Some of the most popular products and companies we know, including Slack, Twitter, Craigslist, Gmail and Trello, started as a side project.

Side projects come in many forms but are typically projects started outside of normal work hours.

Often, the desire to start a side project is driven by the quest to become an entrepreneur, an interest in something outside of your core area of expertise, or boredom.

Have you recently thought any of the following?

• “My job doesn’t feel as challenging as it used to be.”
• “Everyone thinks this idea of mine is great, but I can’t afford to quit my job to do it.”
• “I wish I could do this skill better, but it’s not a part of my regular job .”
• “I want to move into product design [or some other position], but the… Read more

Marketing is hard.

Consumers are bombarded with so many marketing messages that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a brand to stand out.

Yet, every company wants their marketing messages to be memorable, effective, and impressionable.

This is easier for big, multinational corporations that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing, but not so easy for startups and small businesses with limited budgets and reach.

What can entrepreneurs and small business owners do to amplify their marketing messages and what can they learn from big Brands?

Studies show that emotion is the best way to get attention. As we previously wrote:

When we understand that emotions inform our decisions through their linked associations, it becomes… Read more

Memes—images that are combined with other images, words, or phrases, often to humorous effect—are ubiquitous on the internet.

You can find memes on every social media outlet. They get national media coverage, support political movements, and even contribute to our modern vernacular. Yasss!

To understand the importance of memes and how they have become both a platform and a voice for a generation, read this great piece on The Atlantic.

If all else, we can thank them for bringing Nusret Gökçe to the global stage.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepr… Read more

Apple launched the iPhone a little over 10 years ago and dramatically changed the world.

At the end of 2007, a mere 6% of Americans owned a smartphone. As of 2016, that number was over 80%.

People have embraced mobile apps in ways that few industry insiders anticipated.

Need proof? Over 57% of all digital media usage is through apps.

There are tons of mobile apps that can help increase your productivity.

As we wrote just a few years ago:

It’s no secret that mobile web use has skyrocketed over the past several years, with smartphone ownership in the U.S. nearly doubling between 2011 and 2015. And these smartphone users are all about the apps. The average smartphone user downloads 8.8 apps per month, spending 90% of their time on their phone in apps versus in mobile browsing windows. And there are a deluge of experts out there who insist that the development of brand-centric mobile applications is the future of marketing.

The ubiquity of smartphones, however, has also made it more diff… Read the full article

Every day, people watch billions of videos.

TechCrunch reports that 8 billion videos are watched on Facebook every day, Bloomberg reports that 10 billion videos are viewed on Snapchat every day, and videos on Instagram and Twitter are climbing rapidly in popularity.

Twitter even started to show view counts on their videos as businesses look for more detailed metrics.

We saw the increasing popularity of video more than a year ago, when we wrote:

For SMBs and entrepreneurs, video content will be especially important in 2017, according to Roberto Blake, a YouTuber focused on teaching people how to leverage the platform:

“In the context of YouTube you will see more people take advantage of YouTube Live now that Hangouts on Air has been retired. Another trend you will see this year is serialized content. Whether they be produced and formatted shows, such as the AskGaryVee Show, or Docu Series like CreativeSpaces TV from Sara Dietschy, serial content in the form of series have a d… Read the full article

The most successful people in the world all have one thing in common: they practice a regular routine every morning.

Don’t kid yourself, though – for these powerhouse professionals, morning doesn’t start at 9am.

To get a great start to their days, they recommend you get up early (without an alarm clock!) and find a way to energize yourself for the rest of your day.

The successful are certainly gifted in many remarkable ways, some of which cannot possibly be emulated.

But their daily routines?

We can absolutely  adopt some of those routines into our own lives to better ourselves mentally and physically.

For great examples of what a solid morning ritual looks like, take a look at this Business Insider article that looks at the habits of some highly successful people. That way, you too can jump out of bed and make the most out of what Jeff Bezos calls “the best hours” of his day.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on… Read the full article

Customers are the lifeblood of every business.

But as a business grows, managing growth and organizing information becomes increasingly more difficult.

What used to be easy when you had one employee and two customers is more difficult when you employ five people and have 25 customers.

Not every business owner is prepared for their business to grow.

But if you want your business to succeed, you must evolve the way you manage your business to match the growth of the business.

This means doing some things differently.

For example, this is the time a smart business owner absolutely must double-down on great customer service.

As we wrote in our look at 7 proven ways to improve customer service,

Happy and satisfied customers are often long-term customers. If your company can show that it prioritizes the needs of its consumers, you’ll be way ahead of your competition. It should be obvious but worth a reminder: retaining customers you already have is more efficient, profitable, and i… Read the full article

Marketers and business owners who understand human behavior and motivation have an unfair advantage over their competitors.

As we wrote in How to Use Science To Improve Your Marketing:

Smart businesses apply science to marketing. Relying on psychological research, these businesses adapt marketing strategies to maximize revenues and profits. When companies unlock the innermost secrets of how and why people buy things, interesting patterns begin to emerge.

For example, there’s good empirical data showing the best times and days to send marketing emails to maximize opens and click-through rates. However, as people have grown to more heavily use mobile devices, the science of email is gradually evolving. New research suggests, contrary to conventional wisdom, that many brands can benefit from sending email campaigns at night.

The reality is that few small businesses today study the human decision-making process in an effort to enhance their marketing.

Neuroscience is left largely to big,… Read the full article

[Source Image: Starbucks]

The Starbucks siren is alluring, mythical, and readily identifiable by coffee drinkers worldwide.

As far as logos go, the Starbucks Siren has remained relatively consistent over the company’s history.

However, recent edits to the logo show how powerful subtle changes can be in a redesign.

This interesting piece from Fast Company considers the evolution of the Starbucks logo and how, sometimes, perfection really isn’t so perfect after all.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Top 10 Best CRMs for Small Businesses in 2018 – crowdspring Blog https://t.co/eJYNiOJp4w | #SmallBusiness #CRM #strategy #CustomerSuccess Read the full article

You need more than luck to design and sell popular products.

After all, most successful products help to solve a problem for people who use those products.

Ultimately, great design is about understanding people and their pain points.

Products get inside the heads of consumers in surprising ways, and product designers have taken advantage of this for decades.

Whether it’s a mop you use to clean your floor or a digital experience that is as ephemeral as it is engaging, psychological cues are everywhere.

Companies like Swiffer, Amazon, and Ford use psychology to make their products better and more attractive to consumers because visual design directly influences consumers’ perception of brand quality and value.

You can do the same.

The creation of the Swiffer broom and mop system came out of extensive use of design psychology and user needs.

How can you compete with large, multinational corporations with huge budgets and design teams?

It all starts with understanding how people t… Read the full article

Being your own boss is living “The Dream,” right?

But, like anything truly worth doing, being your own boss comes with its own set of unique challenges.

The proverbial “buck” stops with you.

There is no manager to help you when things get tough.

No kindly senior supervisor with years of experience and wisdom to guide you.

You are that manager. You are that kindly voice of wisdom and experience.

You alone are responsible for the success or failure of your business.

So if you’re an entrepreneur, or want to pursue entrepreneurship, it’s time to start thinking ahead.

How can you be your own boss?

What are the steps to becoming a business owner?

What skills do you need to be an entrepreneur?

What are the requirements to start a business?

What obstacles may get in your path?

And what will you do when you meet them?

What will you do as an entrepreneur?

If you’ve been putting off starting your own business, you’re hurting yourself. Tomorrow is an entrepreneur’s enemy.

Here are 4 of the most… Read the full article

Want to be more productive at work?

How about getting more sleep?

The answer might be hiding in that dimly lit corner you’ve been working in.

Michigan State University released a study that may make you want to turn on some bright lights: light quality impacts our brains’ and bodies’ ability to function well.

Significantly.

If you’re spending too much time in a poorly lit office, you might not just suffer from lack of a good view – the absence of quality light heavily impacts our ability to remember, learn new things, be productive, and even sleep.

Time to move your desk to the nearest window.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Sharp, inf… Read the full article

Augmented Reality (AR) is 2018’s major marketing buzzword.

If you’re not familiar with augmented reality, AR is, according to Wikipedia:

a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are “augmented” by computer-generated perceptual information, ideally across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory.^[1] The overlaid sensory information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the natural environment) or destructive (i.e. masking of the natural environment) and is spatial registered with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment.^[2] In this way, Augmented reality alters one’s current perception of a real world environment, whereas virtual reality replaces the real world environment with a simulated one.^[3][4]

AR is more than a buzzword.

AR is an exciting and engaging way for marketers to get in touch with customers.

According to a report from Digi-C… Read the full article

Nearly 9 out of 10 marketers use content marketing as part of their marketing strategy.

If your small business or startup leverages content marketing, you already know the benefits.

No matter what industry you’re in, writing is essential to reach an audience and market your company. As we previously wrote:

If you’re not creating content on the web, you don’t exist on the web. A 140 character tweet is content. A 1,000 word blog post is content. A commend to a blog post is content. Your website is content.

Content is king and nearly every marketer is constantly searching for content marketing unicorns.

Without content, we can’t share our stories or tell people why they should become customers. In fact, some brave brands have taken content marketing to an extreme by experimenting with troll content marketing.

Doing content marketing effectively takes skill, patience, and the right tools.

Fortunately, there are many free and paid tools that can improve written content.

So, whether … Read the full article

Visual content is in higher demand than ever before.

Brands, startups and small businesses are all looking for ways to enrich their storytelling and market their products and services.

A recent Social Media Examiner report revealed that 74% of marketers use visual content in their social media marketing – even more than blogs and video. In fact, visual marketing is considered to be the second most important form of marketing content – second only to blogs.

With the endless demand for new, bigger, better content, it can feel impossible to keep up.

If you’re an experienced designer, you probably relish the challenge.

But if you’re a small business owner or marketer, you need to find smart ways to improve your company’s visual marketing without breaking your budget.

Fortunately, there are some terrific, affordable tools and services that can help you to improve your company’s visual marketing and help your company compete more effectively against established companies.

Whether you need… Read the full article

Do you struggle to remember small, but important, pieces of information over the course of your week?

Good news: you can teach yourself to keep the details about your day at hand.

TheMuse provides three strategies that are easy to integrate into your day that will greatly assist you when you try to recall critical pieces of information (like that co-worker whose name you always forget, or that phone number for the place with great take-out).

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Companies that hire technical talent only from the top schools live in the middle ages. Here’s the data that shows why they should look more broadly and hire from a bigger … Read the full article

This post is for you, Henry.

And you, William. And you too, Sophie.

Hey, guess what?

One of those people is actually you!

Before you start questioning our sanity, let me clarify.

Henry, William, and Sophie are all “user personas”, created using a combination of data and smart guesswork.

User personas are stand-ins that represent the overall possible identities of people interested in the content I’m creating.

That means Henry might be you! Or maybe you’re more of a Sophie.

Creating a user persona allows any company to better understand its audience.

If a company can create marketing personas to represent their consumer base, they can meet the needs of those personas – and therefore their customers – better.

Some experts estimate that people are subjected to a staggering 4,000-10,000 marketing messages a day.

That definitely ups the challenge of making sure that your marketing campaign isn’t simply brushed aside with the other 9,999 messages customers are seeing.

Persona-based marke… Read the full article

Image courtesy of Trello

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all. – Thomas Carlyle

How did the human race become the dominant species on Earth?

Is it our keen fashion sense? Our obsession with reality tv? Or maybe even our tendency to claim countries with flags?

No, it was our ability to use tools.

And, not just any tools, but the right tools for the right jobs.

Our intellect allowed us to discern when a tool was called for. And with our handy opposable thumbs, we crafted the tools needed to get the job done.

Using the right tools is still the key to success – in life and in business.

Is your marketing agency leveraging the tools that it needs to succeed?

And, is it using the right tools to help it get ahead?

Here’s a round-up of some of our favorite tools for creative agencies, tech innovators, content marketers and anyone else who ideates and creates.

These are the tools that will help you take your creative business to the next level and grow… Read the full article

Small businesses face a common challenge.

According to the 2018 Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Summit report 70% of small businesses struggle to find and retain skilled talent.

At 70 percent, this issue is nearly a pandemic among small businesses.

In fact, according to the Summit (the largest gathering of U.S. small business owners), recruiting was the top barrier preventing small businesses from growing more quickly.

There are a number of reasons why recruiting is a challenge for small businesses.

The first is the rising skill gap facing employers.

Employees don’t arrive equipped with all of the skills small business owners would like them to have.

Recruitment and workforce management firm, The Execu Search Group examines this skill gap in their 2018 Hiring Outlook report:

In recent years, the skills shortage has plagued employers across industries. As it becomes increasingly difficult to find the talent they need, these gaps in the workforce can impact a company’s ability to… Read the full article

Predictions are tricky.

Most people understand that predictions rarely come to pass, but we still make them – and even bet on them.

In one of the most famous bets of all time, Warren Buffett rightly predicted that S&P index funds would outperform the Goliath of hedge funds.

It turns out Aesop was right when he said that slow and steady wins the race.

Buffett provided an apt adage to summarize his reasoning behind his winning bet:

When a person with money meets a person with experience, the one with experience ends up with the money and the one with money leaves with experience.

To read more about the striking story, check out this article on Medium. We’re betting you’ll come away a little wiser.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, … Read the full article