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Get the most recent info and news about Farmer's Business Network on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Farmer's Business Network, Inc. is an independent agricultural tech and commerce platform and farmer-to-farmer network that helps its members make confident decisions to ensure the economic viability of their farms and work toward a sustainable future. FBN is an advocate for family farmers and ranchers, and does whatever it takes to help farmers become more prosperous - whether it's through data science-driven agronomic insights about their fields, providing farm inputs through its e-commerce store, helping farmers sell their crop more intelligently and independently, or providing them with health or crop insurance. FBN arms farmers with the tools they need to make the best decisions for their business, their families and the planet. See the most commonly asked questions about Farmers Business Network: https://faq.fbn.com/s/ Follow Us @ twitter.com/FBNFarmers facebook.com/pages/Farmers-Business-Network/391276821026384 instagram.com/fbnfarmers/

Farmer's Business Network

And you’ve probably never heard of it. , the newest , is changing the way farmers source fertilizers and pesticides with their , which dramatically reduces costs to farmers and uses data (rather than the recommendation of a local salesman) to guide application decisions. Farmers Business Network Google Ventures darling recently announced procurement service While much of Silicon Valley looks to completely new spaces for AgTech that’s often several iterations away from being truly transformative (think indoor ag and alternative foods), FBN is tapping into the existing system of Big Ag and shaking it to it’s core. For the past 70 years or so, farmers across the nation have depended on their local chemical dealer, a Mom&Pop operation in their rural town, for recommendations on what fertilizers to use, what pesticides to spray, at what times and in what quantities. Though this very personal is notoriously strong, after a year like 2015, where , a technology that offers significant savings ( ) could be the energy needed to weaken those links. network farm incomes declined by as much as 36% FBN quotes one customer that saved up to $40,000 The obvious upside to FBN’s new procurement service is that it adds an element of extreme precision to chemical application, which should reduce the overall use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture- a great outcome for farmers and consumers. Growers save money, and the rest of us are treated to less fossil fuels in our soil, water, and food. That was an obvious issue with the old/existing system; when a salesperson doubles as your advisor, they’re more likely to “advise” the amount that will get them the highest commission. There may, however, be a downside to this service for the sustainable food movement. Moments when farm incomes are especially low and input costs are high encourage growers to broaden their purview of possible inputs, and creates opportunities for alternative inputs (like or of ) to get under the noses of farmers. By providing the same inputs that farmers know and trust at a wholesale discount, FBN may be further entrenching the system of traditional chemical applications. algae waste-based fertilizers alternatives to pesticides One thing we can say for sure, FBN’s acquisition service is a windfall for farmers, particularly in this challenging year. However, particularly with the growing threats of climate change, real crop advisors, unattached to chemical wholesalers, need to be kept around for those extraordinary years where the data won’t be the best predictor of input needs. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that FBN is positioning itself to be the Amazon of Agriculture. What that means for the of food? We’ll have to wait and see. future

The Startup That’s Already Disrupted US Agriculture

Blockchain is a technology that is changing the rules. In the next few decades, blockchain will likely have a bigger impact on the world than the internet has had to date, as we enter the next stage of its evolution — the internet of value. Ireland is positioning itself as a blockchain hub with companies across every industry in the country actively experimenting with the nascent technology. Let’s take a look at how some of these innovative companies are exploring new and exciting ways to leverage blockchain technology: <a href="https://medium.com/media/d8c94d3f5b8bc712b817ad4bf4cb1aba/href">https://medium.com/media/d8c94d3f5b8bc712b817ad4bf4cb1aba/href</a> Domestic Banks Ulster Bank, AIB & PTSB are collaborating together on a project known as , which is exploring the application of blockchain technology to improve the speed of domestic payment systems. Bank of Ireland completed a to demonstrate how financial institutions can combine blockchain with their existing systems to provide better client experience and regulatory oversight at a lower cost. Project GreenPay proof of concept International Banks Citi’s innovation lab in Dublin delivered a blockchain based they launched with Nasdaq. Irish Funds created a blockchain proof of concept for regulatory reporting in collaboration with State Street and Metzler. JP Morgan is leading a blockchain based network called Interbank Information Network (IIN) that has signed up dozens of banks including AIB. They have also recently launched their own on their blockchain network Quorum, an enterprise-focused version of Ethereum. payment solution JPM coin Consulting Deloitte’s EMEA is based in Dublin where they help their public and private sector clients design propositions and business models using blockchain as a platform technology to connect to their peers, suppliers, regulators and governments. The other big consulting firms along with a few smaller ones are also offering similar blockchain consultancy services to their Irish clients. is Ireland’s largest blockchain company who help build and deliver Ethereum-based blockchain platforms and products. blockchain lab ConsenSys FinTech Unsurprisingly there is a number of active blockchain projects in the FinTech community with a good mix of tech start-ups and more established global players. Some notable ones are MasterCard, who have been working on a range of blockchain solutions in their since 2016, Circle who are global crypto finance company and Fidelity Investments. MasterCard Labs Fast growing start-ups include , a FinTech platform provider who are building the world’s first distributed trade finance platform, as well as which is a platform that uses smart contracts to make cross-border transactions more efficient between its consortium of 9 major European banks. TradeIX we.trade Infrastructure Most of the major infrastructure tech companies based in Ireland such as Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are working on providing tools and applications which will allow their customers to create and manage scalable blockchain networks using open source technologies. Education The rapid growth of blockchain means Irish universities are playing catch-up in terms of offering courses to help develop the right talent for some of the aforementioned companies. Most now offer some exposure to blockchain on their curriculum but more needs to be done. Firms have started funding their own scholarships now with ConsenSys, for example, having launched a with UCD, DCU and Trinity College to support computer science students and encourage them to pursue a career in the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem. scholarship programme Governmental & Regulation There are a number of governmental and regulatory bodies in Ireland coming to grips with blockchain technology. The Central Bank has established a working group focused on the latest financial technology innovation such as blockchain to help inform their policy decisions. The Department of Finance are carrying out active research into virtual currencies and the blockchain ecosystem that exists in Ireland, Europe and globally. The IDA is helping to promote and enhance the blockchain industry in Ireland. Legal To support FinTech clients working with cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology in Ireland a number of leading Irish legal firms are now offering their services in this space to help them understand the interactions between financial regulation, data use and technology. Cosgrove Gaynard Solicitors are one of these and were the first Irish law firm to from their clients last year. accept Bitcoin payments Supply Chain Blockchain is seen as an enabler for greater supply chain efficiency from conducting payment and audits to tracking inventory and assets. The coffee company, , is a great example of this who are running a pilot project to provide supply chain transparency by recording and capturing data on every transaction from the farmer to the coffee cup while making real-time payments to Ethiopian farmers for their coffee beans. Moyee Coffee Digital Currency Exchanges A handful of digital currency exchanges — who make it easy for the public to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum — have operations in Ireland. The two most prominent ones are and Poloniex, the latter of which was bought by US Dublin-based peer-to-peer payments platform Circle last year. Coinbase Venture Capital Last year in Ireland there were nearly 200 VC deals worth around €553m. VC investment in blockchain startups increased significantly recently with the likes of Cosimo Ventures and Draper Espirit making investments in start-ups focused on the emerging technology. Conclusion Blockchain is still very much in its infancy with a lot of technological challenges still to be overcome before it can properly scale and deliver on its promise of being the foundation for new economic systems that are more open, efficient and accessible. However, that is not preventing companies all across Ireland from aviation to social impact and everything in between to actively experiment with blockchain to see how it can help save them time, remove overhead costs, reduce risk and increase trust within their business networks. With so many new advancements and use cases of blockchain appearing every day it can be hard to keep up. Blockchain Ireland and are initiatives that were created to provide valuable sources of information on the Irish blockchain ecosystem and provide a platform for communication, education and discussion of ideas. BlockW If you want to find out more information visit the website or attend one of the many blockchain meet-ups that are happening regularly across the country. Blockchain Ireland If you are interested in reading interesting soundbites from leaders in the blockchain space, Niall writes a weekly blog here , or follow him on Twitter .

The State Of Blockchain In Ireland

Creating long-term value with limited resources is a huge challenge for entrepreneurs, but it’s hardly a novel one. My grandmother, who lived in a remote village in Bangladesh, was barely five feet tall, skinny as a rod, and very soft-spoken. She could barely read or write and never had a formal education, yet she successfully managed a farming and sharecropping business, overseeing a network of farmers, merchants, and seasonal workers, all while raising nine children and keeping a household in order. To do that, she needed to create long-term value from the work she directed without exhausting the finite resources at her (and her community’s) disposal. Even though circumstances are very different for modern entrepreneurs, the fundamentals of sustainable growth remain the same. Here are seven of them. AUTHENTIC PURPOSE Every company needs to pin down “why we do what we do.” That’s the company’s North Star, guiding every aspect from recruitment to customer management to product development and sales. A strong purpose drives growth and profitability. For instance, an investment in the (a list of the world’s 50 highest-performing companies) over the past 10 years would have been 400% more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500. Stengel 50 In order to achieve sustainable success, companies must repeatedly reexamine their sense of purpose and make sure the organization serves it well. An authentic and inspiring purpose allows for: A constant, consistent sense of focus A strong emotional engagement both within the company and with its customers and partners Continuous, pragmatic innovation Sales and marketing experts often talk about “unique selling propositions,” or “USP,” which as the “factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition.” defines Entrepreneur A company’s authentic purpose gives rise to its USP. When a business has a clear vision, it’s easier to create products and services of value. Revlon founder Charles Revson, for instance, always used to say that he sold hope, not makeup. A POWERFUL BRAND If you want to create a scalable business, you have to understand how crucial it is to build brand equity and emotional connections with customers. It’s those attachments that link customers to your products and will keep them returning to you. Building a brand is about developing and sustaining those relationships over time. Here are some basic rules to with your products and brands: connect, shape, influence, and lead . The surest road to product failure is to try to be all things to all people. Choose your target audience . Make your audience feel an emotional attachment to your brand that’s grounded in confidence in your products. Connect with the public . A simple, inspirational message is far more influential than one that tries to highlight too many product features, functions, or ideas. Inspire your customers No marketing plan can rescue a brand identity that isn’t fully formed. Don’t have much marketing budget to speak of? Create compelling content for publisher and social media sites to start generating awareness among target customer bases, and build up. PARTNERSHIP AND COLLABORATION Doing everything yourself can be tempting in the beginning when funds are few and ambitions high. While there’s nothing wrong with a hands-on approach, taking on more than you can handle, especially in areas where you lack experience, can be damaging. In the era of the global freelance economy, it isn’t difficult to find talented expertise, but you have to know where to find them. There are now dozens of that provide specialized resources from design, development, and sales to finance, legal services, and banking. The best part is that you can try small projects at low investments. The trick is knowing exactly what you want done and putting resources towards accomplishing tangible goals. websites and online marketplaces CUSTOMER RETENTION As Emmet and Mark Murphy write in their book , acquiring new customers can cost an organization around five times more than retaining current ones. In fact, a 2% increase in customer retention can have the same effect as decreasing a company’s costs by 10%. To put it another way, reducing customer defection rates by just 5% could by 25% to 130%, depending on the industry. Leading on the Edge of Chaos increase profitability According to the and the : U.S. Chamber of Commerce U.S. Small Business Administration The average business in the U.S. loses around 50% of its customer base every five years. Companies are four times more likely to do business with an existing customer than a new customer. The likelihood of selling to an existing customer is 60–70% whereas it’s just 5–20% for a new customer. Successful retention starts with the initial contact a business makes with a customer and continues throughout the lifetime of the relationship. that for certain industries, a 10% increase in customer retention is roughly equivalent to a 30% increase in a company’s value. Bain Capital has even estimated COMMUNITY A business ecosystem is an economic community of organizations and individuals that interact in countless ways. These ecosystems encourage companies to evolve their capabilities competitively. Sometimes an ecosystem can sprout up around a product, like the range of cases, headphones, and other paraphernalia for mobile devices. Similarly, ecosystem thinking has become a cornerstone of web publishing — a broad swath of unpaid contributors create content for popular outlets in exchange for growing their own readerships and developing personal brands. Ecosystems are crucial to sustainable growth because they provide the structure that surrounds and supports the businesses within them. They spread “stakeholdership” out from the business and into society, like it did for my grandmother with her farming community. REPEATABLE SALES Creating a unique product and brand isn’t enough. It takes repeatable sales processes to create a scalable business. It’s one thing to sign up a few customers; it’s another thing to design and implement sales processes that can be successfully deployed again and again at ever greater scale. You’ve created a scalable sales model when: You can add new hires at the same productivity level as the entrepreneur or the sales leader. You can increase the sources of your customer leads on a consistent basis. You have a sales conversion rate and revenue that can be consistently forecast. The cost to acquire a new customer is significantly less than the amount you can earn from that customer over time. Customers get the right products in the right place at the right time. A repeatable sales model builds the platform to scale. But it can take a lot of experimentation and intensive research before you hit on one that’s truly sustainable. FLEXIBLE, ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP To continue growing, entrepreneurs, managers, and business owners must become the leader the business needs for each particular stage of growth. And since a company’s needs change at each stage, its leaders need to keep evolving at the right pace. That requires introspection, self-awareness, and a keen sense of strategy — both in the short- and long-terms. I believe that an comes from being mindful. Our individual, adaptive, flexible leadership style interpersonal, and working lives are all interconnected. By being mindful, we understand those relationships and how best to utilize them to create, innovate, and lead. And that allows us to arrange our lives and our organizations in a way that leads to long-term value creation. Indeed, the most sustainable way to create value is to continually invest in our capabilities, both as individuals and as organizations. [Photo: Flickr user Ekaterina ] Original article @faisalhoque.com and @FastCompany . Copyright © 2018 by Faisal Hoque. All rights reserved. I am an . Founder of and other companies. Shadoka enables aspirations to lead, innovate, and transform with its accelerators and solutions. Author of “ ” (McGraw Hill, 2014) and “ ” (Motivational Press, 2015). Follow me on Twitter . entrepreneur and author SHADOKA Everything Connects — How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability Survive to Thrive: 27 Practices of Resilient Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Leaders @faisal_hoque

The 7 Fundamentals Of Sustainable Business Growth

Society is built upon a story. The glue that holds humanity together is fiction, a creatively invented story for “the greater good.” Look at money. Why trade our lives for paper? Wars are waged over this meaningless money. And money my friends is the one bubble that’s never popped. Money’s also the source of power for government. Before that it was royalty, and force. Before rulers were gods, or ordained by the gods… and on and on. The power of stories defines humanity. The story of the Ponzi scheme For anyone who does not know, a Ponzi scheme is an elaborate scam where you pay to participate and just need to convince 3 friends to convince 3 friends to convince 3 friends… and so the money flows. Notice the pyramid-esque nature. This is a Ponzi scheme, aka a scam. And it is illegal. ( ) BTW we aren’t talking about ICOs and cryptocurrencies, which are definitely a ponzi scheme (plus much more). For more on ICOs boom, bust and rebirth, and see this pos t You have probably heard of Bernie Madoff. He ran the most infamous Ponzi scheme ever, stealing a supposed $65B for “innocent” investors/fellow Ponzi participants. Source: ScamAvenger But that begs the questions: where are Bezos and Zuckerberg on this list? Let’s talk network effects (NFx) You could argue today’s social networks look eerily similar to a Ponzi scheme ( ). The dynamics of a connected world create tangible value for members and enormous financial rewards for the creator(s) of the network. still a far cry from ICO scammyness network As an investor, I am constantly looking for startups with true network effects. Companies able to leverage the flywheel of continuously increasing value warrant ridiculous valuations. From social platforms like: Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp to B2C marketplaces like Amazon, Airbnb and , successful network effects result in nearly untouchable monopolies (f_or more_ ). Uber on today’s monopolies stifling innovation, see this post And network effects aren’t only applicable to consumer companies. Look at and Box. Slack What do all these companies have in common? Great products with killer network effects. Acquiring customers One of the most important responsibilities of any founder is acquiring customers. Without users and cash, the business dies. Network effects and “virality” are two of the most crucial strategies for organic growth. startup And organic growth built the unicorns and tech behemoths of today. Few giants grow from paid acquisition — the costs are just too high. And as markets saturate, CAC rises. This is not true with true network effects. Instead as networks grow, all participants benefit and CAC remains constant, if not decreasing. Look at Amazon. Onboarding initial buyers and sellers was hard. It was just a bookstore. Fast forward to today to the Everything Store. Suddenly Amazon’s doing $136B/yr and sellers everywhere are scrambling to get onboard. Amazon doesn’t need to pay a dime. And customers come too. When Amazon has more options and better prices than Walmart, and delivers to your door, it isn’t even fair. Amazon’s flywheel fixes their initial capital challenges, increases margins, decreases CAC and drives LTV through the roof. Source: PointofSale.com The 5 types of network effects Not all businesses can leverage NFx. And even many that do have limits ( ). which is why Airbnb’s a 100x better business than Uber There are five type of network effects, each with strengths and weaknesses. They are: Marketplaces — aka Two Sided Networks Channel partners — aka Three Sided Networks Communications networks Content networks Local networks 1. Marketplaces — Two sided networks The first and most obvious type of network the market. Markets have existed since the dawn of time and grown exponentially in the internet era. Markets just make sense. People have needs and wants — from your stomach to sex to survival, markets pop up around every conceivable human want and desire. These traditionally consist of buyers and sellers. Historically, prior to the rise of cities, nomadic traders travelled between small settlements, continuously peddling their wares and pulling in profit. Farmers bought tools, craftsmen bought meats and traders traded in everything. Notice the movement. Traders came to the people. This has not changed. As buyers aggregate, sellers somehow find their way. Implication: Because acquiring customers is so much harder than acquiring sellers, businesses need to spend the bulk of their resources focused on buyers. As the number and quality of buyers in a market increase, companies can start to focus more on sellers — specifically quality control. Look at Amazon and Ebay. What is the primary difference, besides success? Ebay’s auction platform that encourages negotiation and lowball offers, hurting sellers and slowing the speed of transactions. This attracts low price, unattractive buyers. Amazon does the exact opposite. They focus on seller quality, ensuring good customer experiences which leads to more word of mouth. Buyers don’t brag about Ebay, sellers either. But everyone and their mother talks about Amazon. That is because Amazon is fast, cheap and easy to use — everything Ebay is not. Source: The Motley Fool Application: Building a two-sided market? NPS is incredibly important (first for buyers, then for sellers). Onboard customers, make the process fast and seamless and suddenly you have a sharable marketplace. Two-Sided Marketplace Examples Low Tech: shopping centers, farmer’s markets and brothels. Tech: Airbnb, Uber, Amazon Strengths of marketplaces Nearly untouchable after critical mass Monopolistic pricing power to increase commissions Low maintenance and operating costs once established (unless like Amazon you own distribution) Huge valuation multiples due to strength of network Weaknesses of marketplaces Very challenging to acquire customers/users Need to balance supply and demand Cash intensive to get started Revenue lags growth ( .) NOTE: For more on tokens/ICOs ability to disrupt established markets, see this post Channel partners — Three sided networks Not all commerce is conducted via a platform. The reason? Acquiring customers in a nascent market is hard. Because the business models and structures of marketplaces and channel partnerships are so different, most companies cannot do both well. A real world example. As an ecommerce/Amazon strategist, I’ve consulted for numerous public companies on their future and the world of Amazon. These corporates knew they needed to increase sales online but they had a problem. To sell on a marketplace meant alienating existing distributors (channel partners). If XYZ competes with their distributors, distributors suffer and thus XYZ suffers. Can you kill the aging golden goose? Perhaps the best example of the monopolistic power for this type of network is Microsoft. Microsoft owned the desktop and personal computing space. They built a vast network of suppliers and channel partners and then squeezed them. Companies could not afford to exclude Windows and Microsoft Office, users HAD to have it. And because legacy systems and software were all built and reliant upon Windows, switching costs were prohibitively high. So Gates got to charge mafia money — pay the ransom or watch your business burn… Source: JumpCloud.com Most channel partnerships do no go like this. That said, it is usually the responsibility of the brand to boost awareness — unless you pick your partners well. Take for instance bookkeeping. Few entrepreneurs know, like or care about bookkeeping. They just need to get it done. So they find a bookkeeper who uses and recommends . Xero Now the owner has two choices: find a new bookkeeper or use Xero. Inevitably most buy in. That is how Xero became a ~$4.5B business, off the back of recommendations (aka channel partnerships or affiliate marketing). Implications/Application: Channel partnerships do not work for every type of business. It really depends on the product and end customer. They can be massively lucrative and scalable when done right. Channel partnerships require trust and demand generation — both of which can come from you or your partner. Here the medium and product play a large role. For instance grocery stores get millions of pitches, they aren’t going to push your product. It is up to the brand to create demand and move inventory. If they can’t, shelf space goes to someone who can. A great counter example would be podcast marketing. Joe Rogan (the UFC guy with a massive podcast audience) singlehandedly turned the Fleshlight into a huge hit. The adult product was Joe’s first advertising partnership and the product hit it off, quickly connecting with Joe’s audience and outside the box approach — the company didn’t need to do a thing… What type of channel partnership can your company leverage? Channel partnership examples: Low Tech: bigbox retail, QVC, catalogs Tech: Microsoft, Xero, affiliate marketing Strengths of channel partnerships Outsourced acquisition means lower capital expenditure Ability to scale sales quickly with established networks Low maintenance and operating costs once established Ability to focus more on core product Weaknesses of channel partnerships Long sales cycle for onboarding channel partners Demand/trust component Lower margins Less direct contact with end customer More dependent on partners, thus riskier [LIKE THIS ARTICLE SO FAR? THEN YOU’LL REALLY WANT TO SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER — AND GET SOME FREE BONUSES!] OVER HERE Communication networks Successful social media companies warrant crazy valuations. Instagram sold for $1B before making a buck. Snap has yet to prove they can make money and are valued at ~$17B. And don’t forget the 500k pound gorilla in the room, Facebook’s evil empire. Communication is one of the truest forms of network effects. For every new user, my value goes up. If ½ my friends are on and ½ are off, there are ONLY two options: onboard everyone or switch to something better. Imagine if your cell phone could only make calls within your carrier’s network. Joe’s on Tmobile, mom and dad have AT&T, grandma’s got Verizon… you would need 3 different phones and 3 different plans. The same is true for social. Everyone or no one. If you have to switch between apps and services, you are not going to stick around. But with communication the viral component is key. Add all your friends. Invite everyone on LinkedIn. Want to join Whatsapp? The pressure to grow the network for my own personal reasons does the dirty work for them. Facebook isn’t spamming my friends, I am. And I and billions like me built a 2B+ person network worth $531B+. The key to communications networks is onboarding — as quickly as possible. Networks that leverage users’ social proof scale. Networks that pay to acquire customers fail. It is that simple. Implications/Application: Given these dynamics, it is no surprise that social networks are winner take all. And that justifies massive valuations and upfront investments. In winner take all markets, monetizing too soon can be catastrophic. In social, the outdated VC mantra of “growth at all costs” actually makes sense. Any advertising, any monetization and you risk reduced NPS scores and lower virality (the two MOST important aspects of any communication network). Communication Network Examples: Low Tech: fax, mail, phone Tech: Facebook, Whatsapp, Slack Strengths of communication networks Viral growth as users onboard their networks Increasing value as # of users increases Low maintenance and operating costs once established Massive switching costs to leave network Weaknesses of communication networks Require lots of capital and runway to get started Need very strong NPS score to encourage sharing No direct monetization model Some networks get too big to control the noise Content networks Whereas communication networks involve two-sided, near real-time communication, content networks are much more one-sided. And as they say, content is king — and it lasts. Content does for eyeballs and attention what markets do for commerce, it aggregates it. And content has long been a profitable business. Look at magazines and newspapers (pre-internet). These publications put out content, users subscribe (pay) and advertisers add tons of ads. The editors can sell ad space because readers are hooked and keep coming back for more. And unlike communication networks, the one-sided nature of content allows it to scale easier. An article or video can have 100 or 100M views without much increase in base costs. There are two keys to creating a killer content network: 1) the content and 2) the hook. It is one thing to wow readers or viewers, it is another to get them coming back. But because advertising is such a weak monetization model, it means you need big volume and better have users coming back for more. This is where the hook comes in. In television it is the cliffhanger ending that makes you come back next week (or next episode with Netflix). But blogs do this too. It is all about subscribing and remarketing again and again and again to drive the network. Source: TVRopes.org Implications/Application: Content networks function inversely to marketplaces. Whereas marketplaces make money by initially aggregating buyers, content companies need creators. Without the first few landmark pieces, people get bored. This is why organizations like Youtube or Netflix spend so heavily on content (empowering creators and creating content respectively). Evergreen content keeps producing, even after production ends. And with all great content, people love sharing. How many of your friends recommended Game of Thrones or House of Cards or that horrible Gangnam Style video? People want to feel cool and know about things before their friends — look at any social feed. Any content network that optimizes for quality and creativity can create a massive loyal following — as long as it effective remarkets and suggests additional content. Content Network Examples: Low Tech: newspaper, TV, radio Tech: Youtube, Instagram, Medium Strengths of content networks Evergreen content continually delivers Value (and potential customer base) increases as amount of content grows Creators do much of early marketing for you Large switching costs for creators leave network Low to no cost of content creation Weaknesses of communication networks Onboarding creators or creating content is expensive/hard Need very strong NPS score to encourage sharing No direct monetization model Some networks get too big to control the noise Local Networks Last but not least, we have local networks. As technology and the internet have connected the world, these networks have struggled. That said they are still very relevant, especially the dynamics behind them. Local networks will never die, unless VR ends reality. Look at humanity’s basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, sex/relationships. All of these are physical, tangible and heavily influence our daily lives. And evolution bred society into humanity. We are social creatures. We are built to connect. Whether that is meeting for dinner, going to the game, poker night or a casual hookup, we tend to aggregate ourselves. Think about sports? Almost every American has a TV. You could watch any game at home, whenever you wanted. So why do fans buy tickets? Why are sports pubs so popular? No one likes drinking alone. These dynamics are what make local networks so strong? Church groups, sports teams, the neighborhood pool… there are local networks all around us. The problem with local networks is that they are small. For the most part they are not VC fundable. But businesses based locally with nationwide scale can succeed. Look at — local networks of everything under the sun, organized by location and interest — like the Reddit or real life. Meetup Implications/Application: You build massive companies like this one piece at a time. Facebook was a local network before it was a communication network. The keys to growth: focus on one target customer in one location at one time. A leaking ship eventually sinks. Networks that try to scale before perfecting the model need significantly more capital and still usually fail. Franchisees are perfect example of this model. McDonalds started small, perfected the experience and slowly started to scale. Ray Kroc (not actually the founder), focused on each locale, perfecting the process and exciting the public. From their the franchise spread as nationwide and then international demand exploded. Local Network Examples: Low Tech: restaurant, sports teams, church group Tech: Meetup.com, , Tinder Nextdoor Strengths of local networks Easy to interact with early adopters/customers Brand ambassadors help with much of marketing In-person events drive greater emotional attachments Every new city/expansion increases business defensibility Weaknesses of communication networks Scaling presents logistical challenges Once it “works”, users may no longer need app (example: Tinder, Match.com etc…) Culture fit/demand differences between regions Need to compete with increasingly digital world Closing Thoughts Network effects are one of the strongest indicators of business model success. Organic growth eats paid acquisition for breakfast. Unfortunately designing network effects isn’t exactly easy. Hopefully the concepts discussed in this post help you better understand your business model. What are you investing in and how do network effects play into your investment philosophy? For investors: What are you building and how can you leverage organic growth, virality and most importantly networks effects to build an enormous business? For founders: Answer those questions successfully and this insanely long blog post will have been worth it. Before you go… If you got something actionable or valuable from this post, click the💚 or 👏 button below or share the article on Facebook and Twitter so your friends can benefit from it too. Hold down the clap button if you liked the content! It helps me gain exposure . Clap 50 times! Donations and support are always greatly appreciated BTC Wallet: 14qFdA5A6BVY8oxbWDBjUmXdTkpujbCAKr ETH Wallet: 0x36d558c84204f3902F0C5C02afBEfd649CD3E23E LTC Wallet: LNyMG1Kf6UhD5GircU8iD6uQeo5FFJCiiK

The 5 Types of Network Effects and How to Hack Them

Did you know that around in the US are home-based? And about ? 50% of small businesses 82% of them fail because of cash flow problems If you are reading this article, then you may be one of them. We understand how hard it is for business owners like you to promote their businesses, especially when you start out. Often, the marketing budget is non-existent or tight. In such scenarios, the owners have to get creative in their ways to promote their businesses. But that requires a great deal of time as well. This article will list out 7 proven and creative ways to promote your small business in 2021, even with no marketing budget. 7 Cost-effective Ways to Promote Your Business 1. Google My Business Building Google Listing using Google My Business is among the most effective free marketing strategies, especially if you are a local business. Your business gets visibility on the local section of Google Search, Google Maps, and the knowledge panel of branded searches that appears on the right side. Not only that, but Google My Business also boosts your organic rankings. (Source: ) Reshift Media Using your Google My Business Account, you can optimize your Google listing to rank higher for the Google Maps search results. You can optimize your listing only if you have of the same. Note: verified ownership Here are some tips and tricks to rank higher in the Google My Business listing: Navigate to the and add posts relevant to your business or industry. You can also publish links of content along with images. Adding content increases your business' authority, and it becomes a good way to showcase your expertise. Add relevant posts: post section in your Google My Business app Write an in-depth description of your business. Make the description engaging and conversational. Try to add targeted keywords in your description for which you want to better your rankings. Add a detailed description: Add the primary keyword in your name—for example, XYZ Agency - Best Digital and Creative Agency in New Delhi. Use for keyword research and planning. Keywords in the name: Google Keyword Planner Tool 2.  Host events, webinars and create content Create as much content as you can. In the form of blogs, videos, webinars, etc. Creating and publishing content can be a great way to showcase your expertise, building credibility and reputation. When done with the right intent, among the right audience. content can drive organic traffic to your website, generate quality leads, and strengthen your overall SEO. Content Marketing can boost your rankings and give your business proper and increased visibility Tips to write great content: Use simple language or language that your audience understands. Do your research - creating in-depth and value-adding content is the way to go. for keywords, also make them catchy Optimize your headlines Educate instead of selling Add actionable items like links to other content, free downloadables, etc. Types of videos you can produce: If your product is technical or requires multiple steps, videos are a great way to connect with your audience. If not, then videos make a great medium to promote your business and build your brand credibility. You can create: Instructional videos DIYs How-tos Behind-the-scenes Interviews with industry experts, your employees, etc. Another great way to build your credibility: hosting classes, events, and webinars relevant to your target audience. For example, if you are running a small local gym, then host online classes to educate them about Yoga, Nutrition, Weight loss techniques, etc. Usually, hosting events and classes can be expensive undertakings, but with everything going virtual, you can now host them on Zoom or . other webinar platforms 3.  Attend industry networking events, exhibit at local trade shows, and participate in community events Industry events and conferences make a great way for like-minded business people to network and market. You can develop B2B relationships to help you get bulk orders or turn into strategic partnerships to expand in new territories and markets. Such events also have exclusive seminars to help sharpen your business and marketing skills. Does your city or town host weekly farmers' markets, annual exhibitions or celebrations, or other community events? Then, by all means, participate. If possible, set up your booth or table to promote your local audience's products and services. Such affairs are inexpensive and offer great opportunities to build a brand locally. Other great ways to connect and contribute to your community: Sponsoring youth groups Distributing free coffee to volunteer groups, local police officers, etc. Organizing food or clothing drives to help less fortunate Sponsoring local trade shows or fairs 4.  Turn your customers into promoters Having a great product or providing impeccable service will help you achieve half of your marketing goal. And for the other half, reach out to your customers. Ask them to leave reviews on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Social Media, and other customer review platforms. To make sure your customers leave reviews, send a thank-you message or note once they've done business with you. A small thank you can go a long way. Moreover, your loyal customers would love to help expand your business' reach. Here are other great ways to turn your customers into promoters and engage with them: Running a business card drawing contest Running social media contents Setting up a customer referral program Tips for running social media contests: Offer incentives Set your budget and prizes Determine your goals: is it engagement? Is it brand awareness? Do you want to build your email list? Determine contest type: this will be based on your goals Pick your platforms Go through the platform's contest guidelines 5.  Turn your vehicle into a billboard This is an excellent way to promote your business locally. Use the real estate of your car, truck, or even a two-wheeler. Add your business name, contact information, and address. Pro tip: If possible, add a unique number or email address as your contact information. This will help you track the effectiveness of this marketing strategy. You can also add a QR code that redirects your customers to a specific landing page. This form of marketing is known as vehicle branding. You can also use your close friends, family, and employees' vehicles to market your business. A Few Tips for Effective Vehicle Branding: Keep it simple. Don't overhaul your vehicle with graphics and information. Use simple fonts for better readability. Use the vehicle's three dimensions wisely. Make sure you are sending the right message. Don't overcomplicate things for them. Don't try to save a few bucks on photography and printing. Make sure the print is of high-quality. And lastly, be creative. 6.  Write and submit guest posts and leave comments on relevant forums Many publications and websites would love to publish your content. You can put promotional links to your business within the content and provide value first. This entire process of writing for other platforms and websites is guest blogging. This was an oversimplified version, but it's not as simple. Here's a quick overview of how you can go about guest blogging: List down blogs/websites relevant to your target audience. For example, if you have a SaaS product, you might want to post on tech or product blogs. Create a customize pitch Write an impressive post Join guest post communities Monitor your competitor's moves Leaving opinionated comments, value-adding, and showing expertise in a relevant topic can also help build a personal and your business' brand. All you need to do is find relevant forums and websites where your audience might be hanging out. 7.  Social media - to create and promote relevant content This one is a no-brainer and hence is listed at the end. Social media has democratized content publishing and is a great way to target and engage with your audience. Not only can . You can turn your blogs into bite-sized image content to post on Twitter, Instagram, etc. you get extremely creative with different content formats, but you can also cross-promote your blogs, videos, etc Some other social media ideas to promote your brand: Host an AMA - once you've built your reputation as an expert in your domain, host an AMA (ask me anything) to engage with your audience and followers. A social media takeover - you'll see influencers collaborating and taking over brands' social media accounts. You can invite influencers or collaborate with relevant brands for a mutually beneficial takeover. Develop bite-sized video clips and how-tos Go live to interact with the audience in real-time Give your customers a platform to speak about their experience with your brand A list of a few more in-expensive marketing strategies you can explore: Industry partnerships LinkedIn marketing Brand ambassadors Business awards Email marketing Social media tagging and hashtags Creative business cards and magnets Summing Up Marketing has never been this accessible and free. You just need to streamline your brand's messaging strategy, set realistic goals, create necessary resources, and start marketing. Pro tip: Since all the platforms, resources, etc. are available to your competitors as well, you might have to put in extra efforts to get an edge over your competitors. The key lies in being innovative with your approach.

7 Proven and Inexpensive Ways to Promote Your Bootstrapped Business

Authors: (1) William P. Wagner IV, Claremont Graduate University. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Definition of Key Terms Fundamentals of Internet Operation Encapsulation Usage-Based Economic Models Net Neutrality Legal History Researcher Conclusions Areas for Further Exploration & References 2. Definition of Key Terms 2.1. The Internet It is relevant and helpful to a discussion on Net Neutrality to understand exactly what the Internet is – and note that there is little substantive difference in these definitions: The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. -Wikipedia An electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world —used with the except when being used attributively. - Merriam-Webster Dictionary The Internet is defined as a network of networks and there is no mention of hardware, network owner, or content provider. There is no single ruling body of the Internet. See Appendix A. In technical terms, we can say the Internet is by definition hardware, network, and content agnostic. These three ideas are fundamental to the internet to provide both forward and backward compatibility. The Internet does not care whether a given network uses fiber, copper or satellite. The Internet does not care whether a given user is using a Mac, PC, Smart Phone or an automated water sensor in a farmer’s field. And for purposes of prioritization, the Internet protocols treat all packets of a given type equally – regardless of content, source, or destination. This paper will use the following definition, which includes reference to the IP protocols that define the technical standards of the Internet: The Internet: A global system of public and private networks, a network of networks, which is hardware, network and content agnostic and based on the Internet Protocol Suite. 2.2. Net Neutrality And, of course the definition of Net Neutrality is seemingly fundamental to any discussion of Net Neutrality. Yet almost immediately we see variance in the definitions: Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers treat all data on the Internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. - Wikipedia The idea, principle, or requirement that Internet service providers should or must treat all Internet data as the same regardless of its kind, source, or destination. - Merriam-Webster Dictionary In this researcher’s opinion, both these definitions seek to express similar ideals, but neither fully succeeds on a technical level. The Wiki definition includes a broad range of internet experiences that one might argue should not be included in a practical definition - like “user” or “method of communication.” Both these aspects are superfluous to a definition of Net Neutrality. By way of illustration, the current system already tiers costs based on the type of user (ex: corporate vs. consumer or private vs government) and it tiers costs based on things like satellite vs terrestrial communication methods. The Merriam-Webster definition hits much closer to the mark, however due to the technical nature of this discussion, I have changed the term “kind.” As discussed later, there is some prioritization of data on the internet based strictly on technical specifications of TCP/IP, and the use of the term “kind” may overlap with that discussion where the terms “type” and “kind” are often used interchangeably. Therefore, to avoid confusion, for purposes of this paper we will use the following modified definition of Net Neutrality (substituting “content” for “kind”): Net Neutrality: The idea, principle, or requirement that Internet service providers should or must treat all Internet data as the same regardless of its content, source, or destination. 2.5. Internet Society – ISOC The internet has grown organically, with standards that are open enough that anyone may participate, while being well defined enough that engineers can design hardware and software with confidence. Although there is no formal governing body of the Internet, the protocols that define the Internet are defined and agreed upon by an international consortium of groups, the largest of which is the Internet Society (ISOC). Within the ISOC and the other global standards groups are various open-membership advisory groups, standards groups, and definitive naming and allocation groups for things like domain names and IP addresses that require global consensus in order to operate correctly. See Appendix A. The group primarily responsible for establishing the technical standards of the Internet is the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [9]. This paper is under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Net Neutrality, the Internet and the Internet Society

Kristof De Spiegeleer is a serial entrepreneur who is the co-founder and chairman of the ThreeFold Foundation, where he is building the next generation of IT infrastructure, leveraging the power of the blockchain. We had the chance to discuss his journey building tech companies, problems with current IT systems, and what he believes is the future of the blockchain. Kristof, tell us more about your background so that the Hackernoon community can get to know who you are. Edward: Since I was 9 years old I have been obsessed by computers & programming. I guess you can call me a nerd. I always had a lot more interest in my computer and the sheer endless possibilities than normal childhood. When I came out of university, I had a hard time finding a job. I was lucky to find a good business mentor who allowed me to build out my first business which was a networking and IT integration business. This was back in 1994 when we were still messing around with coax networks and a super immature IT ecosystem. Kristof: A couple of years later, the first global Internet service provider in the world (PSInet) asked me to join them where I could help them to build out their hosting and datacenter business in Europe. This was a crazy period in which our team achieved 2 world records. In 2000, I had gathered enough courage to start my first company. Since then we have founded more than 15 companies, of which 6 of them have been acquired. Over all those years, we have been working on developing technology to create a more stable technology foundation for the Internet (more scalable database, storage, and automation systems). You can probably call this the boring part of the Internet that you can’t see – the backbone parts. Around 2014, my life seriously changed. My wife Isabelle was very sick at that time and almost died. Doing something meaningful for the world became really important to us. This is where we started with the current projects going from conscious technology, trying to create a new Internet, and organizing healing retreats on the Nile. How has the internet changed since you started your journey, and what do you believe is its future? Edward: When I started my career, the Internet barely existed. There was no web browser – something called Gopher allowed us to find information on the “Internet.” It was a free place, at that time it was possible to know all websites. The Internet is one of the greatest things which happened, and allowed the world to become much more global. It started with all good intentions. There were no firewalls, hackers, etc. Kristof: Today, though, less than 20 companies own more than 80% of the Internet IT capacity (storage, compute). We became a product and our data is massively abused. The Internet is served out of very big power hungry datacenters. Today the internet is being cut into pieces, countries are installing firewalls, and some are using the Internet as a source of manipulation and control. If we are not careful, the Internet will cease to exist. We urgently need a new Internet. The future of the internet does not look good. We, ALL TOGETHER, need to change the way how we deal with the Internet. A new alternative is required. Today, you probably work with more than 100 apps (services) and for each of those you digitally exist and are a product. Your existence on the Internet allows some companies to make more than 1000 USD per year of your data. Your data is not safe, the information you get is often manipulated. Tell us more about how the autonomous internet will work for the sake of those that are not familiar with the idea? Edward: We need a new Internet which is not owned by a few centralized companies. We need an Internet co-owned by all of us, where everyone is equal, where everyone owns their own data. An Internet which is much more green, which is available everywhere in the world. Kristof: An Internet which goes back to where it all started – a network, connecting people who can freely communicate, who are not manipulated, and who can use this network to build out their digital lives in all freedom and neutrality. This Internet needs to be self-driving & self-healing. It's the only way how a global network of capacity can be created. Since people are not needed to manage the network, the costs are lower and security is much stronger. How has your past experience creating tech companies prepared you for this project? Edward: Creating a successful company is hard. It's very demanding and finding a balance between keeping your investors happy and delivering on the dreams you had when starting your company is not easy. Kristof: This is especially hard if you want to maintain a strong set of values and refuse to give in to greed, ego, and using fear to get what you need in your company. Working with your colleagues in a startup is super inspiring but also challenging. A startup always goes through moments which are difficult sometimes look hopeless. My motivations for starting my first companies were somewhat driven by ego and frustration. Luckily, we managed to provide very good return for our investors which gave us enough credibility and made it easier to do more projects. At one point in time I became too arrogant. Life was too easy. I was a successful entrepreneur and thought I could do anything. We went through a tough time for a couple of years. I had to find out the hard way what is important in life. In 2014 we decided to restart all over in a different way. We moved to Dubai. We started working on our current projects. Today, our projects have very solid foundations. The people we work with all believe that doing something good for this world and being successful in business can go hand in hand. I would never have been able to do what we do now without the lessons of the first 10 startups. How did the idea of creating come around; what inspired you and your co-founders? Edward: Threefold Well, as I’ve mentioned, the Internet is broken. Over the years we managed to build technology which has serious efficiency advantages. We have created our own operating system, our own blockchain, and our own self-healing automation system. Kristof: We believe our system has big efficiency advantages when it comes to storage, and even more so for blockchain-based storage projects. Our inspiration was to be able to use this technology to redesign the basics of the Internet – a new Internet which is owned by all of us. A new Internet which requires 10x less energy, which is local to all of us, which is more secure, and which is not manipulated. We have a technology company called TF Tech where we develop the technology and a not for profit foundation which represents all the “farmers” of this new Internet capacity. What challenges have you faced and continue to face as you try to bring this new idea to life? Edward: Funding, funding, funding… Kristof: In the current world you need money, lots of money, to achieve ambitious goals. Being able to finance this project without losing our values has not been easy. Luckily, thanks to our founding team and loyal supporters we have been able to raise +20M USD which kept us going till today. We did not want to do an ICO (Initial Coin Offering), we didn’t feel ready yet to go to Venture Capital. We are now organizing an IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) on a regulated public exchange called Liquid. This should be the start of a next phase in our project. Our teams are very decentralized, we have more than 100 people working on this. So, keeping all of this organized and structured is not easy. We are learning a lot and had even to develop our own collaboration tools to do this efficiently. Who are some of your biggest competitors currently? Edward: You could say that our network has the capability to be a decentralized alternative to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. The existing cloud players are huge companies and they managed to get to a certain scale advantage. Kristof: Our alternative is very different. It is co-owned by everyone, it's fully decentralized, and accessible everywhere in the world, which will make it a faster and more cost effective alternative cloud service. It's not complete yet – today we think that about +80% of workloads which run on one of the big clouds can run on our decentralized grid. On the other hand there are blockchain companies like Sia, Filecoin, Holochain, etc. We don’t see them that much as competition, though. We want to be the missing (capacity) layer for them. They can use our grid to deploy their projects in such a way they will be more scalable, private, and secure. In other words we want to collaborate rather than compete. Our storage layer can be used by them as backend for their own projects. How crucial is the blockchain technology to the Threefold network? Edward: Blockchain is an amazing technology, but it's only a tool. It's not the holy grail. Kristof: We have developed two blockchain technologies, our own store of value blockchain and our own blockchain database. The store of value blockchain was developed because at the time when we started there was no store of value blockchain which could securely work without mining and burning energy. Our store of value blockchain is called Rivine and is a proof of blockstake blockchain. The blockchain database (BCDB) is a very different animal. This is a very unique blockchain which is made to be able to store hundreds of petabytes of storage and is much more efficient than any other blockchain technology we know about. For a 200 node blockchain it is up to 100x more efficient! We use BCDB for many use cases in our network and is very strategic and important. We have ideas on how this BCDB can be used for other blockchain projects as well to make them to benefit from our efficiency. Lately, we have seen the enthusiasm on the blockchain technology dwindle with some , do you believe the technology is scalable enough to handle such a massive project like Threefold? Edward: claiming it’s dead Yes (-: Kristof: Indeed current blockchain technologies have their challenges when it comes to what we call “the blockchain dilemma” problem. In current blockchains you have to choose between security or scale, you cannot have both. Thanks to our unique design we believe we can deliver both, not just for our own blockchain but for any other blockchain technology. We want to be the missing layer for any blockchain technology to allow them to become more scalable, sustainable, and efficient. We are not coming from the blockchain world, we are coming from automation and storage world. We have been working for more than 25 years now on how to optimize large scale IT systems. Our expertise has always been in this domain. We developed the first data deduplication system for archive and backup, this became part of Symantec. After that, we developed the first forward-looking error correcting code storage system which was at least 3x more efficient compared to any other technology and much more reliable. This company became part of HGST (Western Digital). Where do you see the blockchain technology in the next ten years? Edward: Blockchain technology is there to stay, it was only overhyped. Just like virtualization was overhyped at one point of time. Yet still today, virtualization is embedded everywhere in the current IT landscape. Kristof: Blockchain is a fantastic idea and will keep on driving lots of innovation. It should only be used for what it's good at: a store of value and providing consistency amongst a lot of different parties. It will become part of most IT systems of the future. We use blockchain in the same way, we need blockchain technology to make our system work, but it's not a goal by itself. We see you are holding an IEO for the TFT token. What is the future of crowdfunding within the crypto industry now that we have witnessed ICOs, STOs and this year the rise to prominence of IEOs? Edward: To be honest, I don’t know, this is not my level of expertise. Kristof: I did not like ICOs. They remind me of what happened in the year 2000. Also at that time we resisted to go with the hype and stay away from it. We managed to fundraise 10M EUR in 2002, which was in the middle of the dot com bubble crash. This shows that staying loyal to you values will eventually pay off. We did the same thing now. Our IEO will happen on a strongly regulated exchange. We will have our values embedded in how we do the IEO and will do what we can to make our token not too speculative and keep it linked to the value of our network. We believe that our token is very different in approach. Disclaimer: I do not have any vested interest in any of the mentioned projects. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and is not investment advice. Do your research.

Interview With Kristof De Spiegeleer: We Need a New Internet Which is Not Owned by a Few

To begin with, we’re here to emphasize once again that first of all, machine learning is a great tool to boost revenues and, if it happens, a nice side effect of using is about to bring down the costs. What’s more, this notion is essential to remember when speaking on principles that make machine learning tick in business realm for the main goal of any company is to sell and do it right being its information, products or services. machine learning development But you are probably wondering what the steps to roaring trade are. Here, you need to ask yourself three important questions and decide what to sell, who your target audience is and how to attract their eyes and ears to your brand. Beyond that, you also need to pick the right timing to go all in selling. In a nutshell, machine learning can help to weight all the option when replying to any of these questions. Still, when you want to have it all at once and get the answers quickly, it might burn a hole in our pocket and affect margins. Therefore, today you cannot do without a human touch when dealing with deep learning technology. One more thing which is worthy of mention is that machine learning generally is keened on the business effieciency boosting however sometimes it helps not only to generate more revenue but as well. AI can help you to lower your business costs Targeting To orchestrate the targeting process and tap into each of What? Who to? And When? questions, you’ll find a handful of different of tools out there. First off, recommendation systems, sales suites, and marketing instruments come to mind. Harnessing the power of Neural Deep Learning Networks, these brainy tools can easily guess what a user wants (if any) and tailor the suggestion according to his profile. For instance, if you’re bored and can’t decide how to spend your evening, it’s raining outside and you’re absolutely not in a mood to head out, movix.ai can bail you out. The engine resembles a smart cinema that helps users with choices in real time. The idea behind the online service is that a user visits the website, clicks on a few titles he likes (maybe he made up his mind this very moment and usually wouldn’t go for Avatar) and after the system powered by deep learning offers firms he might like. Voila! Time to grab popcorn! Another great example is a shopping spree. Often times, this type of development pays attention to what users do on an ecommerce website, learns from user experience and based on historical data builds up machine learning affinities to help users choose among a myriad of options. For instance, Strands helps to personalize the shopping experience of every visitor. By learning behaviors of the online crowd, the engine gathers individual insights and aggregates the data after helping retailers with better sales. Furthermore, deep learning comes handy when you speak of CRM and predictive lead scoring. Getting rid of guesswork can save a lot of efforts and help pinpoint sales-ready leads quickly. Mintigo, for instance, defines marketing indicators mining data from the web and mergers those with client’s CRM giving a 360-degree profile of every prospect. The company utilizes machine learning and keeps an eye on a digital footprint of thousands of firms online, refines the data to mine meaningful insights helping with sales decisions. Computer vision Computer vision steps into the picture when you’re racking your brain on what exactly and how to sell it to your target audience. The science behind image processing by computers is a complex subject but seasoned deep learning practitioners would agree it’s a revolution. For starters, computer vision eliminates the typical mistakes of humans that get their attention scattered when multitasking and thus, might lose concentration. By doing several things at a time with great precision, companies that bring on board machine learning can significantly speed up their development and lower down the production costs without sacrificing the quality of offerings. Think of TensorFlow that offers its library for free to those willing to go knee-deep into machine learning models. With a varying level of abstraction, this open-source library is a godsend for numerical computation pros. You must have heard another story of Japanese farmers automating their farming business partially and outsourcing some tasks to machine learning such as… sorting cucumbers. A tech-savvy son of the local farmers came up with the idea to use TensorFlow . For three month the engineer was taking photos and grading cucumbers to teach the model sorting to get rid of manual sorting reaching a 95% accuracy over time. to classify the veggies into categories Optimization and Tuning That’s the what to sell problem-solving example in the real world. You can produce thousands of products and offer services in tons of various ways. Now consider the potential of deep learning adding value and help you choose the most effective approach to do so. To brew better beer, the Virginia-based brewery decided to optimize its operations and joined the ties with machine learning firm. The brewing experts gave the tech vendor the data on Great American Beer Festival IPAs so that those can be aligned with top ten country’s best sellers. The result was that would alter with every new batch after the feedback from beer fans is collected and processed. dynamic recipes Kill Bureaucracy Saying “No” to red tape, isn’t it freaking amazing? Machine learning can go an extra mile and help process fewer papers and being able to concentrate on taking your minds off the routine tasks that take way too much time to handle. Offering automated patent search, the company saves tons of time on document screening and reviews. After experimenting with historical invalidity cases, Amplified created a quick and easy-to-use system powered by machine learning that refines the search singles out three to five results picking the most relevant among hundreds of documents. With such an intelligent development, the necessity for a professional human searcher and its opinion becomes blur in seconds. What’s the bottom line here? No one likes to spend precious funds on things that could be easily passed to deep learning and smart algorithms that take less time to process big data and come up with meaningful insights in a blink of an eye.

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