Part of living and working in the startup world is learning from mistakes, both your own and others’.

You have the chance to see what differentiates the companies that ended up having success from those that ultimately fell flat, and with any luck, you can spot those lessons before making the same blunders yourself.

And while in life occasionally it’s best to let others make their own mistakes so they can learn from them, there’s no reason not to share the collective business wisdom.

In this article, we have compiled the best articles (in no particular order) that would help you get things right in your startup.

Give them a read and do put up your submissions for the next edition! Happy Reading.

1. How to Launch your Startup (by Russell Weigandt)

Launching a business can be a massive undertaking and risky proposition in the best of markets. In today’s market, the naysayers will probably tell you it’s a death wish.

As a former public relations leader at several top firms, Russell Weigandt talks about the good, the bad, and the downright stupid. He shares some words of counsel by asking four questions before you take the leap into the great unknown.

While these four questions don’t cover everything under the sun, they are enough to raise some red flags and reveal the need for additional prep.

There’s no shame in pumping the breaks in this market and taking some extra time to ensure that all the right pieces are in place.

Russell points out 4 questions to ask before approaching a PR firm for your startup launch

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2. 4 startup funding alternatives that help you avoid dilution (by Amir Emadi)

The most common term entrepreneurs use when negotiating an investment term sheet is dilution (or the anti-dilution clause). It’s the clause that dictates how much ownership an entrepreneur retains as he sells off pieces of his startup’s equity.

In this article, Amir Emadi talks about ways for raising capital that doesn’t dilute you as a founder, after all, it’s very hard to bring on people who believe in your vision and let you lead the company toward that vision.

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3. How to accelerate growth in your start-up during the early stage? (by Manoj Chandra)

Launching a startup is one thing; accelerating growth and expanding is an entirely different challenge. While patience is certainly a virtue, it’s not necessarily the best skill for entrepreneurs to adopt.

Instead, more focus should be on rapid growth and long-term success.

Manoj Chandra talks about some of the essentials that you might need to accelerate your start-up during the initial days and build it into a brand that people trust.

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4. 6 Mistakes Every Startup Makes and How to Avoid Them (by Adam Skali)

We have all made mistakes along the way while setting-up business. For various reasons, we tend to do too much or too little when developing the foundation of our businesses.

Let’s be honest, working to make a new business successful is a lot of hard work. Sometimes you overlook something very important or you may start to lose focus as time moves forward.

Adam Skali reflects on the most common mistakes Startups generally makes, and how your startup could avoid them!

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5. 5 Things All First-Time Entrepreneurs Should Remember When They Start-up (by Satyajit Roy)

Building a company from the ground up is no easy task. That's why most entrepreneurs make mistakes along the way, and first-time entrepreneurs make the most.

Satyajit Roy pens down a set of advice for first-time entrepreneurs in this article.

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6. How to Find a USP That Is Truly Unique in a Crowded Market? (by Tom Denz)

Whether you run a mom-and-pop store, an e-commerce business or a startup, you need to find the unique selling proposition (USP) of your business.

You need to know what makes you different from or better than all of your competition, or you could get lost among the crowd.

What does USP mean?

A USP is the unique quality that sets your business apart from the thousands of other businesses out there. The distinguishing factor that makes your customers come back, again and again, for your products or services.

Tom Denz spills secrets about finding a truly unique USP for your business/startup?

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7. 9 reasons why entrepreneurs should use Doodles in Business Communication (by Piyuesh Modi)

Remember, when as children, we used to all have that last page of every notebook dedicated to rough work? Or that class that used to turn boring towards the end, leading you to scribble on the margins?

Technically, doodling means the “innate habit of scribbling on the edges or drawing something on free space while one is working on something serious, on the side”.

It is not a distraction as suggested by science but a blessing for it helps you focus and improves your efficiency and creativity.

Piyuesh Modi talks about how doodling has helped him stay sane amid the chaos & pens down 9 reasons why every entrepreneur should too.

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8. Why Managing Humans Can Be Uncomfortable (by Derwin Dexter Sy)

To most, “closing the feedback loop” may sound like nothing more than management jargon. As a matter of fact, it is. But behind every management buzzword, there usually lies a simple truth that we could benefit from paying a little attention to.

If you’re in the business of managing and growing people, the feedback loop might never fully close at all. That means, it’s very likely that you never know how good a job you did.

And, if you’re in this business, you have to learn to come to terms with that.

Derwin talks about one of the most important aspects for an efficient working of a startup, its PEOPLE.

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9. 4 Tips to Create a Super Successful Video Marketing Strategy for your startup (by Archi Roy Choudhary)

As a small business, your marketing needs are challenging, and you don’t always have the budget, skills, or time to make your offerings stand out the way it could.

Video marketing offers an excellent platform for your business to use the visual medium to attract, convert, and retain new and existing customers.

In recent years, videos have been making an essential part of a digital marketing strategy. It’s emerging as a powerful promotional weapon to promote in an exciting and engaging way.

Archi shares 4 killer tips to nail your video marketing strategy.

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10. The Difficulty Of Being A Small Town Startup (By Sana Sabah)

People not understanding the concept of startups is the least of all the challenges in a small town. There are bigger problems than people not understanding what do we do, or for that matter why do we do it?

But this lack of understanding is the core reason for one of our main challenges, i.e., lack of aspiration.

Sana Sabah dives deep into the difficulties faced by a small town startup!

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11. What We Learnt From 100+ Presentations of Startups? (By Ilya Galushin)

Whether your pitch deck will receive investment or not depends fiercely on how convincing the presentation looks.

In this article, Ilya Galushin reflects back at over 100+ presentation startups his team has analyzed and made some key inferences from them.

He also talks about how this data could be effectively used to increase the chances of receiving an investment.

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12. What are the coolest startup culture hacks you've heard of? (by Orest Hudziy)

Startup culture has received a lot of attention lately — people are looking for ways to improve the overall experience at work and some are even champions of seamlessly integrating work into their life.

People don’t have absolute power to demand a higher salary or more vacation days but they do have high expectations.

They’re interested in opportunities to connect with others who will help achieve their goals and find greater satisfaction in the process.

How do we begin to reach these goals?

By defining our startup culture, we can commit to better supporting the work itself, improve operations, make a more valuable contribution, and gain greater personal satisfaction.

Orest Hudziy shares some of the coolest startup culture hacks around the globe.

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13. Corporates beware — investing in startups is a different ball game (by Mathilde Tuv Kverneland)

It is a known fact that investing in startups is not the same as buying shares in the open market, nor is it the same as investing in established privately held companies.

So how come some corporates investing in startups seem to miss that startup investing is truly a different ball game?

In this article, Mathilde shares her experience of witnessing some corporate investors who do not fully understand or realize the influence of their investments in startup companies, and that what they do in the early days of the startup’s life can have fatal results down the road.

Corporate investors can risk crushing fragile startups in their big corporate hands by making ‘corporate decisions’ in the very beginning of a future collaboration.

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14. 6 Avoidable Errors that Entrepreneurs Make! (by Aanchal Saini)

In his book The Lean Startup, Eric Ries makes this point better: “I have learned from both my own successes and failures and those of many others that it’s the boring stuff that matters the most. Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.”

Aanchal Saini voiced her opinion about the mistakes an entrepreneur could avoid.

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15. My entrepreneurial journey has taught me to be patient and that has helped me bounce back into the corporate ecosystem: Interview with Avesh Sharma

Starting your business is like planting a sapling. First, you have to invest your time and money. Then, you must take care of it while expecting nothing in return. But when your startup blossoms, it makes all the patience and hard work worthwhile.

However, like saplings, many startups fail to grow -- and many die one-to-three years after launch.

Either way, it’s not easy being an entrepreneur. Avesh Sharma, the co-founder of Woodays, reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, and how it has transformed him completely!

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