4 Vital Conversations for Any Startup Team

via mashable.com

Countless startup ideas are hatched among friends, colleagues, college roommates and family members. A late-night discussion between two friends could potentially become the next social network or mobile ad platform.

These relationships can be great breeding grounds for new ideas and innovation, but navigating business management with friends or family members can also be tricky. It's tempting to rush forward without anything in writing — after all, you know each other so well, you both want the same thing for your business, why waste time with the formalities?

While you may agree on everything today, issues will inevitably emerge. Maybe a friend gets married and decides it’s time to go back "to the office." Perhaps you’ll disagree over compensation, or whether to spend your whole marketing budget on a fancy launch.

Having some kind of partnership agreement in place from the start can be a helpful starting point to figure out any issues that arise down the road. It doesn’t need to be a fancy document, but your basic discussions should include four things.

Posted via email from Create | Inspire - DM2 Studios

Showcase of Creative and Great Examples of About the Team Pages

via onextrapixel.com

The team a business establishes and works with is as important as the company itself. People in general, but most importantly, your customers would like to know the people behind your company as this will give them an idea about their expertise and what they can expect from them. This is the reason why almost all businesses include some kind of about page such as About Us, About the Team or Meet the Team, etc.

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How to Make the Best Social Media Team for Your Business

via instantshift.com

The principles of social media are fairly simple, the execution takes manpower to monitor multiple sites, engage with users in creative ways, and respond to their posts. You can’t do it all by yourself. You need a team to make your social media soar to new heights.

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Star Wars Sports Team Logos

via hiconsumption.com

The Star Was franchise has inspired literally countless art pieces over the years, and yet somehow we are still able to find more creative pieces hitting the scene. David transformed some of our favorite characters from Star Wars into sports teams that hail from the character’s origins in the movies. The collection includes Tusken City Raiders, Mon Calamari Admirals, Planet Hoth Wampas, Darkside Emperors, Dagobah Swamp Force, Forest Moon Chiefs, Tatooine Sand Crawlers, Republic Rebels, and who could forget the Desert County Droids. You can purchase yours at his online store.

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Tips for Building Great Startups with a Small Team

via designm.ag

Not all startups will require a large team to get a product online and scale quickly. There are examples of single technical founders or even a team of 2-3 people building the initial frameworks for rapidly advancing Internet startups. You will see this type of startup more commonly in mobile app stores where the barrier to entry and profit margins are very high. But even websites and other startups can thrive in an environment with very few team members.

Posted via email from Create | Inspire - DM2 Studios

Tips for Building Great Startups with a Small Team

via designm.ag

Not all startups will require a large team to get a product online and scale quickly. There are examples of single technical founders or even a team of 2-3 people building the initial frameworks for rapidly advancing Internet startups. You will see this type of startup more commonly in mobile app stores where the barrier to entry and profit margins are very high. But even websites and other startups can thrive in an environment with very few team members.

Posted via email from Inspiration

Meet The Members Of Apple's Elite Industrial Design Team

via businessinsider.com

Christopher Stringer, a longtime member of Apple's industrial design team, had one of the most memorable moments of the ongoing patent trial when he revealed that most Apple products are initially designed by a small group of just 15 or 16 employees sitting around a kitchen table.

While Stringer didn't name names, that group is almost certainly Apple's elite Industrial Design Group. There are plenty of other designers who work at Apple, but this group literally gives shape to Apple's products.

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Five Secrets Of Companies That Build Great Teams

via techcrunch.com

As the name of a recent conference in San Francisco suggests, there’s a war for talent going on right now. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Over the last couple of years I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to many successful entrepreneurs and executives from some of the fastest-growing companies in the world. While the specifics of those conversations remain confidential, I’ve noticed some general trends that seem to separate the winners in the talent war from those who aren’t doing as well.

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7 Steps to Building Your Dream Team of Employees

via inc.com

Last September, just a few months into my tenure as CEO of Slingshot SEO, I introduced the concept of "Talent Mapping" to our management team. Though the idea and process of talent mapping were quite new to our young but ambitious team of leaders, they embraced the concepts and have since taken this strategy to new heights.

Here are seven steps we took to create a talent map for our business. They can be applied to many growing businesses. As steps are outlined below, their implications for business success will become apparent.

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Jeff Bezos' Exploration Team Just Found the Apollo 11 Rockets at the Bottom of The Ocean

via gizmodo.com

A Jeff Bezos-funded team of sea explorers has located the Apollo 11 rockets that helped get man get to the moon.

On July 16th, 1969, five F-1 rockets powered Apollo 11 off the ground with one and a half million pounds of thrust, and 32 million horsepower. A few minutes later, the first stage rockets detached from the space craft and plummeted 38 miles to the ocean.

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20 Legendary Athletes Who Finished Up With Another Team

via mentalfloss.com

On Wednesday, Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts officially parted ways after 14 seasons. We’ll soon find out where the four-time MVP, who choked up at his goodbye press conference, will resume his NFL career. When it comes to Hall of Famers who spent the majority of their careers with one franchise before retiring with another, the team that signs Manning hopes he’s more Joe Montana than Joe Namath. Here are several other greats who were once in Manning’s shoes.

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Team Building Activities That Actually Work

via openforum.com

You may be familiar with team-building events that promise to generate team spirit and a healthier company culture but actually produce annoyance and ill feelings. Like me, you may have suffered through a ropes course—or worse—but came no closer to your co-workers.

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What I learned from teaming up with Google

via gigaom.com

Recently, I was invited by Google to participate in “Mobilizing Mobile” in Mobile, Alabama. As part of Google’s Go Mobile initiative, the event demonstrated what happens when a city’s infrastructure and community goes mobile.

Below you’ll find four key take-aways from teaming up with Google. I believe they can be applied by any startup, in any industry.

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10 Proven Strategies of High-Performance Teams

via mashable.com

Who drives product innovation? The answer is small, entrepreneurial development teams — better known as “agile teams” in the high-tech industry.

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How To Create A Peak-Performance Employee Team

via openforum.com

Management can be defined as getting things done through others. To be a manager you must be an expert at persuading and influencing others to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They don't order people to do things—they persuade them to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines and agreed-upon standards of performance.

Posted via email from Inspiration

How To Create A Peak-Performance Employee Team

via openforum.com

Management can be defined as getting things done through others. To be a manager you must be an expert at persuading and influencing others to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They don't order people to do things—they persuade them to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines and agreed-upon standards of performance.

Posted via email from Inspiration

Is Los Angeles Getting an NFL Team?

via theweek.com

The Raiders and the Rams both fled Los Angeles in 1995, and in the subsequent 16 years, Tinseltown has gone without a football team. But finally, this dark period in the city's history may be coming to an end. This week, the L.A. City Council unanimously approved the financial framework of a deal between the city and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) to build a $1.2 billion, 72,000-seat football stadium in downtown Los Angeles near the Lakers' Staples Center. The proposed Farmers Field is still 10 months away from being a sure thing — an environmental impact report still needs to be completed — but construction could begin as soon as June 2012, with the stadium opening in September 2016. There's one other catch: The construction project can't begin in earnest until an existing NFL team agrees to move to L.A. So if the city signs up a team, it may not have to wait for the stadium to be built — football could be coming to a temporary home like the Rose Bowl or Coliseum as soon as next season. Is it time for pigskin lovers in the City of Angels to celebrate?

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