As Gillian and Anne warp up 11 years of CEO Coach they address the essential elements of real leadership. Every CEO must lead with empathy, structure, and comfort with not knowing all the answers. While the duo is leaving CEO Coach, they are not going far. Watch this space for Gillian and Anne's new podcast 'VC Confidential', launching soon. Meanwhile, all the CEO coach podcasts you know and love will to be available right here on WMR FM.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne share some excellent tactical advice from Cascadia Capital in a recent Geekwire article.  In addition to exhibiting strong empathic leadership, there are several additional actions CEOs can take to ensure durability through this crisis. From stabilizing your finances to protecting your team, these insights from Cascadia provide valuable guide rails as you plan for today, tomorrow, and long after.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In times of crisis, like right now, CEOs find themselves frustrated by general advice. “But what do I DO!?” entrepreneur leaders ask. Leaders always deal with ambiguity—it’s timeless and comes with the job. During crises, ambiguity becomes exponential. As fear becomes contagious across organizations, leaders must manage their own responses to ambiguity. Gillian and Anne talk about how to do so in your company...Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne return to talk real-time tactics entrepreneurs need right now to weather the uncertainty and unpredictability during this global pandemic. From leading with compassion to stashing cash, they list actions and resources to help you stabilize your team, your business, and your profitability. What do you need to do right now? How to make hard decisions. What do you need to do to plan for the long game?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian welcome guest Lindsay Tabas, The Lady Engineer (which she trademarked 15 years ago) and product market-fit expert. Her  e-book Start Before the Product’s Ready, subtitled ‘The Unavoidable Market Part of Product Market Fit’, which pretty much says it all in her view. Lindsay guided User interface and User experience design for many companies and their products before launching her own consulting group. Her near two decades engineering tech products tell an intriguing story, and even frustrating at times. For example the deep ‘bro’ culture in tech, and how hard it was to raise money for her own startup. Meanwhile, observing product development misfires, she saw a big need for tech to change the way products are created Her mission is simple: help founders sell the right product before they build the wrong one. Lindsay tells what steps founders need to take, and how to bring successful products to market.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne address just why marketing managers struggle to create demand for products, as recently reported. They take a look at those products and the process for creating successful ones. Because without that success, how does all the rest come to pass – the stable economies with good jobs? Spoiler alert, product development today succeeds today not by ‘creating demand’, but rather, by listening to customers and hearing what problems they are trying to solve. And then ask why your customers should care about your product, as Steve Jobs famously did. How will it change their lives? And most important, is that change something they care about? As Eric Reis, the Lean Startup guy, said the question isn’t “Can this product be built?’ but, “Should this problem be solved with a product we can build?” and then “Can we build a sustainable business around it?” Gillian and Anne break down the steps to getting the answers right.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk about raising capital, which is the hot topic on everyone’s mind when they talk to them, especially women. There is a bigger hurdle for women: perceived bias against them as founders. When the stats clearly show that women-led teams run capital efficient, profitable companies, returning more value to investors than all-male ones, and more ROI at exit, women still get just a tiny slice of venture capital. They found some encouraging news in recent reports from Crunchbase and The Angel Resource Network indicating that funding for women-lead startups from angels in Seed and Series A, and VC’s at later stages is indeed inching upward, even though more than 80% of funding continues to go to all-male teams. They close with tips for listeners to help them organize their capital raises better.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk about how to raise capital other than by equity – that is, providing shares in your startup to investors in return for cash. Somewhere in start-up school, all budding entrepreneurs hear about is raising funds with equity. Why do other forms of funding their startups seem to be news to them? What’s more,. recent research by the Center For American Entrepreneurship crunched years of Pitchbook data and found that less than 4 percent of VC-funded companies have a successful exit in 8 to 10 years, such as an M&A or IPO. Were the VC’s wrong about the potential of the other 96%? Not at all. They were wrong about the appropriate funding methods. Many companies can become successful, sustainable businesses without holding out for the big 10x return in 10 to 15 years. Listen to the many benefits of using debt, revenue sharing, dividends or royalties to finance your growth.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne look at pattern matching beyond gender lens issues, reminding listeners that good pattern matching habits can be learned. While it is true pattern matching may keep investors from investing in women. But women can develop good pattern matching habits that will help move capital their way. That’s why they examine pattern matching beyond the gender lens. In other words, taking something holding women founders back and turning it around to work in their favor. It's about following the pattern of companies that have accomplished whatever you want to accomplish. Understand their path and the path of similar companies. Follow that roadmap – not slavishly, of course. But be aware and be mindful of what your colleagues are ‘doing right’ in the capital raise area of the business. In this episode you will hear specific actions you can employ to turn the tide your way.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Early stage companies need Executors. There are so many Wizards out there. Gillian and Anne provide clarity around the value of finding and working with a brilliant Executor so they can experience the kind of personal and corporate financial success they dream of. And Executors are the key to that success. We talk endlessly on CEO Coach about Wizards and Executors. In truth, it’s hard to remember a business conversation in which Gillian has not mentioned the winning duo of Wizards and Executors. Just in case this is the first time you've heard of it, here’s the meaning of this "tribal-speak." Wizards are the idea people, often technologists, even inventors. They are focused deeply on the ideation, design, development, and production of the company's product. Executors are the 'business people.' Executors literally execute on the ideas of Wizards and build companies around them. It takes both Wizards and Executors to build a truly powerful tech company. Hear why you want an Executor sharing leadership in your startup as early as possible, and some tips on how and where to find yours.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne talk about raising capital, because “How do I do that” is the question they get most. So they discuss how to hack, or leapfrog the process, starting with your deck. Or, rather , decks. As you will learn from your research -- which is your first step, of course -- you will need different decks for different potential investors. Hear how to meet your listeners where they are. Because the devil is always in the details, they share some hacks and tips that will optimize all the efforts you will make in getting your documents in order to get that capital raise. Fundraising takes a huge amount of time out of your work life. Minimize wasted time: get organized before the show. The best part about these tips is that they will serve you before and well after your capital raise.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne & Gillian continue to examine the issues raised in the latest study on the rise in venture funding for gender diverse teams from the Center for American Entrepreneurship, and why it remains a fraction of funding raised by all-male teams. The study analyzed the performance of first-funded startups over 13 years and found that success was very similar between women-led teams and all male ones. Both had near identical rates of securing second and third rounds of financing and near identical rates of exit. Does such evidence of the business case for gender-diverse founding teams spell ‘opportunity’ for US venture investors? The CAE’s conclusions about this were many, but a main one was that more women VCs -- currently around 9% -- would move the needle, as would more peer support for female founders. Listen to the results of a University of Pennsylvania examination of how men and women performed in ‘The Startup Game’ online. Spoiler alert: sounds just like real life.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Though women-led startups receive far less first-round venture capital than ones led by all-male teams, they perform equally with their brothers in landing second and third rounds and exiting successfully. So reports Rebecca Lovell, Chair of the Center for American Entrepreneurship and Director of Seattle’s Create33 workspace, as she unpacks the findings for us in the new CAE study that took a deep dig into 13 years’ worth of Pitchbook data. While it is true a big gender gap exists for founding teams with women in leadership, CAE made another surprising finding: VC funding gender-diverse leadership teams increased since 2005, from a low that year of 7% to 21% in 2017. That said, that number is only 16% of the $83 billion invested those years by US VC’s. What factors cause this and what can be done to fund more high growth, high performing opportunities led by women? Rebecca Lovell teases out some of the answers from her group’s analysis of the data.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Seattle investor, founder and startup advisor Dan Kihanya joins Gillian and Anne to talk about his new podcast “Foundersunfound.com” with which he expects to create greater awareness of underrepresented founders. “We will focus on storytelling. Under-represented founders have super powers,” he says. They deal with all the craziness that normal founders deal with and then on top of that, these founders face additional hurdles of disadvantage and bias. Dan and co-founder Deborah Drake believe that bringing out the stories will reveal the strength and resilience to form good business cases for support. Who are they, why they are solving their problems in the way they do? Dan’s father was Kenyan and his mother from rural Maine of Scottish and Irish ancestry. His parents taught him to work hard for what he wanted, and he believes being of mixed race heritage served him as an advantage. The podcast is live, with two new interviews with African American founders.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss a recent report in the Washington Post that power reveals who we really are and people with certain tendencies will gravitate to certain types of professions,  examining what kinds of tendencies lead people to become entrepreneurs of lifestyle businesses, scalable but privately held businesses, and scalable funded businesses. Given that far more women resonate with looking at capitalization stacks instead of simply asking for equity investment to grow their companies, what implications does power have for startups and investors. Women are far more willing to look at the nuances of capitalizing their companies and women are FAR more likely to resonate with the idea of self-funding (what can I sell today to pay for what I want to build tomorrow?) than men.  They want to use OPM (Other People's Money) with the limit of liability stopping at the corporation they are attempting to build. On the flip side, about 90% of women resonate with the idea that they may not have to raise equity. Women are far more concerned that they will be ousted by their male equity funders than men.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss the defining characteristics of a successful advisory board and how they will benefit your startup. In your early stages you will have ad hoc advisors to help get through the thorny startup underbrush. Advisors are valuable to a startup from the beginning. Whether they are experts in the field of your product, or markets for it, or financial management. All of these support founders by allowing a sounding board for decision making. Or providing a high level view, since we know day-to-day startup operation is usually deep in the weeds. Your advisors will be your counsel, your experts. Find ones who have done this before. 2. Your advisors will lend their good names to your efforts. Find the best you can. Reach high! In the early stages you call on them when you need them. Later you may formalize your group of advisors into a board with periodic meetings and reporting, and then you may be compensating them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss the defining characteristics of a successful advisory board and how they will benefit your startup. In your early stages, you will have ad hoc advisors to help get through the thorny startup underbrush. Advisors are valuable to a startup from the beginning. Whether they are experts in the field of your product, or markets for it, or financial management. All of these support founders by allowing a sounding board for decision making. Or providing a high-level view, since we know day-to-day startup operation is usually deep in the weeds. Your advisors will be your counsel, your experts. Find ones who have done this before. 2. Your advisors will lend their good names to your efforts. Find the best you can. Reach high! In the early stages, you call on them when you need them. Later you may formalize your group of advisors into a board with periodic meetings and reporting, and then you may be compensating them. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne chat with Seattle investor Dave Parker, founder of ‘6 Month Startup -- Ideation to Revenue’. Dave breaks down the three components of a startup in to creating value with your product or service, delivering value to customers, and capturing value, i.e. profits for your company. In this interview he talks about the third, capturing value by describing a dozen-plus ofcommon ways to make money with your product or service, including four to avoid. Listen in for a fresh helping of clarity on finding the right revenue path for your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss the differences between management and leadership from a metrics perspective. Metrics seem to be all about management. But leadership is setting the metrics to be tracked by the company teams. What metrics matter? That’s a good place to start, with tips from frequent muse Mark Suster, General Partner at Upfront Ventures and a brilliant author on the subject of launching, growing, and managing tech businesses from an investor’s viewpoint. (Bothsidesofthetable.com) A few months ago, he published a Twitter stream that addressed the difference between vanity metrics and what leadership should really be thinking about as they grow their companies. Gillian and Anne unwrap and share each Tweet. Suster’s wisdom is well worth a good listen.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Where to find capital is the number one question heard from founders at almost every stage of entrepreneurship. For that reason, Anne and gillian keep an eye on progress toward gender equity in venture funding and the numbers coming in for 2018 ain’t pretty!  TechCrunch reported in November that women led startups received 2.2 percent of funding. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is the same number as 2017, reported then by PitchBook. No progress. This despite a decade or more of data indicating that diverse teams and women founders outperform the men-only ones, by large margins – by 63 percent more in a well-known report from First Round Capital. Fewer than 10 percent of VC decision makers are women. Fully 74 percent of US VC firms have no women investors -- stunning, considering the volume of voice around this subject this past year.  Anne and Gillian discuss what can and must be done to remedy this situation, and increase the flow of capital to diverse founder teams to improve outcomes across the board.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Every entrepreneur dreams of selling the company and cashing out. It is almost a trope that founders need to have their exit in mind from the earliest days of their startup. While many are on a mission to solve a problem and make better ways to live and work together, the business of business is business, i.e. making money for the owners. If you have investors, they expect a return on the money they put in your company. Sure, they have gambled on a highly risky asset class, but they do so anticipating gains on their money. Gillian and Anne outline the basics every founder needs to know: when and how to prepare for sale, whom you need to engage for support, and how to find a buyer and pitch your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne chat with Amy Margolis, founder of The Initiative and The Commune, an accelerator and coworking space for women launching cannabis businesses in Portland, Oregon. Noting the lack of women on boards or management teams in the emerging cannabis industry, she set out to provide women a comfortable work environment, business management coaching, and access to capital from a carefully curated set of investors, including institutional funding. Ms. Margolis has been an attorney for more than 17 years and is the founder of the Oregon Cannabis Association, one of the largest state cannabis trade groups in the United States.  She has been recognized Cannabis Business Executive(CBE) on their Political 100 and is recognized as one of the 50 Most Important Women in Cannabis. Elle Magazine refers to Amy as “Pot Power Woman” and Herb.co lists Amy as one of the 10 Most Influential Women in the Cannabis Industry.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk about different dimensions of financial models --  or more clearly, how to paint the best financial portrait of your startup -- you need more than one dimension. This is not a one-size fit all situation. In fact, financial modeling is like a Rubik’s Cube. You know, the puzzle that starts with four colors all jumbled on all four sides, which you have to sort so that each side is its own color. There are at least three different ways to look at your startups’ financial situation: current customers, potential renewals, and sales pipeline, A clear financial picture of a startup comprises at least three different approaches that should be expressed separately in different sets of books. The point is to have better information on which to base decisions. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne Gillian review the critical elements for your pitch decks, and the two most often included by novice founders that are unnecessary, and sometimes even counter productive. Too many times founders present their marketing message for customers instead of the information potential investors want to hear -- specifically, how will you make money for them? Or social change, if impact is their focus. Listen for step-by-step tips on how to build your deck for maximum effect.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Marcia Zaruba O’Connor joins Anne and Gillian to talk about how startups can best approach hiring and benefits and how to build your staff and compensate them, when and what benefits to offer, and how startups need to think about planning protection from legal liabilities in staffing, especially in our current #metoo days. They look at what happens after a startup attracts the necessary talent, what can they do about compensation and benefits, especially, early stage startups that are pre-revenue and likely not yet funded. Listen for equal parts encouragement, hard truths and scary legal stuff in a wide-ranging conversation, including when and how to let new hires go.  Marcia is CEO of the O’Connor Group, staffing consultants based in the Philly area, who advise companies nationwide on how to create a recruiting and/or HR function or improve their processes, starting from company culture and core values.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Anne chat with Eveline Buchatskiy, co founder of One Way Ventures, a fund for investing in startups by immigrants. What was the business opportunity she and her co-founder discovered? While managing Techstars in Boston, they noted their most successful investments were founded by immigrants. They decided to focus on the persona – the immigrant, especially  founders whose immigration experience is highly formative. The very fact that a person has left their home to immerse themselves into a new language, culture, and environment creates character. Dealing with a lot of ambiguity adds to character. You have no Plan B. You develop ability to cope with change, grit, determination, drive to succeed, and you work with limited resources in an optimized manner. You do a lot with very little — all positive things required for entrepreneurship.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Now seems like a good time to address keeping your team motivated. Near the end of Q3 post-summer spirits may be flagging, especially if your company is progressing more slowly than you thought it would back in the enthusiasm of Q1. Gillian and Anne talk about how to revive employee motivation. You start the year with a plan, and sometimes the execution doesn’t go according to plan, or you discover your assumptions were off the mark. Or you hit a period of rapid growth, a mark of success for sure, but so unsettling for your team. What to do to keep your team motivated? On the bus? With the program? On track? Gillian and Anne have plenty of tips, with help from their friends at First Round Review, and researchers at Google.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The National Bureau of Economic Research reports there’s “robust evidence of age discrimination in hiring against older women, especially those near retirement age.” Based on evidence from over 40,000 job applications, they also found that there is “considerably less” evidence of age discrimination against men.” Anne Gillian explore another discouraging trend  and take a look at whether that is true in tech, where the majority of employees are young and male, as well as whether the same can be said about startups. Is age the new ‘culture fit issue? With some surprising observations, they talk about how to deal with age discrimination, and why you want to.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Blockchain is surely one of the hottest topics around these days, but how does such a tool help a startup build a better way to address life’s events among consumers? Gillian and Anne’s guest Alexis Williamson, co-founder of Life.cafe, explains how her team is using blockchain as a tool to fund their worldwide consumers’ life events, whether they have cryptocurrency available to them  or not. Life.cafe provides customers access to experts in their upcoming events, such as a wedding or buying a home, and then funds each plan using a time-honored system of ‘lending circles’. Blockchain allows efficiency in connecting and making resources available at the right moment. “A Loan from a bank is just money, says Ms. Williamson. We offer money plus expert guidance to accomplish each goal.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What makes you tick? Where are your team members happiest and most productive? These are questions you must understand, first about yourself and second about your team. In the beginning, everyone has to wear many hats, but as your startup grows your team expands and so does opportunities to focus on the work that really makes the most of everyone’s talents. Enter your organization chart, which may be a new concept to you as an entrepreneur. Some on your team will aspire to leadership roles, while others will prefer to be Individual Contributors. Both are valuable and will contribute to your success. Gillian and Anne discuss how to determine who is which and find the right seats on your bus for everyone.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

There is growing evidence that indicates that impact investing supports the conventional bottom line with better returns for investors. In other words, investments in impact companies are returning higher ROI to their investors than companies that don’t take into account the social impact of their work.Early VC firms seeking for-profit companies that provided a social benefit were largely investing in environmental sustainability. There were notable exits: Tesla, SolarCity, NestLabs and 7th generation. Since 2001 such companies have invested $13 billion, and $10 billion of that since 2010. The trend emerging  is funding not verticals, but demographics -- underserved races, regions and economic levels, like TPG Ventures and Breakthrough Energies, both with backing from Bill Gates, among other leaders.  Anne and Gillian take a closer look at impact investing in 2018 and reflect on what they have discovered. What is the ‘double bottom line’ and why is it important? How does entrepreneurship support national security? Who are the leading impact investors active today? What does this mean for founders?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Carlee Price, investor and advisor to early stage companies joins Gillian and Anne to talk about her just-launched a consultancy – Pique Ventures – that provides a novel service to founders who are in the idea stage of their company development. That’s super early in the game. Listen as they dig in a bit on the subject of vetting ideas for early stage ideas. How should you be looking at vetting your own ideas before spending a fortune to develop a product or service? Carlee Price draws on her background on Wall Street, her experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor to all come into play to launch own consultancy. Hear solid tips on how to determine whether your startup idea has any chance of success. Hint: it’s all about the data and how you analyze yours.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You hear it all the time ‘The CEO’s Prime Directive is to build value for her company’. Gillian and Anne take a closer look into what this exactly means. Build value for whom? Investors, certainly. They expect that. That said, focusing on the next quarter’s stock value or revenue growth alone does more harm than good over the long run. For whom else are you building value? What about your other stakeholders? Who are they? The definition of ‘Build Value for your Company’ is far more complex than simply adding dollars to your bottom line. Pleasure, satisfaction, social standing, independence, joy, relationships, connection to the community of consumers you serve and the vendors you support, your ability to support your employees financially and reward them emotionally, socially, and intellectually as well. Value is not about money. Listen to what every CEO needs to know about building value for all, and not least , at the end of the day-- herself.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Professor Brianna Caza, an organizational psychologist at the University of Manitoba has studied early stage founders to find what helps them avoid ‘creeping strain’ and maintain high performance at their work -- in a word, thrive. Her findings, published in Harvard Business Review and academic journals may seem counterintuitive, yet her research shows clearly that founders have the ability to create simple management techniques that preserve their own energy and passion, even in the most turbulent times in their startups. Hear how she describes her findings and tips to Gillian and Anne. Bonus discussion: women receive a great deal of pressure from society at large and individuals closest to them about what they SHOULD want, do, and be. Instead,women need to determine what gives them joy and energy and what they need to make that possible.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Remember elevator pitches? Well, elevators may not be the only place you find the venture capitalists you want to tell about your company. There are lots of other places you may get 30 seconds or a full  minute, if you are lucky, to pitch someone who has the resources to move your startup forward. Gillian and Anne discuss how to make sure your 1-minute pitch remains focused. How to hit all the items on your punch list. How to approach such people in the first place. Gillian has a fool-proof method and she has never been turned down, but it’s no shortcut.Listen in for tips on how to perfect your ‘elevator pitch’ and how to get that follow-on meeting in their office for more than just a minute.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne Gillian revisit bias from a fresh perspective -- how are your unconscious biases affecting the decisions you make in your business, for example in forming your marketing strategy, or seeking funding. They look more deeply at the definition of bias, which is actually a neutral attribute, and find it is hard wired into each and every one of us. What to do? They surface the question asked by Rand Fishkin (full disclosure, Gillian’s son and co-founder at Moz.) “How is my cultural conditioning biasing me.?” From there Anne brings up another new perspective on gender bias, this one from Jennifer Palmieri, Communications Director for the US Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, the first woman to be nominated by a major US party. Palmieri questions whether we are on the right track to end bias when we expect women to be and act according to the rules men have set, and she asks if there is a better way. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It’s not news that women founders got a miserable 2% of venture capital last year and have averaged 20% of all VC deals each year since 2006. Despite that dreary reporting, Anne and Gillian have found some signs of forward momentum in studies by PitchBook. They are small changes in a few major cities, but progress nonetheless. Listen to further findings on whether women VC’s tend to fund women startups and if not, why not, according to some striking new data crunching from PitchBook. Last, this episode will tell you about some surprising new research from Columbia doctorate fellow Dana Kanze on how best to overcome gender bias in funding. Spoiler alert, it’s not as easy as firms’ bringing on more female VC’s.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

When do you take money out of your startup? When do you start planning for that happy day? Gillian and Anne discuss key signs you may notice along along your startup road that indicate it is OK to take some cash out for yourself. Indeed, it is a good idea, and an even better idea to plan for your partial liquidity event from the very beginning. Doing so will keep you focused your startup’s finances, as well as your product and customers, and on track building value for your shareholders and yourself, expeditiously.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Flash: the startup failure rate is considerably less than the 90 percent we hear about all the time. Since 2001 the total number of startups returned 1x or less to investors was at or under 60 percent, according to Cambridge Associates as reported by Erin Griffith in Fortune in June 2017. Still that’s only somewhat good news -- it still means more than half of all newborn companies do not make it to adulthood . . . or a fully realized corporate experience. According to Cambridge, a very small percentage of failure comes from disaster or other forces beyond your control. Hear how to avoid the rest.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne describe a new venture capital fund they are forming to fund startups with at least one woman in a critical and strategic leadership role. Hard numbers show that diverse teams return more shareholder value, so it’s time to change the sorry state of funding women founders.They are looking for unicorns in quiet spaces. Hear what that means and why gender-lensed investing benefits everyone.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian host Drexel University’s Katherine Jordan who directs the program there funded by the Coulter Foundation, a nationwide resource for developing and commercializing biomedical engineering advances from the very early stages to venture funding. In the course of her career as a fund manager, she has reviewed around 150 startups and funded about 30. Hear how the program and fund she manages work at Drexel, and how she reviews and evaluates applicants. Many attributes she seeks for her founders are similar to those of startups everywhere, such as a great team. That said, some are unique to working in an academic environment and require targeted approaches to join together academia and entrepreneurship.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian kick off the new year with a fresh look at whether women founders are receiving any more VC backing, and they are sorry to report the situation has slipped downward instead of improving, despite hard numbers that show women-led enterprises return more shareholder value, and outperform their brothers by nearly two-thirds. Yet women founders received less in both dollars and deal flow in 2017, and Latina and black women a tiny fraction of that. The driving forces behind this dispiriting trend and lack of improvement are closely linked to bias, comfort zones and desperately out-of-whack power balances that are similarly behind the sexual harassment now coming to light. Your hosts explore how the numbers rolled and who is leading the commentary and why time’s up in funding as much as elsewhere.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne take a full look at an entrepreneur’s CEO journey and lay out strategic and tactical insights to help them plan their company’s futures. Where do you start and how do you get going, and maintain momentum. Who is likely to buy your products, or even your company? When will your investors expect an exit and how will you get there? Hear how to find likely investment partners, whether strategic and essential to their business, or tactical, i.e. ‘nice to have’ and what the single most important number you must have at all times.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne quizzes Gillian on funding options for startups. They discuss traditional equity. Debt. Convertible notes. Convertible securities, also known as SAFE’s. Even self-funding. Which is best for you? Gillian explains the differences among all of them, and pros and cons for each illustrate. This is Part 1 of 2, because there was so much to say! Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss how cities like Seattle are dominated by the Amazons and Microsofts at the top of big business, overshadowing mid-sized companies. They discuss the effect of employees that could be laid off in a city like Seattle and how the economy could suffer. They discuss how funding mid-sized companies could help avoid this potential problem.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Every startup needs a cap table, even if the only shareholders are the founder and perhaps a partner or two. As you grow, you will most likely be making awards of stock or options to advisors, employees and investors. You cap table is a summary of all transactions in your stock register, and therefore a complete record of who owns all the assets in your company. Gillian and Anne go over all the basics you need to know, as well as some online tools that make setting up and managing your cap table easy, so you can get back to the important business of growing your startup.Gillian and Anne revisit metrics to take a deeper dive into finding the right measurements in your business for clarity and intelligence-based decisions. Rigor is critical such as what to measure, as is a comprehensive look at event streams. There is place for the broad metrics that make everyone feel good, such as numbers of downloads or clicks on an ad. But other measurements will inform how you run your business. Hear how to find such deep metrics and who in your company needs to collect them, and who needs to know the results. Everybody in your company needs to collect metrics regularly. Some metrics require daily – or more frequent tracking. Others, often those for Boards of Directors, require aggregation and monthly, quarterly, and annual tracking. Who needs what, when and where deserves your attention to be sure that your teams have the power they require to optimize your success.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian return with more questions to and answers from James Newell, partners at early venture firm Voyager Capital in Seattle. What do you need to bring and be prepared to defend when you get your audience with the VC partners? What can you expect to happen in the meeting. What might absolutely ‘scotch’ your deal? James Newell generously shares his take on all these and more. Hear his undeniably hot tips for founders who aspire to land venture capital.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ever want to ask a venture capitalist everything about how VC’s work? Gillian and Anne chat with James Newells, partner at Seattle’s Voyager Capital, early venture investors.a James willingly responds in enlightening detail to question about process, approach, multiples, due diligence and much more. What makes a VC listen? How do you know for sure a VC in interested in funding your startup? Find out here. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne talk with Luni Libes, founder and Managing Director of Fledge, a global impact accelerator which launches businesses that do good by doing business, here in the US and in dozens of countries around the world (Fledge.co). Luni has moreover connected impact investors worldwide on investorflow.org, and authored the six book series “The Next Step for Entrepreneurs”. “Fledge is Techstars for companies with purpose,” says Luni. Fledglings apply to attend programs in Lima, Barcelona, Vancouver BC, and Seattle, with Lisbon and Padua slated additions next year. Listen to how applicants are selected, funded and mentored, as well as Fledge’s unique way of bringing solid returns to investors.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss how cities like Seattle are dominated by the Amazons and Microsofts at the top of big business, overshadowing mid-sized companies. They discuss the effect of employees that could be laid off in a city like Seattle and how the economy could suffer. They discuss how funding mid-sized companies could help avoid this potential problem.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A unicorn is a start up that achieves a billion-dollar valuation. A scalable company is one that finds a way to increase revenues and profit margins without increasing overhead, or production costs. Startups that can scale may become unicorns, and starry-eyed founders and investors as well like to dream big. Here’s a dose of reality:  less than one half of one percent land the moonshot. On the flip side, many so-called Lifestyle companies become very successful, even though their founders have no intention of selling or going public. What benefits can these privately held companies offer investors to attract needed capital? Gillian and Anne detail several ways to provide investors sufficient returns to interest them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne  and Gillian continue their discussion of your funding options when you are starting a company, including some new takes on old methods, such as revenue sharing, and REIT-style investment groups. And, of course, when is it not a good idea to fund your startup yourself? Assuming you have the cash.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We hear from Elaine Bennett, an award-winning speech writer who has written for Warren Buffet and Governor Howard Dean, and numerous financial and business consulting firms. Why do we want our listeners to hear a speech writer? Well, In our experience communications style, and specifically presentation style is often a problem for startup CEO’s. They are usually engineer-inventors and not at all accustomed to public speaking, much less getting their ideas across and even less, pitching to investors.  Elaine provides tips and guidelines startup founders and CEOs need to communicate their visions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We continue our conversation with Janis Machala about how to seek early stage investing, because we just couldn’t get everything we wanted to hear from her into one episode. This week Janis gives us her take on trends in diversity and inclusion in founding teams, incubators, investment decisions, and why these are good things.Alternate ways to raise capital. Broadway Angels – 75 women investors. Fifty of them carved themselves out of venture firms and said, ‘We’re tired of what goes on. We’re going to raise a seed fund and invest for gender and diversity. And we’re going to invest on our own account.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Janis Marchala of Palladin Partners has been called the ‘Oracle of Startup mentoring and early-stage investing” which she has been doing since the mid-1990’s in Puget Sound. Along the way she founded Seraph Capital Forum to bring women angel investors front and center. Gillian and Anne talk with Janis about her experiences, observations and vision for early stage funding and what attracts her to invest.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

“Silicon Valley is the only place in the US where rich people want to meet with poor people” -- that is, if they have compelling startups. Anne Gillian heard that and many other tidbits and outright declarations at May’s TiECon Silicon Valley, the largest gathering of TiE Global members and entrepreneurs eager to hear wisdom from those who have started successful companies. As reported before  in this space, TiE.org is an organization started in 1992 by entrepreneurs who came from India to and founded successful companies. Their purpose now is to mentor up-and-coming entrepreneurs. TiE now has expanded to 13000 members in chapters in 61 cities across 18 countries. Listen to some of the many comments, reflections and useful advice heard over the two-day event.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How important is it to raise your head up from your startup and read blogs regularly? Very important. A breadth of sources gives you a better perspective on what is going on inside -- and outside -- your industry. Your company does not sit in a vacuum. It thrives or dies on stage with many characters, actions, and plot lines. You are NOT the author; you are only the player for your small part -- and only for a short time. If you want to be a leader, you have a much better shot at success if you know what’s going on.  Hear how to manage the ‘daily deluge of opportunity’ that arrives in your inbox.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne revisit metrics to take a deeper dive into finding the right measurements in your business for clarity and intelligence-based decisions. Rigor is critical such as what to measure, as is a comprehensive look at event streams. There is place for the broad metrics that make everyone feel good, such as numbers of downloads or clicks on an ad. But other measurements will inform how you run your business. Hear how to find such deep metrics and who in your company needs to collect them, and who needs to know the results. Everybody in your company needs to collect metrics regularly. Some metrics require daily – or more frequent tracking. Others, often those for Boards of Directors, require aggregation and monthly, quarterly, and annual tracking. Who needs what, when and where deserves your attention to be sure that your teams have the power they require to optimize your success.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

While it’s true that VC funding to women founders has more than doubled in 10 years, the actual amount is paltry. Anne and Gillian discuss why this is so, and report on updates from Pitchbook and the first ever study from TechCrunch on women venture capitalists and whether they fund more startups with a woman founder. Conclusion? A firm ‘Maybe” and “Too soon to tell. The bright spot is the number of women investors is increasing, along with the growth of  organizations like Pipeline Angels and TiE Global Women’s Entrepreneur Network chapters in many cities.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Every startup needs a cap table, even if the only shareholders are the founder and perhaps a partner or two. As you grow, you will most likely be making awards of stock or options to advisors, employees and investors. You cap table is a summary of all transactions in your stock register, and therefore a complete record of who owns all the assets in your company. Gillian and Anne go over all the basics you need to know, as well as some online tools that make setting up and managing your cap table easy, so you can get back to the important business of growing your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Eventually your startup will need a board of directors. But, when do you shift from advisors to directors, and what are the need for them, as well as the ramifications of setting up a BOD? Anne and Gillian answer these questions and walk your through the process of recruiting, compensating and retaining an effective board for your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Every successful person speaks of mentors that led the way and provided encouragement.  This is especially true when you are founding a startup, a time when you “perpetually need more expertise than you could possibly accrue as an individual,” according to Amy Chang, founder of Accompany. Mentors, and Advisors will get you there. Anne Gillian tell how to find mentors, and how to optimize their input.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Term Sheets 101Terms sheets are good news, but they can be intimidating. Gillian and Anne break down what some of the confusing terms and what they mean, what to look out for. Disclaimer none of this is in any way legal advice, as they are not attorneys. As always, you best course is to consult your own attorney for all legal interpretations.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne continue their discussion of the best ways to fund your very early stage company. This week is all about how to find the investors who are right for the stage of your company or idea. Hear step-by-step how to research, find and pitch to optimize your chances of success.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss ways to get your very early stage idea funded. Maybe it’s not even a product yet, just a good idea. Where do you look for funding? It depends on your stage of development. Hear which investors are a best for each one and your best process for getting started.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Only .05 percent of startups get VC funding. And it takes a long time. Hard news. Gillian and Anne talk about why this is so, and what you can do about it. Not every company is fundable. Is yours? If it is, Listen in for how to shorten the time it takes you to get funded.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Stephanie Lampkin tells how to hire for merit alone, and get past unconscious bias on gender, race or age, and more to point, why this is important. Inclusive teams perform better as do the companies that attract them. Blendoor is an app that removes gender, ethnic and age clues from the hiring funnel, allowing hiring decisions based qualifications, experience and aptitude. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Raising capital is critical to your startup’s success. So is running your business. Gillian and Anne discuss how to manage both, and why your fundraising efforts make you a better manager, and what to do when you hit that point of desperation. Hint: it has a lot to do with noodles -- and not just using yours.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne challenging every speaker, mentor, advisor, event organizer, company and organization leader, and department head to do something about the dearth of gender and diversity in tech businesses in the U.S. today, asking everyone to set aside one seat at the table.  And fill it with a person who otherwise would not have access to the event. For free. Seek out people who have not yet considered that a role in tech could be possible for them. Give them access to expertise. Practice intentional inclusion.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bringing a Company to the Next Level as Gillian has a conversation with Jay Love, CEO Slingshot SEO, a SEO agency that helps customers increase sales through various Web search strategies that is listed in the INC 5000.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Self funded growth and how to grow revenue without a marketing budget. as Gillian interviews with the co-founder and President of Slingshot SEO, Kevin Bailey.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the Incubator. What Do You Do First? From getting the most out of networking, and avoiding the distractions, Gillian offers some insight so that you are prepared to know what to start doing once you are inside the incubator.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian discuss IT project management, in particular how to manage development projects and maintain forward progress and your sanity. Learn project management tips from those who have been through the process.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter explains what analysts do and how they can be of benefit to entrepreneurs. Most importantly, she details what every start up needs to know about preparing for that all-important briefing.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discusswhy start ups succeed: most often its timing. It's a lot like love. Or anything else in your life that's great.So let's examine that. Is timing the key ingredient?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy chat about Cognitive Bias. The dynamic duo define what cognitive bias' are, and mention that they can disrupt your decision making. Anne and Gillian run through a list of cognitive bias' in several jobs and how to work through them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Need some practical productivity tools? The best streamline your process and keep you on track and distraction-free. Anne & Gillian talk about their favorites. It’s likely you already have a couple on your devices, and then, there’s another that isn’t even an app, but totally analog.  Tune in and tune up your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Inclusion and Why It Is Good for Business. Inclusion is a key driver of internal innovation and business growth. Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig discuss why it matters to your startup and how to get it done. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss the Basics of Board Meetings. How to stay on top of them, how to control them and how to make the meetings most effective. They offer some top tips on planning around those attending and governance rules. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss benefits and drawbacks the three most popular ways for investors to join your seed round -- traditional equity, convertible notes against, which are loans against future value, and convertible securities, also known at YCombinator as SAFE, which means simple agreement for future equity. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Startup Weatlh and Leadership In a Fast Growing Organization as we look back at two favorite interviews: 'StartUp wealth" author Josh Mayer, and Moz CEO Sarah Bird.Josh Maher is the president of Seattle Angel, a not-for-profit organization focused on strengthening the startup capital market in the Pacific Northwest. Sarah Bird serves as the CEO of Moz, a software company helping online marketers measure and improve search, social, and content marketing.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Best of CEO Coach: Looking back to best of CEO Coach for 2016: How to build a better founder, why your founder should give away the Legos, and bonus -- Take a vacation! Happy Holidays!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The holiday season is about giving, but how do you honor that when your startup is still subsisting on  ramen noodles, and likely you are not even taking a paycheck? Giving gifts or year end bonuses is clearly not in your cards, yet there are many ways to mark the season that cost little, or nothing and will serve to make your team understand how much you appreciate their hard work. Gillian and Anne discuss a few that have worked for them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Inclusion is the future, says Nitin Rai, entrepreneur, investor and impact investor. He is making 50% of his Elevate Capital investments in women-led startups, and the rest in under-served and areas and underrepresented demographics, including veterans and rural areas. He also talks about TiE Global, the world’s largest non-profit entrepreneur network with 57 chapters in 14 countries, including TiE Oregon, the chapter he founded and is working to expand.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Your business plan is your roadmap for your company’s growth and success, and is your internal key to organizing your own thoughts at a deeper and more detailed level. furthermore informs you pitch and Executive Summary for investors. Anne and Gillian discuss six ways to how to improve yours. Doing so will produce long-and short term benefits and  - not least- inspire confidence in your business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How do you really qualify potential investors, so you don’t waste time one the ones who are not going to fund your startup? Start with you asking them questions, according to NYC Techstars Director Alex Iskold. Gillian Anne dive into more of the critical, often uncomfortable questions he urges founders to ask. They they discuss Elizabeth’s Yin’s insights on how investors categorize startups, information to help you better target investors to ask, and better tune your pitch.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This month it is critical to review your employees’ performances, especially if you are a lean early stage startup. You have no room for any margin of error in terms of employee performance. Gillian and Anne talk about a better way than the tiresome, time consuming annual reviews, which tend to reward - or punish - past behaviors at the expense of improving current performance, according the Harvard Business Review. This certainly doesn’t provide the agility startups need to move people around as business needs develop - precisely why you need to develop a real-time feedback method. Hear just how to do that in this episode.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Last year Fortune magazine reported on gender and racial diversity in nine leading US tech companies, with disappointing results. Anne Gillian go back for another look to see what progress has occurred, with stats from more tech giants, and take a look at some new initiatives aiming to increase diversity in IT companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fourth Quarter expectations lead to questions about your revenue. Anne and Gillian discuss some great steps to Ring the Freaking Cash Register, as referenced by Mark Shuster of Upfront Ventures. He says to startups, "Monetize your product as a priority, not an afterthought."Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian discuss Leadership Speaking Style and Communication Killers as they reference a blog post from Ian Lurie entitled These 10 Phrases Are Killing Your Team.  Ian explains, " We rarely use these phrases out of disrespect. Usually, we use them to try to spare coworkers' and employees' feelings. In the long run, though, we're dodging issues and hiding destructive behaviors.It's a lesson I've learned, slowly, over 20+ years as a CEO: Be direct and clear. Don't confuse respect with indecision. Trust everyone in the room to be grownups. Your team will flourish."Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Need some practical productivity tools? The best streamline your process and keep you on track and distraction-free. Anne Gillian talk about their favorites. It’s likely you already have a couple on your devices, and then, there’s another that isn’t even an app, but totally analog.  Tune in and tune up your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

September is time to tune up your systems and processes, and CEO Coach turns to another century-old method, this time from Lillian Frank Galbreth who pioneered activity and motion management, and were known by “Cheaper by the Dozen” and memoir of their family of 12 children. From there Gillian Anne talk about good processes and systems, and why you need to commit to a process to move your company forward.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Time to step up your game in productivity. Q4 is nearly upon us. The summer doldrums are over. Hopefully you took Gillian and Anne’s advice and headed out of Dodge to take a holiday of your own. Now, it's time to buckle down, like the kids heading back to school. The episode is about how to bump up your productivity game - yours AND your key staff, starting with 100-year-old advice from productivity guru Ivy Lee’.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How abundant thinking makes you a better CEO as  Anne and Gillian look at the work of Bay Area executive coach Katia Verresen and what she calls the remarkable advantage of abundant thinking. Plus, Anne and Gillian explain how to avoid the chasm of micromanagement in your start up.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Laura Weintraub, CEO of renowned digital agency Aimclear joins us to talk about leadership and managing growth at her company, one of Inc’s 500/5000 for four years, and three years named one of the best places to work in Minnesota. Plus, what are key elements of 10X leadership? How does 10% thinking limit your opportunities? Which companies are better suited to shooting the moon?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk about why taking a vacation will make you a better CEO and your company more successful, and why you must make time to unplug your laptop and recharge yourself. After noting some alarming statistics about diminishing American vacations, and the resulting health effects, they highlight just how to make your getaway with a few do’s and don’ts to guide you.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Pre-money. Preferences. Dilution. The vocabulary of start up funding has a language all its own. What’s more, pitfalls await the unwary entrepreneur. Yes you can give away too much in the beginning. Gillian explains it all to Anne, and we wind up a lot better informed, as will listeners.  We sprinkle in wisdom from H Ross Perot and Alejandro Cremades of 1000 Angels.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What attributes make a good founder? Gillian and Anne review characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, with input from Fast Company, Compass and Techstars. Patterns emerge from a multitude of opinions on asses and attributes. Most successful founders share what Mom and Dad used to call ‘character’ -- integrity, authenticity and compassion.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What do you do when a big VC firm or a Really Big Company wants to invest and become your strategic partner? Push the euphoria aside and proceed with caution. Anne and Gillian talk about the important questions to ask yourself, and the potential investor, with insights from Elizabeth Yin, partner in 500 Startups, and Patrick Meenan, VC and before that at Microsoft doing acquisitions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fine-tuning Your Fundraising Part 3: Rejected! What to Do Next. In a continuing series on how to boost your fundraising results, Anne Gillian talk about rejections, which will inevitably happen, and what to do next. Source Elizabeth Yin had very specific advice on which investors you’ve pitched are worthy of following up, and which are not worth your time, and how to tell the difference.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

When you pitch to potential investors keep control of the conversation. Drive the car, says Elizabeth Yin, entrepreneur and partner at 500 Startups. Avoid letting the direction of your presentation veer all over the place. Stick to the points you want to make. In other words, stay proactive, not reactive.  Gillian and Anne review some techniques to keep your next meeting with potential investors rolling down the road.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In the first of a multipart series on fine-tuning your funding, Gillian Anne discuss the difference between angel investors and seed VC’s, and why understanding the difference is critical to your fundraising success. Hint: it’s all about how they make money on their investments.  We draw inspiration and insights from Elizabeth Yin, partner at 500 Startups, herself a successful entrepreneur.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian look at the work of Bay Area executive coach Katia Verresen and what she calls the remarkable advantage of abundant thinking. It’s a 21st century take on how to lead, because, says Verresen your attitude is 100% of your performance. We can use what she calls ‘abundance tactics’ to feel more energized, expand our worldview and achieve our visions instead of being drained by the opposite of abundance which is scarcity, and a scary way to think. Verresen provides specific ways to overcome crippling fear that compromises your ability to lead. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What can you learn from The FBI about closing sales? Plenty, according to Chris Voss, former FBI international kidnapping negotiator and author of “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It” (HarperCollins, May 2016). It’s all about understanding and influencing your prospects or adversary’s emotions. Beyond active listening and mirroring, Gillian and Anne discuss some of the surprising tactics The FBI uses and how to apply them to close more deals for your startup.cAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What You Must Do In June: “Gitter Done!” We’re halfway through 2016; what must every start up absolutely do this year? Get to work and execute on your plan. You have set your goals and strategies; now it’s time to activate your tactics to meet your goals . . .  or just “Gitter Done!” Gillian and and Anne tell you why, and how to work around whatever is blocking your way forward.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Blaine Bertsch of Dryrun.com explains the critical importance of tracking cash flow, and even more important, projecting future cash flows. Blaine developed DryRun after years of managing his digital design firm to give him what he needed to make informed decisions for his business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk with Stone Temple founder and CEO Eric Enge discuss a number of areas all entrepreneurs should be aware and cover if they want to be free to build the business. The first tip is that the company leaders need to be able to focus and should not be worrying about where the mortgage payments are coming from. This financial security allows the entrepreneur the freedom from those type of distractions.Enge also discusses his early publishing efforts online and how he was able to sell the sites after growing them. During that time he did the consulting that grew in to Stone Temple is what gave him the freedom to build the publishing sites.If you are interested in growing a business online this conversation is a must listen.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian MuessigandAnne Kennedy discuss why sales are your friends, no matter how reticent you are about asking for them. Learn how to make sales before you can afford sales staff. Inc. Magazine and Hubspot published a lot of encouraging suggestions which are summarized for you in this podcast to help you get those first early salesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy have found a really great round up of motivating quotes from SUCCESSFUL start up CEO's -- and they are not always what you think. Gillian and Anne look at some CEO takeways fromAmy Wilkinsons new book The Creators Code.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy talk with Nancee Winslow, Senior Technology Recruiter and Executive Consultant for Kim Finch Cook Executive Recruiter, Inc. Nancee  has mentored leaders, peers and teammates, inspiring new views on what it is to build dynamic, productive and successful teams.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian talk about customer focus as a critical element to growth. Understanding your customers’ journeys to adopting your product is a key element of customer focus. They examine the latest thinking on what a real and customer-centric growth strategy needs to be, and how to use human behavior science to get at what your potential customers really need. Customer retention is the real sign of product value, says Remind’s Meenal Balar, and a disappointing experience can make them nearly impossible to get back.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne talk about growth in your start up, and whether you should aim for growing your company or being profitable  — because you can’t have both in the beginning. Listen to find out why.  With insights from investor Mark Suster (BothSidesoftheTable.com), they discuss some ‘101’ financial management practices to help you decide the […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Laura Weintraub, CEO of renowned digital agency Aimclear joins us to talk about leadership and managing growth at her company, one of Inc’s 500/5000 for four years, and three years named one of the best places to work in Minnesota. At the helm as COO since 2011, and named CEO in 2013, she has led […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Want to work smarter, not harder? Hear Gillian and Anne with a round-up of tips, tricks and workday hacks they gathered from Fastcompany and other favorite resources to make your workday more productive, and leave more time for your life. Start Q2 right by refining your processes, while there is still enough year left to […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You Can’t Fall Off the Floor — Let’s get to Work! Anne and Gillian talk why Lady Gaga needed grit to succeed and why this is the same for tech start ups, with insights from venture investor Troy Carter and psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth. Troy Carter who discovered a young singer named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discusses How to Avoid the Chasm of Micromanagement in Your Startup Micromanagement is the result of having poor – or no processes – in place. Good processes avoid having to micromanage. But getting good processes in place can take a lot of handholding, cajoling, and reassuring. Sometimes, it feels like […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today we’ll be talking about rules for survival in a start up. You know those moments of frustration – we all have them. A few months ago Anne came up with these in just such one of those moments. You’ve heard me refer to some of these from time to time. Here’s the full Monty […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss two important tasks every start up must get done in March before Q1 ends. Your books for 2015 are closed, your taxes are done, or shipped of to your tax prep pro, you’ve reviewed progress from last year, and reset your goals, and assessed their early performance, “What’s next?” you ask? […]Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian & Anne discuss why: because taxes do not move your company forward. Things that move your company forward include product design, IT work, marketing, sales, customer service, consumer outreach, etc. Things that don’t, include paying the rent, the taxes, and the phone bill. But they must be done. Since these support tasks take up mindshare – and the bigger the downside risk of NOT tending to the issue, the larger and more insidious the mind share it takes, doing your taxes now will save you tons of time. Plus two more things you absolutely must do right now: tidying up and checking in with your 2016 goals.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Katherine Hague, founder of Female Funders talks with Gillian and Anne about her mission to find 1000 new women angels investors this year. To that end she hosted a breakfast series in a whirlwind eight-city tour and launched “Angel School” in two versions: one for investors and one for entrepreneurs  to help both get started with angel funding.She talks about how the gender gap in funding start-ups led her to get involved after her own successful exit from Shoplocket, and her purpose in educating the next generation of women angel investors. Her new book “Funded, the Entrepreneur's Guide to Raising Your First Round’ from O’Reilly draws from her experience.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Josh Maher, president of Seattle Angels talks with Anne about his new book StartUp Wealth - How the Bes Angel Investors Make Money in StartUps. The book reveals how 23 successful investors seek and evaluate opportunities, and most importantly how they think -- certainly of keen interest to any startup CEO. Josh talks about how critical it is to find the right match in an investor, whether data driven or looking for momentum toward the next big thing. His book is available at www.startupwealth.com and on Amazon and other online book sellers.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne interview global educator Gail Romero, founder of GLEAN Educational Skills, a 21st century educational platform for businesses and governments around the world, and she also explains how collecting and using data assists companies in expanding. Gail is also one of a handful of gender economists in the world, and discusses the five main reasons women fail in business. Read all about Gail at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gailromero and find her TED talk on women and leadership at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVTKtQJKQGoAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Inspired by a recent keynote by Ken Norton, partner at GoogleVentures at London’s “Mind the Product” conference in Q4 2015, Gillian and Anne discuss thinking big versus incrementally in your start-up. Exploring many historical big misses, such as Kodak and digital photography, they look for reasons and drivers. What are key elements of ‘10X’ leadership? How does ‘10%’ thinking limit your opportunities? Which companies are better suited to shooting the moon?What’s right for your company?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You’re a founder. Can you do it all? Well, no, not unless you want to run a really small company. The secret to scaling big is to know when to let go . . . of control, of your job, of your comfort zone. Anne & Gillian discuss issues raised by Molly Graham, who guided both Facebook and Google through rapid expansion, in a First Round Review article “Give Away Your Legos."The article readsBeing inside a company that’s a rocket ship is really cool. There are so many Legos! You could build anything. At the beginning, as you start to scale, everyone has so many Legos to choose from — they’re doing 10 jobs — and they’re all part of building something important.”Succeed by letting go and sharing your burdens; a rapidly scaling company is impossible for one person to hold on to. “The only way to move on to move on to building bigger and better things,” says Graham, “you have to give away you job every couple of months.” Gillian and Anne guide you through Molly’s steps to do this as your company grows.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne review and detail three essential tasks you must do for your Start-ups business, duties you simply cannot put off if you are to succeed. How have you performed against your goals of last year. What course corrections do you need to make this year? In this episode you will hear how and why to tackle these now. Plus a bonus start-up task that often slips until later in the year, and why this is extremely detrimental to your progress. Spoiler-alert: it’s tedious but necessary.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Polishing up your crystal ball? Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss 2016 predictions for the future of business with help from from 10 notable execs, including Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of Ellevest, and others from such diverse companies as Next Desk, Gild, Sbarro and Naturalicious. The predictions werepresented in a Fast Company article, where 10 leaders tell us what they think the next year has in storefor2016, from more transparency to more streaming video and honesty in marketing. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy welcome back Kristin Luck, who earlier this year sold Decipher, a market research software firm to Focus Vision Worldwide. Kristin offers some best advice for navigating a successful curse as a woman dealing with VC/PE.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss what information to share about your company, with whom, and when.  The dynamic duo stress getting a handle on your numbers across all areas of your business and designing charts to keep up with you businesses information.They also talk about Rethinking Employee Motivation. During this show the discussion is based around Daniel Pink from TED Talk on Motivators and why  EXTERNAL MOTIVATORS – the mother’s milk of 20th century corporate payments and rewards structures – do not work if you’re building a tech company and often harm creativity.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss why sales are your friends, no matter how reticent you are about asking for them, plus they reveal the critical steps in closing a deal.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy the worst advice you’ll ever get.. advice that sounds like its good, advice from folks who should know better.  As a CEO you're bound to get plenty of advice, listen in to go down the right path when it comes to advice you should and should not take.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss responsive websites and website user experience. The website is the business, and a lot of times the CEO doesn't see it that way.  It is essential for CEO's to understand that having a responsive website is key; you can't sell to who you can't reach!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy are joined by Wistar Kay from the Commerce Department of the State of Washington.  They discuss the Commerce Department at the State of WA and her role in it, tactical things can a company expect if they work with them, and what the road map looks like for taking products and services international with their help. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

e-Commerce Building Brand CommunitiesWant to make more money in your eCommerce? Brand community increases the longevity and lifetime value of your customers – therefore it increases your revenues. Raving fans will market you product for you; this is ecommerce Nirvana. Gillian and Anne tell how to find and attract enthusiastic and returning customers — Hint: price can’t be all of it. Your product must be useful and helpful, not full of hype. Future Proof BrandingGillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss Future-Proofing Your Brand as they look at a blog post that discusses a common theme across among a number of failing named brands as relevance — or rather lack of relevance to today’s concerns.  Gillian and Anne offer ways to look at future proofing your brand.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss key takeaways from at Web Summit 2015  this month in Dublin. The massive event drew 42000 to view 21 different summits, from machine to marketing to society to design, and much more. 60,000 startups applied, 2141 were chosen to exhibit, and 200 selected to pitch, with 2 winners from 6 finalists. What made the winning pitches? Six elements in common . . . every one!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy chat about the topic of Perfect Pitch.  They give some tips on creating the perfect pitch deck, including how to what your pitch is and is not about and how to focus on your audiences.  The perfect pitch is all about money, how much you need, why you need it and defend it, what you are going to do with it, and how long it is going to last.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy will be talking about some secrets successful people know. Inc. magazine recently compiled a list of 37, across a variety of topics - from managing employees to managing linkedin, and even your own emotions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today on CEO Coach Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss 6 lists you need to be productive every day.  They touch on keeping daily to-do lists and outsource lists, setting recurring appointments with yourself, and making work time more efficient with project lists, and talking points lists, and make decisions easier with pros & cons list.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy talk about Networking today on CEO Coach.  Anne and Gillian compare networking to fractions, not the most fun topic, though the outcome could be truly great with determination and genuine connections with customers.  Listen in as Gillian and Anne coach us through the world of Networking, and become a networking genius in no time.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy chat about Cognitive Bias.  The dynamic duo define what cognitive bias' are, and mention that they can disrupt your decision making.  Anne and Gillian run through a list of cognitive bias' in several jobs and how to work through them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recruiting Consultant, Career Coach, Writer for Imprint PDX Aimee Levens joins Gillain Muessig and Anne Kennedy to discuss How to Hire the Right Talent to Take Your Company Forward, as well as follow up on the ongoing ethnic and gender diversity in tech conversation from recent CEO Coach episodes.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss what information to share about your company, with whom, and when.  The dynamic duo stress getting a handle on your numbers across all areas of your business and designing charts to keep up with you businesses information.  They later discuss the importance of focusing on the other party's needs in order to help your company most while being honest and prepared while speaking with vendors.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss Diversity in the tech industry and the reality of start up performance when viewed through this lens. They go through a couple of recent reports that skewer some fondly-held convention wisdom around the start up scene.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy deliver a salary smackdown with digital marketing analysis Allison Hartsoe. At the apex of her third company Allison delves into the drive needed to found a company, including a $6,000 tip for success. Plus, we dive into the world of data analytics and the metrics Allison uses to propel Fortune 500 companies towards the future.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy showcase the business side of  WebmasterRadio.FM by welcoming the station's co-founders Brandy Shapiro-Babin and Daron Babin. They reveal the roots of Webmaster Radio and how it came to fruition. Plus, Brandy and Daron share with us some new details with the launch of a new radio network and how their experience helped them to handle the challenges that came with starting up a new network to cover a fast-growing niche.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Traction: What it is? How To Get it and Most How to Measure It? Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss an article  from Jane Mazur in the SOSV Blog that talks about milestones vs. cash as a measure of traction.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Buying an Ecommerce Site? Ask Better Questions First. Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss how to buy an ecommerce company, including what questions to ask before you buy, plus they  take a look at the most successful lifestyle ecommerce ventures.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy talk about managing culture as you grow. They refer to a Anson Ben in a recent inMobi blog post that says the undercurrent of culture will determine whether you will make it big, whether people are truly giving their best.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss why start ups succeed: most often its timing. It's a lot like love. Or anything else in your life that's great.So let's examine that. Is timing the key ingredient?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gilian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss What a Good Night's Sleep Means to the Performance in Your Business. We've all found out how it is to be sleep deprived. What does that do to you and your performance in your business? Turns out . . a lot!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Micro-payments are yet another pricing model, and one Jakob Nielsen predicted in 1998 would become the economic engine of the Internet. What exactly are micro-payments? Think about iTunes, or buying TV episodes in Amazon. You pay for only what you consume, and you can get a refund after if you didn't like it. Does it work for SaaS? Others?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Everyone talks about content marketing; few do it well. Hear advice from Sunil Rajaraman, founder of Scripted on avoid joining continuous hurricane of ineffective literature from businesses with misguided content priorities.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig share a five-step process for analyzing complex data from Philip Mudd, former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorist center and author of "The HEAD Game: High Efficiency Analytic Decision Making and the art of solving complex problems quickly".Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We're talking about how critical it is to choose your investors wisely. Even if you are struggling to raise cash, do not make a Faustian deal that will come back to haunt you! We interviewed Ann-Marie Archer on May 18 about finding key C-level employers, and she had a lot to say about finding the right partners. Culture fit, shared vision, similar values. And in June, you'll find a CEO Coach show with Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz who talked about the critical issue of hiring only employees who resonate with their very strong corporate culture. The same applies for finding investors.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

More companies fail because of lack of a salesperson and decent marketing during the first critical months before the money runs out. We know first hand, and we share what happened when we got got good sales people going, and what we learned about the difference between sales and marketing and marketing communications, and why you need all of the above.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Discussion of Leadership In a Fast Growing Organization as Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy speak with Moz CEO Sarah Bird. Sarah shares some takeaways for CEOs challenged to scale, develop and support leadership within the company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy  explain what comprises revenue sharing agreements that work for both parties. In our January 5 2015 episode we talked about critical pricing models and why this is at the top of the food chain for many marketing and services companies, and what kind of companies would do well to engage it. This episode we sweat the details on how to best set up revenue sharing for your company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy talk about finding key employees as companies reach the moment of inflection and kick into high gear / fast growth mode. They welcome Ann-Marie Archer of Archer and Associates, an  executive search firm and specialists in staffing C-levels to discuss finding key C-Level employees.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy are hosting part 2 of the Success Assets and Attributes show, talking about what it takes to have a successful company and what Assets keep you moving forward in the business world.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week Gillian Muessig and Anna Kennedy are talking about growth hacks for your business. We learn about the assets and attributes of successful CEOs and successful companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy have found a really great round up of motivating quotes from SUCCESSFUL start up CEO's -- and they are not always what you think. Gillian and Anne look at some CEO takeways from  Amy Wilkinsons new book  The Creators Code.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig talk today about Rethinking Employee Motivation. During this show the discussion is based around Daniel Pink from TED Talk on Motivators and why  EXTERNAL MOTIVATORS - the mother's milk of 20th century corporate payments and rewards structures - do not work if you’re building a tech company and often harm creativity. You'll find a link to the discussion on our facebook page - facebook.com/ceocoachpodcast. While you're there, ask us any questions you've got about starting, growing and sustaining your business - or tell us who you'd like to have visit with us on this show. We'll try to get your questions answered and your most-wanted business gurus on the show.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss Future-Proofing Your Brand as they look at a blog postthat discusses acommon theme acrossamonga number of failing named brandsas relevance -- or rather lack of relevance to today's concerns. Gillian andAnne offerways to look at future proofing your brand.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian discuss 2015 marketing trends you cannot afford to miss from a blog post by global agency Gyro on Fortune.com, in which Business Development manager Michael Agnello compiled six big ones: from wearables to private channels, and why gut decisions matter. Visit us at our Facebook link to the complete post.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Where do you look for early plug-and-play juggernauts that will put operating funds in your pocket so you proposer and grow? Gillian Muessig interviews Cynthia Hammersley, SalesandMarketing Strategist for Verticaliti on her process for getting sales started early. Learn how to vet early customers and focus tightly to get revenues coming in early, when you need them most.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Spending Money to Make Money and the risk tolerance that it takes to get it done. Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig talk about the struggles CEOs have with this stage and how you can blast past this task.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Productivity affects revenues, whether for better or worse depends on your habits, according to Fast Company's 14 Tips to Make 2015 Your Most Productive Year Yet.Productivity issues eat into revenue generation big time. Increase productivity and you get more done in less time, and therefore more value. Many of the tips your already know, but they are evergreen enough to bear repeating. To us the tips seemed to fall into three areas: prioritizing , process, and procrastination -- the productive varietyAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

eCommerce Building Your Brand CommunityAir date: Feb 16, 2015Want to make more money in your eCommerce? Brand community increases the longevity and lifetime value of your customers - therefore it increases your revenues. Raving fans will market you product for you; this is ecommerce Nirvana. Gillian and Anne tell how to find and attract enthusiastic and returning customers -- Hint: price can't be all of it. Your product must be useful and helpful, not full of hype.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Insurance and the Small Business Discussion as Gillian and Nina welcome back insurance agent Dennis Klemmer. They discuss the finer points of Errors and Omissions claims and how they effect small business owners.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Continuing this months theme Increasing Your Revenue in 2015, Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy reveal the critical steps in closing a deal, from the top of your funnel to full conversion -- the sale. Where to start with both short term and long-term prospects, how to craft a strategic plan to increase the size of small projects and longevity of relationships, and how to fill your quiver with effective comebacks to deal with impediments to closing the deal. It's about benefits, THEN features. Its about value, THEN cost. We've got effective tactics for getting your SOW approved, your contracts signed and the checks in the bank as smoothly as possible.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig share how to drum up more business. Learn how to locate new customers, identify potential customers and call/email to work your way to the decision makers.Plus, how to befriend admins and other gatekeepers and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Kristin Luck of Decipher, a market research software-as-service talks about the steps her company went through to attract the right buyer and then complete the sale.  What were the critical steps in he process? Where did they have to focus the most. And what was the biggest surprise. A must-hear for any entrepreneur planning to exit via a sale.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Robert Gilbreath of ShipStation discusses logistics for small companies and how entrepreneurs can solve problems and streamline operations with the right tools.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Farrah Bostic, founder of The Difference Engine, talks about attaining, gaining and sustaining customers and why a distribution plan is critically important to your company's growth, more so even than brand equity.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What must you absolutely do with your companys finances to succeed in the New Year? Besides the obvious: increase revenues, of course. Gillian and Anne give you the top three to get you started. 3: Complement your skill set with partners. 2. Practice good financial hygiene from Day 1. And 1 -- Drum roll please! -- Set effective pricing models. Listen to learn more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian speaks with Susan Sigl, former CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association and co-founder/partner of SeaPoint Ventures about what you should do before you seek Venture Capital or Angel Investing. Also Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter explains what analysts do and how they can be of benefit to entrepreneurs.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We hear about "life coaches" and, of course sports coaches all the time. And here we are with a show called "CEO Coach". So just what does a CEO Coach do?Anne andGillian discuss the value CEO coaches bring to companies, and not just start ups. We talk about how we started and why. How Gillian was inspired to start this Internet Radio show six years ago when she was bringing up Moz with Rand. It's not about 'no fear', it's about managing fear wisely. CEO coaching doesn't solve problems for you, but instead helps you play your best. Think of college basketball; Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) at Duke doesnt set foot in the game -- his Blue Devils players make the shots and score.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Chris Brogan, New York times best selling author of this year's The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth and Just Start Here and six more books, and Founder and CEO of Owner Media Group talks with Anne about "owning the game you most want to win", as he puts it. Just what does he mean by that? Listen and find out. Hint; It all has to do with leadership and mission and owning your own choices, instead of those in somebody elses game. Chris talks about his new book Freaks and why he thought it important to write it for his children -- so they would understand the entrepreneurial ecology of the 21st century.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne andGillian welcome Jay Baer, author Of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype and President of Convince andConvert, a social media firm that works with major brands to take their marketing from good to great, and ranks the worlds number1 content marketing resource according to the Content Marketing Institute. Jay talks about Youtility marketing and its three facets, and gives examples, including one testing as TweetPee (you will have to listen to find out just what that is!)Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Special guest Bill Hunt, CEO and Founder of Back-Azimuth Consulting, and best-selling author has built and sold not one or two consultancies, but FIVE, one of them twice to the same company. Listen in as Gillian and Anne pick Bill's brain with the questions we have been longing to ask him. How to keep in front of potential clients. What your main assets are. Where's the tipping point in company growth? How do you get to 'Epiphany Marketing'? Bill Hunt has solid tips for those ready to break away from 'Working for the Man'.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Indias middle class has swelled to 350 million eager consumers with money in their pockets. If you're tempted to do business in India, here's what you must know about marketing there from Millie Khanna, CEO and Founder of Talespinners, a New Delhi social media agency, and also Entrepreneur in Residence at Outlines Venture Group. Millies business experience includes McCann Erickson Worldwide, and Bollywood. Millie knows India! Gillian and Anne get her talking: How does social media differ there? What content gets results? Does the same content get results in both North and South?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian discuss a looming and disturbing emerging trend (as reported by Marketplace recently) to edit COO positions out of corporate org charts, even though history shows us ALL successful companies have two at the top -- or not far from it -- with vastly different management styles. Think Right Brain / Left Brain. Both are essential to success. Find out why this matters to your start up and what to do about it.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss what you need to know about how your culture affects your sales. Sales success in the age of social media and SEO is different; the tools and toys HAVE changed the game. If you rely on new media for brand communication,the message you spread in your marketing must flow through to the personality, style, and delivery of your salesperson. Indeed, your sales person will drive your corporate culture. Learn how to align them with your corporate style.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne reports some interesting search marketing takeaways from her visit to PubCon 2014 in Las Vegas, that all entrpereneurs should be aware of, including:Authorship influence down entities up.Content marketing is king, not content -- budget as much to market your content as you do to create it.Links remain important, ability to disavow soon to end. Excluding may not work on pages with good links.Be proactive about pages indexed vs pages actually clicked on- dont waste Googles time. Proactively exclude old pages from indexing.Mobile, mobile and more mobile -- create direct contact with your customers via apps.Use research to make your mobile what customers want -- Zillow app a good example.Google is now making customer interface design decisions around smart phones. Serving different content based on device.Dont depend on Google to deliver all your traffic.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Before you raise that first round, listen to our guest Seattle securities lawyer John Myer explain how to stay clear of problems in raising capital -- crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and raising capital through accredited investors. Recent changes in the funding ecosystem are requiring new input from regulators, and some of that is not entirely clear yet.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Indeed, the lingo of start-up funding is so extensive that we couldnt fit it into just one episode. Gillian and Anne continue with more real funding world terms every start up CEO needs to know. Voting rights and dilution. Taxes on stock and options, plus taking an 83B election. Plus, options pools, why you need them and how to set them up.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Most industries have their own set of terminology, and the tribal speak of venture capital and funding has theirs too. Even though you are heads down getting your start up off the ground, if you are looking for money -- and who isnt? -- you need to know the lingo. Gillian and Anne un-box a few commonly used terms to see whats inside, from deal flow to pre-money to exit.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest Alejandro Cremades CEO of Onevest and founder of Rock the Post equity crowd-funding -- now merged with OneVest -- tells us how to talk to investors, and how to develop effective strategies for raising equity capital.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tech incubators have served as launch platforms for many startups. Guest Gene Ehrbar directs on at ISITE DEsign on Portland, Oregon. He explains how the incubator environment serves entrepreneurs and what start ups need to do to get involved.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Just when you thought it was safe to launch, our guest expert Raj Shah of Palo Alto Networks explains how to protect your company and your IP, including some tips you may find surprising.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Communicating your companys information the right way is critical to efficiency and effectiveness. Gillian and Anne lay out a plan for what to communicate andhow for maximum performance.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Marie Moore of Moore Group at Morgan Stanley in Dallas tells us what everyone starting a company needs to know about investing . . . and you don't need to wait for the Big Cash Out. In fact, you need to start planning from the beginning and build a relationship with a trusted advisor. Marie gives some pointers on how to do that so you are ready for your success. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss how critical it is to market to real people, not just personas. What ways must you find to engage your customers where they are to build your brand community, your essential element for success in21st century marketing.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Greg Bustin joins Anne and Gillian to talk about his book Accountability, the Key to Driving a High Performance Culture. Greg talks about the research in his book and his tips for raising accountability in your company. Find out what the seven pillars of accountability are and how they set your culture on the road to success.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne talk with Meridith Fishkin, a futurist consultant who predicted, among other trends the bebe craze for French fashion, Japanese anime adoption in the US, and the steam punk art movement. Find out what futurists can do for your business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne and Gillian chat with Martha de la Torre, founder and CEO of EC Hispanic Media about launching successful publications for a fast-growing minority market and being a Reluctant Entrepreneur. Her company publishes El Classificado, Quinceanera and six other publications online and in print for Hispanic readers in the US and Mexico.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne talk to Ben Fisher about the best ways to make the most of Google Plus for you business. Fisher runs SteadyDemand.com, a Google Plus Band Management consultant. Take His 30-day challenge on Google Plus and see how far you get.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What metrics must you absolutely track to determine if you are on the right path to success? Gillian and Anne discuss what to track, how to track it, and most importantly what to do with the data you collect to make decisions that matter.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A different kind of IQ has been funding buzz of late. Just what is an Investability Quotient and how do you find yours? Gillian and Anne discuss the elements that go into this calculation and how you can improve yours before you reach out to investors.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

While starting a company isnt exactly like having a baby, it helps in both cases to be prepared for what to expect as you step out into brave new territory. Gillian and Anne discuss the main such events, attitudes and signposts youll want to keep in mind, so you can hang onto you sanity as well a s your start-up.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian chats with Anselm Bossacoma, a government official in Catalonia, about what resources host governments make available to help you set up businesses in their countries. Hear how to navigate regulatory and other requirements for smooth sailing in new waters.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne talks with Matt Roberts, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Linkdex about building a company around an enterprise SAAS for digital marketing. Matt discusses the factors that helped Linkdex become a worldwide award-winning success in just three and a half years. Listen and learn what success feels like and how to get there.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian andAnnediscuss the basics of multi-language multi-country web sites and SEO, and busting a few myths along the way. Expanding your market overseas? You need to hear this, based onAnnes book Global Search Engine Marketing (Pearson Biz Tech 2012).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

CPA Jeff Mock of CPA Consulting explain to Gillian and Anne key accounting basics every founder should know before launching a startup. How much do you need to spend to set up your books for growing successfully. How to deal with banks and report for GAP, the IRS and monitor your day-to-day business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking Insurance 101 for StartUps as Gillian and Anne discussAdvanced Insurance Issues for Startups with Jim Holm, President and CEO of EnhancedInsurance.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anne asks Gillian about her experience inPersonal branding for early stage startup CEOs. Gillian recalls her work at Moz onbuilding personal and corporate brands. She also sharesthe drawbacks to building a personal brand and movingthe personal brand to the corporate brand.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Building consortiums to grow your company as Anne and Gillian discuss how to leverage partners to expanded your access to more business or resources. How do you find the right partners, and what makes for a happy, productive and mutually profitable relationship. Is this a biz-dev strategy that would work for your business?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Before You Seek Venture Capital or Angel Investing, listen as Gillian speaks withSusan Sigl, former CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association and co-founder/partner of SeaPoint Ventures.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Planned Spontaneity: Chaos to Order and Complexity to Clarity asMarisa Smith, the Founder and CEO of TheWhole Brain Group,shares how to integrate an operating system to scale your consultancy.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Building an Inbound Marketing Consultancy with  Michael Reynolds, an 18 year consultancy in Indianapolis shares his tips for managing a fast growing company. Gillian and Anne join us on location at the Tampa Digital Mastermind Group (#DGMtampa), a semi-annual gathering of leaders of fast-growing digital marketing companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Anne discuss10 Things to Do to Avoid Making Stupid Stress-Related Mistakes. Theyadd their own tips for entrepreneurs and explain why stress leads to other issues which lead to notoriously poor decisions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Early Stage Cash Flow Management. Managing income AND outflow will smooth our your cash-flow in the tough early days of startup. Get ideas for how to package and sell products and services, as well as tips on when to purchase, when to lease, and how to get the best deals.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Frictionless growth with master startup entrepreneur Michael Weissman, CEO of Synqy.com,a leading Internet marketing technology that adds deep interactivity and engagement to digital images.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Find Your Target Market: Don't Wait for Them to Find You!Who are the most likely people to by your product? Gillian and Anne discuss how you shouldID your initial buyers and future buyers?Where do they hang out whether Online of offline and how to ID their communities, activities, interests, needs, and the places that already serve them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Litmus Test for your Startup Ideas asGillian and Anne ask questions you should be asking before you spend time and money building out a startup idea.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Discussing Accounting and Bookkeeping Best Practices asGillian and Anne discusses why you should hire employees because of the need of people based on Knowing What You Know or Dont Know. They also describe the importance of hiring an accountant and bookkeeper in time for the 2014 tax season.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Start Your Company Off to a Good New Year Start: Execute, Evaluate, and Energize.  Gillian offers some New Years entrepreneurial takeaways alongside new co-host Anne Kennedy.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Indeed, the lingo of start-up funding is so extensive that we couldnt fit it into just one episode. Gillian and Anne continue with more real funding world terms every start up CEO needs to know. Voting rights and dilution. Taxes on stock and options, plus taking an 83B election. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Packaging Products and Services for Target Markets as Gilliantalks about looking at IP, products and services from the customer-value viewpoint. This one is for the wizards who have trouble seeing things from the consumer side.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Business Metrics: Tracking data that matters as Gillian tells us what to track and what to trash so you can betterlearn the importance ofdataand how to use it.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking about the Components and Uses of a Good Executive Summary as Gillian lays out what you should include, plus how you can make sure you understand how anexecutive summary is used to sell, not to describe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bootstrapping Ideas - How to Get Your Startup off the Ground Without Funding. Gillian offers way to help you start your business without going after an angel investor or venture capital.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What Entrepreneurs Needs to Know Before They Make That First Exit as Gillian speaks Todd Butson, Financial Advisor, Senior Investment Management Consultant at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management about best practices for your exit strategy.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sharing the Best Time Saving Tips for Startup Entrepreneurs as Gillian , for being efficient and for getting the most out of your day. She shares tips on finance, your calendar, booking appointments, staffing, mentorship and assistant outsourcing.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Startup trends how does your startup fit into the changing landscape? Beyond Disruptive technologies and Innovative Companies, what questions should you ask regarding your startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Founding Your Company - When, With Whom, and How to Fund It. Gillian refers to Noam Wassermans book on things to think about BEFORE you start your company entitled The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Women in Startup Entrepreneurship and in the C Suite of Growing Companies as Gilian discusses how more and more women set out on the journey to become successful founders and CEOs of their own companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Connection Between Corporate Culture and Work Environment as Gillian discusses what makes a great working environment. She also discusses how the work environment affects the structure of an organizations culture.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How To Close a Deal for a Services Business. Taking you through a LIVE pitch as Gillian and Nina are back for another installment of Keeping it Real.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

University Degree or Whats Best for You, Your kids, Entrepreneurs and Startup Employees. Gillian helps us understand the educational levels needed involving all parties with the help of guest host Nina Price in this Keeping it Real Edition.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Building a Brand for Your Business as Gilian explains how small businesses as they enter the marketplace, and now it is more important than ever to set your business apart.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Getting Executive Summaries, Pitch Decks and Business Plans Right. Gillian explains how to make a great first impression by getting Executive Summaries, Pitch Decks and Business Plans done right.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Pivoting, Innovating and Bringing Your Team Along With You. Gillian offers some takeaways on When It Is Time To Pivot and Why Some Startups Must Pivot to Succeed.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Board of Advisors: How to Find Them, LeverageThem and Compensate Them. Gillian gives you the basics on How to set up a board of advisors to help you run your business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) To Track - Whats Important and Whats Not. Gillian explains what to track so your company will be able to make adjustments to various strategies and budgets.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Maintaining Startup Culture With a Fast Growing Company as Steve Gandara of Excellent Cultures talks about maintaining your startup culture as your company grows at breakneck speed.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hiring your First C-Suite; When and How to Hire Your Staff of Corporate Level Executives. Gillian welcomes International Search Strategist and Author Anne Kennedy. Anne explains how trust and timing is important when making this important step.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Personal Branding for Startup Entrepreneurs. How to build trust with Angels and VCs? Gillian discusses why you should have your personal branding set before your company does. Learn how to get to past this surface salesmanship.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian speaks with Luz Ferndez del Rey, Business Services Manager at Tecnocampus MatarMaresme about the possibility for startups to start new their business in Spain just outside of Barcelona at TecnoCampus.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Formulating Mission, Vision, and Core Values for your Startup as Gillian breaks down what you should do as a Startup to create your company mission statement, the big picture your company plans to achieve, how you will achieve it and how you will approach your clientele.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian speaks with Brett Heising, the Founder/CEO of Brett Approved, a travel website dedicated to helping physically challenged/disabled travelers make informed travel-related decisions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to Get Your First 100 Customers. Gillian offers some tips on using Low and No-Cost Marketing Ideas for Super Early Stage Startups.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guerilla Marketing for Early Stage Startups as Gillian discusses ways early stage, web-based businesses can move the needle without spending a fortune.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Discussing best practices for building a co-working space as Gillian speaks with Brian Howe and Jacob Colker, the founders of the Hub in Seattle. The Hub promotes itself for Supporting imagination and innovation in the great city of Seattle.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Women in Entrepreneurship as Gillian takes a thoughtful look at issues distinct to being a woman entrepreneur, who are at the helm of increasing numbers of U.S. businesses.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Managing Your Schedule as a Startup CEO is a matter of managing time and resources. Gillian offers some tips and takes from her vast CEO experience to offer some sage advice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tips for Entrepreneurs on Surviving Tax Season as Gillian discusses how to deal with taxes, assess financials and learn the best ways to manage to get through every tax season.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking Serial Entrepreneurship and Finding Balance as Gillian speaks with Lennart Svandberg of Leadsius.Com and founder of the IMC conference series. Lennart takes us how he has transitioned from conference organizing to running a software startup in the Marketing Automation field.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Learn What Entrepreneurs Should Look for in an Attorney as Outsourced General Counsel and Seed Stage Attorney to Startups Tolis Dimopoulos, the founder and managing attorney of Sophos Law, offers some tips for entrepreneurs around understanding what look for in an attorney.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Looking into Conscious Company Incubators, which strives to be environmentally conscious, energy conscious, health conscious, conscious of sustainability, of community, and even conscious of consumption itself. We learn about one of these companies with Michael Luni Libes, the founder and managing director of Fledge.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Cindy Todd, CEO of Snohomish Soap talks to Gillian about Entrepreneurship of Necessity... and building a global social enterprise from it.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Telecommuting While Maintaining a Thriving Business as Gillian and Nina speak with Brandy Shapiro-Babin, the President and Co-founder of WebmasterRadio.FM. She shares her story on how she broke out of workaholic routines and confinement to work, to travel more and make more time for friends, family and personal growth.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Angel Fund Deal Flow and The Companies That Get Funded with Kate DesRosier, a former Angel Fund Deal Flow Manager, who is currently head of Operations for the Dealflow Manager at ZINO Society. Kate shares with Gillian her observations on the companies who got funded and why they did.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Looking at trends to find your entrepreneurial idea or validate the one you have. Gillian offers her expertise and makes some recommendations so that may discover Your Next Revolutionary Business Idea.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Making your business more FUND-able. Gillian offers ways to give your startup business some traction and fundability to investors and overall making your business investor friendly.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Startups: How to think about Emerging Market Opportunities. Nina Price joins Gillian to talk about the lessons learned about how entrepreneurs should think about emerging markets. Gillian returns following an extended excursion to India throughout the month of January.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Using Feng Shui For Business as Nina speaks with Interior Designer and Environmental Consultant Linda Lenore. Linda explains how learning Feng Shui principles can increase your profits through additional expertise, niche marketing and cultural awareness.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Preventing Flu Season From Affecting Business, Nina explains how to avoid the flu from halting your companys success. She explains how remedies like accunpuncture and Chinese medicine can help keep your business going in the midst of the flu outbreakAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

January is National Get Organized Month. Learn how to get your business organized for success with guest host Nina Price.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Learn what it takes to retain senior level experienced employees as Gillian features another Keeping it real segment with Nina Price. Nina shares best practices for retaining older and experienced employees.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Best Practices for Hiring, Building, and Mentoring a Successful Sales Force as Gillian speaks with Geoffrey Muessig, EVP/Chief Marketing Officer for Pitt Ohio Express, a transportation solutions provider specializing in trucking services. He discusses How to Build a Successful Sales Team.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Keeping it real as Gillian welcomes back Nina Price to discuss managing end of year work/family obligations. They discuss whats critical, whats not in business and personal schedule and prioritizing so we know what we can let slide as things pile onto the calendar.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Entrepreneur funding options stem from unlikely places as we learn with Russell Gould from Wonga, a British digital finance company offering short term loans to consumers and now businesses which operates in the UK, South Africa and Canada.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian presents some Resources to Help Kickstart Your Startup consisiting of free tools, class syllabi, presentations, books, lectures, videos based on some articles featured on VentureBeat, the European Commission, Score.org and StartupWeekend.org.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking Business Intelligence and How to leverage technology and best practices to deliver management insight from enterprise applications and data with the COO of WasteWeb, UK Entrepreneur Jonathan Saunders.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Top 10 Tech Trends for 2013: from mobile to big data, what CEOs need to keep an eye on. Gillian takes us through an article published by Forbes on the subject based on findings from the Gartner Group.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Content Marketing Strategies with a New Media Approach To Bring In New Customers as Gillian interviews New Media Consultant/Peabody Award Winning Network News TV Reporter Robert Riggs.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

8 Signs You've Found Your Life's Work? Gillian follows up from her How to know if you're an entrepreneur discussion last episode by referring to a very informative Fast Company article.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to Know if You Are an Entrepreneur. Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to start a business? Are you really living the entrepreneurial life? Gillian offers a few ways to know for sure.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the Incubator. What Do You Do First? From getting the most out of networking, and avoiding the distractions, Gillian offers some insight so that you are prepared to know what to start doing once you are inside the incubator.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What To Look For as an Entrepreneur in an Incubator as Gillian references a TechCrunch article entitled 90 Percent Of Incubators And Accelerators Will Fail And Thats Just Fine For America And The World.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Nina discuss Seasonal Affective Disorder and the change of the seasons. How it affects CEOs, their teams, and what to do about it. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a kind of depression that occurs at a certain time of the year, usually in the winter.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses getting your financial books in an organized manner for the end of 2012. She explains how doing this answers the questions Are you making money, or losing it, and how much? Is your business on sound financial ground, or are troubles lurking ahead?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The next big thing: the ideas that are being funded today. How does YOUR big idea fit in? Gillian discusses ways to Making Your Idea The Next Big Thing.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Early stage startup fund raising. From startup weekends to entrepreneurial contests, the criteria is different. Gillian introduces us to some valuable information on how whom you may be able to reach out to in your area.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Understanding Dividends and other investment appreciation strategies for business and personal investment with John Corby of Boston Private Bank.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses how startups can leverage online communities to promote their new businesses and products and build mindshare and marketshare in advance of funding.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian welcomes back Nina Price to look back on the first 100 episodes of CEO Coach and focus on the CEO him or herself. They discuss the risks that CEO must over overcome to achieve in their space.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

First-Time Startup Entrepreneurs Need to Get Things Done. Gillian refers to a TechCrunch article where a write discusses how he calls out all entrepreneurs that have began working on a startup to stop slacking off.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to Blow Up a Start Up - The Biggest Financing Pitfall for Entrepreneurs is a Forbes article that Gillian refers to on this episode. Gillian discusses some of the sections stated in the article including crowdfunding, equity, debt and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Education for Tech Sectors with the Dean of Continuing Education at Bellevue College Janis Machala. She shows us how she uses her blend of experience to advance entrepreneurship by working with technology firms.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Is your startup idea going to make it big? Check it against characteristics of big winners. Gillian explains disruptive technologies and whether or not your idea is your ticket to the billion dollar exit.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Where to Start: From Startup Weekend to funding online, Gillian shares with listeners some resources to begin your entrepreneurial journey.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Issues of Legacy as Gillian examines and discusses the value of your exit from of a business you have founded and how you transition to your next business venture.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Learn about Startup Technology and what every business person needs to know about technology in their startup, as Gillian speaks with ith Nelly Yusupova, CTO Webgrrls.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

US Jobs act and startup investments, learn what you should know as Gillian speaks with Seattle based attorney John Myer.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Investing tactics with John Corby of Boston Private Bank. Learn what to think about when you finally have some liquidity or money in the bank.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking International Management Development with Arthine Cossey van Duyne, the Vice Consul, Creative Media and Entertainment with the British Consulate in San Francisco.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Everything you wanted to know about stock options, but no one would tell you as Gillian speaks with Peter Weiss, President of American Outlook.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Financial Issues: What should CEO's think about before they are ready to sell or take a partial exit from their company? John Corby of Boston Private Bank frames the questions you should ask yourself.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What CEOs Need to Know About Domains as Gillian interviews the Compliance Director at ICM Registry LLC and host of WebmasterRadio.FM series Domain Masters, Victor Pitts. They discuss best practices for vetting and buying domain names, understanding of TLDs, gTLDs and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian shares with us her tips for Spring Cleaning for Entrepreneurs: The Secrets of Super-Productivity.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian speaks with Susan Sigl, CEO of Washington Technology Industry Association on services for enterpreneurs in the US and around the globe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Segmenting intellectual property into 3D matrices as Gillian speaks with Aaron Kahlow, CEO of Online Marketing Institute.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Secrets to a Successful Transition as we learn secrets to successful transition as Gillian interviews Suzanne McDonald, Chief Content Strategist at Designated Editor, a sole proprietor who left corporate work to be an entrepreneur.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Managing the message inside and out of your office. Gillian explains this concept and offers her expertise.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses The Concept of Picking Up Pennies, or in other words those projects or ideas that you come up with that you choose to do or not do, and if it is worth doing it.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Keeping Focused on your Business as Gillian shows listeners ways for keeping you head above water and staying focused on your goals during hard times.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Great Ideas for Building Startups in 2012 as Gillian offers some expert advice on what it actually takes to build a successful startup.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian runs down a Top 10 Starter List for Entrepreneurs to help you discover the markets, opportunities and trends to help meet and exceed your goals.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What is She thinking? Gillian explains why women entrepreneurs still deal with more non-business issues than men.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Lessons from Venture Capitalists: What do we want to see in a CEO before we fund? Gillian runs down a checklist of what VCs are looking for from you.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Examining The Mindset of a Successful CEO as Gillian takes a look at the attributes of those who succeed at building their ideas into profitable companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian learns about Internet Marketing in India with several SEO and PPC entrepreneurs on location from Ahmedabad, India.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

From making the pitch to closing the deal, Gillian takes a look inside the sales process. She also discusses best practices for engaging with current and potential clients.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Self funded growth and how to grow revenue without a marketing budget. as Gillian interviews with the co-founder and President of Slingshot SEO, Kevin Bailey.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What Women Entrepreneurs Want to Know: Is entrepreneurship a different experience for women than it is for men?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Early Day Company Development With Jeremy Dearringer from Slingshot SEO. Jeremy takes us through the company beginnings, challenges and their expansion to enterprise growth.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bringing a Company to the Next Level as Gillian has a conversation with Jay Love, CEO Slingshot SEO, a SEO agency that helps customers increase sales through various Web search strategies that is listed in the INC 5000.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Finding time to be the CEO. Gillian lays out ways of prioritizing workday tasks and some ideas for being more effiicient. She provides some tools for effective CEO Time Management.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

New gTLDs. The online entrepreneurial playing field is shifting.... again. Gillian breaks down Learn about the new TLDs or Top Level Domains, the costs, and the ramifications for your business.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses building, repairing and protecting personal and corporate credit with Miriam Joy, CEO of Blobes.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

International tax issues: If you a're going to expand outside your country, you are going to need some help. Gillian brings us that help with Michael Clarke, CFO of Virtual Subsidiary.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses Managing Credit and Financing for Early Startups with the Business Development Manager at VIOVI dba Obiolla Corporation, Miriam Joy Hemmons.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian shares her insight on what you can do to manage fast paced growth from a small team to inter-department communications. How to create accountability, and urgency while maintaining control of your expanding team.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Creative Ways to Get Help When You Desperately Need It But Can’t Afford It. Gillian offers us some staffing solutions as she broadcasts on location from the Wappow Search and Social Conference in Hawaii.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Scaling a technology-consulting hybrid company with Eddie Coleman, CEO Reputation Accelator. They cover pricing, cost allocation and growth investment.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to Fire and/or Let a Team Member Go: Parting ways well builds current and future value for your company. Understand how to do it well.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to get your clients to tell you what they want to buy and how much they want to pay for it. Gillian shares her process for getting info out of Moz' key clients and how it helps grow the company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How to fund an International expansion with Rob Oliphant of Virtual Subsidiary Capital or v-sub.com, whose company offers services services that offers clients and partners focus on core competencies while building international organizations into profitability and sustainability.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian talks about Reputation Marketing: Give your company a reputation to live up to... then advertise it. With Eddie Coleman, CEO of Reputation Accelerator.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Never start a business without knowing your exit. Gillian takes us through finding additional value in consultancies and understanding multiples in sale prices of companies.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Signals to watch for and factors to consider when deciding whether it's time to go International' as Gillian gathers some international knowledge with Rob Oliphant of V-sub.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian gives her top strategies for developing community from the ground up or improving on what may already be there. From the small start up, to mid-market.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian talks about what happens AFTER you make an Angel Pitch with Bryan Brewer, CEO Business Plans NW.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bryan Brewer, Founder & CEO of Business Plans NW, talks with Gillian about the necessary components of any potential business plan.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses International Business Issues, and the costs and process of setting up an international sales or marketing office, with Robert Oliphant, CEO of v-sub.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses The Top 10 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Seeking Angel Investment with Bryan Brewer, CEO of BizPlansNW.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian takes us through the path of building a solid business using the Freemium Model as with Roy Weissman of BuildMySiteForFree.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Service Providers in the Start Up World, Are They Worth The Money? Also, Gillian tells us how to build a deck for presenting to Angel Investors - slide by slide instructions: what to include, what order to use, & how to close.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

No Excuses! Overcoming hurdles to build your company: Interview with an amazing micro startup CEO, Paridon Williams, the author of 50 Ways to Help Another.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian speaks with Jonathan Martin, CEO of CoolBlueLogo. What to charge, how to sell, when to get an office. Hear how a consultancy gets off the ground.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What Angels Say When You Leave the Room. How to put a deck together, so Angels are more likely to invest in your company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What are the Top 10 things Angels and Venture Capitalists want to hear from you and in your pitch. Gillian discusses those and offers tips on your approach, appearance and expectations.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Funding! The CEO Coach finds over USD $100k in funding opportunities for startups and existing SMEs in the EU. Theo Lynn, Director of the Link Research Center at Dublin City University and Director of Industry Engagement at the business school talks about the Next Generation Management program.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What exactly is the difference between a good entrepreneur and a good manager? Is it as simple as having a goal? Or is it the way you approach the end goal? Gillian and Nina break down and discuss just where an individual may be slotted into each category.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Discover Innovative List Building Tactics by way of Facebook, LinkedIn, and other vertical market social media sites. We also explore the forums and places where people in your business hang out, and how you could share the event with others to increase your reach?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian talks with Nina Price about the facts, myths, and tips about the connection between being physically and mentally prepared for business. Whether needing a coach or not, or even if being sick does or does not have an effect on sales calls.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking Entrepreneurial Startups with Ben Fisher, the VP of Marketing and Business Development with imSMB, which specializes in SMB Small Business Web hosting, WebSite Design and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Virtual CFOs provide the services of a Chief Financial Officer when, and only when you need them. Guest Earl Bell, Managing Director of vCFO explains this new adaptation to an old concept.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian discusses Using a Virtual Assistant with guests Stephan Spencer and Renee Nielsen. They discuss when to get one, how to know when you need one (will they make you more money if you have one), how to choose one, what they might do for you, and how to make it affordable (so you make more than you spend).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Inspirations from Super Bowl Commercials lead into a discussion over whether small business owners take ideas to replicate business models based on the dotCom companies that market themselves by way of expensive Super Bowl commercials.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talking about the issue of hiring older employees in a younger company. Are you comfortable hiring someone older than you? Canyou supervise older folks as well as younger folks? Could you work for a younger boss? Gillian and Nina discuss.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Offline traditional media, products and services and how they have gone online. Gillian and Nina look into analyzing what can be utilized online for better exposure out of its traditional state.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Offline traditional media, products and services and how they have gone online. Gillian and Nina look into analyzing what can be utilized online for better exposure out of its traditional state.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Managing Events and Conferences with Jenn Matthews, SEO Goddess and managing partner of Wappow! She answers questions like...How do you market for your events? How do you get sponsors? What venues do you choose and how do they help you lower costs? How do balance quality of the product/experience to your attendees and sponsors while keeping those costs down?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

More on Creating and Optimizing online videos for search, social media, and mobile devices, as Robert tells us how he handles all the stresses and requirements of his business on a personal level.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Creating and Optimizing online videos for search, social media, and mobile devices, Robert Riggs tells us how he handles all the stresses and requirements of his business on a personal level.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Top 6 things to do this week to set up for success in 2011 which include: increasing your relationships every week, watching trends online, metrics analysis action , pivot and reviewing your message.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Last Minute Marketing Tips for End of 2010 are revealed. Gillian offers suggestions such as utilizing Facebook Advertising, A/B Testing, Selling Value and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Planning Ahead...Looking Back. Dont borrow - identify potential income streams in 2011. What worked this year? Where did you get money that you didnt expect or didnt expect was going to be quite so profitable? What made it different than what you were doing on other projects?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Top 6 End Of Year Mistakes Not To Make when wrapping up the books in 2010. What you really need to know about income and expenses, how to analyze the data, and how to determine what to do about it.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Spike Your Income While Lowering Your Holiday Stress. Find out how end of the year is a great time to review and figure out what needs fixing in your work.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

7 Deadly Mistakes People Make on Facebook as we learn these mistakes and more from Dennis Yu, CEO of advertising/marketing firm BlitzLocal.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One-on-One Networking Tips including how to identify who to network with and how to break the ice on a new conversation. Gillian and Nina talk about how to identify your target client.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Monetize Your Own Conference Experience by creating your own networking functions. Gillian and Nina discusses ways of creating meetups, tweetups and more by creating local and even regional networking events.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Curbing your Conference Expenses, plus Gillian looks beyond conference booths with ways of promoting your company at conventions with unconventional ideas.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Starting an Affiliate Program? Gillian and Nina welcome Joanna Lord with the SEOmoz affiliate program who fills us in on how to create your own startup affiliate program.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Networking 2.0 Best Practices for One on One Networking - what do you talk about? The role of the elevator pitch, how to create one that works. From setting goals for the meeting including knowing, liking, trusting and keep them interested in taking the next step.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Seeking 100 Success Stories, Gillian and Nina talk about life after a successful entrepreneurial experience. What to do after you move on from your first company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hiring Processes are featured, including what kind of personalities you should look for when you are in the middle of the hiring process and how important each new hire affects the corporate culture and structure as well as your clientele.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Business Startup Basics for starting your own consultancy? Gillian and Nina give us a basic checklist for folks setting out on their own for the first time. They discuss financial clarity from how much will you need to make it to how long will your startup months last before turning any profit, before you make enough to meet your personal and company overhead.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Personal and Corporate Brands Comparison, as Gillian and Nina talk about how companies position themselves, plus how the extension of your reach changes your brand from personal to corporate.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hiring Factors - what are you looking for when you hire a team member? Gillian offers some advice on what steps you should take in the hiring process to bring in the right candidate from character attributes to skill sets.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Foundation Ideas for Entrepreneurship as we discover the basics of starting up your own business. She discusses how you should find a niche market and fill it, by knowing who your buyers are going to be in advance, finding a business partner and more.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Explaining your technology in 7 seconds or less. Most technologists excel at 5-20 minute explanations of their exciting new technology. The world wants to know Whats in it for me? in 4-10 seconds. Tech entrepreneurs: dont miss this broadcast as we tell you how to boil your message down.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Overcoming Entrepreneurial Obstacles discussion with Landing Page Optimization Expert Tim Ash,who will be a keynote speaker at Search Engine Strategies in San Francisco later this month.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

HostingCon 2010 Recap as Gillian gives us an Inside Look at HostingCon 2010 by speaking with Kevin Gold, Director of Internet Marketing at iNET Interactive, and Chariman of the hosted services conference HostingCon 2010.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Providing for Local and Global Clientele with guests Doyal Bryant, the CEO of Universal Business Listing and Lisa Maier, the CEO of LocalDirective as Gillian joins us on location from Join us at HostingCon 2010, the premier conference and trade show for the hosted services industry.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Managing client expectations and how to transition the perception of you from independent contractor to consultancy and corporate status in the eyes of the customer.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Pricing Models, from hourly consulting to productization of services, Gillian and Nina talk about how to sell your services with more profit and less effort. This broadcast covers how to create service packages, adding products to increase the value of your services, growing with product vs employees, and using e-books and audio to sell more effectively.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Insurance and the Small Business Discussion as Gillian and Nina welcome back insurance agent Dennis Klemmer. They discuss the finer points of Errors and Omissions claims and how they effect small business owners.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Creating Lifestyle Around Business. What kind of business do you want to create? What you do daily is dependent on whether you want a lifestyle business or an international brand leader or something in between. Gillian and Nina discuss tips for staying focused, setting goals, and structuring your day.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Structuring Your Growing Company? Live, from the new SEOmozplex in Seattle, WA, SEOmom (Gillian Muessig) and Nina Price talk about how to decide what structure to use for your growing company. From sole proprietorship and Professional Corporations to Partnerships and C Corporations, you will learn how to make your decision. What should you protect? What advantages are you hoping to obtain? What deductions are useful to your situation? How and when should you prepare your company for outside investors? All these and other questions around making a decision about the legal formation of your company.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

CEO Coach, Gillian (aka SEOmom) and Nina Price, professional business and wellness coach, talk about corporate culture, hiring the right people, employees in transition, and giving up corporate life to start your own company. Webmaster Radios own technical wizard, Brasco joins the conversation, talking about the changing landscape of skill sets.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian offers a lesson on the process of sole proprietor entrepreneurship and the idea of firing under performing clients, determining who your best clients are, what you should charge your clients and how to prove your value to them.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gillian and Nina discuss continuing education for entrepreneurs. Meanwhile Gillian joins us on location from A4U Expo in Munich and she speaks with Matthew Woods, CEO of A4UExpo. He talks about why he started the show and how to decide when/whether to have a booth at an expo and how to make it successful.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dennis Klemmer is an insurance agent specializing in technology business and personal insurance issues. He discusses basic business insurance with Gillian and Nina including the necessities of slip and fall, errors and omissions, international work and so on. They also discuss the need for specific insurance needs like an in-house attorney and requirements for corporations and LLCs.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Introducing Gillian Muessig, President/Co-founder SEOmoz and Nina Price, Technology MBA, Business Coach, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner. Guest Matthew Finlay, GM of Rising Media, producers of emetrics and SMX conferences in Europe and Canada reveals how speakers are chosen, tips for seasoned speakers and encourages new voices to apply to speak.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy