The Startup Culture Of 2020

When thinking about startup culture, you must be thinking about late sittings at the office, busy hours, and homey offices. Well, you’re not wrong. However, just like everything else in this world, startup culture is also ever-evolving.

This article is going to reflect on the startup culture of 2020 and how it has changed from before. The startup culture of an organization can make or break a business. The efficient work of its employees runs a company, or it doesn’t run at all.

A culture of an organization plays a vital part in the satisfaction of a worker, but how does culture tie in with the success of a business? Why is it so essential to establish an excellent startup culture? Let’s find out.

Why startup culture is important

Did you know that 65% of 18-35 old employees prefer culture over salary? It’s not surprising since mental peace comes before everything, even money!

Establishing the culture of a startup can be really tricky. Since the company is new, every individual contributes to the culture, and it keeps on changing over time. You might think you don’t have a culture yet, but you do!

From your policies to how you take care of your employees to the office environment, everything contributes to your culture!

Workplace culture can be a critical factor in why your company has a high turnover rate, low motivation, and productivity. So, even if you manage to attract and hire experts in the field, if your culture is toxic or weak, they will leave no matter the benefits. Nobody likes being miserable. A high employee turnover rate also tarnishes the company’s reputation, so be careful!

Creating a startup culture is a challenging task, but it can be even more challenging to change the dynamics once a bad culture sets in. An established company can take the hit that is caused by its cultures, but a startup will just sink.   Keeping employees satisfied should not be on the back-burner, but should rather be a priority, so they perform well and input more into the wellness of the startup because that’s the only way it can grow.

Startup Culture of 2020

We talked about the startup culture within a company, but how is the paradigm of the whole startup industry changing?

No more high-pressure environment

Startup culture is known for working under pressure, expanded JDs, and working at breakneck speeds to deliver results. All of this is going to change in 2020. Hustling Culture is out, making room for a more empathetic approach. The old approach actually proved to be counterproductive as the employees burnt out more often than not.

Hence, for 2020, HR is encouraged to put out more policies that will be centered around employee’s well being. This will attract more talent that will stay, hence benefiting the company in the process too. What goes around really comes around in this case!

More seed funding

The frequency of new startups has steadily risen over the past few years, and so has investments. This is mainly because before the investment was distributed across multiple startups. However, after many startups failed to deliver results, investors have become vary about where they are going to put their money in.

Venture capitalists now dig deeper into the startup to determine whether it will be successful or not. Once they do find one, they’re not afraid to invest in them, hence driving up the investments as well.

Tech startups will take the lead

From home automation to our fridge notifying us to restock our groceries, it’s no wonder that IoT projects are leading the tech industry right now. Gartner reports that 20.8 billion projects will be connected to the internet by 2020, and there are no signs of stopping.

Everything is getting automated these days, even cars and vacuums! The focus of the IoT industry was towards home automation first, but it’s slowly creeping up into healthcare, logistics, and management as well. Many startups have been capitalizing on this trend by coming up with new and exciting ideas and pitching them to VCs.

However, IoT products are always at risk of data fraud since the products used are recording at all times. If the information is leaked, it could pose a huge problem for the respective company, and they could be fined millions of dollars.

Hence, companies should have policies and security protocols in place so the problem can be dealt with in case of hacking and other security risks.

How to establish a startup culture

As a founder, how do you ensure that you create the best startup culture for your company? The thing is, cultures obviously differ from company to company, and once it’s created, it’s hard to change.

A startup’s founders, first employees, and their mission are some of the key ingredients that go into the making of the company culture. If you’re a product-based company, your goals and values will differ from the company which sells services.

77% of employees would consider culture before applying to a new company. Even new hirings are based on whether the employee will be able to fit into a culture, so it goes both ways.

If the founders are introverts, then the company is probably going to be a quiet place to work in because the employees will need to resonate with the culture. Any individual that does not fit in probably ends up leaving if they are hired in the first place as the core principles just don’t go well together.

Can you imagine an introvert stuck in a lively office filled with extroverted employees? Absolutely not! It’s just going to be an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience.

The million-dollar question is, how do you ensure your culture aligns with your values, vision, and goals?

  1. Lead by example

As a founder and leader, it’s your job to set the tone of the work environment. Make your employees feel at home and easy around you, rather than having them stiffen up every time you cross their desks.

Small things like how you talk to your employees, if your criticism is constructive or not, do you reward them for their performances or not. If you’re easy-going and friendly, then the work environment will be too.

  1. Don’t try to force it

There will probably be a difference in your current culture, and the culture you’re aspiring towards. If you force aspirational culture on your employees, then chances are they won’t even listen and just put it off. This is counterproductive as well and will make your employees feel uncomfortable.

There’s nothing wrong with striving to implement a different, better culture in your organization. It all comes down to how you implement it. Instead of telling your employees that we’re going to have this new culture now, sit down with them and tell them where your company lacks and what should be done in order to integrate properties of the aspiring culture slowly in the current one.

This makes the employees feel valued, are not only comfortable with the change but will also work and take the measures needed for the new culture to integrate seamlessly.

  1. Manage and act on it

Once you do have new policies to establish the culture, make sure actually to follow them. What’s the use of them if they aren’t being executed? Culture shouldn’t be on paper, it needs to be acted on.

Once the culture sets in, it’s critical to manage it in a startup organization. Be aware of any cultural gaps and work towards diminishing them. However, as your company grows, there should always be room for changes.

For example, before you were a product-oriented company, but since you’re doing so well, you’ve expanded it to include more services. Now your organization is more customer-oriented and has a large sales team to support it, and hence your culture will become more extroverted.

  1. Hire carefully

One of the key factors in hiring an employee is determining whether or not they will fit well in your culture. It’s important because otherwise, the employee will leave the organization if they feel uncomfortable.

Hence make sure that the hiring already aligns with your organization’s visions and principles.

How do you tell if you’ve done a good job establishing the right culture in your startup? These things have a way of showing themselves. If the employees are satisfied, it will reflect in the way they are working, coming up with new ideas, their motivation, and, most importantly, their overall productivity.

Of course, you can always circulate feedback forms if you want tangible proof. This way, your employees will also know that the company cares for them and is actually working to provide them with a good work environment.

Conclusion

Creating and maintaining a culture can be hard, and you’re bound to get some resistance too. However, you need to remain headfast because building a culture takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight.

At the end of the day, it’s all about what’s best for the company. As your organization gathers more success under its belt over the years, your culture will evolve too.

10 Tech Startups Poised for growth in 2020

Every year, thousands of startups sign up to start their new venture. Since demand is steadily rising for big data, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and IoT, new and old companies are capitalizing on it and introducing their own solutions in these areas.

Enterprise software spending is predicted to rise by almost 11% this year, hitting the $507 Billion mark! Not only this, but 20.4 billion objects will be connected to the internet by 2020 and the number is set to keep on rising. Looking at these statistics, why wouldn’t there be a rise in tech startups?

With so many tech startups hitting the market every month, competing for awareness, investors, and growth, let’s see which ones made it to our list. 

The Startup Culture of 2020

Startup culture of 2020

Startup culture of 2020

When we think about startup culture, we think about a cozy, nurturing workspace where everybody is growing, late-night sittings, in-house games and snacks, and other perks like that. But let’s go deeper.

We’ll not talk about the work environment of startup companies, we’ll talk about the startup culture from a higher viewpoint, see how startups culture, in general, has evolved.

It’s no secret that the frequency of new startups is increasing year by year, and so has their funding. The average Series A in 2010 was $4.9 million. By 2017, it reached $12.1 million. This proves how startups are expanding and gaining trust to perform well.

To minimize their costs, startups turn to freelancers for any work that could be done remotely. Websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer are their go-to’s. In fact, freelancing is so popular in the US, that about 35% of workers comprise freelancers!

If they don’t higher freelancers, then almost 66% of small businesses hire other small companies to outsource their work.

In order to make their companies sustainable, startups presell their product before it even comes out. It’s reported that companies that do so, close 40 to 50% more leads and retain 80 to 90% more customers. So not only are they earning before the release of their products, but they also feel secure in knowing that it’s meeting consumer demand. 

Top 10 Tech Startups for 2020

Top-10-startups-of-2020

1. Snowflake

In the latest round held in Feb 2020, Snowflake raised $479 million led by Dragoneer investments group and Salesforce venture, bring the company to a jaw-dropping worth of $12.7 billion!

Frank Slootman claims to have built the first-ever relational data warehouse for cloud-based platforms. By executing this, they provided something unique to their audience- Real-Time data analytics.

Since data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are gold mines right now, it’s no wonder the company was able to grow so fast in just 5 years!

It’s one of the few startups who have earned themselves the Unicorn badge, and with the latest funding round, Snowflake is on the road to becoming one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. 

2. Tidelift

Open-Source software is great and all, but since it’s free, they lack the proper maintenance because maintenance requires cash, and open-source software is free! To eliminate this deadlock, Donald Ficher, CEO and co-founder of Tidelift,  came up with a solution to monetize this type of software.

This startup works with the creators of this software in direct collaboration, by paying them a salary each month so maintenance is done on a regular basis to keep the software up-to-date and high-quality.

It offers its service to organizations at a mere $1500 for 25 developers, hence saving them from the trouble of buying expensive software, as well as solving their problem of running into bugs and rough patches of the free software they are already using.

Tidelift has accumulated funding of $40 million so far from companies like General Catalyst and Foundry group.

3. Funnel

CEO and founder, Fredrick Skantz tells Techcrunch that, “Automating the collection and preparation of the data has proven to be a very hard thing to do right and we wanted to make sure we were the best at this which we now confidently can say we are as we hear that again and again from customers.”

And sure enough, this SaaS startup integrates more than 500 data sources to provide relevant and valuable insights to its customers. It gathers all the data at one platform, making it very easy to extract information for marketing and advertising purposes. They offer their services starting at $399 a month.

With their latest funding round in January 2020, Funnel is now a $47 million company, backed up by 6 investors.

4. Cohesity

There are many things that landed Cohesity on this list. For instance, it has won the NorthFace Scoreboard Award for excellence in customer service for two years in a row!

“My vision has always been to provide enterprises with cloud-like simplicity for their many fragmented applications and data – backup, test and development, analytics, and more,” said Cohesity CEO and Founder Mohit Aron.

This startup offers an efficient yet cheap solution to store secondary data with simple and rapid recovery options, a service that many have found very useful!

Adding one more success to its list, Cohesity has raised almost $410 million to date, making it one of the most funded startups!

Top-10-startups-for-2020

5. GitLab

GitLab is an opensource repository for managing, tracking and collaborating code for developers. It handovers complete control to its users, so they can decide if their repositories are public or private.

CEO and co-founder, Sid Sijbrandij, announced that the service would go public on 18th November 2020.

GitLab provides it’s services in 4 different packages priced at $0, $4, $19, and $99. It starts with basic features and kicks it up a notch as it jumps from package to package.

The startup recently raised $268 million led by existing investors Goldman Sachs and Iconiq Capital, valuing the company at a staggering $2.75 Billion!

6. Afresh

When Matt Schwartz, founder, and CEO of Afresh, started noticing the food waste that resulted from overstocking, he decided to use AI to get rid of the problem.

This startup uses smart AI algorithms to optimize grocery stocks so they can minimize food wastage. By analyzing and predicting the trends grocery stores go through, it comes up with an optimized quantity for stocks so that nothing goes to waste.

It has already signed up deals with billion-dollar grocery chains. Some of the partners even reported that Afresh’s algorithm helped them cut back on cost as well as wastage.

7. Understory

understory is a weather infrastructure and analytics company which tracks 125,000 data point per second through its weather sensors. It tracks things like precipitation, wind, temperature, air pressure and humidity.

“Our commitment to disrupt outdated methods for dynamic weather analysis is the primary focus for this next stage of growth,” said Alex Kubicek, Co-founder, and CEO of Understory.

In 2019, the company partnered with an insurance firm, MSI GuaranteedWeather. Through the data Understory will collect, the insurance company will resolve hail-related claims for car damage, making the payouts faster and more accurate.

The latest funding round led by True Venture, brings the startup’s total funding to $22.25 million.

8. Movandi

When 5G technology was introduced in 2019, experts believed that it will not be accessible to low-density areas because of its infrastructure. But CEO and co-founders, Maryam Rofougaran and Reza Rofougaran aimed to eliminate this problem by introducing their own technology, Movandi.

Movandi introduces a technology that will broaden the reach of the 5G network. The technology can even work around obstacles like high-rise buildings, to keep the signal strength strong.

The startup is already in talks with major wireless providers and has raised $30 million to date.

9. Petal

Jason Gross, CEO of Petal, came up with the idea of a unique credit card, which determines if you’re ready for one based on your income and bank statements. The feature that sets it apart from other credit cards is that Petal is more geared towards young people.

The company doesn’t charge fees, not even for missed payments, and also offers cash-back rewards- Just what youngsters need. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good credit score, or other reasons most credit card companies reject applications for.

The company has raised a total of $46.6 million for its new venture.

10. Confluent

Confluent was founded by the creator of Apache Kafka, Jay Kreps, an open-source software. The startup is a commercial version of it and is much lighter and easier to use than Kafka.

Confluent makes it easy for developers to stream data in large volumes and extract metrics from it for statistics and analysis.

It raised $125 million in its last round in 2019, bumping up the total funding to $205 million.

Conclusion

What did you think of the top startups leading the market right now? From weather infrastructure to artificial intelligence, the tech industry is spreading its roots in every direction!

We’re excited to see what these companies come up with next, which one- if any- will be the next Unicorn, and how their products will revolutionalize their respective industries!

These startups are all set and geared up for the race to success- a race where there is no finish line.

Top 11 Tips To Optimize Your Startup Blog

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, then let me tell you that it’s one of the best decisions you can make for yourself and your brand! Blogs are a great way to express your brand and its culture, so why not make use of it?

However, the fact that starting a blog is intimidating is relatable. With over 152 million blogs crawling the internet, how do you make your blog stand out? This is the question that you’ll be getting the answer to after you’re done with this article.

But first, to get you pumped up and motivated about starting a blog, let’s talk about what it can do for your business! 

Why You Should Create a Blog?

Why you should create a blog

1. Attract the Audience

Content is king! You must have heard this phrase many times, but only because it’s so relevant! Whenever you’ll publish a blog, you’ll be increasing your chances to be discovered.

Create blogs that will be of value to your target audience. Answer frequently asked questions about your industry, or some interesting insights, or whatever the most popular monthly searches are. Once you have a build-up of these blogs, people looking for answers will stumble upon your blog sooner or later through google searches. Optimizing plays a huge part in this, but more on this later.

2. Build Authority

Blogging is a gateway for you to build authority in your industry, but only if you’re able to provide unique and valuable content to your readers! All it takes is one piece of information for a reader to decide that you’ll be valuable to him, hence making him come to you for his problems!

Publish as many blogs as you can that are centered around your target audience problems, then slowly watch your authority build up!

Once you create your authority, you have established a relationship of trust and respect with your audience. This leads to brand loyalty which ultimately generates more leads and sales for your business!

3. Tell your story

Create blogs that offer exclusives like how you made your business successful, what struggles did you face, how did you overcome them? This will appeal to the emotional side of your readers and will swing to your advantage! Everybody loves a good success story, why not tell yours to inspire them? Not only will your audience be impressed by the behind-the-scenes information, but they’ll be more devoted to you too!

4. Engagement

After you’re done attracting new customers and making sales, you don’t want them to forget about your brand, right? Blogs are a great way to engage your audience and delight them.

Create blogs related to your product or service to keep offering useful information on using it. What are the different ways your customers can use your product? What are some hacks related to them? Is there an update coming their way? 

Top Tips To Optimize Your Blog.

Top 11 Tips to optimize your startup blog

1. Be Consistent

Once you start a blog, there’s no going back. If you’re not consistent in updating your blog, then you’ll start to lose relevance as well as readers!

Blogs that get updated daily generate 5 times more traffic than those who don’t! Create relevant and high-quality blogs consistently to keep a steady stream of readers.

To make it happen, make a content plan and decide which post will go out when, so you can create them beforehand and have a steady flow of articles.

Remember, the more you post, the higher your chances of ranking higher on Google.

2. Be Original

Your readers will catch on to the fact if they know you’re forcing something, and that’s just off-putting. Your passion for your brand should shine through your writing. Don’t rephrase content you find on other blogs! Try to create something unique and valuable.

Not only will this establish your authority, but offering fresh stats or content to your readers will prompt them, as well as other brands to share a piece of your content with others! By being original, you’re creating content that will market itself when published. 

3. Use Quality Images

Using images in blogs is very, very important- they can get you 94% more views than usual! However, just like all the other content on your website, images should be relevant.

Include facts and figures so images are shareable. Absolutely steer away from bad quality images with low resolution. No matter how valuable they are, they will be very off-putting and will drive away traffic rather than attracting it.

4. SEO!

There are many ways you can optimize your article for search engines. For instance, making proper use of heading tags so Google can skim through your content. Optimize your sub-headings as well as URL with rich keywords to increase chances of ranking on Google’s first page.

5. CTAs

Call-to-action buttons are a great way to engage your readers and give them a direction after they’re done through your blog. And if your content was impressive enough, they might just click on it and boost your conversion rates.

CTAs can be anything you want, it’s totally your choice. It could be a form asking you to sign up, a subscribe or a download button, whatever you want.

There are also multiple places where you can set up your CTA. Experts recommend after the first 2 paragraphs, in the middle, and finally at the end. These are the places where engagement is the highest. 

6. Plan With Keyword Search

After you’re done deciding on the topic, your next step is to plan and research your content. Do comprehensive keyword research relevant to your article so you can incorporate it into your article subtly and as smoothly as possible.

Use a mixture of long-tail keywords and keyword phrases for some SEO juice so you can rank for those keywords on the first page as well!

However, don’t overdo it. Use a keyword 1-2 times in 500 words to avoid keyword stuffing. If using them is unavoidable, then try inserting synonyms in their place.

7. Add Image Alt-Text

SEO and keywords apply to images as well. Save your images with a relevant keyword. Image alt-text tells search engines what the image is about, so use it wisely and optimize that as well.

By doing this, you’re increasing visibility of your image. And even if your blog doesn’t rank well on Google, your image is visible in Google images for the same search results.

8. Make Your Blog Responsive

A good way to make your blog stand out from your competitors is by making it interactive and fun! Think about it, you’re providing your readers with something other than just walls of text. So even if your readers zone out- which they will because of human attention span- they will be snapped back to your content when they see something out of the box!

Examples of a responsive blog can include, a short animation through scrolling, or whenever a mouse hovers on a specific word. Not only does this keep the reader interested and hooked, but it also prompts them to share it too!

9. Optimize For Featured Snippets

Featured snippets offer websites another way to rank highest on Google. In order to have your content featured, the information needs to be precise and relevant. Here are some of the tips that might help you land this spot:

  • Use heading tags and list types to present content.
  • Target the most asked questions and address those.
  • Have keywords in your heading.

Whatever content you’re producing, make sure you’re using the proper tags so Google can discover your content. Use tools like UberSuggest and AnswerThePublic for keyword search and FAQs.

10. Optimize Your Title

For search engines, optimize your title by adding a couple of keywords most relevant to the article. Keep the title just under 60 characters so that readers can read your whole title on the search engine.

For your readers, optimize the title by evoking emotion through it. Promise the reader something that they will obtain if they click on your blog. Or maybe, go against the norm and tell them why a common thing we all do is wrong. If your title has a promise, suspense, or an uncommon negation, chances are that it is going to have a high CTR. We are creatures of habit after all. 

11. Make Your Articles Easy To Read

How many times have you exited the article just because you had trouble reading it? People hate looking at a wall of text, especially with no line breaks! That’s the worst thing you can do for your blog.

Your article should be a mixture of one-liners, small paragraphs, and images scattered throughout. This increases readability and maintains engagement from start to finish.

Keep your tone light and informal so readers can relate to you. They’re not reading a research paper, they’re reading your blog! What can you offer that’s unique? 

Conclusion

So there you have it, insider tips for optimizing your blog for the best traffic! These are just some tips we’ve learned along the way. However, digital marketing is ever-changing, so keep your experiments and strategies dynamic to accommodate new trends and tips for the future!

A blog is a powerful and sustainable way to express your brand, use it wisely!