Healthy Sustainable Business Growth Future Focus

There's no doubt about it, this past year in business and our personal lives has been rough for many reasons. The past year was brutal, there is no sugar-coating it, but if you are reading this it means that you survived it. Even though the changing of the year might seem arbitrary, it can give a sense of renewed hope to entrepreneurs, founders, marketers, and business owners. And while we do have a lot to hope for now, to be honest, it doesn't matter that much to me what happens. 

Why? Well, you see most people hope for normalcy in the business market. They hope that the WORLD will change for them. But entrepreneurs like us don't just hope for a different world. We accept the world the way it is, and find ways to work around it. 

In fact, without big local and global problems, entrepreneurs don't exist. The reality is that you cannot CONTROL what will happen in the world in the next year. BUT, there is one lever that you CAN pull that is the biggest growth factor. That is to adapt, evolve, and take care of yourself.

Although I would love to promote our services here and tell you about our new secret SEO strategies, the products we have cooking up, and the tricks we are about to reveal that it is not that today. It is something much more powerful. The biggest growth factor is YOU. You see, for me, and I imagine for most people, was riddled with anxiety. Anxiety about the coronavirus, what is going to happen to the businesses, employees, the political climate, etc. Focusing on a lot of stuff that I can't actually control. It is easy to put the weight of the world on your shoulders and forget the basics... Forgetting about working on the one thing you can control, like YOU. 

So, I am writing this to you to encourage you to be a little bit selfish in the new year. In an emergency situation, you are supposed to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. You must take care of YOU first, and it doesn't have to be complex. The basics are the levers that will allow you to 10X everything else. 

You probably already know this to be true - I am just here to remind you, because that is what you really need. A reminder to do what you already know. Are you giving yourself enough time to sleep and recover? Are you giving your body enough nutritious foods to produce energy? Are you giving yourself enough exercise? Are you connecting with people that love you? Are you filling your mind with positive messages? Or are you letting the news dictate your mood? It sounds obvious, but I would bet that some of these basics went out the window this year with everything that happened. It is no wonder why the volatile expensive economy is so hard to handle. 

We don't know what's going to happen, but you can control what happens with you. If you can get yourself right, you'll have the strength to make the right moves. In the book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things," Ben Horowitz writes: "Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.” If you don't quit, you can't fail.

Here's to another year above ground, and the unstoppable, unshakable, YOU. We at Lean Startup Life are here to help!

3 Tips For Investing When Inflation Is High

Investing in the market can be stressful enough in good financial conditions. You have to be aware of your particular wants, needs, and risk tolerances to be comfortable with your strategy. However, when the economy is experiencing turmoil, investing can become even more stressful. Economic factors that can affect the markets include such things as unemployment rates, international economic happenings, and inflation rates. It could be the beginning of a long bear market so you need to have a smart strategy in place.

However, don't let economic fluctuations of these types completely discourage you. For example, there are companies that people can invest in that may not be as affected by high inflation as others. 

The following are a few of these investment strategy options. You can do your research and even consult an expert advisor to find more beyond these 3 inflation investing pieces of advice.

1. Durable Consumer Goods Companies

Some companies manufacture goods that people simply can't do without. Regardless of high inflation, consumers will continue to purchase toilet paper, paper towels, facial tissue, and soap. These things nearly always make it into the household budget regardless of price. In addition, companies that produce non-perishable foods such as canned goods, standard condiments, and pasta are going to be less likely to feel the effects of inflation on their bottom lines. 

Portfolio managers such as Larry Creel can assist in narrowing down the list of these companies. Expert advice comes in handy, as these professionals may have been through similar economic circumstances, and know which companies fared the best.

2. Healthcare Investment Trusts

Another item unlikely to get cut from the household budget is healthcare. While prices of medical care and procedures may raise during times of inflation, people are more likely to go ahead and spend their money on healthcare than, say, that new RV they have been eyeing. Those already undergoing treatment are not likely to discontinue treatment solely because prices go up. 

In addition, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies will likely continue research and development projects during times of inflation. This fact makes them appealing options. Investing in trusts is a good way to spread the risk of investing out among several entities. 

3. High-Quality Companies

Here again, is where the advice of an expert may come in handy. There are companies out there that have already weathered harsh economic conditions such as high inflation. Experts will recognize these companies and be able to steer you in their direction. Just because you have seen a bunch of their advertisements on TV or billboards doesn't ensure that a company is of high enough quality with which to invest during unstable times. 

Utilizing an investment advisor who has weathered these storms before can serve you well in weathering the current climate.

Final Thoughts On Inflation Investing

Uncertain economic conditions such as periods of high inflation can make investors wary. However, it is rarely a good idea in any environment to cease investing at all. Instead, do your research and consult with experts to determine the best strategy for the market as it changes during inflation, stagflation, hyperinflation, or subsequent deflation. 

While there are pitfalls to avoid in each situation, there are also options that can help you reach your long-term investment goals. Remember that investing is a marathon and not a sprint. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will your perfect profitable portfolio!

Private Equity Profits And Investing Insights

The investing and private equity realms are changing monthly in a volatile recovering global economy. Here is everything you need to know now about seeding and anchoring private equity (PE) funds along with top new investing insights news.

Raising a first-time PE fund is difficult. Although there have never been more high-quality firms entering the market—and although institutional investors' appetite for PE is only growing—established managers are taking bigger and bigger slices of the fundraising pie. Many prospective first-time general partners (GPs) are interested in taking anchor or seed capital to kickstart their fundraising process. And some institutional investors and fund seeders are seeding and anchoring to save on fees or enjoy increased upside potential. But there's a problem: The world of seeding and anchoring is opaque and difficult to navigate. Definitions vary across the industry, and market standard terms are virtually nonexistent. We detail common commitment structures and the range of possibilities, including fee discounts, revenue shares, and tapering mechanisms. profile the five principal seed/anchor limited partners (LP) types: sponsors, large institutional LPs, funds of funds, family offices, and endowments. discuss recent developments in diversity-focused seed/anchor programs. review the trade-offs GPs and LPs must consider when entering into seed / anchor arrangements.

Private debt fundraising kept a steady course in the first half of 2021. Low interest rates, subdued default rates, and the longer-term pivot toward alternatives aided allocators in committing $72.5 billion across 81 vehicles, according to our latest Global Private Debt Report. A few key takeaways: Direct lending continues to stand out, accounting for half of all capital raised, but opportunities for distressed debt may be hard to find due to the lack of distress in the market. Private debt fund performance has been up QoQ for the past several quarters, but early data suggests Q1 will drop below H2 2020 levels. Venture debt has emerged as a major source of financing for high-growth startups that have traditionally opted for equity funding.

Our Quantitative Perspectives reports let the data do the talking. And for our most recent research, we set out to capture how the US venture capital industry has fared in its recovery from the pandemic (hint: it's been unfathomably strong). In addition to our core datasets, we bring in several macroeconomic datapoints like interest rates and public market performance to provide a more holistic narrative around the record-setting pace we're seeing across VC investment and fundraising. Check out our visual storytelling on topics like: Is the current environment more startup- or investor-friendly? How much does nontraditional investor dry powder factor into overall capital supply? How have SPACs and direct listings changed the exits game?

2021 European Private Capital Outlook: H1 Follow-Up Have SPACs in Europe met our expectations from January? How about Brexit's impact on the UK as a venture hub? Our London-based analysts recently revisited their six 2021 predictions from the start of the year—and the results, so far, are varied. Some full-year projections have already been met, others are on track to come true, and one has played out very differently than we projected:

Startups are ahead of incumbents when it comes to cloud security and developer-focused security. At least that's what record exit sizes are showing, as seen with SentinelOne's $9 billion IPO and Auth0's $6.5 billion acquisition by Okta. Other takeaways from our new research: The $16.6 billion in exit value last quarter was by far a record and 2021's total has already surpassed past years. Recent cyberattacks are encouraging medium-size enterprises and industrial companies to adopt advanced infosec tooling, which is driving industry growth and elevated VC activity. One standout product category driving funding growth: passwordless authentication tech.

After a rush of public listings, several mobility companies have no doubt had a rough ride recently. Stock prices have plummeted. SPAC deal valuations have been cut sharply. Nikola, Lordstown Motors and Canoo are facing federal investigations. This turbulence hasn't constrained private investment in the space, however, as high demand for low-cost, convenient and environmentally oriented solutions persists. Highlights from our new research: Venture investors poured $23.1 billion into mobility tech startups in Q2—putting the year on pace to break a record. While late-stage valuations have risen in tandem with the public markets, attractive terms can still be found at the early stage. Emerging opportunities we've identified include teleoperations startups and battery tech.

"Don't forget that this is only the first six months of 2021 and not a full-year chart." That quote from this week's webinar could've summed up a lot of the trends we covered across US VC dealmaking, exit activity, fundraising and beyond. So, will this pace continue in H2? What sectors are the hottest? What are the latest developments in tax policy and antitrust concerns? We discussed it all with our panelists from the NVCA and Silicon Valley Bank.

Mobility tech analyst Asad Hussain weighs in on recent developments in the delivery space, including a Gopuff's $1 billion funding round: "We have noted an uptick in investment in last-mile delivery services. So far in 2021, $7.6 billion in venture capital has been invested in last-mile delivery startups in North America and Europe. "An increasing focal point for investors is ultrafast delivery. By delivering in narrow radiuses around dark stores in dense cities, delivery companies can maximize deliveries per route and generate positive unit economics. "Ultrafast is the future of delivery. Just as consumers have become accustomed to on-demand ridehailing and same-day delivery, ultrafast delivery will become the new expectation. "As ultrafast delivery becomes more widespread, increased car traffic from couriers will likely lead to concurrent heightened noise, congestion, and emissions in residential areas. Solving this problem will require looking beyond cars to multimodal transportation solutions such as micromobility. "Going forward, we anticipate growth in ultrafast delivery to lead to significant investment in fleets of e-bikes and e-scooters for couriers. "One startup leveraging this model is United Arab Emirates-based Fenix, which operates a scooter sharing service. In addition to one-time rentals, the company's free-floating scooters are also available through weekly or monthly subscriptions. "Its durable e-scooters incorporate swappable batteries for greater operational efficiency. Fenix also launched F10, an app that provides ten-minute grocery deliveries using couriers who operate out of the company's network of dark stores, which serve as both charging and fulfillment centers. "Fenix maximizes its drop rates by targeting dense cities, limiting delivery ranges to tight radiuses around the dark stores, and equipping its couriers with well-maintained, fully charged e-mopeds. The company also realizes cost synergies by sharing real estate costs between both businesses. "Fenix dynamically allocates vehicles and labor between subscription, shared, and delivery businesses as needed to offset seasonality."

Our insights and data featured in the press: Alternative protein startups have already raised more money this year than all of 2020. What's capturing the attention of investors, futurists and environmentalists? Nontraditional VC investors were more active in Q2 than any other quarter on record. We supported a deeper dive into the trend. Insurtech startups need to show steady profitability to win over investors. High-growth companies with high loss ratios are risky.

Measuring VC's pandemic resilience Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the US venture capital industry set several records in the past year and has continued its robust performance in 2021. Our recent data report provides a data-driven analysis on how the industry is charging full steam ahead, including insights on the correlation between public and private markets, mounting optimism from nontraditional investors and why the SPAC market has yet to establish itself as a game-changing exit route. Highlights from the report include: With large tech stocks including Amazon and Netflix driving the market upward, institutional investors are increasingly seeking value in the next crop of VC-backed tech companies. Investors have concentrated their capital into fewer industries over the past 15 years. IT hardware and energy are among the sectors seeing the largest reduction in capital investment. Already in 2021, mega-funds have nearly eclipsed 2020's annual record. With the supply of capital higher than estimated demand, companies are securing funding more quickly than expected. In recent months, de-SPACing activity seems unable to keep up with SPAC announcements. This could indicate a lack of worthy SPAC targets, and that capital may be returned in the coming year as many SPACs come up against the two-year deadline to deploy capital.

Is Africa fintech's next frontier? Africa's fintech sector is witnessing unprecedented growth as foreign investors try to get in on the ground floor of an ecosystem ripe for innovation. Fintech startups in Africa secured around $330.5 million in H1 2021, more than double the amount raised the entire year before, according to data from Disrupt Africa, a tech-focused research and news organization. The sheer size of the market and recent startup success stories have made Africa increasingly attractive to foreign investors. African startups may be undervalued due to various risks, but firms entering the market earlier stand to make solid returns as the ecosystem matures.

Going public: This new report highlights six key trends driving the IPO surge While we've all been shut indoors for a year and a half, quite the opposite has been happening with the public markets. IPOs grew 51% in 2020, and the trend is continuing into 2021 as worldwide exchanges flash new ticker symbols of recently minted publicly traded companies. Intralinks' new report, What's Driving the IPO Explosion, highlights six key trends that will shape the IPO marketplace and guide investment in the coming year: Inclusion of environmental, social and governance strategies in IPO offerings The rise and regulation of SPACs A spike in Asia-Pacific IPOs The ascent of Europe's exchanges Booms in tech and health & wellness Post-pandemic market confidence Be ready to capitalize on the IPO surge.

Assessing our 2021 predictions for Europe's private markets. Midway through the year, our analysts revisit their predictions in the 2021 European Private Capital Outlook: H1 Follow-Up. In January, we forecast that PE deal activity in the region would top a record €480 billion in 2021. Already, dealmaking is set to march past that—and perhaps beyond €500 billion—thanks in part to rising middle-market and micro-cap activity. As expected, VC activity has been equally buoyant, shrugging off the dual headwinds of the pandemic and Brexit. How have our other forecasts fared? In the report, we review 2021 predictions including: SPAC listings in Europe will reach double digits. Fundraising for distressed and restructuring strategies will hit record highs. The UK will remain the largest contributor to venture activity in Europe, with dealmaking surpassing €10 billion.

How Michael Dell turned his declining PC business into a $40 billion windfall. Dell is no longer on the decline! One silver lining of the pandemic was the democratization of remote work access that it provided. An in-depth look at how a mishandling of the transition to a hybrid model may threaten that. Since January, automakers and electronics producers have been dealing with a semiconductor shortage. Now the imbalance in supply and demand might be swinging the other way. 

Stay tuned for more private equity news and investing insights each month!

Why Companies Can't Find New Workers To Hire And Startup Solutions

More than 8 million job opportunities remain open in the United States, yet millions of people remain unemployed. Currently, there is a higher demand for workers to increase productivity and hopefully revive the U.S economy than at any time in recent memory. Yet surprisingly, the unemployed population is not attempting to fill the open opportunities. The trend is finally starting to change, but it's still a glaring problem for the American economy for now and future months.

For various reasons, adults in this group, skilled and unskilled, are hesitant to return to work or look for new jobs. Because of this, many companies are finding it difficult to find new workers to fill their job openings. The question many of us are asking is why are new employees tough to find and what can be done about the hiring shortage? 

Reasons Why It Is Difficult To Find New Hires 

These are the reasons why it's harder to hire right now despite a high number of people still out of the workforce.

1. Government Unemployed Benefits 

One of the most commonly cited reasons for our current underemployed issues is government aid. Unemployed benefit payments are suspected to be contributing to an unwillingness among unemployed persons to find new jobs. The federal benefits are funds offered to unemployed persons in the United States to help them afford basic requirements. This benefit policy has been helpful, especially to workers who are fired, laid off, or retired during the pandemic. Without the unemployment benefits, many families would be struggling to provide basic needs. 

However, the increase in unemployment benefits has made work less appealing to those at the bottom of the income bracket. Why go to work, and potentially be exposed to a deadly virus, when you can make as much or more staying safe at home? But unemployment extras and other financial protection benefits have ended or are ending soon, which will soon cause more people to re-enter the workforce out of necessity.

2. Fear Of Getting Infected With Covid-19 

Many businesses were forced to lay off employees while others closed down due to the pandemic. Fortunately, the infection rates went down, and many states opened up businesses by lifting restrictions. However, despite the mass Covid-19 vaccination in the United States, people are still fearful of contracting Covid-19. The pandemic has claimed many lives, and the emergence of Covid-19 variants has renewed that fear in many. Even with vaccine rollouts and decreased infections, many potential workers are hesitant to return to the traditional workplace. Thus, it is still challenging for businesses to hire qualified people since they may want to stay home and stay safe. 

3. Lack Of Child Care 

Closed daycare centers and the school also contribute to an unwillingness among people to take new jobs. Since they were closed, or due to financial strife, parents were forced to stay back at home and look after their children instead of working. Even after they opened, a significant number of parents and guardians insist on taking care of their children to ensure they stay safe from Covid-19 infection. As a result, companies seeking to employ more people and adequately supply the demanding market remain with fewer options. It is anticipated the struggle to get interested hires will continue to affect businesses until the pandemic ends and all daycares and schools reopen. 

4. Desire To Get Better Jobs 

Debatably, unemployed individuals are unwilling to engage in the currently open job opportunities hoping they will get better jobs with higher income and better working conditions if they wait. A higher percentage of the jobs currently available are paying low income, and work conditions are not favorable. Individuals with savings or stimulus checks to rely on and survive have no desire to rejoin the labor force only to earn insufficient incomes. Others have come up with various means of generating income without being fully employed. Therefore, they feel dissuaded to take the open jobs until an opportunity they are interested in comes along. 

How To Find New Hire Prospects 

Companies need to strategize on how to get the required qualified workers to increase production and stabilize the U.S economy. It is more manageable to find new hires when you coherently understand why you were previously not finding workers. 

Defensibly, the Government needs to review the federal benefits policy so that some beneficiaries can be excluded to encourage them to go back to work. Furthermore, the business owners seeking new hires should allow workers to work from home or make the workplace safer from catching Covid-19. Additionally, companies should offer better incomes, employee benefits, and favorable work conditions to attract and persuade workers. 

Importantly, companies should note that looking for new prospects from a willing multitude will make their search effective and more manageable. Waiting for potential workers to approach you and interviews can be time-consuming. Luckily, recruiter marketplaces have made it easier to find quality workers effortlessly. In a recruiter marketplace (ex. high5hire.com), you streamline your business using various approaches and select the best candidates. The recruiter marketplace connects quality workers to open jobs. People searching for jobs from digital platforms can find your company easily in a recruiter marketplace. 

Hiring Help

Federal and state governments along with private companies have played a significant role in the lack of new hires in the United States. Therefore, the Government needs to review federal benefits to allow more people to take open jobs willingly. On the other hand, companies should increase wages, employee benefits and be aggressive in using recruiter marketplaces to find new prospects. A sufficient supply of employees will lead to increased production and a better economy.

How To Market Right And Pivot Off What’s Wrong - Long Term Lessons

One of the most important things we can do for long-term marketing strategy and business success longevity is to look at macro-level data that impacts our marketing. For example, if you’re in a deep recession, your marketing dollars have to work harder because customers are simply more risk-averse; it will take much more effort to persuade someone to invest when money is tight compared to when their wallets are flush. Knowing whether you’re in a recession or not would be helpful. The good news is that as marketers, we’ve got more access to more free data than ever before, especially about macro factors. Services like European Union Data Portal or the United States Federal Reserve Bank publish valuable data, paid for by taxpayers, that anyone can use. What would be a real-life example of this kind of information? 

Let’s say you’re a real estate agent. What kind of information would help you understand the housing and property market? Certainly, something like the Multiple Listings System (MLS), a proprietary system that realtors buy access to can give you data about the real estate market itself, but what about the bigger picture? Going to a system like the Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED database, we might want to look at the overall economy. What kind of unemployment rate, for example, is present? Lower unemployment means more people gainfully working. That would be one measure of economic strength. Are businesses hiring? A look at the total number of job postings in the area per day from a service like Indeed.com would be a way to measure whether companies are hiring and growing or not. 

What kinds of economic pressures are there on consumers? The price of a gallon of gasoline would give us a sense of how much consumers have to spend on things like energy. And of course, things like the total number of active for-sale listings, and the median listing price would give us a sense of the real estate market itself. In this case, the Federal Reserve Bank provides all that data to us, via either downloading it from their site manually, or through an API (application programming interface, a way for software to connect automatically to data). 

I built some middleware to the Federal Reserve database and imported it into Google’s BigQuery database, then made it available to Google Data Studio as an example for this newsletter. Let’s see what the dashboard would look like: Google Data Studio Now instead of having to fish for all that data every month, you’d have a single page, a single place to go to look at the macro data that would be affecting your real estate sales: You’d see that unemployment is on the decline (green line) and companies are hiring (sky blue line). You’d also see that gas prices are going up substantially, pinching consumers’ wallets - that in turn might inform some of your sales messaging, reminding people to live closer to their jobs and save money on fuel. And you’d see that the number of active listings is starting to rise as prices are coming down, which means that demand may be softening a little - so you know to get more aggressive with pricing and incentives to convince buyers to buy and sellers to be more flexible with sale prices. 

From this data, you make decisions about how to run your business with best practices. That’s the power of using third party data to inform your marketing and sales - knowing this helps you stay in front of the trends affecting your customers, and helps your marketing be smarter and faster. What’s the next step? Go to one of the many free data sources available and start hunting for data about your industry, your sector, and the geography where you live. Look for data you know you can use to make informed decisions and beat competitors by staying ahead of major trends. That’s the first, best place to start as you build economic indicators for your business.

Let's also mention unique selling propositions in business marketing. What really sets apart a company, and its products and services? What makes a company pass the white label test, where you take two products and remove all branding, then see if you can tell which company’s product is which. Scrape the brands off an iPhone and a Google Pixel and you’ll have clearly differentiated experiences. Scrape the logos off a Tesla and a Prius and you’ll have clearly differentiated experiences. But what do you do when you work in a commodity market? How do you differentiate in a meaningful way? 

Fellow data scientist Eduardo Ariño de la Rubia had a fascinating way to distill out competitive advantage: “Any sufficiently advanced trolling is indistinguishable from thought leadership.” Think about that for a second. Take a product or service that you don’t like. Imagine you were a competitor of that product or service. List out all the things you hate about it, all the things that are wrong, and then list out what a working, useful, enjoyable product would be. What attributes could your company’s product or service embody that the competitor didn’t? 

Former CEO John Legere built T-Mobile US into a mobile carrier powerhouse with this technique. Each quarter, he and his team would listen to customer complaints, both about T-Mobile and its competitors, and then reveal a series of initiatives to actually not do those things. Eliminate dozens of meaningless, often bogus fees. Eliminate confusing pricing and offer simplified plans. Stop overcharging for bandwidth overages within reason. During his 8-year tenure, T-Mobile exploded in growth, eventually acquiring competitor Sprint to make it the third largest mobile carrier in the US after telecom behemoths Verizon and AT&T.

When we started Lean Startup Life, one of the things we did was define our company values, but instead of starting with generic platitudes, we made a long list of pretty much everyone who had pissed us off at the last few companies we’d worked at. We listed out all the things we swore we’d never do to ourselves and anyone who worked with us, and the corrected version of that list forms our company values today. 

Because it’s so concrete - I could even name the individuals behind each of these company values as an example of what not to do - it makes them specific and memorable. Use this technique of essentially trolling - identifying things to start fights about - as a way to truly build out your unique selling proposition, your competitive differentiators. What do your competitors do that you hate, that piss off their customers? How does your product or service not do those things, and not do them in such a way that you can make a bold, truthful statement about it? If your product does nothing different than a competitor’s, then use this technique to start creating those differentiators. 

Once you’ve done it, not only will you have identified your unique selling proposition, you’ll be able to defend it with vigor. When someone confronts you and asks, “Well, what really makes you so different from Competitors XYZ?”, you’ll laugh heartily and say, “Let me tell you all the things that they do wrong, and how we don’t do that to you.” In doing so, you’ll create a competitive differentiation so clear and specific that even if someone removed all your branding, it would be bountifully clear whose products were whose. 

Keep these tips in mind to market right and pivot from what's wrong for long term business success!

How Coronavirus Is Impacting Small Businesses

During the global pandemic the world’s job market has rapidly changed. While many businesses were forced to temporarily close their day-to-day operations, the vast majority adapted their model and now telecommuting due to Coronavirus is a reality for many. It's a new normal for businesses worldwide. Organizing and securing your remote workspace seems convenient but equally challenging. 

As Global Workplace Analytics states: "25-30% of the workforce will be working-from-home multiple days a week by the end of 2021." While many organizations begin to realize that maintaining remote workflow is cost effective, it has created many new opportunities for scammers and in fact might cause serious financial damage. 

The bad guys know that the best moment to strike is whenever the potential victim is distracted. If you happen to read this blog post from the comfort of your home office, many potential dangers may occur. Some of them are old "tricks" brought back to life and others are new scams that take advantage of our newly developed vulnerabilities. 

1. Phishing - Criminals send an email that appears to be from a public institution or other reputable organization. Usually we get promised benefits as an exchange for our personal data. See how easy it was for my team to scam a Dr Oz employee: phishing simulation.

2. Unemployment fraud -  Even retired or even deceased people can become a victim of unemployment fraud. And when this happens, victims may be responsible for paying taxes on the financial compensation the criminal receives! Unemployment website and payment delays further fuel this pesky problem.

3. Now hiring - Millions of displaced employees are actively seeking a new job online. Feeling stressed and seeing a good offer that’s really a scam is relatively easy. Scammers prey on job seekers. The goal is to get personal data during the recruitment process. Unfortunately it's all too easy to take advantage of people desperately seeking to rejoin the workforce.

There's a lot to keep in mind when keeping your workplace safe and secure, even if it's just your home office.

The COVID19 pandemic has changed the way many of us do business - and our focus! Undoubtedly, you are not alone! Perhaps it is time to transition and transform? Maybe focus on other aspects of our business and pivot where necessary? Since 2016, I have been on the road – planes, trains, and automobiles - traveling the world 8-9 months out of the year to give keynote speeches and attend events. It’s the part of my work that I find most enjoyable! And, unfortunately, the part of my business that the pandemic has rendered impossible. With the necessary curbing of travel, I had to focus my time and efforts elsewhere while still growing my business. Can you relate? In-person networking and conferences have been my growth strategy for YEARS. So, what now? 

These days, I focus my time online. I’m using LinkedIn and social media more than ever to connect with people and opportunities. I’m also using more digital communication tools than EVER. I’ll use whatever tech the person wants - Facebook Messenger? Telegram? Whatsapp? Zoom? Skype? WeChat? SMS? Slack? I’m there! Whatever is best for the partner or client works for me. The tech industry has been using these tools for years, but for many, email and face-to-face meetings were the norm. 

So, I have focused my marketing and time on finding the best way to communicate. It can be hard to keep up! It feels like new communication channels pop up every day! The pandemic is changing the way we communicate and how we do business. You know what they say: Adapt or die! 

Since I work mostly with startups, I’ve changed my business strategy from public speaking and events to online business development and finding new resources to scale and expand into new revenue channels. 

Networking online certainly isn’t the same! I do a lot more phone calls and video chats and focus on getting quality time with people in new ways. How is your business adapting? How have you changed the way you generate leads? More than my business has evolved during the last few months! Thank you for being part of my network and keep an eye out over the next few weeks - I have BIG THINGS coming!

How Content Marketing Changed With Coronavirus

As the coronavirus continues to present hurdles for content marketers and publishers across the board, the industry is still leaning heavily on brand advertisers to help them meet their bottom lines. And as advertisers adapt to a changing landscape, many are still adjusting to this new normal. That said, research shows that a large portion are ready to look past the crisis, as six in ten (58%) of advertisers say that it's time to replace coronavirus messaging with product-specific ads. Still, publishers are eager to meet advertisers where they are. Want proof? 

Digiday recently pointed out that for some publishers, advertising spaces that were usually reserved for large U.S. retailers are now being bought up by mid-sized U.S. and U.K. retailers, albeit with smaller conversion guarantees. And at Lean Startup Life, we’ve seen firsthand the ongoing revival of branded content campaigns that has happened in recent weeks despite rumors of a lengthy economic recession. 

If branded content falls within your purview, I highly suggest reading through the blog post that our Head of Marketing recently published on the subject.

Since we last spoke about affiliates, Amazon made commission cuts to their affiliate program and started limiting certain categories. There’s no question that publishers felt the weight of those cuts in mid-April. Despite this - we’re seeing that publishers are increasing their affiliate budgets and seeing great ROI. That’s what I want to talk about this week, so let’s dive in. A Convergence of Opportunity Since The Great Upheaval in March, direct-response-style revenue categories - like paid subscriptions and affiliate sales programs - have been seeing a huge boost in ROI. At first, it was the drop in CPCs combined with record traffic numbers. The CPC trends have been on an upward swing since April, and yet, the ROI continues to be positive. 

Why is this? As far as I can tell, it’s all about volume. People have transitioned more fully into a digital-first lifestyle. They spend more time online, and have moved their interactions and transactions there more fully. For example, Q2, which historically was not a particularly strong quarter for eCommerce before the crisis, this year saw online shopping numbers surpassing Q4 2019 numbers. Let’s take a minute to let that sink in. Q4 is the Super Bowl of online shopping. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas. Q2 was bigger than that. This is no longer an anomaly, a blip, or a temporary crisis. What we’re looking at is a complete transformation. So yes, rate cuts were a blow. 

But Amazon is starting to show signs of reverting to old rates. And for now, those increased traffic numbers- along with a few other factors which I’ll discuss shortly - seem to be doing enough for publishers to press on and see profitability. Keys to Scale I want to examine what’s enabling publishers to scale and expand their efforts. First - affiliate rates. We’re seeing that working with Amazon’s generic affiliate program can still be a profitable endeavor, but the best value and ROI is a result of direct partnerships. Not only with Amazon, but also with other commerce juggernauts and select brands. For example, certain direct-to-consumer companies are seeing immense growth, and are seeking out partnerships to expand their reach. 

Publishers and content businesses in the age of Coronavirus have the opportunity here to forge direct relationships with those brands and more, delivering measurable results. This is clearly a win-win for both sides. Next - let’s talk about distribution strategy. We’re still encountering a lot of publishers who are hesitant to invest in paid promotion for their affiliate content, and instead are relying solely on their organic traffic. To be blunt - this strategy is leaving a huge revenue opportunity on the table. Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a handful of publishers begin to dip their toes into the world of paid affiliate campaigns, and the results are overwhelmingly positive. Publishers are seeing an average of 30% overall ROI right out of the gate, with optimization and strategy fueling growth that can in some cases be as high as 70%. Setting Up Success If you’re currently running organic affiliate programs, jumping to paid is fairly straightforward. The major groundwork has already been done - now it’s just time to take it to the next level. 

Here’s how the most successful publishers are making it happen in a practical sense: Choosing top performers: testing articles, if not done strategically, can be costly. The best strategy is to pick out organic articles with high ROI, and test those in a measured way, adding more in gradually as winners start to emerge. Confirming that tracking is correctly implemented: To measure the ROI of your paid campaigns, you’ll need insight into how those specific campaigns are performing. Some publishers have advanced analytics set-ups that can easily show the results of organic vs. paid campaigns for the same piece of content. At the same time, it’s also common for publishers to create a clone of the successful content with unique tracking, rather than promoting the existing page. 

Tailoring the format: The difference between a successful and unsuccessful affiliate campaign is very often a function of what the content looks like. Simply cloning a successful organic page will not be enough. Performance of paid campaigns is improved significantly by emphasizing the calls to action on the page with formats that stand out and language that is geared toward a sale. Taking these three actions along with the right targeting and bidding strategy is the best way to set up your campaigns for maximum growth and ROI. As for what to sell - we’re seeing a continued trend of seeking out comfort and entertainment. 

Gadgets, comfy clothes, houseware, and home office and exercise equipment are the clear standouts of the last couple of months. As long as people continue to have mixed feelings about venturing out, we expect this trend to continue. If there’s one thing that I want you to take from this email, it’s that there is a wave of digital transformation happening, and publishers are well-positioned to leverage this transformation into more revenue opportunities. Get your strategy right, and you’re ready to ride the wave. How are things in your neck of the woods? I’d love to hear about your affiliate strategy, or chat about your paid Facebook strategy in general.

If you look back at what I’ve covered in these emails so far, there’s a gaping branded content-sized hole. I haven’t addressed branded content here for the simple reason that for the last couple of months since The Great Upheaval, branded content initiatives have been pretty much non-existent. That is until they started coming back. That’s what I want to talk about today, so let’s dive in. The Slow Revival The health of any revenue stream can easily be measured by the amount of money publishers spend on it. 

Let’s examine branded content spending for the past 3 months: Branded content spend, in normal times, tends to peak at the end of the month, as publishers look to fulfill their reach obligations. Looking at February, that spike happened predictably. Like every other Facebook campaign type, there was a drop in spending in the middle of March as shelter in place orders started to take effect. However, we did see a small spike at the end of March, most likely due to those same fulfillment obligations. That said, the spike was much lower. From there, April spend was down to virtually zero. In May, however, we started to see things turn around. Video, for example, has experienced a steady rise in CPMs, a good indication of brands regaining confidence. Though the current situation has caused some brands to delay or pause their campaigns by a week or two, the increase remains steady, with more brands coming back online consistently. 

Brands are slowly starting to re-invest their advertising dollars, and branded content has seen a steady upward trend. We fully expect this to continue. Timing is Everything This year, brands went dark in Q2 to reassess and understand the new reality. As this was happening, we started getting requests for estimates and planning Q4. This started in April. Usually, Q4 planning doesn't start until months later in the year. This tells me two things: Brands are delaying budgets, but not forgoing them. There is clearly a growing demand from brands. There are, on the whole, a small percentage of publishers fully utilizing their potential when it comes to branded content in the age of Coronavirus. 

Seeing that there’s safety and stability in revenue stream diversification, this seems to me like there is a clear opportunity for publishers to double down on their branded content sales efforts and increase that revenue stream. A Tonal Shift So brands are coming back. But when it comes to their content, it’s definitely not business as usual. Most of the new campaigns coming in are more subdued, socially conscious, and somber in their tone. In the past, travel-focused campaigns were very prevalent, promoting everything from destination weddings to off-roading adventures. In our new normal, those have gone by the wayside. Travel content is now at a minimum and is mostly about virtually exploring destinations rather than traveling to them. 

Overall, there’s an emphasis on sustainability, social responsibility, and useful how-to content. It’s also interesting to note that COVID-19 is not being addressed directly. There are some brands that are tackling it in a roundabout way, covering virtual education, rebuilding small businesses, investment stability, and family. Financial planning content is definitely having a moment. Pacing is Key Let’s talk brass tacks. We’re still seeing publishers making a common mistake in their branded content campaigns: using paid distribution as a last-minute stop-gap to fulfill their traffic obligations. That practice, especially in this uncertain environment, can end up being costly. If you’re thinking about utilizing paid content distribution to fortify your branded content initiatives, the best thing you can do is start early. If you start your paid campaigns early, you can pace your spending according to your organic traffic, which gives you time to optimize your campaigns fully. This approach gives you higher quality results at a far more efficient cost.

Recently, Facebook shared how participants from its Journalism Project’s Retention Accelerator program plan on growing engagement in the coming months, with a special focus on building loyalty with readers who they’ve acquired since mid-March. The article shows how publishers can drive meaningful revenue by optimizing their billing systems (apparently, nearly a third of cancellations come from payment failures), as well as how to increase the lifetime value of readers with effective onboarding. It also shares ways to mitigate churn through retention curve analysis, an approach that we’ve seen first-hand can drive substantial long-term value for content publishers. I found that last part about reducing churn especially poignant, as it stresses how important it is for publishers to re-engage their at-risk subscribers, which is a challenge that we’ve been hyper-focused on helping our customers overcome in recent months. 

Facebook points to email newsletters as an essential tool for encouraging habitual readership, which is another area that we’ve been heavily exploring. While there’s no doubt that newsletters are vital for engaging both paying subscribers and casual readers alike, it’s also a channel where publishers are seeing an uptick in ad revenue, especially from food, drink, and pet advertisers. To quote an industry executive, “When publishers embrace email marketing and invest in it as a channel for consumption and monetize it, they are investing in a channel they own that performs with real people.” Every little bit helps content marketers and publishers in this tough economic time.

Comparing Corporation Tax Across The Globe

Corporation tax is taxable annual profit from companies operating in that country, comparable to income tax that individual citizens pay. In general, it has been reported that large developed countries have higher corporate tax rates than developing countries, as business requires a stable environment to contribute to, whether it’s a business selling invoicing software or a hairdressers. 

However, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), corporate tax has fallen across 88 countries from high rates between 40-50% in the 1980s, driven by the belief that low rates stimulate investment and enterprise in economies. 

Corporation Tax In Africa 

Being the poorest continent in the world, Africa unsurprisingly has the highest average corporation tax at 28.45%. With the highest in this data being Zambia at 35% and the lowest being Libya and Madagascar at 20%, South Africa stands roughly in the middle at 28%, slightly above average for Africa overall. Does this mean that South Africa is the safest bet for business? South Africa is one of Africa’s largest economies, with 54 diverse countries in terms of political stability, development, growth, and population. As South Africa has been a relatively slow growth area over the years, corporation tax dropped from 34.55% in 2012 to the current rate — but was this effective? GDP in South Africa has fluctuated quite dramatically since the 1960s. 

Business favours countries with economic and political stability, which is something South Africa doesn’t currently have. Furthermore, South Africa’s government debt to GDP sits roughly in the middle of the continent’s countries — is this influencing their corporate tax rate? 

Corporation Tax In South America 

According to data analysed, Puerto Rico has the highest corporation tax at 37.5%, followed closely by Brazil and Venezuela at 34%, Colombia at 33%, and Argentina at 30%, making South America the continent with the most countries in the top 10 who pay the highest corporation tax. On average, South America has the second highest corporate tax rate at 27.63%, whereas Europe stands the lowest at 20.27%. Does this contradict the claim that developed countries pay higher tax? 

OECD explained that corporation tax plays a key part in government revenue. This is particularly true in developing countries, despite the global trend of falling rates since the 1980s. However, it is unclear whether South America, as an emerging continent, is charging higher taxes in order to raise government revenue or to benefit from businesses that are looking to expand internationally and enter new markets. According to research, South America is becoming a popular choice for business to enter, with strong trade links and an advantageous geographic location. Indeed, South America is a large continent where some countries are business friendly and others are harder to penetrate. 

European Country Corporate Tax Rates

While corporation tax rates are influenced by the country’s definition, there’s clearly a pattern with developing countries and emerging economies paying higher rates to sustain the country. However, the top five richest countries in the world’s corporation tax are Luxemburg at 27.08%, Norway at 22%, Switzerland at 18%, Ireland at 12.5%, and Iceland at 20%, which is relatively varied. It would appear that some countries’ cultures factor into how much tax they pay. For example, Scandinavian countries are proud to pay higher taxes to contribute to social welfare such as top healthcare and education.