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Startup Expert Interviews

Expert Interview: How to Hire Top Talent in Startups

The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. This quote, famously coined by Steve Jobs, perfectly sums up the importance people play in your business. And, as a co-founder at Altar.io, I’m always looking for new processes to onboard the best talent possible. The last book I read on the subject was Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart & Randy Street. After reading it, I was impressed. I could see why the book featured on both the New York Times & Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list. I took to LinkedIn to share some of the ideas the book had taught me about how I could improve my hiring process. It was nice, then, to receive a message from Geoff Smart thanking me for my post. I asked Geoff how he would feel about sitting down with me to talk further about his hiring process, and how entrepreneurs can improve their ability to onboard top talent. In the conversation that follows, Geoff not only shares his insights on hiring but also gives his advice for entrepreneurs on all aspects of the startup journey. Interview with Geoff Smart, Author of […]

Startup Expert Interviews

Startup Expert Interviews

Expert Interview: The 3 Pillars to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a question many of us will ask. In fact, it’s a question I recently came across on Quora: How do you know if you’re going to be a successful entrepreneur? Scrolling through the replies, one story caught my eye. It was from Hector Quintanilla, a brilliant startup expert and successful entrepreneur with nearly three decades of experience helping entrepreneurs build their businesses. It went something like this: You can predict with outstanding accuracy how successful you will be. It’s a very easy formula to understand — yet difficult to execute. What’s the secret? We become like the people we hang out with. Analyze your environment. Write down all the characteristics that you like and dislike. Well, that’s exactly where you’re heading. We’re social creatures and incredibly influenced by our cultures. This culture gets immersed in our behaviours, which are mostly unconscious. Do you want to become a successful entrepreneur? Surround yourself with successful people. Do you want to be happy? Surround yourself with happy people. Do you want to be healthy? Surround yourself with healthy people. Do you want to become more confident? Surround yourself with confident people. Do you want to fly with eagles? Surround […]

Startup Expert Interviews

Startup Expert Interviews

Expert Interview: The One Thing You Can’t Miss When Building an MVP

At Altar.io we’ve built dozens of products over the years, working with entrepreneurs from all over the world. In other words, we know a thing or to about building an MVP successfully. Based on that experience, it’s absolutely clear to us that one of the key elements of success is taking the time to reason with your product. We believe this so much we encourage every entrepreneur that works with us to start with a 5/7-day immersive process to align the product reasoning with the business goals, before building anything. We call it Product Scope. Recently, I had the chance to sit with founder, advisor & product expert Joe Procopio and talk about this exact topic: the importance of product when building an MVP. “You can do everything else right but if the product isn’t right, you’re doomed.”, he told me. “You can recover from every other part of the MVP process failing. You can’t recover from a misfire on the product.” Joe knows a thing or two about building MVPs, after all, it’s what he’s spent the last 20 years doing. As our conversation progressed, Joe shared his insights on not just building an MVP but launching it and evaluating the […]

Startup Expert Interviews

Startup Expert Interviews

Expert Interview: The Ultimate Guide to Startup Advisors

“Startup advisors are crucial to the success of your business.” No matter the source, I’m sure you’ve heard or seen this statement before. And I agree with it. Before co-founding Altar.io I had my own startup. From experience, I know that onboarding the right startup advisors; who have experience, knowledge, expertise and a broad network is only going to benefit your company. Which is kind of obvious, right? Problem is, whenever you think about one of the cornerstones of your entrepreneurial journey – be it co-founders, team, investors or business advisors – a million questions arise. What should I expect from a startup advisor? How should I compensate an Advisor? How can I find the perfect startup advisor for my venture? To answer these questions and more I sat down with Startup expert Martin Zwilling. Martin is the CEO & Founder of Startup Professionals and has more than 30 years of experience as an Advisor & Angel Investor. On top of this, he is a Professor at Embry-Riddle University. He is a published author of three books and has articles featured on Inc., Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post. The result of our conversation? An actionable guide to help you navigate the nuances of the Advisor/Founder relationship. Startup Advisors: The Ultimate Guide with […]

Startup Expert Interviews

Startup Expert Interviews

Expert Interview: The Hidden Details When Funding Your Startup

There are countless articles on the web that talk about what investors look for when funding your startup. Normally they all focus on similar things: A stunning pitch deck Solid financials Market opportunity A founding team with the “X-Factor” Execution capability All of which are, undeniably, important. But even if you think you have everything figured out, the numbers don’t lie. Few startups successfully raise capital and even fewer get a good deal. So what’s different for the founders that do secure funding? What secrets do they know that the rest are oblivious to? To find out, I sat down (virtually) with Startup expert Paul O’Brien, CEO of MediaTech Ventures, to take a closer look at the hidden details behind startup funding and the information you absolutely need to know that often lurks beneath the surface. About Paul O’Brien Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do A: I grew up in the midwest of the United States when the economy was rough there. Then I ended up in Silicon Valley when Yahoo, Google & Facebook emerged so I’ve experienced both sides of an economy. And how an economy, how a workforce and how entrepreneurs can actually suffer if there isn’t an intentional investment […]

Startup Expert Interviews