makerspace with all its possibilities. It was super helpful for our project and also gave me good support in the realization of other ideas.

What was your idea about?

We tackled the “Future Kitchen Challenge” by Midea, and decided to focus on the next revolution for dishwashers. While talking to a lot of people with (and without) dishwashers, we realized that for smaller kitchens, the standard dishwasher is often not possible or uncomfortable to use as the dishwasher door blocks the whole kitchen. Therefore we decided to build a dishwasher that you can open at the top. However, we designed it not like a top-loading washing machine, but with a rising mechanism that lifts the racks to the countertop level.

What are some of the challenges that you faced while developing the idea?

First of all, I would say that hardware prototyping takes way more time than expected, and in the end, we spent countless days in the Makerspace to make it work. Besides, it was sometimes challenging to organize the development of all the different parts needed. E.g. before we could order and modify the lifting motor, we had to determine the power it needs, which was dependent on the lifting mechanism, which was dependent on the space requirements and so on…

How does your prototype work?

In the end, we decided on a regular scissor mechanism to raise the dishes to the countertop. We installed a stepper motor to make this function automated and also controlled by an app.

Do you plan to continue the idea development further on?

We did have a lot of fun during our projects, especially since the home appliance industry was new for all of us. Currently, though, we have put the development on ice.

Is there something you learned or experienced that had a real impact on you during Tech Challenge that you want to share?

Try out the Makerspace; it opens a lot of opportunities !!

Thank you Team WiMi!

REGISTER FOR TECH CHALLENGE CLASSIC (hardware & software challenges) here.

or REGISTER FOR TECH CHALLENGE HEALTH & BIO here.
Where To Invest In Europe Post-Pandemic
By: Antonin Gury-Coupier
Tags: Coronavirus, Venture Capital, Pandemic, Startup, Investment

Where To Invest In Europe Post-Pandemic

Article exclusively based on publicly available information and reflecting solely my personal convictions.

COVID-19 crisis is an unprecedented sanitary crisis that will inevitably lead to an unprecedented societal, economic and financial crisis. Current pandemic plunges the planet into the dark and forces individuals and businesses to adapt.

Today, we find ourselves in the early innings of a new period sending us into a world of uncertainty. Global shockwaves can accelerate adoption rates and even propel us into a new future. With Covid-19, we are already seeing early signs of a shift in how consumers and businesses behave.

Some of these shifts will stick around and create long-term digital disruptions that will shape businesses for decades to come and define the post-pandemic environment. These societal shifts will translate into new promising ventures that will thrive in the post-pandemic world.

In this article, I will analyse some of these promising sub-sectors.
The Journey Begins…
By: Jeffery Thompson Jr
Tags: Videogames, Comic Book Movies, Entrepre, Startup, Poland

Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. There will be late nights, sacrifices made with relationships, and lots of failures.

Speaking of failures, I’m here because I have failed and failed miserably.

I failed when I attempted a game startup back in 2016, we were accepted into the corelabs accelerator. I met and was mentored by several people in the game industry which included Jeff Burton and Tom Kalinski to name a few. That failure stuck with me and I kept going and pushing.

Grant it, we did not receive funding as part of the accelerator program, but receiving advice on demos, pitch decks, overall development timelines proved to be invaluable.

I then began working with various studios as a narrative designer which eventually brought me to Warsaw, Poland. During my time in Warsaw, I met various CEOs and game studios and thought and felt the local work culture differed with my morals.

What was done about it?

I doubled down and decided to branch off on my own. Now mind you, there are tons of cultural differences with the Polish and Americans. There was a point in which I had an investor agreement on the table, and when it was time to sign the paperwork, the investor failed to show up! Gladly so, after doing more research on that person and due diligence, it was a blessing in disguise.

The company I founded I named Epoch Media. Epoch media is a group of trans-media storytellers with interesting and intriguing projects with a focus on strong narratives and characters (We have grand ambitions but more on that in future posts). I joined forces with my friend, Jakub, that I played American football with (more on that in future posts). Recently, I added a game designer to the team that has serious knowledge and ambitions, Roger. Currently were developing our first video game together and a prequel comic book to go along with the game. Our first Project is titled: Pensions.

Not colored yet, but from the upcoming comicbook I am writing, Pensions: The Beginning.

In March of 2020, I met with an entrepreneur from Poland that runs an accelerator program, Borys Musielak. Borys has started and exited a company and now helps other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams while building an ecosystem on this side of the world. Essentially, he’s helping bridge Silicon Valley to Poland.

He mentioned to me about an accelerator program here: Reaktorx.

The Reaktorx Team

I applied and then got an interview with some amazing people, which included Gabriel, Dorota, and Agata Kwaśniewska. Eventually, Epoch Media got accepted into the program and has recently completed the first week. As things go further I love forward to improving our company pitch, project pitch, Demo Day, meetings with Agata, meetings with our lead mentor, and learning as much information as we can.

To be an entrepreneur is to find calmness in the chaos.
Right Now is the best time to become a millionaire!!
By: Anderson Ramirez
Tags: Money, Life, Productivity, Startup, Entrepreneurship

Right Now is the best time to become a millionaire!!

The stock market has crashed and right now is the best time to invest in stocks, companies related to tourism are the most affected in the market. you can quadruple your money just in matter of time. If you don’t know anything about how to invest, do not worry, I am going to explain it to you.

First, we are going to start with the fundamentals. what is stock? Stock represents the ownership interests in a corporation. The smallest portion that you and anybody can acquire from a company is one share. Not all companies offer their shares to people, just the one who goes public. But don't worry, the majority of them do because they need tons of liquidity(cash) to perform their operations.

what is the value of one share? It depends, the value of one share is determined by the offer and demand in the market. That is why it is the best time to invest because there is a lot of offer (companies ready to perform)and there is no demand(people staying at home)in the market due to the coronavirus.

How can I buy shares? There are many platforms where you can buy shares. For example, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Ally invest, your personal bank, etc. Personally, I use Robinhood. Robinhood is a free mobile application that you can download right now from your smartphone. I use it because there is no fee whatsoever at the time you are buying or selling stocks.

What shares should I buy? The most affected corporations are the ones related to tourism, Airlines, Cruises, Hotels, Oil producers, etc. Some shares that I am buying are UAL(United Airlines), DIS(Disney), XOM(Exxonmobile).

How long do I have to hold the shares? That is up to you, but I will tell you my plan, once the coronavirus is over, the demand will increase exponentially. The majority of shares that you buy now will triple or even quadruple by the time the market goes back to normal, you just have to choose the right shares to buy.

What are you waiting for? It is the best time to invest and you don't need tons of money to start investing, I started with 100 dollars 3 years ago. If I can do it, anybody can. Good luck!.
Durians Daily #20: These are the high-growth companies in APAC, according to the Financial Times
By: Southeast Asia
Tags: Asia Pacific, Venture Capital, Financial Times, Startup, Entrepreneurship

This post is intended solely for general informational or educational purposes only. 500 Startups Management Company, L.L.C. and its affiliates (collectively “500 Startups”) makes no representation as to the accuracy or information in this post and while reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that the information herein is accurate and up-to-date, no liability can be accepted for any error or omissions. All third party links in this post have not been independently verified by 500 Startups and the inclusion of such links should not be interpreted as an endorsement or confirmation of the content within. Under no circumstances should any content in this post be construed as investment, legal, tax or accounting advice by 500 Startups, or an offer to sell or solicitation of interest to purchase any securities advised by 500 Startups. Prospective investors considering an investment into any 500 Startups fund should not consider or construe this content as fund marketing material. The views expressed herein are as at the date of this post and are subject to change without notice. A 500 Startups fund may have a financial interest in one or more of the companies discussed.
Mentoring Start Ups For The Second Year
By: The Silver Kick Company
Tags: Digital Agency, Digital Marketing, Creative Agency, Bahrain, Startup

Why we love mentoring and offering guidance

2020 Appreciation Award from Flat6Labs

The Silver Kick Company began in 2014 as a sole entrepreneurship / startup led by a solo entrepreneur who had no backing, zero capital and non-existent funding. Through immense struggles and frustrating trial and error, we have come this far. Starting a business is no piece of cake and that’s why we love helping innovators, visionaries and just brave-souls with ideas.

Flat6Labs, a startup accelerator in Bahrain that works to launch both local and international startups, invited us to provide a mentor in the subject of Advanced Digital Scaling for their 4th cycle of entrepreneurs in the last quarter of 2018. Startups need to know how to effectively grow their presence online. Most need a mentor to introduce them to technicalities of digital marketing, as entrepreneurs usually come for other educational and professional backgrounds as well as lack the time for extensive research.

At the agency, we nominated our founder, Shabana Feroze, for the mentoring opportunity. She was one of the early adopters of digital scaling in Bahrain and has been a successful blogger for over 10 years. In addition to her hands-on experience in the field, Shabana is capable of empathizing with the entrepreneurship mindset.

Digital marketing always starts with Research. Shabana researched all eight startups. She audited their online presence, made notes on where they could improve and how. Ancita Sherel, the Creative Director and Shabana both attended a Pitch Night at Flat6Labs where each startup pitches who they are, to potential investors. Nothing helps marketers better than seeing entrepreneurs in action.

On the day of mentoring, Shabana conducted one-on-one mentoring sessions with each startup. During the session, she not only touched upon all aspects of online marketing such as social media, website and SEO, but also provided them with useful advice on artwork layouts and tone of voice to use in all communications.

A candle that lights another loses nothing.

The session was completely focused around insights, practicality and efficient utilization of budgets. We were happy to see exceptionally high ratings by the startups for her mentoring session.

We went back again in 2019, with the 4th cycle of startups of Flat6Labs.

A massive shout-out to Flat6Labs for their beautiful plaques of appreciation that sit in our trophy shelf with the other bling. (We love our awards.)

Acting as a mentor for Flat6Labs’ startups is completely voluntary. There is no monetary compensation for the time and effort given by the mentor. We receive our thanks in the form of relief and smiles of the entrepreneurs trying to conquer uncharted territory.

We do this year after year because we have been there. We are intimately familiar with the startup hustle. Every startup is unique and there is no rule book to follow. Tailored mentoring, then, is extremely useful to startups. Which is why we’re always happy to help.
Why We Invested: WEVO
By: Tbd Angels
Tags: Startup, Angel Investors, Boston

Smarter together

Since last month’s TBD Angels launch, more angel investors have joined us, and in the WEVO deal, we had a broad participation, many with direct relevant industry expertise. Our premise that operators with specific functional expertise, current industry connections, and relevant experiences would…

give us the ability to have better insights and decision making provide more value to the entrepreneurs of our portfolio companies positively alter the trajectories of their growth

This compelling dynamic played out as the collective group looked towards one of our own members, Sarah Hodkinson, for her insights during the evaluation of this deal. During the day, Sarah is General Manager of SmarterTravel and is in the sweet spot of the target market segment for WEVO’s service. Off the top of her head, Sarah instantly rattled off a few piercing questions, and those insights were already directly aligned with the next key features on the product roadmap. What’s more, the other angels benefited greatly from her subject matter expertise, both for this specific investment as well as honing their skills as angel investors for the next deal.

Several other investments are in the works at TBD Angels, so we are most definitely open for business.

David Chang is one of the members of TBD Angels
Sony bets on blockchain
By: Adepts Media
Tags: Blockchain, Maas, Startup, Transportation, Sony

While many nations remain at a near-standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, major players in tech are continuing to develop innovative infrastructure for when we get moving again.

Sony announced on April 23 that it has successfully developed a new blockchain system for integrating data and service provision across different forms of transportation — whether it be trains, buses, taxis, car-sharing or on-demand rental bicycles.

This approach to transport — referred to as MaaS (Mobility as a Service) — aims to provide people with data regarding optimal routes to their desired destinations.

The system aims to replace a siloed, type-specific interface for each segment of the sector, whereby users pay and choose their means of transport in isolation from the wider urban transportation system — for example, by using a specific taxi-hailing app or paying for a local bus.

Sony’s new Blockchain Common Database (BCBD) for MaaS can ostensibly process data from 7 million users per day and record, analyze and share their anonymized travel history and revenue allocation.

It is the only successful project chosen from an initiative by the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management last year, which appealed to developers to propose blockchain solutions for MaaS development.

Sony notes that BCDB is not limited to MaaS, and could be used in various applications for smart cities, where large-scale sensor data needs to be transparently and securely shared across a decentralized network.

In its announcement today, Sony pointed to its development of digital currency hardware wallet technology and the use of blockchain for digital content rights management, alongside other blockchain projects in the pipeline.

The source.
The one thing you need to have if you want to start a business.
By: Adam Albrecht
Tags: Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Life Lessons, Startup, Entrepreneurship

I love a good proverb. It offers a great way to summarize and remember a simple truth. I recently stumbled upon an interesting old Chinese proverb. By stumbling, I mean I found it by accident. Not that I tripped and fell on top of it.

Here it is:

‘A Man Without a Smiling Face Must Never Open a Shop’ -Chinese Proverb

This proverb makes me laugh. It isn’t poetic. It lacks the thought-inspiring depth of Confucius. It’s what I would label a very niche-audience proverb. I don’t know if this was intended for the non-smiling crowd, or the maybe-I-will-open-a-shop crowd.

Smiling Is A Requirement

Regardless of how narrow and niche and blunt the proverb is, it is true. Businesses are about human interactions. If you don’t have a smiling face, you can’t show people you are happy to see them. Customers won’t feel welcomed, appreciated or valued. A person without a smiling face creates a poor customer experience. If you can take someone’s money, but can’t give them a smile in return, there will be no repeat business.

Make Them Feel Good

This proverb is a great reminder about the doors that open when we smile. Smiling makes you magnetic, pleasant and warm. Smiling make others feel good. And customers will pay a premium for that feeling. Customers and clients have a wide range of options to choose from. They will always go where they feel welcomed and appreciated. And a smile makes them feel both.

Smiling Is a Customer Magnet

When I was young I spent a few valuable Saturdays working at a concession booth at a stadium. I smiled the whole time. It was clear that by smiling I gave the crowd walking past the impression that I was happy to see them. Which made them more likely to approach the booth. I’ll never forget that lesson. As a result I sold a lot of foam fingers.

Be A Good Host

As a business owner you must always put the customer first. You must be a good host. By putting a smile on your face you attract customers and keep them coming back over and over again.

Resting Smile Face

Smiling is my default. I don’t put a lot of thought into it. Because I don’t have to. I am sure that my naturally smiley nature has been an important factor in my entrepreneurial success. I want to make my clients’ interactions with The Weaponry, my advertising and idea agency, the most enjoyable part of their day. And by the looks on their faces, it often is.

Key Takeaway

If you can’t put a smile on your face you can’t be an entrepreneur. Because if you can’t put a smile on your own face you certainly won’t be able to put one on anyone else’s. Customers have options. In the age of online commerce, one of the greatest reasons to enter a shop is to see a smiling face that is happy to help you. Offer a smiling face to every customer you see. And you are likely to see them over and over again.

If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Is My Idea Good Enough For A Business?
By: Bethan Bishop
Tags: Ideas, Design, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Business

Many of you have probably come up with new ideas on a regular basis and have asked yourself whether there is a business to be created from them. Alternatively you create ideas that could be implemented in your existing business. So how do you decide whether to take them forward or not?

As I have said on many occasions, innovation is a process. And whilst you might think that the process starts with an idea, the process in fact starts with a problem. There are a number of key steps and between each you can decide whether to proceed or not.

Identify and fully understand the problem you are going to solve. You need a deep understanding of the problem from the perspective of potential customers and other beneficiaries, purchasers and the wider market. You have to understand the context in which the problem arises. Determine whether it’s a suitable problem to solve, either via your initial idea or via other possible solutions. Are you the right person with the right expertise and/or team to solve the problem? If you were to solve it, is someone prepared to buy a solution? Who else is solving the same problem already? Build your early stage offer (prototype) so that you can test it within your potential market(s) to demonstrate value and get feedback. Determine your business model, fully understand your value proposition and how your product will be marketed, distributed and used by customers to enter the particular market(s).

At every step of the way it is important to test assumptions and recognise the importance of being rigorous so that you can be sure you don’t waste unnecessary time and resources.

The key thing is to really care about the problem you are attempting to solve. Setting up your business is no easy task so being committed to creating the best outcome for your potential customer is critical. If you care about the problem you will be able to work your way through possible solutions with an open mind and avoid being wedded to the first idea you considered.

“Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” Uri Levine
The Art of Co-Creation
By: Eugene Borukhovich
Tags: Co Création, Customer, Innovation, Startup, Human Behavior

There are many buzzwords floating around in the innovation space but one that I wanted to accentuate is “Co-creation”. As always lets refer to the Wikipedia definition of it:

Co-creation is a management initiative, or form of economic strategy, that brings different parties together (for instance, a company and a group of customers), in order to jointly produce a mutually valued outcome.[1] Co-creation brings a blend of ideas from direct customers or viewers (who are not the direct users of the product) which in turn creates new ideas to the organization.

The theory is easy: bring two or more parties (firm and its customers, or corporate and a startup) to generate combined value that is larger than the sum of its individual parts and learn together. When each party is learning on the inside, it learns how things operate today. With openness, however, it begins teaching, learning but also contributing to what things could be that not just match but exceed end customer expectations.

There are many pitfalls in co-creation and many stem from the basics of human behavior to win vs. win-win:

Will we depend on the co-creator for a long term?

Will the co-creator be transparent?

Who owns the final product?

Will this relationship dilute the brand or the final product?

But all these questions arise when there is lack of trust. Trust is not given but earned and hence assuming the best intentions and building the trust with minimal milestones allows all parties to build a trustful relationship. Ultimately people work with people not organizations or logos.

Note: I am trying something new starting today: to write a short post of my top thoughts for the day. As always, would love your thoughts, opinions and critical feedback
Why every business should make sure they keep employees connected via a business phone system
By: Sam Antwi
Tags: Voip Phones System, Business Services, Voip, Startup, Business

Why every business should make sure they keep employees connected via a business phone system Sam Antwi Jun 9, 2019·2 min read

Businesses today cannot afford important employees being out of touch. A business phone system is an ideal solution to this problem. Whether it is a small, medium or big business organization, business phone systems have become the absolute necessity in today’s competitive world. Business phone system solutions also play a vital part in uplifting business establishments.

Modern business phone systems come with solutions for all the data transfer hassles in a business organization. Features such as auto attendant, call groups, cell phone call forwarding, call recording, call reporting, access for remote workers, email integration, and unified messaging are included in most businesses phone systems. These cutting edge features have helped to increase the productivity of big and small business organizations equally. Apart from increasing productivity, businesses phone systems solutions improve customer services. This enhances the relationship between customers and entrepreneurs.

The choice of business phone systems basically depends on the type of the business organization. Business phone systems are available in four different models. They are key systems, private branch exchange (PBX) systems, KSU-less phones and voice over IP (VoIP).

Small business organizations that require less number of extensions can opt from key phone or KSU-less phone business systems. The key phone type business system is perfect to support extensions above five and below forty. A KSU-less phone system is suitable for an organization that requires less than ten extensions. Thus, this system is widely used in small and home based business organizations.

But, if the number of extensions is more than 40, then private branch exchange (PBX) business phone system is the best solution. Earlier PBX businesses phone systems were very huge and extremely expensive. But with the advance of technology, the PBX businesses phone system has developed to a point that it can be accommodated on a desk. This type of business phone system can also be programmed, depending on one’s need. With the introduction of the Internet, voice over IP systems became more popular. In recent years, voice over IP systems have incorporated the most advanced technologies for businesses everywhere.
What Type of Developer is Right for You
By: Athena Ozanich
Tags: Full Stack Development, Web Development, Front End Development, Startup, Back End Development

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

What Type of Developer is Right for You

In this post, I want to briefly discuss the differences between the types of web developers and distinguish with some clarity the difference between them. Specifically, the three most common which are Front-End, Back-End and Full Stack. There are a lot of great reasons to at least know what these roles roughly entail but in my opinion, the best reason is to avoid over or under taxing yourself and employees.

As a developer, there is little worse than looking for a position and finding the local options for a Front-End developer that describe responsibilities of a Full Stack role. Not only is this an unreasonable expectation of a Front-End developer but it also leads to positions in which the developer is also underpaid. This is the kind of mistake I hope to help you avoid, especially if you are a startup with little clue as to where you should start. Additionally, I would imagine it to be just as bad for a start-up company to overpay someone for the skills needed.

Front-End developer:

The responsibilities of this role include coding the html, css and javascript for a given website or progressive web app. They are the ones who give the site it’s desired appearance dictated by the parties vested in the project. They work with the side of the site that the visitor will see and interact with, and they create some of that interactivity.

Back-End developer:

This position has the responsibility of handling all the things you need but rarely see. They take care of making sure the data gets to and from your site and handle your databases as well as keep the security of your site up to date with current technologies. They create a means to safely save your user’s data and allow dynamic use of your site and services.

Full-Stack developer:

This one is pretty straight forward, they cover the full stack of development front and back, and sometimes even the design as well (but not often). They will handle everything from the development on both the front and back ends as well as the integration of the two. These developers often get mistakenly thought of as the only kind of developer which leads to a tough job market for everyone involved including employers

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

The vital nature of being able to identify the types of developer roles and their function grows with each day! Misidentifying the target developer can lead to painstaking issues surrounding the hiring process for companies and developers alike, costly issues at that. Avoiding this common pitfall can save you and or your company time and money that could spell the success or failure of your project(s).

Hopefully, you found this helpful and enlightening, and even better I hope it helps you avoid dealing with this type of problem before it’s too late.
Weekly Recap #1. This week was the first of my…
By: Clay Norris
Tags: Recaps, Newsletter, Venture Capital, Fintech, Startup

This week was the first of my post-college career. If I follow the traditional path of retirement after 40 years, I only have 1,999 weeks left.

Articles I Wrote:

Venture capital investing has changed with “bulge bracket” firms investing growth equity at later stages and higher valuations. This methodology goes against traditional venture investing strategy and creates unhealthy pressure for founders to create exponential and usually unreasonable growth numbers. By investing huge dollar amounts at later rounds, it also dilutes out those that took the most risk at early stages.

Fintech companies aim to go public or be acquired by one of the big banks. By focusing on these two outcomes, they are missing other opportunities.

Equity compensation has emerged to become a popular form of attempting to attract tech talent from joining incumbents that can offer higher starting salaries. I had some quick thoughts on using this mechanism.

I wanted to pause and remember those that served on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Fintech M&A activity remained hot in 2018.
IoTeX News Digest YouTube Campaign — Episode 46
By: Iotex Team
Tags: Ama, Iotex, IoT, Startup, Blockchain

Hello our dear community! For those of you, who have been following us for sometime, you know that we like to regularly keep you updated on the progress of our project and share the latest news. We regularly send out newsletters, monthly project update reports and share news and announcements daily on our Telegram channels, Twitter, and also through the weekly News Digest videos on our YouTube channel. In order for these videos to be even more interesting and valuable to our supporters, we would like to introduce a campaign series around it — meet the IoTeX News Digest YouTube Campaign! 🎉

Recap of this weeks Updates

☑️VITA token is coming to the IoTeX community!

☑️PIEXGO supports IOTX native token swap

☑️Almost 40% of tokens are STAKED & we are expanding to 24 Con️sensus Delegates

☑️Livestream #AMA3105 Summary Blog

Campaign Period

⏰ June 9, 3AM PST — June 15, 3AM PST

Steps to participate:

Join our Telegram Group and Announcement Channel & make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel Fill out this form & complete an easy task to get your IOTX!

Rewards

By successfully completing the 2 steps listed above 👆 ALL of the participants will receive 30 points (1 point : 1 IOTX)

PLUS based on the participation rate, we will have a lucky draw, so you can win additional tokens for spreading the word and helping us to build a Global Community 💙

Number of participants ≤20 — we will randomly select up to 3 winners that will receive additional 100 IOTX each

winners that will receive additional each 21≤ Number of participants ≤50 — we will randomly select up to 5 winners that will receive additional 150 IOTX each

winners that will receive additional each 51≤ Number of participants ≤100 — we will randomly select up to 10 winners that will receive additional 200 IOTX each

winners that will receive additional each 101≤ Number of participants ≤300 — we will randomly select up to 20 winners that will receive additional 300 IOTX each

❗️Please note that one person can only participate once in this campaign and we do not allow multiple submissions/accounts. Any cheating or suspicious activity will result in the suspension of your participation.

❗️If you will be using social media for posting and sharing, make sure that your account is valid and active and is not only used for promotional activities.

We will announce all the winners by June 15 in our Telegram groups.
Eyal Gutentag : Marketing is Changing Rapidly
By: Eyal Gutentag
Tags: Startup, Eyal Gutentag

Companies are demanding to understand ROI, just as measurement is simultaneously getting both easier and harder. At the same time, audiences are increasingly resistant to advertising and more challenging to reach than ever thanks to Netflix, Spotify, Instagram, Satellite Radio, Podcasts, DVR TV and more.

The skill sets and the experience required to succeed have changed. Companies are desperately trying to catch up.

As companies are challenged to scale faster and more globally than ever before, their people and culture can be either the key assets or liabilities to doing so. The right people are a requirement, but it’s less about what they have previously done professionally. It’s far more about who they are, how they’re wired and how they solve problems. The nuances of the hiring process are critical.



But that’s really just the beginning…

Roles must evolve frequently — measured in months, not years. Org charts become obsolete quickly.

Mentorship and rapid advancement of high achievers and leaders not only requires a strategy but a culture to enable it. If a meritocracy is your goal, processes must be in place to effectively reward and reinforce it.

At least that’s how I see it. I’ve seen these approaches prove successful over decades. I’ve been fortunate to hire hundreds of exceptional people over the years. If you’re among them, you know I love building high-powered, diverse, collaborative teams that enjoy working together. That is foundation to success in the knowledge economy.

I also love watching ambitious team members transform their companies, and their careers in the process. It is the MOST rewarding part.
[Inside] How astorya.vc & La Parisienne enable InsurTech entrepreneurs launch startups faster & cheaper
Tags: Insurtech, Fintech, Insurance, Innovation, Startup

Startups entering the insurance industry often face a dilemma: they either create their own products, which is expensive, complex and burdensome, or they use an existing company, but the implementation times tend to drag on. A third option is now available to them.

The initiative comes from the Astorya.vc venture capital fund team and its investor, La Parisienne, which, together, combine their skills to offer startups an optimized process for developing a customized insurance solution. The pledge is to provide an operating result, available as a complete set of APIs — including quotation, underwriting and claims management — in less than 10 weeks, from preliminary discussions to production.

The announcement will delight many entrepreneurs who need to develop specific products in their business model, but who have, up to now, had to face difficulties such as the acquisition of the regulatory approvals necessary to work autonomously, or endless negotiations with historical actors who are not used to, and often reluctant to, working with this type of structure. La Parisienne’s “iPaaS” platform will suit them much better.

Astorya.vc, for its part, is becoming the main entry point for early-stage startups wishing to access the system, whether they are selected for an equity investment or not. Indeed, the expertise acquired by its founders in the analysis of European InsurTech — materialized by its database of more than 2,000 companies — allows it to act as a sort of guarantor for the insurer. In doing so, it also confirms its desire to assist new entrants in their first steps, in dimensions other than just investment.

By combining their respective strengths, La Parisienne and Astorya.vc are doing an immense service to the InsurTech ecosystem, without neglecting their own interests. Because, by eliminating one of the greatest difficulties in the process of creating an innovative insurance concept, their offer should significantly accelerate the execution of projects, allowing faster and less expensive approval on the market. In the end, the entire entrepreneurial process will be much more effective.
Switch: an introduction to a Music Startup
By: Tonia Molvali
Tags: Startuplab, Startup, Adandprlab, Music

My team and I are pleased to finally introduce our music start up to the entrepreneurial world. We believe that “Switch” is an innovative product for the Greek market that will change the amateur music industry in Greece.

But what is our product? Switch is an innovative — for the Greek Market’s standards — app that gives the opportunity to users to discover new music for free and in a very easy and fun way.

While we were conducting a research about what new musicians and users are missing from the music industry, we came across a problem that seems relevant to the majority of our research subjects. From the perspective of the young, evolving musicians we discovered that they find it very difficult to promote their music and find a way to “be heard” in the welter of information a person is receiving in a daily basis. Of course, they can upload their work in apps such as Spotify or YouTube, but it is difficult for them to be distinguished between the millions of artists.

From the prospect of the user and mostly as far as millennials and the generation Z goes, we found that they are tired of listening to mainstream music all the time and is also very difficult for them to discover new music in the already existent apps, especially as far as Greek artists go.

That’s when it hit us! Since we wanted to find a solution to those problems that both new Greek artists and users had we came up with Switch. How we solved the problem? We created an app that always keeps the user exposed to new music and artists, new artists can avoid the competition with the already established ones and can be heard by a community that is only interested in alternative musical options.

To be more explanatory, Switch is an app that lets you swipe through a vast database of new music, listen to a song for ten seconds and then you can either Switch to the next one or find out more information about the artist and the song itself. This way you can discover a vast variety of new music every day, based on the music genre and mood of your choice.

Let’s walk you through our app:

Sign In

Choose your genre and mood

Switch to discover new music

The best part? It is completely free to use.

As for the artists using our app, they will need to pay a monthly fee of 7 euros, but I’m sure its nothing compared to all the possibilities Switch has to offer. Artists can upload any number of songs they want per month, create a profile to promote their work, upload information about their gigs and see the analytics of each and every one of their songs.

Isn’t it exciting?

Our team: The Revenants

Olympia Georgakopoulou

elena kouki

Anastasia Koutsothodorou

Tonia Molvali

Athena Styllou
Tips to Professionals in the Industry in the light of my Industry experience: (Tips are not necessarily in the order of importance.)
By: Sudhir Vaidya
Tags: Tips, Professional, Occuaption, Career, Startup

Tips to Professionals in the Industry in the light of my Industry experience: (Tips are not necessarily in the order of importance.) Sudhir Vaidya Jun 9, 2019·2 min read

1) Do not loose your independence.

2) Keep safe distance from the boss & colleagues.

3) Motivate your staff. Follow the attitude ‘we need each other.’

4) Make your staff dispensable.

5) Do not indulge in politics.

6) Do not gossip. Follow three filter test prescribed by Socrates. (Truth, Goodness, & Usefulness)

7) Give justice to your salary.

8) Do your work sincerely and with involvement.

9) Enjoy the work. Try to get optimum job satisfaction. Money will follow.

10) Select the job which will provide opportunity to use your knowledge.

11) Pay attention to few observations made by ‘Abraham Lincoln’ many years ago namely:

• You can not bring about prosperity by discouraging Thrift.

• You can not keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

• You can not establish sound security on borrowed money.

12) Saving should be the first charge on Income.

13) Pursue some hobbies.

14) Take care of Health. Do some exercise regularly.

15) Take healthy diet.

16) Spend enough time with family members and parents.

17) Exercise control over ‘Hurry’ ‘Worry’ and ‘Curry’

18) You should constantly look for every opportunity to learn.

19) You should not carry any complex either inferior or superior. You should carry equality complex.

20) You should ‘mean’ what you say but you may not ‘say’ what you mean unless called for.

21) You should honour every person’s ideas and skills.

22) You should constantly exchange information and knowledge and keep optimum amount of transparency in your dealings.

23) You should not ignore signals.(Take macro meaning)

24) Happiness lies in MIND.

25) You should do retrospection at periodic intervals.

26) You should believe that you owe some obligations to society.

27) You should always do PLANNING before taking any action, decision etc. (Take macro meaning)

28) You should measure the success by not what you have achieved but by what you had to leave to achieve the same.

29) You should either don’t carry EGO or try to keep the EGO under control.

30) Do not change the jobs frequently. Do not compromise on designation for a higher salary. Both should go hand in hand.

31) You should love what you get as you may not get what you want/love.

32) Your success in life depends on realization of one’s limitations.

Sudhir Vaidya

(Extract from My Autobiography)