The Importance of Building Trust Online
The Importance of Building Trust Online.
Regardless of the type of business you’re talking about, the importance of building trust cannot be overstated enough.
Trust as reputation management In many ways, trust is as important as it is because of what it says about your brand’s larger reputation.
Remember that trust isn’t something you’re entitled to; it’s something that must be earned.
You do that by reaching out to your consumers intelligently and thoughtfully.
Online trust: by the numbers According to a study conducted by North American Hutrust, an incredible 83 percent of consumers said that they would gladly recommend to others a company that they trusted.
With social media, this person, with a single retweet, can spread the word about an interaction with your business to, potentially, a limitless number of people.
So why is trust online so important?
Take online reviews, for example.
But what those other companies may not have is the same connection of good, honest trust with your audience that you have.
At Least Uber Gives Drivers the Chance to Be Entrepreneurs
As someone who travels to 15 countries a year, I have experienced this more than a few times.
You can land in a country, take out your phone, and feel secure knowing there’s a level of accountability when you use the service.
Uber has been a great idea but the company itself has struggled at times with different problems within the company.
Uber is also its drivers.
Creating Entrepreneurship I’ve used Uber in 14 countries now.
In many parts of the world, driving for Uber is the only chance a person can have at supporting a family.
Even here in the United States, it has helped people working full time jobs that don’t pay enough to earn more money when it’s convenient for their life.
That’s considered a good job in Colombia and in many parts of the world.
It creates entrepreneurship because the drivers decide when and where they want to work.
Yes, there is service such as Lyft and others, but as someone who travels all the world every year, I can tell you that Lyft is not in as many countries as Uber.
Apple, Microsoft and Other Tech Giants Will Support Transgender Student’s Case
Apple, Microsoft and Other Tech Giants Will Support Transgender Student’s Case.
Several tech titans plan to sign an amicus (friend of the court) brief in support of a 17-year-old transgender student’s fight in court, according to Axios.
Apple, Microsoft, IBM, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb, Box, Yelp, GitHub, Salesforce, Slack and Tumblr are expected to back Gavin Grimm’s legal battle against his school board for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity.
The amicus brief, created by LGBT organization Human Rights Campaign, will be filed in favor of Grimm for the Supreme Court hearing scheduled to take place on March 28.
Some of the companies expected to sign the brief recently spoke out against the Trump administration’s decision to roll back a federal law that gave transgender students the right to access whatever bathroom they want.
Apple told Axios that it believes “everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination.”
IBM, Airbnb, GitHub and PayPal expressed the same sentiments.
Google, Facebook and Twitter also spoke out against the decision, but they have to reveal whether they’re also signing the brief.
Mariella Moon
5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Internship
5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Internship.
I work in the world of sports, and I know firsthand that a sports internship is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
My mentor, Leigh Steinberg, gave me this advice and it has stayed with me all of these years: “Be kind to your future self.” Nothing could be a better example of this than an internship, which not only benefits the intern but the company as well.
Learn what kind of job will make you happy.
Having different experiences and learning from others allows people to find out what characteristics and values in are aligned with their personal happiness.
Anytime we are able to have hands-on experience, understand and increase our situational knowledge, we should take advantage.
Interns get to learn the ins-and-outs about an industry and see firsthand how things are done in the reality of day-to-day business.
These skills and knowledge are attributed to hands-on experience.
We’ve all heard the phrase, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Personal relationships and building those bonds are opportunities to put your effort in the forefront.
Learn from other people’s mistakes and missteps to accelerate your pursuit of success in the professional world.
Wealth management start-up Fisdom seeks to add more investment options on app
Bengaluru: Robo-advisory start-up Fisdom, which helps individuals invest in mutual funds, is looking to partner banks and adding an insurance option on its app to sign up more users.
“Insurance is something that should be live in three-four weeks.
We are also working on adding bonds.
Over a period of time, Fisdom will have lot more investment products like corporate bonds, tax filing.
Finwizard Technology Pvt.
It was founded in 2015 by Subramanya, a former managing director of venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners; Ramganesh Iyer, who was an investment manager with Peepul Capital Advisors, and Anand Dalmia, who was with Macquarie Capital India.
An algorithm suggests the funds that they should invest in.
“Our research philosophy is not to be very aggressive.
Our promise to customers is not that every year we will generate highest returns—it is that over a period of time, can we beat your alternative, which is a fixed deposit, consistently,” said Subramanya.
Robo-advisory firms have a significant market to capture by catering to new and inexperienced investors, as well as existing investors who want to switch to smartphone-ready, lower-cost solutions.
3 Ways Virtual Workers Make Organizations More Effective
As a result, many companies are turning to virtual employees, found through sites like Upwork and similar services, to manage administrative tasks at a more sensible rate.
One survey found that 64 percent of employees at international companies participate in virtual teams and that 52 percent of those teams were based outside of the company’s home country.
Here are the top three ways virtual workers make executives and organizations more effective.
So why are virtual workers so effective at reducing administrative roadblocks?
And then what does managing that talent look like?
These issues can create more work for companies, minimizing the benefits of outsourcing administrative functions.
Taussig shares that the issue is not just helping workers find employers but rather, “the issue is creating the common framework and context so that they can work together more effectively once they have found each other.
It creates the context, the use cases, and the processes so that people can be effective working together across physical and cultural distances.” Virtual assistant companies add a crucial layer of curation and management to the freelance economy, benefiting both the companies that hire them and the talent that works for them.
Since employees aren’t at their desks 50 to 60 percent of the work week, offices are condensing into smaller locations, saving vital costs for other key business functions.
When considering whether or not integrating virtual workers into your business, make sure to look at your motivations and ensure that they align with the real benefits of outsourcing that talent.
3 Ways to Attract a Millionaire Mentor
It’s been said that, “your net worth is the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” That’s why I hang out with people who increase my value and it’s why you need a millionaire in your life.
Here are three ways to get over that wall and find your millionaire mentor.
All of them involve sending an email that captures their attention.
Deep down, most successful people love to help others, but they have little time, so you putting in a bit of work differentiates you from the 99 percent others who just email.
Interview them People with egos love to talk about themselves.
A quick interview with you would make my audience go wild.
Buy their friendship If you’re trying to become a millionaire by starting an online business, the kind of mentors you’re looking for might have a blog or podcast that sells sponsorships.
It puts you on their radar and it’ll help drive traffic to your business.
Plus almost every email I send with Subject: Sponsoring Your Site; gets a response.
Go find out what it is and offer to donate your money, time or audience in exchange for a few minutes of their time.
9 startups and the lowdown on how their ambitious business plans are faring
I started writing about the startup scene for WCPO.com in January 2016, and since then I’ve written features on more than 75 startups in the Tri-State region.
Did all those great ideas go anywhere?
I’m happy to report that of the nine startups I touched base with, all but one are still in business, and some of them, like LISNR, are doing quite well.
LISNR: I wrote about LISNR in January 2016 when they were recognized for getting $10 million in venture capital funding.
The company used that money to boost its staff from 15 employees to 35.
Over the next 12 months, it could easily increase its staff to 70 employees, said CEO and co-founder Rodney Williams.
“We’re getting into the position where we’re signing multi-year, seven-figure commercial agreements with some of the world’s top companies,” he said.
Over the past 12 months, the company made major improvements to that core technology that included tripling the amount of data per second it can transmit, Williams said.
And in three months, he expects the data transmission rate to be 10 times what is now.
As a WCPO Insider, you can find out how location is currently working against one company and how a startup that began as targeting men drew more women instead.
Five firms plan to take IPO route, raise Rs 3,860 crore in March
Five firms plan to take IPO route, raise Rs 3,860 crore in March.
These firms are Avenue Supermarts, owner and operator of supermarket retail chain D-Mart; Music Broadcast, a Jagran group firm that runs Radio City FM channel; Shankara Building Product; BSE-promoted CDSL; and test-prep player CL Educate.
These five companies are expected to come out with their IPOs (initial public offers) in March to garner Rs 3,860 crore, sources said.
So far this year, Asia’s oldest stock exchange BSE got listed on the rival NSE’s platform.
The bidding for shares will close on March 10.
Music Broadcast’s IPO-comprises fresh issue of equity shares up to Rs 400 crore and an offer for sale of up to 26.59 lakh equity scrips-will be open for public subscription during March 6-8.
Bengaluru-based retailer Shankara Building Products plans to garner Rs 600 crore through initial share-sale plan.
CDSL is expected to raise Rs 500 crore through its initial public offering.
Going by the DRHP, CDSL has to list before March 31.
CL Educate is expected to raise Rs 400 crore through its initial public offer comprising fresh issue of 20,60,652 shares and an offer for sale of up to 26,29,881 scrips by existing shareholders.
Fears and Cheers for Snapchat’s IPO
Here is a bullish and bearish case for Snapchat’s IPO in a dueling set of charts: The Money Machine: Snapchat’s best pitch to IPO investors is how quickly the company has been able to generate advertising revenue from a standing start two years ago and narrow the gap with digital advertising powers such as Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc.
The average revenue Snapchat generates from each daily user more than tripled in the fourth quarter of 2016 from the year-earlier period.
If Snapchat can grow to Facebook’s average revenue per user, Susquehanna Financial Group estimates that would translate into an additional $5.5 billion in annual sales, even if Snapchat’s audience size stays the same.
If it keeps closing the gap in the rate of ad revenue for each user, Snapchat could generate billions of dollars in additional annual revenue.
The company added about 10 to 20 million new daily users each quarter from mid-2015 to mid-2016, but that slowed to just 5 million at the end of the year.
The company has said technical problems with its Android phone app was one reason for the user growth slowdown, but the timing also coincided with Instagram’s August launch of a feature that copied Snapchat’s popular daily video diaries called “Stories.”
If Snapchat has trouble selling its IPO stock at the price it wants, it means Spiegel’s “bigger isn’t better” mantra didn’t win over investors, who have come to believe more and more people need to use internet hangouts to keep increasing advertising revenue.
The company’s cash flow from operations minus capital spending was negative $188 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, compared with revenue of $165.7 million, or a ratio of $1.14 in incinerated cash for each dollar of revenue Snapchat generated.
Snapchat’s computing outsourcing model could turn out for the best if its revenue continues to outpace the increase in its computing costs.
If there’s a failure to launch at the IPO, it shows Snapchat’s impressive revenue growth couldn’t compensate for the uncertainty about the company’s profit potential.
Taking Fundraising Social, Successfully
Online crowdfunding platforms have changed the way charities, non-profit organizations, startups and even established companies, raise money.
Hatton started FundRazr in 2009, with a mission to use the power and popularity of social media to help non-profit community groups like athletic teams and school clubs raise money and collect dues.
Hatton decided that social media would be a crucial part of how organizations raised money then, and in the future, and built his platform on that premise.
He took his inspiration from a strange source — the popularity of Farmville and other Facebook games that were being incessantly shared by users.
“I saw what was happening with social media, with Facebook and said, how can we use this as a way to collect donations or fees for nonprofits?” Hatton recalled.
He also changed his plans on social media as Facebook shifted away from games and towards the news feed that users are familiar with today.
While Facebook may no longer be making changes to stop an overrun of annoying notifications from games, the company, and its users, are constantly changing the way the site is used, meaning that his team, and other crowdfunding organizations, reach potential donors on social media.
“In the United States, our partnership with WePay even allows us to accept bank transfers.” The site does charge a small processing fee for donations, which organizations can pay in several ways.
There is also a tipping model, where organizations can pay only payment processing fees, and FundRazr will prompt payees for a “tip” after payment is made.
The site is also introducing a new payment model in the coming months that will allow nonprofits and other organizations using the site for ongoing donations to pay a small subscription fee of about 3 percent each month the campaign remains active.
Global will mull IPO on €100m valuation
Cork-based financial services firm Global Shares aims to be in a position in 2020 where it could stage an initial public offering (IPO) on either the London Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq.
The firm is expected to be valued at about €100m by then and making pre-tax profits of $16m (€15.1m) A recent fundraising by the company secured €4.5m in backing, with a number of well-heeled businesspeople stumping up cash.
Technology entrepreneur Pearse Mee invested €900,000.
The founder and former chief executive of IFG, Richard Hayes, later led an investment group that took a significant interest in the Cork firm.
Global Shares has recently signed a number of significant strategic partnerships.
It inked an agreement with US financial services giant Fidelity that will see Global Shares software made available to the US firm’s individual clients, who can use it to sell shares or share options, when managing their retirement plans, for example.
Global Shares hopes to use Yunfeng as a growth platform similar to the way in which it will use Fidelity in the United States.
Last year, Global Shares secured $4.8m of new business, with 83pc of that expected to be recurring on an annual basis.
This year, the company hopes to generate $6.9m of new business, with its total revenue hitting between $10m and $11m.
Irish Independent
Snap IPO has LA Realtors, advisers salivating
By Katie BennerThe New York Times LOS ANGELES — Blaine Lourd has long helped the movie stars, professional athletes and heiresses in Los Angeles manage their wealth.
Now such a moment may soon be upon Los Angeles. “When it comes to tech companies, for the wealth managers and real estate guys, no one has really rung the register like the Snap thing that’s about to happen” to Los Angeles, said Lourd, whose wealth management firm, LourdMurray, is based in Beverly Hills.
Snap has said it was aiming to sell its stock for $14 to $16 a share, putting the company’s value at $19.5 billion to $22.2 billion.
In anticipation of new money from Snap workers and Silicon Valley techies, he said, he is building some luxury beach homes.
Howard Rowen, a financial adviser at Bank of America in Los Angeles who manages money for entrepreneurs and tech workers, said techies who made fortunes at a startup might think they would hit the jackpot again.
Instead, he said, that doesn’t often happen and coders, engineers and others should regard the IPO as a once-in-a-lifetime event.
When Spiegel and Murphy moved Snap to the area in 2013, they put the company in a single beach bungalow near the Venice Beach boardwalk.
Now Snap’s employees have more than tripled from 600 people at the end of 2015, and the company owns and leases several buildings tucked discreetly amid shops and homes.
But it is still an exciting time for the people who can help Snap employees spend and invest.
A lot more product cos will get funded out of India in 2017: Manish Singhal, pi Ventures
The good thing about India is that data in India is cheaper than other places globally.
Therefore you will see a lot more IP-oriented products getting funded in India.
Now investors are still sitting on money, funds in India have closed big funds recently .
Now, the IP led startups are able to raise more money, and they actually they don’t need as much money as B2C companies need.
How many companies have you invested in so far?
We are looking to invest in 18-20 companies in a period of three to four years.
What do you for in a startup when you look to invest in it?
When I used to go for fund raising, people used to say that everything is happening in the US so why should we invest in India.
This year will be a defining year for us because we have to do our initial investments as well as close the fund, so it’s a critical year for us as we are excited and all charged up for the year.
Also Read: India: Zenatix raises funding from pi Ventures India: Pi Ventures on road to raise $30m first fund, to bet on AI, IoT startups
Startups must break their funding addiction and start making money
Startups must break their funding addiction and start making money.
Over time, start-ups have become dependent on it.
We need to help start-ups develop the skills that are more likely to lead to long term success.
The art of sales Make no mistake, launching a start-up is about selling, regardless of how digital your service.
That means that while founders should be skilled at pitching and raising money, they must also develop and leverage other skills to sell, scale and grow.
Only once revenue started coming in did he hire a dedicated technical team.
Many entrepreneurs believe that investment is the key to faster development and growth.
But to be sustainable you need revenue, which needs both a great idea and the ability to close business.
Breaking the addiction As with any big endeavour, start-up success often comes down to preparation.
It’s time to start recognising the founders and start-ups that are wowing their customers, expanding their team and adding value at every turn.
BeatsX review: For real? Just pick up some AirPods
Just pick up some AirPods.
When I picked up a pair of Apple’s wireless AirPods a few weeks ago, I thought the included charging case was a clever touch.
After two weeks of testing a pair of BeatsX headphones, I’ve found they also fall short of the AirPods in one make-or-break area: battery life.
And there are other drawbacks, too, The AirPods case, with its satisfying clasp, is an instant Apple design classic, whereas the included BeatsX silicone case doesn’t always completely protect your headphones — sometimes parts of the cable end up sticking out.
And it gathers lint.
And BeatsX come with a few aesthetic niceties that you won’t find on AirPods: magnetic buds and a neck band that’s just bendy enough to fit in the case but always bounces back to its default position.
That might sound a bit surface-level.
I’d say it’s one way to win customers over.
Above: BeatsX packaging Image Credit: Jordan Novet/VentureBeat I tried on four of the cushions before finding a good pairing, and I appreciated how much care Apple put into not making me feel bad about that.
While reviewing the AirPods, I saw 5 hours of play without dipping into the charging case, but with the charging case, I managed as long as 20 hours (Apple advertises up to 24).
No one in San Francisco wears Snapchat Spectacles
No one in San Francisco wears Snapchat Spectacles.
And this is at a time when Apple’s store in the Union Square neighborhood has none in stock, while Apple’s online store has a six-week shipping delay on AirPods.
“We’re working hard to catch up with the incredible demand,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook told analysts on the company’s earnings call last month.
But another product that’s gotten a lot of buzz lately, the Spectacles glasses from Snap (the company behind messaging app Snapchat), is nowhere to be seen.
I asked an employee in Apple’s Union Square store if he had seen anyone wearing Spectacles, and he said no, but he does know someone who bought them but never wears them — the battery died and she hasn’t recharged it, he said.
Two people were attacked in San Francisco while wearing Google Glass.
So maybe that’s one reason people who own Spectacles don’t wear them out in public here.
I expected Snap’s first hardware product, and really the first product other than Snapchat itself, to make a big splash in the oh-so-tech-savvy Bay Area.
In the “roadshow” video the company is showing to prospective investors, Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel starts off by saying that “Snap is a camera company” and that “we feel like we’re really at the beginning of what cameras can do.” That’s a reference to the big announcement back in September that Snapchat was changing its name to Snap, rebranding itself as a camera company, and launching its first product with a camera on it, that being Spectacles, of course.
But the subtext is clear: We’re much more than a messaging app, we’re a company that makes hardware, we’ve already expanded our total addressable market (TAM) with this hardware, and there’s more to come.
The LG G6 looks good enough to hold its own against other Android flagships
LG has produced a solid phone in the G6.
At least that’s my sense after spending a day with a “preview unit.” I’ll need to spend a few weeks with a final review unit before I can speak more conclusively.
And that’s fine with me.
Well, for the most part, I should say.
Unlike the G5, V10, and V20, the G6 won’t let you remove the battery and swap it out.
All things considered, the LG G6 should be able to stand up well to other flagship phones coming later this year, including the Samsung Galaxy 8.
The phone is IP68 water- and dust-resistant.
It supports wireless charging.
Fast charging (three-fourths of a charge in an hour).
LG has implemented the Android 7.0 cross-app search function in a novel way — rather than expecting people to go to the In Apps tab under the search box in the Google App, which is what LG did on the , LG now lets you pull down anywhere on the homescreen.