You might want to be extra suspicious in case you receive an email from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, cordially asking you to send money: chances are someone is trying to scam you out of your funds. Buterin has taken to Twitter to warn his followers that malicious actors are pretending to be him in order to trick unsuspecting cryptocurrency rookies into sending them their coins. “If you get an email that looks like it’s from me asking for ETH, please do NOT send,” the founder cautioned. “Either contact me first or if you’re lazy just assume it’s a fraud.” If…

This story continues at The Next Web

From the way we ask our users an ethnicity question in an online form to the promise of designing an entire world in Virtual Reality, we, as designers, could be missing the opportunity of breaking stereotypes and misconceptions, instead of perpetuating them. Design can’t just be incidental. Our work has an impact on people’s lives. Inclusion should be a key design principle, just like (if not above) any other design principle your company decides to follow. When inclusion is not part of a brand’s or designer’s core values, there is a chance it will be forgotten, de-prioritized, and become a distant, utopian concept. Designing for…

This story continues at The Next Web

I was working with a firm owner recently, and we were exploring where his clients were really coming from. He has been growing, but he didn’t really have a website and he wasn’t really marketing. How can you grow if you don’t have a website, a logo, or participate in marketing activities? Similar question: why […]

It’s the second go-round of our list of the area’s most promising startups.

A couple of years ago, a colleague of mine told me the following story. Is it true? Maybe. But even it it’s not, it illustrates a critical point, and one that will significantly boost your success.

Here it is:

There was once a young man who had just graduated from college with an engineering degree. He did what most of his classmates did and got a job as an engineer. Within the next few years he got married and had his first child. And then another child.

But after working “for the man” for twenty years, he decided to start his own firm; an engineering consulting firm. While at first business was slow, over the years he built up his firm. In fact, 30 years after founding his company, he was generating millions of dollars in annual revenues.

But then, at the age of 72, he died.

And he left the business to his 71 year old wife.

Now his wife had never run a business in her life. In fact, lately, most of her days were spent at the country club golfing and dining with her friends.

But within a year, she doubled the firm’s profits.

How did she do it?

Simple. She visited the company a week after her husband passed and sat down with the management team.

And then she told them to do two things:

   1.  Make me a list of the 5 things that worked the best in the last 12 months
   2.  Make me a list of the 5 things that worked the least in the last 12 months

The list of things that worked included items like upselling current clients, getting new clients from partnerships they formed, and their program that hired and trained new sales reps.

The list of things that didn’t work included radio advertising, sponsoring trade shows, and a new service offering that just didn’t catch on.

So the widow made one demand. She said, “Do more of the 5 things that worked, and stop doing the 5 things that didn’t work.”

The management team listened. And within a year, the company’s revenues and profits both doubled.

Yes, it’s that simple.

But most of us don’t do this. Here’s why. Throughout our lives, we’ve been told to improve our weaknesses and never quit. So, in business, when something doesn’t work, our first impression is typically to fix it.

However, that’s generally not the best solution. Rather, the best solution is typically to do more of what is already working. Those are the things that are proven to work. So why try to fix an unproven concept, when you already have figured out a winner?

Now, when it comes to marketing, I DO suggest to always tweak and test new ideas. Since creating new promotional vehicles which are profitable can give you competitive advantage. But in most other areas, you should focus more on your winners.

So, take out a pen and paper and:

   1.  Make a list of the 5 things that worked the best for you in the last 12 months
   2.  Make a list of the 5 things that worked the least for you in the last 12 months

And then make sure to focus the vast majority of your efforts on doing more of what’s worked.

————————————————————

The Secret Formula to
Building a $10 Million Company

If you want to build a $10 million+ company, you must focus on building Value. And to build Value, you need to follow a specific formula.

In this video, I layout the precise formula for you.

As you watch the video, you’ll see the important schematic below:

Don’t be overwhelmed by its complexity, by the time you see it, it’ll make perfect sense. And you’ll be able to follow it to dramatically grow your business.

Click here to watch the video now

————————————————————

read more

 It probably goes without saying that Microsoft, along with the rest of the tech world, was working on a smartwatch. And while, by some accounts, the category is finally having its moment, the software giant’s efforts didn’t appear to make it to far beyond the prototype stage.
New photos posted by a Twitter user and spotted by Windows Central purport to show the company’s… Read More

 Everyone wants to be the Craigslist killer. In November, Facebook expanded its Marketplace section to include partners’ housing rentals alongside secondhand merchandise, and today the number three shopping app letgo is doing the same. The company says that, starting today, its tens of millions of users can now quickly snap a few photos and add a description to list a housing rental or… Read More

With Ripple’s fully diluted value at $343 billion, it’s the 10th most valuable company in the U.S., ahead of Bitcoin (not to mention P&Gamble and …). How can that be? I’m reminded of one of the classic lines in movie history, the reason Captain Louis Renault gave Humphrey Bogart (Rick) for shutting Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca: […]