The critical thing most startups forget.. 🚨 (StartupWatching #98)

“There will be haters. There will be doubters. And then there will be you proving them wrong.” This is how Robert Falcone thinks about product demos because he’s lived it firsthand. As a co-founder of his own startup, and now working closely with customers at marketing software maker Monetate, he’s given hundreds of product demos. For a while, many were not successful, but he’s used that experience to his advantage.

Whether you use cold email to find sales leads, connect with influencers, build your personal brand, find mentors, or grow your network, there’s no underestimating its power. It’s one of the best sales channels you can add to your business. Unfortunately, most people don’t do cold email well. The Mailshake team reviewed hundreds of cold email campaigns and learned why some people don’t reach their campaign goals. Now they just launched a huge free course to teach you how to do cold emails the right way.

You get one chance to make a first impression. And fear of failure often ruins that. Overconfidence is equally harmful though. And one way or another, most startups screw this up. It isn’t easy. It isn’t hard either though. Short, sweet and to the point. That is what you should be aiming for. “I help startups grow, scale, and find funding.” … that is okay. It gets the point across. But it isn’t quite specific enough. You need to do better. Angel Investor Matt Ward expains.

For the last year, Aytekin Tank and his team at JotForm have been working on a new idea. It took them 326 days to bring this new idea to life, but it took Aytekin 10 years to create a smart product development strategy — to find the best way to dream big, work smart and give our customers the very best we have to offer. Now, he’s sharing an 8-step, start-to-finish guide to help you build and launch your next big release

Tim Mullen sees headlines all the time talking about people who successfully build a million dollar business. It’s important to celebrate when you do well because it’s not every day you start something from nothing and turn it into a business that generates over $1m. There’s one thing that so many entrepreneurs seem to forget though: What is a million dollar business? What does it even mean to create one? What does it look like? How is it defined? Does it mean you’re actually making money?