8 HACKS TO BECOME A BETTER ENTREPRENEUR

Entrepreneurs have a lot of responsibility on their hands. While trying to launch a startup, they also must manage a team and maybe figure out how make the perfect pitch to investors. Unfortunately, there are only so many pots of coffee to consume before the eager new business owner hits a wall.

But what if there were ways to make a person a better entrepreneur? A small tip or a fresh approach might boost your creativity, enhance productivity and help make you the lean, mean entrepreneur that you've always wanted to be.

Read on to discover some awesome hacks from my personal and company life and learn how to become better entrepreneur: 

1. Eat some brain food.

You’ve probably heard that saying “you are what you eat” thousands of times. But there’s a lot of truth to it. According to research, proper nutrition can raise productivity.

What should a balanced diet consist of? Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles discovered that the brain fires on all cylinders with foods containing omega-3 fatty acids (in salmon, kiwi and walnuts ) and folic acid (in spinach and orange juice).

2. Work by a window.

Separate research from Northwestern University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have found the natural light enhances both creativity and energy. 

3. Shed distractions.

While a smartphone and computer are essential tools, they can also be major distractions. To avoid this, consider putting your iPhone or Android device on "do not disturb" or "airplane" mode while working. Use an app like SelfControl to block distracting websites.

If a smartphone is left on, let calls go to voicemail and return calls at the end of the day. This technique helps me save almost an hour a day in productivity.  

4. Know that silence isn’t golden.

While noise is most certainly a distraction, so may be complete silence. According to research conducted by Ravi Mehta, Rui Zhu and Amar Cheema, a moderate amount of ambient noise (about 70 decibels) can enhance productivity and performance. Besides the free Wi-Fi and endless supply of caffeinated beverages, working at a coffee shop provides this perk..

According to other research, classical music can actually increase speed, creativity, improve your mood and prevent mistakes. And, it doesn’t always have to be classical music. Rock works, too.   

5. Don’t multitask.

You may think that by multitasking you’re being more productive and getting more things accomplished. Here’s the thing: Your brain can’t handle it. The human mind is only capable of working on no more than two tasks. If you try to do more than two-tasks, you’re taking the chance of making more errors.  

6. Promote "no meetings Wednesdays."

Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder and CEO of Asana, got this idea from Facebook, according to replies to a Quora thread that were compiled by Business Insider. Clear everyone’s schedule one day a week.  “This is an invaluable tool for ensuring you have some contiguous space to do project work,” Moskovitz said.

I have implemented this with members of my team. This has caused us over the past month to set up and enforce the rule that all meetings have to be on Tuesday or Thursday and none on Monday, Wednesday or Friday. 

7. Gaze at adorable animals.

Based on 2012 research by Hiroshi Nittono, Michiko Fukushima, Akihiro Yano and Hiroki Moriya, looking at photos of puppies or kittens can improve your mood and increase  productivity in certain ways. "Participants performed tasks requiring focused attention more carefully after viewing cute images," their study found.

8. Accept that you're not perfect.

If you’re a perfectionist, I’m going to be brutally honest you. Get over it. You aren’t perfect. And neither is your startup. The sooner you realize that the sooner you can get your product or service out to market -- instead of wasting valuable timing tinkering with something that will never live up to your unrealistic standards.

Though that might sounds a bit harsh, some research backs it up. Studies have found that professors who are perfectionists actually get less work done and aren’t as likely to get published.     

Whatever you do, becoming a better entrepreneur should always be the goal. So go to it, but do get some sleep: Research has found that "sleep deprivation costs American companies $63.2 billion a year in lost productivity,” The New York Times reported. Furthermore, studies have found that missing out on a good night’s rest can impair innovative and flexible decision thinking. In other words: How productive can you be if you lack of sleep?  

But don't sleep too late: A study of 367 students discovered that early risers do achieve more. Remember if you wake up before everyone else, you can limit your distractions and can be more productive.  

What additional tips have worked for you to become a better entrepreneur? SHARE ….

5 THINGS TO DO BEFORE BED THAT WILL JUMP START TOMORROW

Being effective as an entrepreneur is often about hard work, but even more importantly it’s about smart work. Great entrepreneurs know that time is limited and valuable, so they need to make the most of each waking hour.

There are many factors that contribute to working smart -- but planning and proper sleep are among the top performance increasers.

To maximize your time and efficiency, here are five essential and easy things you should do before bed that will make help transform your waking hours into super productivity.

1. Take a look at your calendar. As the saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. By reviewing your calendar the night before, you’ll know what’s ahead for the day so you can be prepared and plan for the best method to tackle your objectives. You’ll sleep better knowing that you’ve already planned for the day ahead and you’ll rise in the morning knowing that you’ve already taken care of the leg work to get a jump start on the day.

There’s another old saying, “If you don’t use your head, you’ll end up using your feet,” and that proverb goes a long way for productivity! Come up with a strategy the night before on how to tackle tomorrow.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISING: DESKTOPS WILL BE FOUND ONLY IN MUSEUMS

Reflect on the last 12 months of your life. Does it feel like time passed by much faster than in reality? And there is always more to do, right?

Information overload is driving many of us to seek new ways of distinguishing what matters from what doesn’t in an effort to create a truly personalized world. One innovation already addressing our overly taxed attention spans is what’s called discovery technology.

Platforms such as Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, Yelp and Facebook use intelligent, predictive algorithms to match people with things they want, from articles, movies and products to food, services and even other human beings.

Think of discovery as the connective tissue of the future Web. It helps people navigate options by cutting through the clutter. This service is hugely important to humanity, because our biggest asset in life is time, and we will never have enough time to read all the books on our shelves or listen to all the music we want to listen to. So in what order should we engage with things we never knew existed?

6 ELEMENTS EVERY BUSINESS WEBSITE NEEDS

With today’s tech-savvy consumer, a website is a given for any successful business -- regardless of size or industry.

Without a website, businesses won’t be taken seriously and likely will decrease their chances of being found by new customers. A well-designed website can also allow a small-business owner to compete with the big boys, leveling the playing field in an increasingly competitive consumer market.

Here are the six essential elements business owners need to think about when building or revamping a website:

1. Let everyone know what people think about the business. According to a study by BrightLocal, 85 percent of consumers read online reviews for local businesses -- up from 76 percent in 2012. As consumers continue to get more comfortable and familiar with reviews, they will become one of the leading generators, or losses, of new business.

Reserve a space on the website for reviews that highlight positive things customers are saying. Adding a plugin that allows visitors to add reviews directly on the site is great, but it is also fine to add a plugin from a third-party review service such as Yelp or Facebook.

It’s also important to have new and updated reviews, so train employees who directly interact with customers on ways to approach customers for reviews without being too abrasive.

2. Get social and connect. Customers like to have options to connect with businesses. Social-media channels not only give them those options, but different social-media channels also enable businesses to connect with different consumer groups as well. Including all active social channels a business is on is critical for a website.

3 BENEFITS IN PERSONALIZING A WEBSITE FOR VISITORS

Start discussing new website design trends, and most small business owners break out into a cold sweat. Indeed many design innovations have done little to increase revenue, and business websites have traditionally been difficult to manage and maintain.

But small business owners should not ignore the new options for personalized web content.  Large enterprises have been doing this for quite some time: Offering a different promotion based on the number of times a user has visited the website, targeting deals to a customer’s physical location or changing content based on an ad campaign URL parameter.

Until recently these types of personalization strategies required large budgets and substantial development time and resources, making it largely out of reach for most small businesses. 

Should small business owners add dynamic web content to their websites? Or is this just another passing fad like turning the mouse cursor into a kitten, blink text or elaborate Flash intros? Here are three reasons why every small business owner should consider adding dynamic content:

1. Increase sales and conversions.   

Presenting a customer with the right content, in the right way at the right time is critical for increasing sales. You wouldn’t try to sell customers in Los Angeles a snow shovel or those in Minneapolis beach balls for Christmas and expect a high sales volume. The bulk of small business websites remain painfully static, putting the obligation to navigate to a relevant product or service on the customer.      

Ensure that site visitors from Los Angeles see the webpages with beach balls and the buyers from Minneapolis see the sale on snow shovels and chances are you’re going to sell more of each. Research from My Buys and the e-tailing group has shown that 40 percent of consumers buy more from retailers who personalize their shopping experience across channels. People buy more from companies that tailor their messages and offerings to suit shoppers' specific needs.

POWERFUL WAYS TO OVERCOME CREATIVE BLOCK

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
- Maya Angelou

It’s 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night. You’ve been digging away for the past six hours and this might be your best work yet. You’re so close to breaking through -- then you hit a wall.

There’s not a single drop of creative juice left in your brain.

Does this sound like something you've experienced? If so, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

Whether we’re designing, writing or brainstorming the next big idea, we’ve all experienced creative block. The predicament of the creative process is something all of us face, yet few take the necessary actions to overcome it.

Keeping our creative juices flowing isn’t about picking the perfect color on Photoshop or writing the wittiest line for your article. It’s an essential component to innovation -- professionally and personally.

Throughout our lives, we have been told to “think outside of the box.” But thinking outside of the box implies that our inner creativity doesn’t exist within us already. Finding inspiration isn’t about stepping outside of our box, it’s about stretching our limits.

At Sketchfab, we’re always itching to find new and unique ways to stay ahead of the creative curve. We’ve dug deep on how the most creative minds around the world keep their creative juices flowing.

Here are powerful ways you can begin to keep your creative juices flowing:

Stop, Drop & Roll: No, there’s no fire. Except the one we’re burning inside our head. What we mean is: Stop what you’re doing, Drop your pen, and Roll out of the building.

EAST AFRICA TOPS AFRICA FOR INTERNET ACCESS & CONNECTIVITY

Kenya currently leads in African connectivity with the highest bandwidth per person on the continent, the fastest speeds, and some of the lowest internet costs, according to a presentation held by Liquid Telecom Kenya CEO Ben Roberts, at the EastAfrica.com conference in Nairobi.

“Investment in the continent’s connectivity is creating multiple benefits that Kenya demonstrates as a clear example of a virtuous circle, where each investment accelerates the next, with an ever increasing footprint of beneficiaries,” said Roberts.

Following on from the connection of the continent’s most concentrated cluster of undersea cables; the galloping development of the Kenyan Internet Exchange Point; the creation of thousands of Points of Presence by international and national service and content providers – delivering speedier content; and the achievement of the second cheapest internet costs on the continent, Kenya has now emerged in the top position in Africa for internet access.

“Kenya has achieved a confluence of infrastructure and provision that has positioned it with the highest growth in internet take-up compared to income per capita in Africa,” said Mr Roberts. “It has effectively become an outlier in its internet take-up, and seen Nairobi join Johannesburg as one of Africa’s two regional internet hubs.”

Research commissioned by the Internet Society and published in May last year further found that East Africa offers the lowest internet costs on the continent, with Kenya the cheapest in the region.

In its report on ‘Lifting Barriers to Internet Development in Africa”, the Internet Society found that Kenya had outperformed in surmounting a series of infrastructure barriers to arrive at its now emerging internet leadership.

The country has more undersea cables than any other nation on the East African coast, with government support having been directed at increasing access and participation by more carriers. The landing of the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), The East African Marine System (TEAMS), SEACOM and LION high-capacity submarine cables brought a 20-fold increase in international bandwidth in the country to 20Gbit per second.

APPLE WATCH - SQUARE SAPPHIRE DISPLAY, GOLD OPTION

One more thing! The Apple Watch is real – with a square screen and comes in 38mm and 42mm cases. There will be an 18 karat gold version but more affordable stainless steel and aluminum versions will be available too. The steel version will be called Watch Sport, the gold one will be Watch Edition.

All will have changeable wristbands, ceramic backs and sapphire screens. Six different bands will be available at launch.

The screen will not be always-on, it activates when you lift your wrist. The Glances feature lets you can swipe through pages of information on the touchscreen (hello, Android Wear).

The touch-screen is force-sensitive and you can add custom gestures (with swipes and presses).

Alternatively, you can use the digital crown to interact with the watch, including zooming in on the maps application.

Siri will of course work with the Apple Watch. The watch won't have you typing in answers, it will recognize questions from incoming messages and offer appropriate responses. Or you could use Siri for voice dictation.

Yet another way to communicate is with emoji or quick sketches on the touchscreen.

APPLE OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES THE IPHONE 6 PLUS WITH A 5.5" DISPLAY

The Apple iPhone 6 Plus is now official. It's built around a 5.5" IPS LCD display with an Retina HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels or, in other words 1080p). The pixel density is 400 ppi and iOS 8 has been tweaked to take full advantage of the larger display.

The back of the iPhone 6 Plus is made of anodized aluminum and the stainless steel frame of the phone ensures its rigidity.

The user interface has been optimized to take advantage of the larger screen and offers split-screen mode in several apps like earlierleaks suggested.

The new 64-bit A8 chip that powers the Apple iPhone 6 Plus is built using the 20nm manufacturing process. Thanks to this it's more power efficient, while still offering 25% more CPU power and 50% GPU boost.

The iPhone 6 Plus supports 20 LTE bands, but only 150Mbps cat4 LTE, rather than the latest 300Mbps Cat 6. On the positive side the phablet comes with VoLTE and Wi-Fi 802.11ac, which promises 3x faster Wi-Fi compared to the iPhone 5s. Wi-Fi calling is also a new feature, which will work on T-Mobile in the US and EE in the UK.

APPLE UNVEILS THE 4.7-INCH IPHONE 6 WITH RETINA HD SCREEN

Tim Cook took the stage at the start of today's event and almost immediately announced the new iPhone 6. The Apple iPhone 6 is based on iPod touch looks and has a 4.7" screen.

The screen is protected by "Ion-strengthened glass", which is curved around the edges for a more seamless experience when swiping. The screen itself is an LCD with "Retina HD," which translates to 750 x 1,334 pixels. This pushes the pixel density to 326ppi.

Despite the new resolution, apps will "just work" thanks to a desktop-class scaler. This will only be needed until devs update their apps to support the new resolution.

The 8MP iSight camera is back for a fourth year in a row. Apple claims the camera has been improved now - it still has 1.5µ pixels, but features phase detection autofocus and sits behind an f/2.2 aperture. There's no OIS though, it relies on digital stabilization. The camera can shoot panoramas up to 43MP.

The video resolution is kept at 1080p but the 60fps has now been promoted to the max FullHD resolution (up from 720p @ 60fps). Slo-mo video can shoot at 120fps and 240fps, but at a lower resolution.

The chassis is made of anodized aluminum with a stainless steel Apple logo. The body is just 6.9mm thick.

The Apple iPhone 6 is powered by a second-generation chipset, the Apple A8. It offers 25% more CPU power and 50% extra GPU oomph. The chipset is built on a power-efficient 20nm process, which also makes it 13% smaller physically than its A7 predecessor.

   
Three color options: Silver, Space Grey and Gold

The Apple iPhone 6 will cost $199 for the base 16GB model (with two-year contract). There's no 32GB model this year, $299 buys you 64GB instead and there's a $399 128GB version. Pre-orders start on September 12, the phones will ship on the 19th.

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