Arhiva: martie 2019

Besides reading as much as I can, I listen to lots of podcasts on a weekly basis. I listen mostly to technology and “tech lifestyle” if you want, but I also listen business podcasts, on an episode by episode basis. I listen to them when I walk my dog, when I go around the town doing chores, whenever I have some “dead” time on my hands.

Today I found a really comprehensive list of 80 podcasts for the online business owners, from Businessese. They’re categorized, with categories like Marketing and Sales, Blogging, Finance and Legal, Mindset, Branding, Writing and Content Creation, Organization and Productivity, Creatives and Creativity, General Business. What’s more interesting, for me, at least, is that they avoided the most well known podcast, like Tim Ferriss’s one, and they tried to find less known, but really targeted ones.

In our own searches for new blogging and business podcasts to devour, we’ve found that most “best podcast” lists tend to feature the same major players we’ve heard before. That’s no good for the podcast obsessed! So we rolled our sleeves up and scoured the internet to curate a huge list of podcasts that has something for everyone, at every stage of business. Enjoy!

I got the list from an interesting newsletter I subscribed a long time ago to, Useletter by Amy Lynn Andrews. Look over it and, while you to this, don’t forget Cristina sends a really good newsletter every Monday, as well, here, at The CEO Library. She often recommends good podcasts she listen to, so you have that, as well, as a good reason to subscribe.

Finally, here are some podcasts I listen to, mostly Tech: Accidental Tech Podcast, Connected, Cortex, Analog(ue), The BirchTree Podcast, Real Money, Real Business. If you’re Romanian, I also listen to Andrei Rosca’s Zero Plus, Podcastu’ lui Katai and Radu Dumitru’s Radu and Matilda.

Oh, and one tip: if you want to listen to more podcasts or you don’t have enough time, use Overcast as your podcast client of choice, if you’re on iOS. It has a smart thing called Smart Speed that actually cuts pauses and it can cut 10-15% of the time you need. Also, I listen on 1.1x or 1.2x speed, which doesn’t distort the voices too bad and I get some more time from this as well.

Happy listening! :)

Well, this is unxpected:

https://twitter.com/offthepill/status/1089287578992357376

If you’re ever in the position to raise money, the first thing you’ll probably do will be to look for examples of pitch decks to use with your potential investors. In 2012, when I was raising money in earnest for MavenHut, finding this kind of examples was difficult. I needed to access my own network (which was not that big) because there were almost no decks available online.

Actually, I think the one that helped me the most was Reid Hoffman’s Linkedin deck, which he published on his own website, along with explanation and context for each deck. It was gold for me, because it helped me understand a little bit more about investor perception and targets. You can still find the article here and I hope it will still be there a long time, because I learned more from it than most of other resources combined.

I wouldn’t have mentioned pitch decks and presentations if I didn’t find today, in Ben Evans’s newsletter (one of the best tech related newsletters online) a mention to an article with 30 pitch decks from some of the most successful startups in the world or, how they put it, legen…wait for it… dary startups. You have the likes of Airbnb, Square, Buffer, Mint, Mixpanel, Moz (of Lost and Founder fame). You can even find Buzzfeed or YouTube. A really good collection that you shouldn’t miss if you’re raising money or think of raising money.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention MavenHut’s public presentation at the end of Startup Bootcamp in June 2012. While the deck is not available online, you can see me barely breathing with stress on stage. It might actually be funny, but I think it’s also educational.

Since we’re on The CEO Library and we’re all about books, here are the books that helped me when pitching and when learning how to pitch, maybe they will help you as well:

• Pitch Anything – by Oren Klaff
• Made to Stick – by Chip & Dan Heath