Startup Consciously: Startup consciously and brainstorm beyond business. Founders face knotty decisions personally, as well on the project itself. There...
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Plans & Operations
Plans & Operations: These Insights present ideas and information about what it takes to develop the fledgling enterprise into a successful one. The business may be stressful and make you wonder why you ever started. For instance, sales forecasts may have been too optimistic, A new hire may not meet your expectation, or breakeven might seem like a million miles away, but here you’ll find ideas that may help or be reassuring.
Hopefully, some of these Insights will confirm that the earlier commitments you made to your purpose beyond dollars and cents, were valid and you will be reassured that you are not a maverick. Many examples will reinforce your courageous thinking. You will learn that other people are traveling the same route. Outcomes of your early stage in the market will show that staying on track and sharing value(s) reinforces your business progress.
In the spirit of community, please do make contact (will@venturefounders.com) , make comments and suggest topics which you consider important to include in the future.
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Leadership and Organization
Entrepreneurial Mindfulness Being—Striving—Thriving
Entrepreneurial Mindfulness: These two words are not often seen together. However, business schools that teach a startup course would do...
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Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact Public/private partnerships are enablers
Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact: If you are Don Miguel, of Fincas Familia Castro, a small family coffee plantation and roasters,...
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Purpose and Profit Framework Essentials for Sustainable Startup
Purpose and Profit Framework: Today, it is finally safe to say that collective business wisdom accords purpose and profit virtually...
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Mailbox Storyboard Startup MBA Student Combines Digital & Analog for Greeting Cards by Mail
Mailbox Storyboard Startup: a new personal service has been born in Houston, Texas to give stories to friends, relatives and...
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Management Process and Procedures
Management Process and Procedures Product or Innovation Business Plan and Initial Funding Benefit Venture Blog
AI for Startup Potential and Risks of AI for Entrepreneurs
AI For Startup: Artificial Intelligence is talked and written about a great deal, but many of us have little real...
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Founders Affinity Diagram Grouping Seemingly Different Things to Tackle Issues
Founders Affinity Diagram: All entrepreneurs that I know are messy thinkers—for good reason. Things happen and you want to act...
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Goal Tracking Tool Simple Tabular Way of Setting and Tracking Work and Personal Goals
Goal Tracking Tool: Here is a very simple goal tracking tool I devised. You can copy or adapt it for...
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Force Field Analysis Plot Those Forces That Restrain, and Others That Drive a Particular Course of Action
Force Field Analysis: Kurt Lewin created a powerful strategic tool used to understand what's needed for change in both business and personal...
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Eisenhower Method A Way to Distinguish the Important and the Urgent
Eisenhower Method: the method enables you to organize tasks in order to figure out priorities. General Eisenhower is quoted as...
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Critical Path Analysis Identifies the Activities Necessary to Complete a Task
Critical Path Analysis is an algorithm for scheduling a set of project activities. You will not find the Critical Path Analysis...
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Brainstorming Disciplined Way to Surface Latent Ideas, Both Significant and Insignificant
Brainstorming: Brainstorming originated in the world of advertising in the 1940s. Brainstorming is a creativity tool that is very effective...
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Traditional, New Legal Forms and Certifications
Startup Registration Decision Making Table to Decide the Right Legal Form for Your Venture
Startup Registration: As soon as your startup is ready to go, you will need to register the business legally. The...
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Connection, Trust, and Love The Difference Between Espoused Values and Deep Emotion
Connection, Trust, and Love in the New Economy1: The generally accepted aim of a business venture is to maximize financial...
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Blooming Beauty Business B Corporations Lead the Way
Blooming Beauty Business: The cosmetics and toiletries sector is about improving the appearance and health of the body and is...
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Social Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Revenue
Funding the Benefit Sector At the Intersection of the Social (nonprofit), Private (business), or Public (government) Sectors
Funding the Benefit Sector: The Benefit Sector is emerging to fill a gap in the ability of the three traditional...
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People Are the Business
We’re All In It Together
Startup Ecosystem—the Big Picture Outcomes Not Outputs
Startup Ecosystem—the Big Picture: "Leave me alone. I just need to perfect this product and get it to market, or...
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Benefit Entrepreneur Avoid Greed, Hatred and Delusion
Benefit Entrepreneur: Greed, hatred and delusion are characteristics inimical to successful startup. And no, this reflection is neither a polemic...
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People and Teams
Startup Staffing Grid Means of Specifying Skills, Timing and How to Hire for Each Function
Startup Staffing Grid: How to work out what skills and experience are needed to run your business may seem pretty...
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Team Behavior Building Start with Demonstrating Desired Behavior
Team Behavior Building: Of course you know that your attitude affects your behavior. But what may surprise you is to...
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Conscious Competence Matrix The Process of Learning a New Skill or Behavior
Conscious Competence Matrix: It is really interesting—and useful—to think about competence. Founders of new ventures do well to think about...
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Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Startups Shared Values Have Business Benefits
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Startups: First of all, I suggest that you read my piece on Inclusive Entrepreneurship that...
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Inclusive Entrepreneurship The Missing Venture Founders
Inclusive Entrepreneurship: There is a massive potential for startups created by women, young people, seniors, immigrants and racial minorities as...
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Support for Entrepreneurs with Disability Entrepreneurship Resources and Special Programs
Note—You might want to read the page on Startup Business with Disability, before you read this page. Support for Entrepreneurs...
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Ableist Entrepreneurs Disadvantage Themselves Make Startup Life Easier and Better
Ableist Entrepreneurs Disadvantage Themselves: Ableism is an intentional or unintentional system of power and privilege that ranks those with able...
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Startup Business With Disability Entrepreneurship is Inclusive
Startup Business With Disability: There are already more than 1.8 million business owners with disabilities in the US (American Community...
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Botswana Women’s Coworking Space A First for Sub-Saharan Africa
IED Womens Coworking Space Botswana Women's Coworking Space: The first coworking space for women has been opened in Gaborone, Botswana's...
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Empathy, Engagement & Interdependence
Ethical Entrepreneurship Respect and Responsibility Are Strategic
Ethical Entrepreneurship: The relationship between people inside and outside the venture and involves the founder being in relationship to many...
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Strategy and Interdependence Critical for the Startup
Strategy and Interdependence We are coexistent; we can achieve nothing on our own; we are all inter-dependent. We are encouraged...
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Startup Spirit Two Fictionalized Entrepreneurship Stories
Startup Spirit: The heart of a start lies within the entrepreneur. Reading novels is not normally considered the best way...
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Entrepreneurial Empathy Founders Set the Character and Ethics of the New Venture by the Way They Behave
Entrepreneurial Empathy: The word 'reveal' sounds either like showing off, or showing private stuff. Good entrepreneurs who habitually reveal themselves...
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Marketing for Outcomes
Benefits For People and Planet
PEST Analysis Means to identify Political, Economic, Social & Technological factors
PEST Analysis: involves the analysis of four external factors that may impact your business: Political, Economic, Social and Technological. It...
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Systemic Social Enterprise Awareness of Interdependence Leads to Social Change
Systemic Social Enterprise: Social enterprise is a term in common use for many types of venture that “address a basic...
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Marketing for Purpose and Profit Purpose-driven startups marketing for superordinate goals
Marketing for Purpose and Profit: Most startups focus their marketing plans on survival and growth—for good reason. Founders believe passionately...
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New Business Normal Ventures Will Mutate
New Business Normal: For health reasons, most non-essential businesses closed in order to diminish the spread of Covid-19, often at...
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Profit or Flourish
Startup—Small Is Beautiful Extractive or Productive
Startup—Small is Beautiful: Mindful entrepreneurs scale to the right size for good. Investors seek scale fast to maximize investment. Over...
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Mission Driven and Purpose Capital Directory—USA Seed & Venture Capital Committed to Social Progress
Mission Driven and Purpose Capital Directory—USA: Seed and venture capital funds all have very particular criteria for investment in new...
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Buddhist Economics All People Matter
Buddhist Economics: is giving people a chance to use and develop their skills; enabling them to overcome their self-centeredness, joining with...
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Fast or Firm Growth Growth Startups Can Be Lemons or Pearls
Fast or Firm Growth: Most of the time founders cannot simply make a choice between a startup's fast or firm...
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Sales Funnel Track the Buying Process From First Contact to Closed Sale
Sales Funnel: simply a way to think about all the steps in the sales process and to be able to...
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Founders and Abundance Profitability is Necessary but Not Sufficient
Founders and Abundance: The definition of "to found" is to 'set up or establish on a firm basis or for...
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Expansion or Extension Stretch a Bit, Strengthen a Lot
Expansion or Extension: Management 'specialists' talk about Stretch Goals, or even Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals, or BHAGs. Venture capitalists, with...
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Reducing Risk to Startup Safely Successful Entrepreneurs Know How to Deal with the Downside
Reducing Risk to Startup Safely: Strategy is tough for entrepreneurs when they love their product so. They just want to...
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Key Performance Indicators Metrics to Connect Strategy and Outcomes
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that will measure outcomes against strategies set at the level of the whole venture,...
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The Customer Is Who
Startups Need Data Focus On Vital Information
Startups Need Data: Many advisers will counsel budding startups to use national economic and market data to plan their new...
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Customer Respect "Due to a Higher Than Usual Call Volume..."
Customer Respect: "Due to a Higher Than Usual Call Volume..." How many times have you heard this recorded voice message...
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Say the Customer’s Name Lessons for Startups
Say the Customer's Name: "Hello My Keyser, said Pricilla. Nothing very extraordinary about that, but Matt greets me that way,...
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Startup Storyboarding Get Your New Venture's Message Across Effectively
Startup Storyboarding—what is that? Why would a startup want to use the storyboard technique? And for what? Surely that is...
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Marketing Strategy Grid Set Marketing Priorities of Product, Place, Price, Promotion vs. What, Why, When & Who
Marketing Strategy Grid: A marketing strategy integrates an organization's marketing goals, policies, and action sequences (tactics) into a cohesive whole....
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Customer Profiling Grid Set of Questions to Closely Identify Characteristics and Behaviors of Clients
Customer Profiling: How do you work out who your customers are? Are the important defining characteristics geography, lifestyle, demographics–or what?...
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Customer Lifetime Model Ensure High Customer Value and Low Customer Acquisition Costs Over Time
Customer Lifetime Model: Here is a graphic way that will help you relate the cost of customer acquisition and support...
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Environment, Society and Governance
Startup Purpose Benefit All Stakeholders
Startup Purpose—benefit all stakeholders. Selfish startups don't survive. Join the growing numbers of entrepreneurs who embrace stakeholder capitalism, rather than...
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Sustainability Benefits Your Startup and the World UN Sustainable Development Goals for Founders
Purpose-driven Ventures Thrive Sustainability benefits your startup and the world. Purpose-driven ventures thrive, creating both shared value and profits. Successful...
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Airline Share Buybacks Disrespect for the Community
Airline Share Buybacks: The US airline industry is seeking $50 billion from the Government—half in grants and half in loans—to...
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Company and Community Wise enterprises invest in their communities
Company and Community: The business and community surrounding it are in a symbiotic relationship, whether desired or ignored. At the...
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Opportunities for Purposeful Startups Critical issues as a shared value for new ventures
Opportunities for Purposeful Startups: there are many areas of opportunity for new ventures to address critical social issues, either directly...
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