WHO DO B2B TECH BUYERS TRUST AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR MARKETERS

By Mike Neumeier, APR, Principal at Arketi Group

Recently we hit a generational milestone – millennials have officially become the largest generational group in America’s workforce. This got us thinking. We wanted to understand how this much-hyped group was impacting B2B enterprise tech purchasing.

We looked around to see if anyone had studied this and found a few interesting reports. A 2014 thinkwithgoogle survey found nearly half of B2B researchers are millennials, up 70 percent from 2012. This was interesting!

Here's what will happen when 30 billion devices are connected to the internet

The Internet of Things (IoT), built from inexpensive microsensors and microprocessors paired with tiny power supplies and wireless antennas, is rapidly expanding the online universe from computers and mobile gadgets to ordinary pieces of the physical world: thermostats, cars, door locks, even pet trackers. New IoT devices are announced almost daily, and analysts expected to up to 30 billion of them to be online by 2020.

Expect more robots, health-focused start-ups in the next 5 years, say VCs

Prepare for many more household robots, a new wave of health-conscious individuals and more data extraction. At least that's what some of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists are predicting.

Five VCs discussed up-and-coming tech trends Wednesday night during Churchill Club's 18th-annual dinner in Santa Clara, California. On the panel were Pat Grady of Sequoia Capital, John Lilly of Greylock, Emily Melton of DFJ, Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate and Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures.

Throughout the night, each of the panelists held up green or red paddles to indicate whether he or she agreed or disagreed with each trend as it was revealed. The audience also reacted to the trends via an online polling service, and most attendees agreed with the VCs' 10 forward-looking insights overall.

Goldman Sachs: Blockchain Tech Could Save Capital Markets $6 Billion a Year

A new report from Goldman Sachs Investment Research projects that the implementation of blockchain technology could streamline the clearing and settlement of cash securities, saving capital markets $2bn in the US and $6bn globally on an annual basis.

The figures are supported by breakdowns of the specific market areas where Goldman Sachs sees the technology as valuable, as it projects up to $900m could be saved in reduced personnel and $700m could be saved from IT systems improvements.

How To Scan Your Business Model Environment For Disruptive Threats And Opportunities

It's not easy to systematically assess your business model environment for potentially disruptive threats or to seize opportunities that can improve or reinvent your business model. It's something every company should learn how to do. We created the Business Model Environment tool to help you ask specific questions that can uncover new business model ideas. In this post, I'll show you how to use it.

Three qualities all great intrapreneurs have in common

Intrapreneurs are the people happily working for your company, but with the mind-set of an entrepreneur. They can give your business purpose. They can come up with amazing ideas for exciting new products and services. They can drive your company forward, helping you achieve long-term success.

But before this can happen, it’s up to the leaders in your business to spot the intrapreneurs within your workforce and give them the tools and encouragement they need to triumph.

Here are the three qualities that all great intrapreneurs have in common.

Exponential Finance: Financial Advice In the Age of AI and Long Life

Ric Edelman is one the top financial advisors in the US. His firm, Edelman Financial Services, has 41 offices across the country. And he thinks, all things constant, most financial advisors as we’ve known them won’t be around much longer.

Future-financial-planners-61At Exponential Finance, Edelman said, “I firmly believe that in the next ten years, half of all the financial advisors in this country will be gone.”

Profit First's Founder Reveals the No. 1 Mistake That Hurts Profits

Profitability is undoubtedly the most important aspect of running a business. Almost all entrepreneurs recognize this when they first launch their business, yet most find that their business models evolve as they grow, making it difficult to grow profits consistently.

As a result, many entrepreneurs find themselves in a race to the bottom, as they begin to focus on using revenues to keep up with expenses, instead of produce profits.

The internet is still at the beginning of its beginning

Can you imagine how awesome it would have been to be an ambitious entrepreneur back in 1985 at the dawn of the internet? At that time almost any dot-com name you desired was available. All you had to do was simply ask for the one you wanted. One-word domains, common names—they were all available. It didn’t even cost anything to claim. This grand opportunity was true for years. In 1994 a Wired writer noticed that mcdonalds.com was still unclaimed, so with my encouragement he registered it. He then tried unsuccessfully to give it to McDonald’s, but the company’s cluelessness about the internet was so hilarious (“dot what?”) that this tale became a famous story we published in Wired.

En 2018 habrá más dispositivos conectados que teléfonos móviles

Unos 16.000 millones de dispositivos conectados en todo el mundo formarán parte de la Internet de las cosas (IOT, sigla en inglés) a finales de 2021, mientras que las suscripciones de "smartphones" superarán las de los teléfonos básicos en el tercer trimestre de 2016, según el último Mobility Report de Ericsson.

Entre 2015 y 2021, los dispositivos conectados crecerán un 23% anual y la mayor tasa de incremento será para la IOT.

The Only 5 Things You Need to Launch a Startup in Any Economy

In 2008, one of my startups, Career Marketplace, was sinking fast.

The market had tanked, new business was hard to come by and jobs were drying up. Career Marketplace, an online intermediary for job seekers and job creators, was getting hit particularly hard.

After a few rough years and many tough decisions I was able to save the business, but when it was all said and done, it wasn’t the economy or the job market that hurt Career Marketplace. It was my departure from common sense business principles.

Cash Flow Is Key: How One CEO Turned A Bad Deal Into A Multimillion-Dollar Construction Company

By Heather Whitley

At age 13, Isaac Lidsky starred in a ’90s teen sitcom. By age 15, he enrolled at Harvard University. When he was 20, he founded an Internet company. Five years later, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Lidsky then clerked for Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He got married, had triplets and bought a struggling construction company that he has now turned into a thriving, multimillion-dollar business. It’s an impressive resume for someone who is still under 40. But perhaps even more impressive when you discover Isaac Lidsky is blind.

Doing Business in Latam: Advice for Foreign Entrepreneurs

By Nathan Lustig

When Startup Chile invited me to share my advice for new foreign entrepreneurs doing business in Latin America, it gave me an opportunity to synthesize the things I’ve learned over the past five years living and working in Latam. After coming to Startup Chile with a startup that did business in the US, teaching entrepreneurship at Chilean universities, starting a Latin American property business, starting my own ecommerce startups and meeting hundreds of entrepreneurs looking for investment via Magma Partners, I’d gotten a pretty good feel for the cultural differences between Latam and the US.

Las ‘startups’ sacuden a América Latina

Zonngo no nació en un garaje. Su fundador, Kevin Melgarejo, nunca estuvo rodeado de mentores, inversores y emprendedores que se dan a chorros en los hubs tecnológicos de EE UU, Europa o Asia. La idea de montar una calculadora web de precios para vender y comprar móviles, tabletas y ordenadores se forjó en la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería de Perú, a 7.000 kilómetros de Silicon Valey, la tierra prometida para aquellos que deciden montar una startup. El proyecto de este joven universitario de 21 años germinó en mayo de 2015 y desde entonces ha recaudado 22.000 dólares (19.600 euros) de capital semilla. "América Latina es una región en movimiento y ha demostrado su capacidad para generar empresas innovadoras", dice Annalisa Primi, jefa de unidad de políticas estructurales e innovación de la OCDE.

10 Tips to Help Entrepreneurs Get Motivated

Often, when entrepreneurs make the bold leap from employee of a corporation to leader of their own business, one of the first challenges they face is no longer having a person or group of people above them to set goals, deadlines and incentives. The responsibility of inspiration becomes a task of self-motivation.

7 Technical Skills All Entrepreneurs Should Master

Today’s entrepreneurs have a lot of i’s to dot and t’s to cross. The environment is complicated, to say the least, and entrepreneurs have various methods, ideas, tactics, and techniques to grow their business.

Frankly, the modern small business landscape is pretty bewildering, and there are several really important things entrepreneurs need to know and realize about how the Internet is changing the way we live. Entrepreneurs need to possess the technical skills to move their business forward in the digital age. Take a look at these skills today’s entrepreneur should work hard to master.