August
28, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you want to grow your business, adding a chatbot to your website is key. Think of all the messaging services people use on a daily basis; it’s the preferred way to communicate for many of us. According to eMarketer, 63 percent of customers surveyed said they were more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.

Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business

And that makes sense: Being able to help customer by answering their burning questions in real time is priceless, and chatbots today can communicate like real humans to build a trusting relationship between you and your customers. But . . . what if your chatbot could do more?  

The other day I was on a website and couldn’t figure out how to do something there, so I consulted the site’s chatbot. I was dutifully told: Go to menu, select my account, select “settings” and toggle the widget to the right.

But what if the bot, instead of telling me how to enable a setting, could instead have done it for me? And this is coming down the pike.

Once that level of service becomes the norm, chatbots will change the future of user experience (UX) in a big way. Here is how chatbots are changing UX for the better.

Improving customer onboarding

Chatbots can drastically improve the customer onboarding experience for companies that offer products or services that come with a learning curve. Whenever a user can’t figure out how to use your service, he or she will be able to communicate with your chatbot anytime to quickly solve the problem. And that outcome will reduce customer churn for your business.

For example, Heek is a chatbot that can build an entire website for you according to your users’ preferences.

Image source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/03/heek-is-a-chatbot-that-can-build-you-a-website/  

Not only will chatbots allow you to fix a problem for users, you’ll also be able to make those users aware of features they might not have known you offered. Many times, websites have so many options that customers end up getting confused and using only some of the features available to them. With a chatbot, you can easily make your customers aware of all the awesome features you offer and how they can use them effectively. That ability will let your customers get the most out of your product.

Related: Want Your Own Chatbot? Don’t Move Forward Without Taking These 3 Steps

Automating transactions and recommending products

You want it to be as convenient as possible for consumers to buy from you. A consumer may visit your website with something in mind but not be exactly sure what he or she wants; in that case, you can use chatbots to nudge the consumer into purchasing.

With chatbots, your customers won’t get frustrated browsing your site and not being able to find what they’re looking for, or fill out a long form to make an order. A chatbot can interact with those customers in a casual, friendly way to determine what they want and recommend featured products for them to choose from. And they won’t have to leave the chat to complete their order, either.

1-800-Flowers is an example: It uses a chatbot to take customer orders easily, asking their flower preference and providing bouquet recommendations and the greeting for the recipient.

Image Source: 1-800-Flowers chatbot. https://botsociety.io/blog/2018/03/chatbot-examples/

In fact, 1-800-Flowers reported that 70 percent of its orders through the chatbot were from new customers. When purchasing from your company is a breeze, your sales will sail through the roof.

Increasing the value of your service

When you are able to provide more value to your customers, they’ll return to you again and again. You can use chatbots to solve consumer pain points and increase the value of your product or service in a variety of ways. For example, a chatbot by the name of Roof AI, made for real estate agents, provides users with their very own AI real estate agent who can show them listings based on their preferences and budgets and can even start the selling process without the customer having to pick up the phone.

Another great example involves the language-learning app, Duolingo. Duolingo’s users asked the company for a way they could practice the conversational skills they’ve learned from the app, so the company created conversational bots that allow users to test out their new skills.

Source image: Duolingo Chatbot. http://bots.duolingo.com/

Your customers are the most important part of your business. If you want to grow your business, use a chatbot to provide users with added value that will make their lives easier and make you stand out from the competition.

Related: How to Create a Facebook Messenger Chatbot For Free Without Coding

Chatbots are evolving the way we interact with consumers. Don’t be left in your competition’s dust. Get ahead of the curve and start taking advantage of this awesome technology. Using chatbots will help you deliver better customer service, provide faster customer support and, overall, improve the user experience at your website.

August
27, 2018

1 min read

What is the secret ingredient that music legends like Jimi Hendrix, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen all shared while recording some of their most iconic work?

John Storyk.

John Storyk and Alicia Keys. 

Storyk is arguably the most famous recording studio designer in the world, whose company Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG) created everything from Hendrix’s Electric Lady Recording studio in New York City to Jazz at Lincoln Center. 

Related: 10 Crazy Effects Music Has on Your Brain

WSDG has been quite busy over the past decades, crafting nearly 4,000 facilities in America and around the world, and on the eve of the company’s 50th anniversary, Entrepreneur sat down with the storied Storyk to find out how he began his incredible musical journey.

Turns out, the key to his success? Boredom. Watch John’s story in the above video.

 

August
26, 2018

2 min read

How you present yourself says a lot about you, and much of that comes down to what you do with your hands. That’s especially true when speaking in front of an audience.

Related: Tips for Mastering Body Language and Confidence

According to a recent study, speakers whose TED Talks went viral used an average 465 hand gestures throughout their speeches, compared to the typical 272 hand gestures of speakers whose videos weren’t as popular. However, there’s an art and science behind effective hand gestures. If you really want to get people to listen to you, you’ve got to be using the right ones at the right times.

If you’re speaking on a subject of expertise and you have a strong directive to give, try the simple “I’m certain” pose by pointing your hands in front of you in order to accentuate a point and show confidence. To the contrary, in a scenario where you’re trying be honest and transparent with your audience, try opening up your palms. This makes the audience feel like you are opening up to them and have nothing to hide. Another way to show your soft side to an audience is by placing your hand on your heart. If you’re opening up about something emotional or trying to share something you truly believe in, a hand to the heart increases perception of honesty.

Related: 10 Body Language Tips Every Speaker Must Know (Infographic)

From finger counting to opening up your palms, check out Pound Place’s infographic below for more hand gestures to help get people to listen to you.  

August
25, 2018

2 min read

There’s no federal law when it comes to consumer protections regarding data breaches in the U.S. Laws vary by state. While some might be strict and others loose, it’s important to know what’s happening in your state and just how protected — or unprotected — you are.

Related: The Worst Data Breaches in the U.S., Ranked State by State

While laws might vary, they do share one thing in common — almost all states define a data breach as the “unauthorized acquisition of covered information that compromises security, integrity and confidentiality.” To break it down further, covered information usually includes first and last names along with social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, email addresses and passwords, credit card numbers and medical records.

When a breach is discovered, a majority of states require immediate notification, while states such as Alabama, Ohio, Vermont, Maryland and New Mexico allow a 45-day grace period. In Tennessee, people don’t have to be notified for up to 90 days. How you’re notified that you’ve been a victim of a data breach is another item that varies by state. Many states require written notice, and others allow telephone or electronic notices.

Related: How To Protect Your Small Business Against A Data Breach

So which states are the toughest on data breaches? Alabama, California, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina and Utah are some of the states with the strictest legislation. Arizona, Colorado and Hawaii stand somewhere in the middle, and on the other end of the spectrum are Mississippi and Kentucky, followed by Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arkansas.

To find out how well your state’s protecting you the effects of a data breach, check out Digital Guardian’s infographic below.

August
24, 2018

7 min read

In January 2018, more people Googled the term “meditation app” than any other recorded month. Although it’s no longer time for New Year’s resolutions, it’s never too late to invest in feeling cool, calm and collected.

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that meditation works — just look at the reviews section for any meditation studio, book or video. But, thanks in part to researchers from Johns Hopkins University, there’s also scientific evidence for the practice itself. They sorted through close to 19,000 meditation studies to pinpoint 47 that held up under their criteria for a well-designed study. Their subsequent conclusion: Mindfulness meditation programs could help improve levels of anxiety, depression and pain.

Looking to get in touch with your inner zen but don’t know where to begin? We’ve laid out five of the best meditation apps to try.  

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Calm

Image credit: Calm | Entrepreneur

Why We Love It: Calm was named Apple’s 2017 App of the Year for a reason. Its interface makes heavy use of picturesque landscapes in nature, and its more than 100 courses range from “7 Days of Calm” (an introduction to meditation) to “Body Scan” (learning to be more present) and “College Collection” (mindfulness 101 for students). Beginners can opt for seven-day programs, while more advanced users may gravitate towards the app’s 21-day offerings. And if you’re having trouble getting shut-eye? Calm has a collection of bedtime stories to lull you to sleep.

What Users Say: One reviewer writes, “I meditate using this app every single day… The scenes and background sounds are beautiful, and there are so many meditations to choose from. And it’s all cleanly organized, unlike some other meditation apps… I am noticing differences in my daily life as well. I am less impulsive, more peaceful, less angry.”

Another says, “After using this app, my sleep cycle has improved by leaps and bonus. I also keep more active and attentive throughout the day, and I don’t get easily tired.”

Best Place to Download: iPhone or Android, free or paid option ($12.99 per month or $59.99 per year)

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ZenFriend

Image credit: ZenFriend

Why We Love It: If your top consideration is simplicity, ZenFriend may very well be the meditation app for you. It offers a timer that begins and ends with a soft bell sound, as well as a meditation log where you can keep track of each session’s duration and your notes on how it went. Users can also opt to try out motivational challenges, like the “Starter’s Challenge” or the “10 Days in a Row Challenge.” ZenFriend’s top priority, however, is to connect users with a community of other meditators, with the option to share your progress in a worldwide news feed. The app’s paid version unlocks over 10 guided meditations.

What Users Say: One reviewer writes, “The whole app has a calming appearance and is intuitively navigate-able. I love the refreshing backdrop for the counter, the musical chimes to choose from, the vibrant community of meditators to observe… I haven’t missed a day.” Another says, “I have used ZenFriend now for several years and find it a solid companion for my meditation practice… Additionally, the guided meditations are a good kick-start if you are just getting started or want a change of pace.”

Best Place to Download: iPhone or Android, free or paid option ($1.16 per month or $11.70 per year)

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Headspace

Image credit: Headspace | Entrepreneur

Why We Love It: Headspace offers a host of different meditation courses — “Basics,” “Sadness,” “Restlessness” “Happiness” and “Balance,” to name a few — as well as instruction in mindful eating, managing anxiety and pain management. Users can choose between guided and unguided meditation, as well as different narrated sessions for working out, enjoying alone time or sleeping. And if you’re on the go when you experience something that threatens to lead to losing your temper, panicking or feeling overwhelmed, the app offers exercises for letting go and staying in the present moment.

What Users Say: One reviewer writes, “I’ve used the app for about a month now but found benefits after four days of use. It’s not some kooky zen thing to do — it’s better than any cup of coffee to perk you up… If you can find time to scroll through the nonsense on Facebook feeds, you can find time for this.” Another says, “Headspace is a no-frills, beautifully designed mindfulness app that I’ve incorporated into my life daily… This app has become an integral part of my morning routine. It’s the first thing I do after I wake up.”

Best Place to Download: iPhone or Android, free or paid ($12.99 per month or $95.88 per year)

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Timeless

Image credit: Timeless | Entrepreneur

Why We Love It: This app’s tagline is “made by meditators for meditators,” and it offers multi-session courses like “5 Mindful Mornings,” as well as guided sessions in categories like meditation essentials, breathing, emotional wellness, focus/vitality and sleep/nighttime. When you’d like to start meditating, a simply designed home screen prompts you to choose a duration — like 8, 12, 20 or 32 minutes — then begins and ends your session with a gong.

What Users Say: One reviewer writes, “This app is exceptional. The design is elegant and minimal, with great visuals and everything you need to learn, track and grow your meditation practice. I was really impressed with the quality of the guided meditation… I can’t stop recommending this app to my friends and family.” Another says, “The awareness it teaches is next to none. It has shown me how to calm down and relax my muscles, mind and body… If you take this app seriously and simply follow directions, I guarantee anyone will be satisfied.”

Best Place to Download: iPhone, free or paid ($15.99 per month or $71.99 per year)

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10% Happier

Image credit: 10% Happier | Entrepreneur

Why We Love It: In 2004, ABC anchor Dan Harris had a panic attack on live television. He calls the experience the most embarrassing day of his life, but it sparked the former skeptic’s personal discovery of what meditation can do. This app’s name comes from Harris’s own estimate that meditation can make you 10 percent happier, and it has a spot-on tagline: “meditation for fidgety skeptics.” As per the app’s target audience, it promises “no robes” and “no crystals.” Signing up for the free trial involves choosing answers to questions like why you’re interested in meditating and what, if anything, has stopped you in the past. Then, it offers different goal-based meditations and courses — “Less Anxious,” “Rage Relief,” “Communication” — with upwards of 14 different teachers to choose from.

What Users Say: One reviewer writes, “Having a meditation tracker is a nice reminder of how much time I’ve put into this practice, and after 537 minutes I’m happy to say that it has improved the quality of my life and daily routine, and this is just week 3.5. It’s particularly helpful to have different types of practices for different mind states like difficult emotions, gratitude and winding down for sleep.” Another says, “It’s real, straight to the point and helpful… I’ve meditated every day since I downloaded it.”

Best Place to Download: iPhone or Android, free or paid ($49.99 per six-month period or $99.99 per year)

Slater in Thailand on his juice cleanse.

Image credit: Hayden Slater

Slater planned to spend a few months traveling through Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Japan, but he couldn’t have known embarking on the trip — and his subsequent juice cleanse — would change his life.

Returning to L.A. — and HBO — was an adjustment. Slater was filled with fear because, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself yet, the industry seemed unattractive to him for the first time. The battle between creatives and executives drained him, and he could feel what he had loved about the industry — brainstorming ideas, building them out, filming, editing — “fizzing away quickly.” Those things were largely inextricable from the industry’s trademark “bullshit,” he says, and after what he’d discovered in his time away, he wasn’t even sure he cared about them anymore.

A light bulb went off in Slater’s mind, sparking his idea to take his newfound passion for health and pursue it professionally. He wasn’t sure how he’d accomplish it, so he started brainstorming and connecting the dots. Would he go into yoga? Create a spa retreat? Build some sort of all-encompassing health business?

After spending some time in the weeds, Slater gave himself some good advice. “Stop getting ahead of yourself, and focus on the one thing that had the biggest impact,” he remembers thinking. That was, without a doubt, cold-pressed juice.

With that realization came clarity — something Slater felt in every part of his body. He was in his mid-twenties with no spouse or dependents, so he told himself it was the best possible time to take the risk.

“Everyone from my parents to my boss at the time thought I was crazy,” he says. Slater remembers his father sitting across from him, saying, “A juice company? This is crazy. You’ve made such progress with this creative path. … Are you sure you want to do this?”

Slater had made up his mind. Various people in his life figured if they let him pursue a juice business, he’d soon realize it was a bust and come back to the “right” path.

In early 2009, Slater officially left HBO. He remembers his boss saying, in typical repartee, “I’ll see you in a couple months when it doesn’t work out.”

The Leap

Within less than a year, Slater pitched his juice idea to two childhood friends and brought them on board. They both shared his passion about the final product, but they had different drives. The idea of masking nutrients in juice excited Hedi Gores, the mother of a then 4-year-old son. Carly de Castro, who had recently lost her mother to cancer, felt that if she’d discovered juicing sooner, it could have helped prolong her mother’s health — and perhaps even lead to recovery.

In 2010, drinking your fruits and vegetables wasn’t very trendy. In fact, the cold-pressed juice industry brought in more than $857 million that year, compared to a projected revenue of more than $2.1 billion by 2024, says Karan Chechi, research director at TechSci Research. At the time, Jamba Juice was one of the only companies peddling the health beverage on a wide scale, but they marketed their products relatively loudly (current smoothie names include “Mango-A-Go-Go,” “Strawberry Surf Rider” and “Razzmatazz”).

Slater wanted to try a different approach.

“Health and wellness can be a bit elitist,” he says, citing his experience growing up in L.A. He wanted to base his business on acceptance: the idea that there are no blanket “musts,” that everyone is at a different point in their journey and that — “as corny as it sounds,” he says — it’s important to listen to your body and pursue your own path.

Slater, de Castro and Gores had a vision of a juice company that took intimidation and elitism out of wellness and allowed the ingredients to tell the story. (Their products later would have simple names such as “Greens 1,” “Greens 2” and “Orange Turmeric Apple Lemon.”)

In April to May 2010, the three took the first step towards what would later become Pressed Juicery, pooling $30,000 each to launch the business. They bought a juice press, and Slater convinced a local cupcake shop to lend him their kitchen at night so he had a place to make juice. Almost every night, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., he would be there.

Pressed Juicery’s first physical location was a 22 square-foot broom closet — yes, a broom closet — beneath a yoga studio in a central Brentwood shopping center. The team convinced the landlord to rent it out for $1,050 a month, and with a few tweaks — installing a Dutch door and a single refrigerator — it was ready to go.

Slater says the early days of the fledgling business were a constant rollercoaster, but the shop’s customer base was growing so quickly that there was little time to dwell on doubts. Without any sort of map or business plan, the team used their “ignorance,” as Slater calls it, to their favor, creating exactly what they as consumers would want and going about the process with a sort of magical blindness. “Part of me thinks that so much of our success was because none of us really had any experience,” he says.

Six months after Pressed Juicery officially launched, Slater would learn that lack of experience is a double-edged sword.  

The Breaking Point

It was around 11 a.m. on a bright, sunny day when the health department came knocking.

Slater was still making juice at the cupcake shop, and the health department had shown up for a surprise inspection. When he saw the representative, he was almost excited. Now I can understand how these inspections work, he thought. Since the cupcake shop had a health permit, Slater had assumed Pressed Juicery was in the clear, too. He was wrong. The representative asked him if he had a permit, so he pointed to the one on the wall. “No, that permit is for the cupcake shop,” he remembers hearing.

The next thing he knew, the representative was essentially shutting down the operation. Slater’s burgeoning excitement came to a quick halt, and he remembers the “traumatic experience” was the first time he doubted himself.

An L.A. law firm recommended the young company close up shop — to be shut down by the health department that early is something it likely wouldn’t recover from. Slater’s reaction to the news? “Fear-filled.” But the team decided they’d worked too hard to give up at that point. Instead, they braced for a struggle.

The company was shut down for two weeks while he and his team scrambled to find a new location to manufacture juice. Slater hired a legal advisor and, after getting things up and running at the new venue, finally got the green light from the health department for the new location.

Slater remembers Pressed Juicery’s first day back as their strongest-ever day of sales. The team took it as a sign — not only that they’d been right to trust their instincts but also that they’d built something extraordinary.

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. The shutdown experience was “almost scarring,” Slater says. The founders vowed never to let it happen again. So Slater took, in his mind, the most logical next step: Request an inspection from the FDA. His intentions were good. He hoped the agency would take the fact that Pressed Juicery invited them in as a positive sign, inspect the operation, inform them of any issues and let Slater take the time to fix them. Unfortunately, the plan backfired. An FDA inspector spent two hours walking the juice facility in west L.A. and came to the conclusion she’d have to shut Pressed Juicery down.

The FDA requires businesses to have standard operating procedures (SOPs), or step-by-step instructions for every stage of manufacturing and preparing food and drink. For Pressed Juicery, that would mean clearly outlined processes for storing, unloading, preparing, cleansing and washing produce.

But Slater’s company didn’t have anything in writing.

The Turnaround

The fledgling juice company had just bounced back from its health department horror, and Slater was taken aback. He pleaded with the inspector: “Instead of closing us, will you work with us?” The agency agreed to give them a window of time to make everything compliant with regulations.

Slater and his team hired FDA consultants to rework their manufacturing process. “That was the one area where we really were clueless,” Slater says. The company created its SOPs and conducted the necessary validation studies. In Pressed Juicery’s case, that meant tests with a few different juices to prove its produce cleansing process eliminated any harmful bacteria.

Slater also knew his strengths were creativity and big-picture leadership rather than finance and operations, so he hired a new chief operations officer with retail experience, as well as a new head of manufacturing with previous juice industry experience at Odwalla. The latter spearheaded a new manufacturing process that, according to Slater, cut Pressed Juicery’s manufacturing costs roughly in half.  

Before, the company made juice via a “batch” method — e.g., every step of the process was separated out in batches. That meant one team washed the produce, another team pressed it to extract the juice and yet another mixed it. The labor, time and resources that went into switching between different teams and machines made the manufacturing process more complicated and expensive. But Slater’s recently hired head of manufacturing spearheaded a new “continuous flow” process, eliminating some steps and making it almost fully automated. After putting in new machines — some of which hadn’t even been used in food manufacturing before, according to Slater — he remembers the manufacturing head joking that if someone entered the facility when it wasn’t producing juice, they would have no idea what was created there.

In 2014, after about a year and a half of dealing with the health department and the FDA, Pressed Juicery could finally move forward.

The Next Step

Pressed Juicery aims to corner the cold-pressed juice market with an approach centered on accessibility (read: not intimidating) and affordability (read: not the price of an entire meal).

“To those who can afford a $12, 100 percent organic, glass bottled juice, there are amazing options out there,” Slater says. “For rest of the world, we want to be able to become a product that has integrity, high quality and [accessibility].”

Today, the chain has 70 stores nationwide and has plans to expand into international markets, namely Japan and South Korea. Beyond juice, the company now offers coffee, smoothies and plant-based soft-serve.

To keep in line with Slater’s goal to make nutrition accessible for the masses, Pressed Juicery has implemented a price decrease for the first time in the brand’s history. One juice used to cost between $6.50 and $8, but the company has since slashed the price tag to $5 — a decrease of between about 25 and 40 percent.

“Starbucks has trained the world that $5 is an acceptable price for beverages,” Slater says, “so we meet that.”

August
21, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Reading is one of the best ways to expand your knowledge and learn new skills. And growth-hacking is definitely one of those skills you’ll need to learn if you want your startup to skyrocket. The term “growth-hacking,” in fact, refers to the strategy of experimenting with marketing, product development, sales and other areas to determine the most effective way to grow your particular business.

Related: 10 Books Every Aspiring Millionaire Must Read 

Of course, your startup’s budget may be small, but growth-hacking is a tactic you can use to boost your sales without spending a fortune. There’s a wealth of information out there to help you become an expert growth hacker. But where do you start?  

Take a look at these seven growth-hacking business books you need to read.

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1. “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance”

A New York Times bestseller, psychologist Angela Duckworth’s Grit takes a scientific look at what drives success — and that doesn’t have to mean being a genius. Instead, the “grit” she writes of is actually a combination of passion and long-term perseverance.

Grit, by Angela Duckworth

Duckworth, a celebrated researcher and professor whose TED talk has been viewed over eight million times, shares valuable lessons on how grit can be learned regardless of one’s IQ or circumstances. She also teaches about how to trigger lifelong interest — and so much more. This book is the perfect read for anyone who has ever doubted his or her own “genius” or ability to succeed.

Related: The 5 Books Billionaire Bill Gates Recommends for Summer Reading

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2. “Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade”

Want to become a truly effective persuader? Pre-Suasion, by Robert Cialdini, an expert on effective persuasion, explains in his book that it’s not necessarily the message itself that changes people’s minds but the key moment right before the message is delivered.

Pre-Suasion, by Robert Cialdini 

By giving this book a look, you’ll learn how to make people more receptive to a message before they receive it. You can get your target audience to say “yes” to your company every time with the techniques Cialdini provides here.

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3. “Explosive Growth: A Few Things I Learned While Growing to 100 Million Users and Losing $78 Million”

Want to know how to grow your startup to 100 million users? Then this is the book for you. Explosive Growth, by Cliff Lerner is a book that gives step-by-step instructions, case studies and proven tactics on how to explode your growth. 

Explosive Growth, by Cliff Lerner 

You’ll learn how to ignite explosive growth by creating a superb product, explore viral growth strategies and master how to implement the genius media hacks that helped Lerner’s Facebook dating app, AreYouInterested, gain 100 million users.

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4. “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products”

Hooked by Nir Eyal is a book that answers questions such as why some products capture major attention and others flop, what makes us engage with products out of habit and how certain technologies hook us.

Hooked, by Nir Eyal 

Eyal answers these questions and many more in this how-to guide to building better products. His book will come in handy for any entrepreneur, inventor or innovator who wants to create products consumers will obsess over.

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5. “Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success”

Sean Ellis, CEO and cofounder of GrowthHackers.com, and Morgan Brown, COO of Inman News, have put together Hacking Growth, an amazing book that’s an accessible and practical toolkit that companies of all sizes and in all industries can use to increase their customer base and market share.

Hacking Growth, by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown 

Hacking Growth is a must-read for any marketer, entrepreneur, innovator or manager who wants to replicate the growth-hacking strategy and data-driven, cost-effective results used by some of the biggest companies in the world, like Pinterest, Uber and LinkedIn,  to get to where they are today.

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6. “Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators and Icons Accelerate Success”

Smartcuts is by Shane Snow, an entrepreneur, journalist and cofounder of Contently. This book takes a look into companies and the lives of people who have done amazing things in an unbelievably short amount of time.

Smartcuts, by Shane Snow 

Snow talks about how those he profiles obtained the success they did by employing a method called lateral thinking. Lateral thinking solves problems through an indirect and creative approach that views the problem in a new and unusual way. If you want to know how some startups have gone from zero to billions in a short space of time, this is the perfect read for you.

Related: 5 Must-Read Books to Build Your Personal Brand by Women Authors Who Know How to Get It Done

So, if you want your startup to be a success, add these books to your shelf. Start reading and get ready to learn some growth hacks that will take your business to levels you’ve only dreamed of.

August
20, 2018

5 min read

Most great business ideas offer a way to solve problems and cure people’s headaches. CEO Sisun Lee, aims to do that literally with his product Morning Recovery, a drink supplement engineered to help the heartiest of partiers wake up with great memories and zero hangover.

During a trip to South Korea, where drinkers down a mind-scrambling average of 13.7 shots per week, Sisun noticed many of the locals drank concoctions containing dihydromyricetin that helped them function the day after the most epic booze-a-thons. He brought some back to the U.S., gave it out to friends and quickly realized that he might have bottled success in his hands.

Related: How to Start a Business With (Almost) No Money

What started as something fun to do on the side suddenly got serious after he was able to quickly raise $250,000 with an Indiegogo campaign for his company 82 Labs. A year later, Lee left his day job at Tesla and went all in on 82 Labs, which closed an $8 million series A funding round this April that valued the company at $33 million. (We’ll drink to that!)

Entrepreneur spoke with Lee, a Facebook, Uber and Tesla vet, about how he launched this company, the steps he took to grow it and what those three big names on his resume taught him about running a business.

Idea in a bottle

“While traveling in Seoul, I saw a tremendous amount of people drinking these morning recovery drinks. I thought to myself that there was a market for this in the United States, but no product. So I brought some of the leading brands home with me to the Bay Area, used them myself and started giving them away to friends. Everyone kept asking me how it worked, and where they could get more. So I started researching, which led me to Dr. Jing Liang, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy. Eventually, we partnered and utilized her research behind DHM (dihydromyricetin), which we call ‘the liver superhero.’ Another professor at USC, Dr. Daryl Davies, Ph.D., is helping us to iterate and innovate new versions of the product.”

Image credit: Morning Recovery

Distilling success

“After getting lots of positive feedback and requests for samples, we built a website to try to get it into as many hands as possible. The site got posted on Product Hunt and went viral. Overnight we got 20,000 subscribers. At this point we weren’t yet incorporated, it was just something that was fun. I was still working at Tesla. But when we started an Indiegogo campaign and quickly amassed over $250,000, we saw the big potential here and formalized the company.”

Related: How to Conquer Your Fear of Starting a Business

Scaling up

“In terms of sales, we’re still mostly direct to consumer. It’s available on our website with our own fulfillment centers as well as on Amazon, which takes care of their fulfillment. That makes up about 90 to 95 percent of revenue, the rest comes from retail. And so a big push that we’re making now is to get it onto shelves. We’re looking to get placement in nightlife spots, convenience stores, liquor stores, wineries and places like that.”

Elon education

“When I worked at Tesla, I was a staff product manager. Most of my work related to ecommerce — trying to make it so that it was really easy for customers to purchase a Tesla online without ever having to go to a store. While I didn’t have one-on-one time with Elon Musk, whenever my team had new proposals, we’d review it with him. I was amazed at how fast he is able to switch gears and how knowledgeable he is about every aspect of his businesses. The first time we launched a referral program, he literally launched SpaceX the same day. We were sure he’d cancel the meeting because we were watching it take off live, but 10 minutes later, he was on a call with us talking in-depth about car sales. It seems pretty ridiculous, but it is pretty common when you work at Tesla. His ability to change focus like that is amazing. I wish I could say I learned how to do it, but it takes a pretty special person to know that much about that many things.”

Related: Elon Musk’s ‘Productivity’ Email to Tesla Employees Is Required Reading for Every Entrepreneur

Launch lessons

“The hardest part of running our business is probably two things. One is just because of what we are, a beverage, the rate of iteration is much slower than companies like Facebook that can simply just launch something online and quickly scale it up or down depending how people react to it. And two, as we’ve grown, we now have 20 employees. I touch a little bit of everything at the company, but I don’t own any particular part like I used to. And at the same time, if anything goes wrong, it is ultimately my responsibility. That can be stressful at times, so I’ve had to learn to how to delegate and to trust.”

August
19, 2018

2 min read

Throughout their lifetime, the average millennial will take 25,676 selfies, according to research compiled by eyewear company FramesDirect. Not only that, but millennials usually spend a whopping 54 hours per year taking selfies. Typically, a millennial will take nine selfies every week to either post on social media, snap a vacation shot, send to a significant other or celebrate a birthday.

Related: Why AR & VR Are the Need of the Hour

It’s clear that selfies have been taken to the next level, and with the help of augmented reality, it’s only getting bigger. In 2015, Snap introduced the first augmented reality filter with “rainbow barfing.” The year after, it amped up its AR levels with the highly popular dog filter. In 2017, the company launched Lens Studio, a desktop application that allows any user to create and submit an AR filter.

Of course, Snap’s not the only social media platform tapping into the innovative tech — Instagram’s filters and Selfie Facebook Spaces include AR. Selfies go beyond social media, with their ability to unlock phones or pay for purchases.

Related: How Augmented Reality Will Shape the Future of Ecommerce

To learn more about how augmented reality is changing selfies forever, check out FramesDirect.com’s infographic below.

August
18, 2018

2 min read

Online reviews can make or break your business. If you’ve got poor negative reviews, you can almost certainly say goodbye to welcoming new customers. However, if you’re receiving fake online reviews, there’s something you can do about it.

Related: 5 Surefire Ways to Improve Your Site’s Online Reviews

For starters, it’s important to be able to differentiate between a fake and real review. Typically, fake reviews will have a vicious or even aggressive tone, and they’ll also have general criticisms rather than specific ones. Authentic reviews usually provide specific reasons why they are writing reviews in the first place. If you click into a reviewer’s profile and see other reviews they have posted including overly positive reviews for a competitor, this is a sure sign they are a phony.

The next best step to take is to report the reviewer to the website they posted on. This is one of the most critical steps to take in order to get that negative review fully removed. While you wait for the review to be removed, take action and respond to them. Respond professionally to the review, and offer a solution so other customers can see how serious you take the situation. Lastly, continue to monitor all of your reviews and respond accordingly. If you let a fake negative review slip through the cracks, it can cause major damage to your business.

Related: Online Reviews Are the New Social Proof

To learn more, check out Headway Capital’s infographic below.