Success4 centralizes data from all customer interactions and data sources, monitors health and product usage, and predicts customer behavior so that the customer success teams can proactively engage with their customers in a most meaningful way

Success4

success4

These 6 Factors Are the Difference Between Success and Failure

Today’s business climate is one where you only need one opportunity to turn things around. We’ve all seen it repeatedly - several companies never really believed that they had what it takes, but they got one killer idea that changed things for them. In an increasingly opportunistic environment, being able to spot the right chances to take your business to the next level is rare. But, the companies that can recognize opportunities and seize upon them easily become the next big thing. At the moment, one of the most impressive opportunities facing companies today is tech transformation. Organizations are constantly in search of the next wave that can help them become better and improve their operations. And as the past few years have shown, optimizing your tech stack as much as possible can easily be the key to your expansion as a company. This is the reason why Devart is here: the firm has been providing a variety of productivity solutions to Fortune 500 companies, providing them with assistance in enhancing their operations and the communication that occurs within their technology teams. We spoke to Dmytro Nikolaenko, Founder and CEO of Devart, to understand what factors helped the company stay competitive in the exponentially developing technology market for over two decades and how they are preparing for the digital transformation, connected to the arrival of AI and other newest technologies. 1. What is the vision behind Devart? How did you choose the niche for your business? Data is one of the keys to the modern world, no doubt about that. It's a cornerstone of sorts that will never lose any of its relevance. As long as there is software, it has to interact with data. And this is where our solutions come into play. They empower users to manage data with maximum convenience and minimum effort. They provide users with multiple tools that effectively augment their capabilities in daily work. They help reduce manual routine, automate it where possible, and focus on things that really matter. To achieve that, the whole team has to work a lot. We have to evolve our tools non-stop. We have to keep them powerful and intuitive for users of different backgrounds and skill sets. To top it off, we're committed to providing our clients with exceptional, highly responsive support. More or less, this sums up the vision behind Devart. And I was lucky to gather together a team of skilled and talented people who proved capable of making it all work. 2. What is the role of database management in today's fast-paced software development landscape? It's a vital part of that landscape. A database's main functions are information storage, retrieval, and updating. Data about every facet of company operations may be kept in a database, and database administration is essential for creating software that is dependable, strong, and efficient. Imagine that you're in charge of a software product, and you release updates under a standard development cycle. The release of each update is a chance to keep up-to-date with the demands of your customers, to prove the relevance of your product. Basically, it's a chance to sell. Naturally, you want to make the road to each release as short and painless as possible. And when it comes to database development and management, database management tools can offer a true shortcut. For example, dbForge tools for SQL Server can help you unify database development, management, testing, and deployment into a single DevOps cycle, perfectly automated and integrated into your general workflow. And if your workflow changes, these tools are flexible enough to catch up with it. 3. What are the best strategies for the software project teams to adopt to break the cycle of misaligned goals, fragmented tech stack, workflows, or output that come with a siloed team? Proper clarification of goals and well-aligned teamwork is a matter of good management. To avoid teams becoming fixated on increasingly specific, narrow objectives that often lead to misalignment between departments and duplication of efforts, tech leaders should provide a broad, holistic vision for the entire organization to aspire to and set clear priorities. The subject of fragmented tech stacks and workflows is one of the most common problems faced by our clients. In many use cases, a rapidly growing company needed to reshape its database development and management workflows to keep up with the pace of changes. And in each case, our tools helped them make it possible. When performing everyday routine work and coding, users of Devart database administration and development tools consistently report a considerable gain in productivity of 20–30%. We're really proud to be part of their success. 4. How do you plan to accommodate the growing trend for AI, decentralized data, or decentralized database management solutions? The primary incentive for us is the market demand which is why we are focused on the traditional relational databases. This market blooms and doesn't show any signs of decline. In addition, we are very interested in AI utilization in the forthcoming perspective and keep an eye on the rapid developments in this particular area and use cases. As soon as there are proven cases for AI-enabled tools for software or database development, we will expand our offering - our team has enough talent and perseverance to make it happen. Conclusion Tech transformation is one of the most critical parts of business operations in our world. At the end of the day, tech is everywhere - being able to manipulate and control it, while also gaining the right insights from your use of technology, will be one of the areas to focus on as a business looking to grow.

How to Start a Technology Business That Can Attract Clients From the Fortune 500 List

Let's learn about via these 77 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Newsletter /Learn Repo 1. Turn Your Self-Isolation into Self-Improvement [Hacker Noon Newsletters] 2. It is not YOU, it is Your Code The root of all your problems lies in only a few bad coding practices. 3. Unfairness Helped Me Build a $1M Side Business How to find the right business idea that maximises your probability for success. 4. Why I'm launching a new programming magazine in 2020 [Part I] I am very excited to announce the launch of a new programming magazine called Human Readable Magazine. It’s been a dream of mine for many years, and thanks to our successful newsletter Morning Cup of Coding, it is now one step closer to becoming a reality. 5. Deconstructing A Billion Dollar Newsletter Business: An Agora Case-Study How this company generates over $1B every year with newsletters. 6. The Best Free Email Template Builders and Editors In 2020 when the Covid pandemic has taken over the World, necessitating people to stay at home, email marketing has become one of the most viable tools for drawing attention to the brand, promoting products, and driving traffic. That why email builders are an important part of our list of tools to build emails. 7. How Do You Deal With Outdated Code? Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive in this competitive industry. 8. The Internet Belongs to Everyone Normalizing the behavior of businesses to set the social standards for freedom of expression is a slippery slope. 9. 3 Daily Newsletters Worth Subscribing 📰 On any given day, you'll find tons of stories that are seemingly important, some moving, others hilarious/weird. 10. Your Dev Skills Deserve Recognition, so Hack the Email of Your Boss Starting a career as a new software engineer is no easy feat. 11. 'Serverless': Malware Just Found a new Home Read about 'Serverless' data security and its ugly truth. 12. VPNs Do Not Slow You Down, They Make You Better VPNs started trending in this new wave of security breaches and fear for privacy. 13. Writing Tips: How I Got My First 100 Email Subscriptions on Substack Lessons from growing first 100 email subscribers on Substack. 14. VPNs are the Heroes of Our Time If you don’t like the way social media and other sites track you online ( and even offline), you should try a VPN. 15. Public WiFi is the Devil [Part 2] As the security of public WiFi is lax or non-existent, you should always double-check whether your information is safe. 16. BTC, ETH, ICOs, and now - DeFi: How far Have We Come? Bitcoin caught the attention of technologists and anarchists alike following the 2008 Global recession. Ethereum took Bitcoin’s ‘Digital Gold’ status and gave us smart contracts. ICOs took smart contracts and gave us supply chain management solutions for problems that we never knew existed. 17. Why You Should Start a Newsletter Today Looking to start an email newsletter but don't know where to start? Here's your guide on why and how you should do it. 18. Feature Flag Fails can Cost Millions Most people keep their flagging disasters under wraps. In this story, we’re going to break down some scenarios of feature flag accidents. 19. IoT: Beyond Alexa The Internet of Things is a new world. 20. iPaaS on the SaaS iPaaS is the new alternative for conventional integration methods. 21. Who Let the Birds Out? Modern day ‘Canary release’ or ‘canary deployment’ is a widely-used deployment pattern for the software development cycle. 22. Explore 5 Feature Flag Best Practices As dev teams continue to improve agility, the tools, and approaches for building and delivering software continue to improve as well. 23. A Ring of Failure A wise person learns from the mistakes of others. So let’s accumulate some wisdom and go over the biggest failures in the history of software. 24. How Stack Overflow Inspires Coders A place to exchange questions and answers about intricate programming queries. 25. 5 Non-Obvious Lessons We Learned From Launching ITEMSY On Product Hunt 26. How We Scored $125 MRR and 497 Followers Pre-launch Hey Hackernoon family! I havent contributed an article in a long time but I wanted to share how we grew our newsletter, Product Byte, to 497 subscribers and $150/mrr (6 paid members) before we even launched. 27. You are NOT a Person, YOU are a Data Point: A Christmas Story You see, on the Internet, you’re not a person. You’re a data point. A small player in a grand A/B testing experiment of an intricate user journey. 28. Perfect the Quality of Your Imperfect Data Poor quality data can significantly drop the ROI of a company’s CRM and marketing automation investment. 29. The "Only"​ AI Newsletter You Need Only one paper explained weekly with video, article, code, demo and more! 30. Deploying Sendy On Kubernetes to Reduce Newsletter Costs 100x - Part 1 Sendy is an amazing application. It's basically software that gives you the ability to utilize Amazon SES to send newsletters to your members for 100x cheaper! 31. The Noonification: Read Your Favorite Tech Newsletter on HackerNoon Noonification are now HackerNoon articles! This means it will live forever while giving more distribution and value to your stories and ads. 32. Stock To Flow Deviation #6 When could Bitcoin peak in this cycle? 33. Database Proverb: Patience is NOT a Virtue In a world of technological abundance, it can be quite a challenge to pick the right database. 34. 6 Code Optimization Tips For Building Email Templates The LLazyEmail project is working on a third email template right now. The main goal is to spend less time converting the next template into pieces. 35. How to Increase Your Newsletter Subscribers: 7 Proven Ways Make Registration Simple I'm not implying that your users don't have their heads, but some websites are really hard to sign up for. 36. NFT Gift Ideas For Your Loved Ones Here are some NFT gift ideas for your loved one: an inexpensive NFT to get them started, a little bit of ETH, and more! 37. So Much Data. So Little Time for Ineffective Searches. How can we access this data correctly? Without simplifying it or opening this door, information is just bits. 38. 5 Easy Ways to Create Newsletters that Convert There are 5 tips you can use to improve your newsletter ROI.  Segmenting email is a good start as it delivers more value to the reader, but there's also more. 39. What They Won't Tell You About Making Money Online How to Get People's Attention and Keep Them Interested using comedy to make people pay attention to you on the internet to grow your brand and make money. 40. The Secrets of High-Performing DevOps Teams [Part 1] Ultra-fast innovation holds the key for conglomerates like Apple, Microsoft, and Tencent known as the pacesetters in the modern markets. However, they all faced challenges that are typical for established companies. 41. Consumer Insights: The Secret Weapon Customer insight has come into vogue, with small to large companies leveraging a customer-driven approach to perfect their marketing strategy. 42. An Update from the Editorial Team at Hacker Noon A longer version of this post was originally published as an email to Hacker Noon's 12k+ writers. To get onto that list, create an account and submit your first tech story today! 43. All The Best API Related Blogs and Newsletters APIs have fascinating implications for how companies are built. We compiled a list of the best places to get the most impactful information on APIs. 44. The Occam’s Razor of Newsletter Subscriptions Subscribe to the HackerNoon newsletter with ease. 45. How Dropbox Grew 3900% Using Referral Marketing Dropbox’s referral marketing campaign is infamous. The company grew 3900% in 15 months between 2008 and 2010. How did they do it? Learn how in this Dropbox case study – and what you can learn from their example. 46. Homeland Insecurity Innovation can solve a country’s problems, but it can also simultaneously put your private information into a hacker’s playbook. 47. Why Do Cold Emails Need Anti-Spam Filtering Service Anti-spam campaigns and anti-spam monitoring are essential parts of cold email and marketing campaigns. 48. Secrets of High-Performing Teams: Part II A robust DevOps team facilitates faster development of new products. 49. Stock To Flow Deviations - Part 2 Measuring The Bitcoin Peak Using Data Science 50. Cool Newsletters for developers [Part 1] Here we'll explore cool newsletters for developers for developers 51. Low Code is not Dead Low-code is an approach to creating, configuring, and modifying systems and applications that require little or no programming code. 52. When (and why) to go 'Serverless' Serverless doesn’t mean operating an application without a server, it means that you can operate the app without having to manage a server. 53. Your Digital Presence is More Important Than Ever for Your Business' Success In 2021, establishing a digital presence is a necessity. It helps you maximize reach, built trust with your target audience, and boost sales. 54. Top 3 Security Practices That Protect Your Business Data Whether we’re talking about a huge corporation or a promising start-up, information security can make or break your business. 55. It's a Match: Your Company & 130,000 Technologists Worldwide 💞 HackerNoon offers an exclusive 25% discount on our most-loved inventory of 2022 - The Noonification Newsletter. 56. 9 Best Practices for Email List Management Wondering how to increase ROI from your email list? Here, we are sharing some tried-and-tested tips on and practices on managing email list like a pro. 57. What are the Sectors Most Prone to Cyber Threats? This article presents a rundown of the industries that have been kicked in the teeth by cybercriminals amid the pandemic. 58. How I Wrote and Sent Newsletters that Got 50% Open Rates and Less Than 0.5% Unsubscribes Lots of times, I have mentioned that I love blogging and writing. 59. Stop Fretting Over What You Can't Control “We come into this world with nothing, and we'll leave with nothing on it. What will you be remembered for in your window of time?” 60. Lights, Camera, Blockbuster Find out what it takes to create a hit film or series. 61. Dear Companies: Fuel Your Performance With Customer Insights As a result, companies that fret over their visuals and site design end up losing to those brands that apply a consumer-centered approach. 62. Businesses Have Messy Emails: The Relationship between Security and Sales Let's face it - email sucks. But they still important part of business development 63. Systems Over Goals: Reframing The Way We Look at Progress Hey everyone, welcome to the first edition of The Mirror. This week we’re looking at a different way to approach goal setting. Ideas are adapted from Atomic Habits and How to Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big. Views are my own. 64. Automating Newsletters Generation from RSS Feeds Using Platypush I’ve always been a supporter of well-curated newsletters. They give me an
opportunity to get a good overview of what happened in the fields I follow within a span of a day, a week or a month. However, not all the newsletters fit this category. Some don’t think three times before selling email addresses to 3rd-parties — and within the blink of an eye your mailbox can easily get flooded with messages that you didn’t request. Others may sign up your address for other services or newsletters as well, and often they don’t often much granularity to configure which communications you want to receive. 65. What is Email Deliverability Why Should You Care? From carefully choosing your email service provider, tracking sender behavior, there are different ways you can improve your email deliverability with results. 66. Why Entrepreneurs Need To Set Boundaries To Avoid Burnout Setting Boundaries To Avoid Burnout is hugely important for everyone, including entrepreneurs that spend every waking moment thinking about their business. 67. Buckle Up and Enjoy Some Graph Therapy Graph Therapy. The Year of the Graph Newsletter, June / May 2020 68. Cybersecurity Tips to Keep in Mind When Working From Home implementation of remote working takes more than expected (and this is not about children interrupting a BBC news interview, although this one’s epic).
To make a remote job situation work, you need a structured approach. And robust cybersecurity is what keeps your digital environment and your company’s business safe. This is why we’ve curated a list of vital cybersecurity tips that will help you mitigate risks and stay aware of security vulnerabilities. 69. Cool resources for sending emails Today, I found out that I have a lot of open tabs related to emails. Let's close them and collect some important notes 70. Employ These 4 Simple Practices to Improve Company Data Security Here’s what you can do to keep yourself (and your nudes) safe. 71. Businesses Have Messy Emails Email sucks. What we can do about it? 72. #Together4Victory: List of Email Marketing Tools Today I'm collecting a list of email marketing service providers 73. Exploring Substack for Building Your Newsletter This Slogging thread by  and Arthur Tkachenko occurred in slogging's official #random channel, and has been edited for readability. 74. The Future is No Code “The future of coding is no coding at all.” - Chris Wanstrath, CEO at GitHub. 75. 5 Minute Finance: ROCK.JPEG, Institutions Gain BTC Exposure, Stablecoins Mature The 5-minute newsletter on the important stuff in finance — reporting what's going on, and why. Let’s see what's going on this week. 76. 5 Minute Finance: BTC & ETH SUPPLY SHOCK, BURRY'S APOCALYPSE, SIMONS SAYS AMC The 5-minute newsletter on the important stuff in finance — reporting what's going on, and why. Let’s see what's going on this week. 77. Today's Noon Notification: The Only Tech Newsletter You Need Today Thank you for checking out the 77 most read stories about Newsletter on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

77 Stories To Learn About Newsletter

Let's learn about via these 25 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Dating /Learn Repo 1. Online Dating & Cybersecurity: Being Out There and Being Safe Dating has changed a lot over the centuries, and in keeping with the times most people are using technology in their search for The One. Almost 60% of Americans say that online dating is a good way to meet people, up from less than 45% in 2005. Online dating users tend to be younger - 90% are under 40 and 75% are under 30, but even 10% are over the age of 55. Unfortunately with anything online comes scams and the potential to be hacked, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find the love of your life as long as you are careful. 2. How to Avoid Awkward Virtual Events While her pajama set was nice, I was wondering what type of crowd this was. Even before the March shelter-in-place orders, I would have never thought to wear pajamas to an in-person social event. 3. About The Misaligned Incentives of Dating Applications Why It’s Time To Redefine Success 4. Building a Dating App: To Code From Scratch or Use a Script? To start with, you can either use a ready-made dating script or go all out and build custom dating software from scratch, just like Tinder did! 5. The Dangers of Online Dating This article discusses the dangers of online dating, ranks US states according to their safety for online dating, and discusses ways to be safer when dating onl 6. What Are Dating Apps Doing to Protect Their Users? The multibillion-dollar online dating industry has no meaningful standards for responding to reports of offline harm and removing those responsible... 7. The Next Revolution in the Dating Industry: Will AI Help Me Find a Boyfriend? Artificial Intelligence-assisted solutions in the dating world are leveraging large volumes of new and old data to analyze user behavior like never before. 8. AI, Metaverse, and Other Modern Technologies That Impact Online Dating AI algorithms in today’s world are truly amazing and do not just consider specific filters, but also pay attention to your overall behavior to suggest matches. 9. Will Someone Make Attention Apps Cool Again? Tinder, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram are just a few of the prominent apps that give users a dopamine high as their content gets traction. But these apps have masked fulfillment of the attention need with other core features, which normalize attention-seeking behavior. Tinder lets you meet cool people. Instagram makes you look cool. And Twitter makes you sound cool. Why doesn’t anonymous attention make you cool? 10. AI Is Changing The Future Of Online Dating Discover how AI-driven dating apps can help users escape information overload, avoid inappropriate content, and find compatible partners faster. 11. Online Dating and Cybercrime: Be Aware of These Potential Dangers While online dating is a lot of fun, it brings various risks to the table. Dating site hackers often target vulnerable communities to accomplish online identity theft and other types of crime. The Ashley Madison hack from 2015 is one of the most prominent examples. 12. Should We Swipe Right for Tinder and Bumble? In this slogging thread, our community discusses their views on dating apps and their future. 13. The Future of Dating, Kim Kardashian and AI? The Coronavirus, technology and social media influencers like Kim Kardashian have transformed our view of dating. So, what exactly is the future of dating? 14. 19 Reasons To Date An Engineer Why date an engineer? He has the right kind of confidence. He is incredibly rational. He doesn’t know how hot he is! 15. How Cutting Edge Tech is Changing Online Dating Forever Over the past thirty years, technology has grown in importance in the everyday lives of just about everyone on Earth. It has changed how we work, how we play, and even how we learn. It has also changed the way we go about finding romantic partners and potential mates. In fact, that particular use of technology dates back much farther than most people even realize. 16. Dating in the Metaverse? Seal it With an NFT 71% of Millennials and 79% of Generation Z in the U.S. admit to feeling lonely. 60% of Tinder users say the same. NFT vows, social connections in the metaverse, 17. Breaking Down Secretary Problem What did you think of when you had a crush on someone? Did you fantasize about marriage with him/her? When you were in some serious relationship, did you plan marriage with your partner? How did the relationship turn out? Some relationships turn into a marriage, and some don’t. Hearing stories of many friends, I see extremely few people being in a relationship (and later marrying) with only one person whole over their life. 18. How to Add Gamification Into a Dating App Design The design of the dating app should turn the e-space of online dating into a comfort zone for billions of users seeking for a soulmate. 19. The Noonification: State of the Noonion: Green Clock Strikes Noon (10/17/2022) 10/17/2022: Top 5 stories on the Hackernoon homepage! 20. 5 Non-Obvious Business Problems in the Online Dating Market Online dating is still so popular that there are countless new startups in the space. 21. Tech's Impact on Relationship Dynamics In the past, the only way to meet new people was either in person or through someone you knew. This limited the dating and friendship quite a bit, but times are changing. Today, online dating and social media are the new normal. 22. Online Dating From A Data Analysis Perspective: A Deep Dive Love in the time of COVID is a… challenge, to say the least. 23. 3 Companies Show You What Matchmaking on Blockchain Could Look Like Dating is fun. It gets you to know your potential counterpart. But dating is hard in the real world, especially when you don’t know how to approach someone or if someone you clicked with is real. 24. Speed Dating Singles with Filteroff CEO Zach Schleien In this slogging AMA we chat to Filteroff CEO Zach Schleien. Filteroff is a dating app that speed dates singles. It uses video to help bring like-minded people 25. $BMBL: Swipe Left or Right? An Insight Into One of the Hottest Tickers in 2021 Tinder-rival Bumble made its debut on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol ‘BMBL’. It was initially priced at $43 per share. Thank you for checking out the 25 most read stories about Dating on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

25 Stories To Learn About Dating

Let's learn about via these 59 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Customer Rentention /Learn Repo 1. The Retail Evolution: Customers Demand Enhancements to the Shopping Experience Andreas Hassellof, Founder and CEO of Ombori, explores how changing customer behaviors impact retail, and drive retail technology innovation. 2. How to Keep Your Customers Focused and Engaged Know how to keep your SaaS customer engaged and focused in 2021. 3. 5 Ways to Use AI to Improve Customer Success Artificial Intelligence is a powerful set of tools that can be used throughout a business' operations allowing them to achieve better customer success. 4. Make it Sticky, then Acquire: 4 Pricing Lessons From My First 0-100 Users In an ideal world, the goal of any business starting up is to make money. In most cases, the profitability of a product is closely tied to how you as a product manager choose to price your product. Apart from building a product that provides real value to its customers, profitable monetization is the second most important aspect of running a successful business. 5. How Can Companies Use AI for Better Customer Experience? Explore how AI can help businesses to upgrade the experience of new and existing customers. 6. The Top 12 Inbound Marketing Strategies to Adopt Right Away This article will discuss the various Inbound Marketing Strategies required to help your business grow. 7. Retaining SaaS Customers in a Global Economic Downturn In a global economic downturn, retaining current customers is crucial for businesses, especially for SaaS companies facing the growing risk of customer churn. 8. How to Improve Customer Care Today customer care is one of the most popular and widely discussed topics in the IT industry. 9. The Importance Of Data in Sales in 2022 10. Social Features: The Secret to Bridging the Gap Between Apps and Users With a competitive app market and struggle to keep customers engaged, how can app developers ensure that they keep their users for a longer time? 11. How To Honour Your Early Adopters With Promotional Products Hi! My name is Vasily, and I am the co-founder of the Merch38 platform. We created this business to help people and companies create their own merchandise for retail, marketing, gifting or any number of reasons to need branded products. I would like to share how we helped the creators of the MagicKids mobile application to thank their first users, their early adopters. 12. 7 B2B Marketing Tips and Tricks that Work A 2015 press release from Bain & Company stated an interesting piece of truth. Almost 90 percent of sales and marketing executives don’t feel adequately prepared to sell to today’s digital-savvy buyers. Fortunately, this post offers a few B2B marketing tips and tricks so you can skyrocket your revenue. 13. You Need A Tech Loyalty Program: Here Are 5 Efficient Use Cases To Spark New Ideas An efficient retention strategy increases the company's profit up to 95%. Here are the best loyalty programs in the tech sector you can look to for inspiration. 14. Want to Drive Retention? Gamify Your SaaS Product Games are designed to keep us playing as long as possible. By presenting players with challenges and rewards for completing them, apps can generate dopamine hits in their users that can keep them coming back for more. Most people love a challenge, and consciously or not, we love rewards even more, even if they’re largely arbitrary. 15. Without Digital Adoption, Your Enterprise will Struggle It’s clear to everyone that we’re living in a digital age. In a time when people expect to run their lives through their smartphones, competitive enterprises have no choice but to adopt digital tools. 16. How We Increased User Retention in the LoopMessage App Using Free Messaging The LoopMessage app helped increase user retention several times. This was reached by sending free personalized messages via popular instant messengers. 17. How To Improve Customer Retention and Increase LTV Retaining customers is the number one growth strategy for business. Learn how to retain your customer and improve lifetime value (LTV). 18. How to Boost Customer Engagement in Digital Marketing customer engagement is key to keeping customers
happy and loyal. 19. Why Custom-Built Automation Can Be Ideal for Business Growth? Automation is a powerful driving force for business growth. It allows mundane, repeatable tasks, to be dealt with by binary code. That means we can just get on our all-important daily tasks. 20. What Is Average Handle Time (AHT) and How To Reduce It: 20 Tips & Tactics Average handle time is a key metric to focus on when trying to improve your customer support strategy. Read more about its major contributing factors, and what 21. Avoid a Loss in MRR and Make Your Dunning Campaign Really Powerful: Know How If you’re running a subscription or SaaS business, you know that at the end of the day your chief metric is monthly recurring revenue (MRR). 22. How to Drive Early 'Time-To-Value’ through Customer Success Time-To-Value is a Customer Success metric that is undervalued in SaaS but could be an advantage for a business. This article explains TTV and the types of TTV. 23. Your Customers Are Everything In The SaaS Industry Today, I’ll share some of the best lessons I got to learn from that experience. You can use these tips to beautify your SaaS or any other business. 24. What Three Features Should Houseparty Launch Next? “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” — Jeff Bezos 25. Customer Education: How to Educate Customers Profitable for Business Customer education is a powerful growth marketing tool for online businesses. I discuss how to create a customer education strategy for your company in 2023. 26. 5 Steps to Master Customer Intelligence in 2021 Customer intelligence is the process of gathering and analyzing customer data. 27. 10 Tips to Develop a Strong B2B Relationship The growth of B2B eCommerce has spiked in the last two years. From $12.2 trillion in 2019, it is predicted to reach $20.9 trillion by 2027. 28. 7 Reasons Why Customer Success Function Fails Ever wondered why most of the SaaS companies have got Customer Success wrong? Check out some pitfalls that caused  the Customer Success effort to fail. 29. Predicting if the Customer is Satisfied by the Resolution Case study to predict if customer is satisfied by the resolution. 30. Welcome to The Zero Friction Future Hello, It’s time to learn something new again. This time, I would like to start a new series as zero friction future and talk about the details and categories in which we see high consumer friction and the areas of improvement. 31. Dealing With Negative Email Replies: To Give It Up or To Work It Out When you consider all outcomes of your email campaigns, don’t be afraid to ask the right questions. Even if they scare you. For example, don’t say “What should I do if I get negative replies?”. Say “What should I do when I get negative replies?”. 32. How to Generate Sales from Inactive Customers and Boost E-commerce What does marketing automation mean? Are activities planned triggered on user-generated events. Simple and clear. 33. 5 Auto-Message Sequences You Can Run Right Now In Dashly, we adore auto messages. It saves us lots of time, as they automatically generate and warm up leads. In this article, we share an easy way for you to create a message chain right now if you have never done this before. Here’s a list of five auto messages sequence which will be beneficial to both you and your clients. 34. What is Data Collection and What are The Most Important Events to Track When your company is client-oriented, one of your priority tasks is understanding your clients’ problems and gathering insights on how people use your product and when exactly they benefit from it. 35. No Brown M&Ms: The Van Halen Growth Hack For Getting Better Customers The Pareto Principle—known also as the 80/20 rule (and the law of the vital few) —states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. 36. 9 SaaS Retention Strategies to Reduce Customer Churn Customer retention is the key for any business and for SaaS, it's way too hard without a perfect strategy. Do check our blog to find the best tips! 37. Correlation Between Customer Satisfaction and Retention Is Real So is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and customer retention? Of course, there is! Satisfied customers stay, what’s there to research and analyze? 38. How to Implement a Customer Success Strategy: A Case Study Customer-Centricity is bang on trend; 73% of business leaders recognised customer experience as one of the most important purchase-driving factors. The truth is, there are no conniving, cheeky tricks you can use. Instead, it takes consistency, persistence, and a shared team ethos. 39. Voice of Customer: How to Use VOC Data to Drive Business Growth We all know Customer feedback is always useful for increasing product quality or service. But do you know that by using Customer feedback, you can also increase your company's revenue? 40. Ok Google, Improve My Retention Rate: A Customer-Centric Approach to the Crisis COVID-19 shifted the earth from beneath the business world’s feet. Small, medium, and large businesses alike closed their doors and weren’t sure when they would open them again. As the pandemic dug in, most businesses (I hope!) put the health and safety of their employees first. Only once they could ensure their team’s safety, were they able to start putting a plan in place for recovery. 41. 5 Amazing Ways to Boost Your Customer Retention Rate Improving your customer retention rate matters, and it’s something worth investing in. So here are 5 ways to know how to retain your existing customers easily. 42. 6 Customer Retention Strategies Every Small Business Owner Should Know Generating leads and attracting new customers are keys to ensure initial business success. 43. How To Segment Shopify Customer Base with Google Sheets and Google Data Studio After defining what the RFM analysis is standing for, and how you can apply it to your Customer Base, I want to show you how to apply it on Shopify orders data. 44. The Beginner's Guide to The Google HEART Framework In this post, we will dig into the Google HEART framework: a simple way to ensure you take into consideration every aspect of the user journey. 45. 5 Quick Tips on How to Improve Customer Satisfaction In this article, you'll learn what to do to satisfy your customers and how to build a stable and lucrative relationship. 46. Employee Experience and Customer Experience: Beyond Retention and Loyalty An #IBM research revealed that 70% of brand perception is settled by employees and 41% of customer loyalty comes from positive employee attitude Customers can generally be divided into two, Internal and external customers. Who are your internal customers? Your employees. Forrester defines customer experience as 47. How To Prevent Your Customers From Leaving And Win Back The Ones Who Left We bet you have your own “gone customers’ cemetery” of those who once were with you, but have gone and are not planning to return. It’s sad, but you can’t give up: almost half of them are sure to be returned. 48. How a Customer 360 and Dgraph Cloud Can Help Improve User Retention Successful corporations leverage a customer 360. Check out how Dgraph can provide top-notch analyses quickly and effectively. 49. WOW Your Clients: 5 Golden Rules to Make Your Client Happy How do you imagine a happy client? We believe that happy clients scream “WOW!”. Here are the top 5 rules of delivering WOW service for you. 50. What Happens When You Make Product Decisions to WOW your Customers [A Case Study] Which of you, when you have to buy an airplane ticket, is not looking for the cheapest and more convenient solution from SkyScanner or similar? And which one of you, once aware of the prices of the big airlines, doesn’t try to take a look at EasyJet or Ryanair? Honestly, for flights of less than 3 hours, the price paid plays a decisive role in my personal decision. 51. Why Chatbots Are The Future Of Customer Retention? Customer retention has become a genuinely challenging task for entrepreneurs. In the midst of all this, AI-assisted Chatbots are the real game changers. 52. How Obsessing on Outreach and Marketing Helped Truepush Grow 53. Hunting for Customers With PostgreSQL Now more than ever, you have to hold onto every customer you can. Customers don’t love your product one minute, then fall out of love with it the next. Normally there’s a declining trend in usage of your product over time. 54. How To Create Customer Segmentation using Google Analytics and A Spreadsheet Using Google Analytics, we can analyze our customer behaviors based on their interests, commonly features through clicks, time on page, bounce rate, custom events, etc. and their behaviors as shoppers, such as add to basket, average product quantity basket, LTV, AOV, etc. 55. How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back: 5 Proven Strategies Most businesses focus mainly on how to attract new leads to their website. But they tend to overlook the importance of retaining their existing customers. 56. 30 Powerful Strategies to Optimize Conversion for SaaS Businesses Learn 30 of the most effective strategies and practical tips to Optimize your B2B SaaS Conversion Rate as we get closer to 2023 57. Which Is Better For Your Business: Relationship or Transactional NPS® Surveys? What will be more profitable to the business, a Transactional NPS® Survey or a Relation NPS® Survey? 58. 24 Customer Retention Strategies One is better than two and is equal to six. At least, that’s how we (Dashly.io) think when it comes to comparing your regular customers with your potential customers. 59. Skyrocket your SaaS Retention by Applying Addictive Game UX [A How To Guide] Even if you’re not a gamer, you’ve probably heard of games like Flappy Bird, Fortnite, PUBG and Candy Crush. With user counts in the tens and hundreds of millions and some grossing over a $100 million in monthly revenue, there’s a lot for companies to learn from the gaming world. Gamers spend an average of an hour and 13 minutes day on video games – imagine if your customers spent that amount of time on your SaaS product every day. Thank you for checking out the 59 most read stories about Customer Rentention on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

59 Stories To Learn About Customer Rentention

171 Stories To Learn About Monitoring

119 Stories To Learn About Apps

Data is the backbone of your business. Without a clear data structuring methodology, finding those important business documents you need for inventory and social marketing decisions will involve running around in lots of circles. Employees will spend a lot of productive time retrieving data at the expense of operational flow. But that is only the tip of the dark data vulnerability iceberg. As data silos continue to ravage your legacy systems, cybercriminals will exploit loopholes to steal your customer’s personally identifiable information (PII). Tax and data compliance issues will be rampant as well. In this article, I will be showing you how to build a reliable data pipeline for your small business to improve your productivity and data security. Let’s get started. 1. Identify Data Sources and Legacy Systems Do you know all of your business’s data sources? It’s hard to build your data pipeline if you don’t have the full picture of where your data is coming from and the stops it makes along the way. Without this information, it will be difficult to identify all the data streams that will feed your data pipeline. As a result, your pipeline won’t be reliable. In addition to that, legacy systems stand in your way as well because they don’t support integration into new systems. You will consequently be unable to tap into today’s top digital transformation trends to improve customer experiences, productivity, and profitability. The situation of legacy systems is out of hand in today’s business world. According to a Camunda study, over say legacy systems are hampering decision-making and digital transformation efforts. 90% of IT decision-makers So the first step will be to identify data sources and legacy systems. Legacy systems here entail outdated computer software and hardware which no longer receive manufacturer support. That could be anything from your outdated SaaS solution to obsolete storage mechanisms like floppy disks, among others. Moreover, you’ll also need to pick out data sources, both customer and employee-generated. On the customer’s front, you’re looking at submission forms and images of documentation among others. From your insider’s perspective, data sources include sales reports, emails, and other business documents. 2. Structure and Clean Your Data Unstructured data can be a huge thorn in the foot of your business. mostly because of incompatibility issues with many computer systems. Due to the lack of a clear structure, this data is hard to store, process, and manage, Despite that being the case, unstructured data is a problem plaguing many organizations today given that over is unstructured. 80% of enterprise data In this state, it becomes hard for your business to set up a relational database for your data pipeline, which is desirable because such a database makes it easy for you to store and analyze data. So you’ll need to put in place a permanent data structuring platform, and not a one-time-fix solution because your business feeds on unstructured data from your customers and other sources every day. One excellent long-term data structuring option is a content intelligence platform. First, such software can scan your legacy systems to identify unstructured data such as your small business invoices, and other workflow files residing within your silos. It can also digitize your content from various file formats including images, audio, and word documents, and convert this file into a single searchable format, namely PDF. Above all, an intelligent document processing system can use machine learning and natural language processing to eliminate duplicates and classify data. As an example, with content intelligence. a UK bank was able to break down silos It gained access to over 3.6 million legacy client documents left inaccessible by system upgrades, enabling the bank to expand its data pipeline and safely channel sensitive information. 3. Build Your Own Data Warehouse Your data warehouse refers to the storage location for your data. With clean datasets to work with thanks to content intelligence, the next step on how to build a reliable data pipeline for your small business entails choosing a relational database. So why is a relational database (RDB) preferred? According to a Tesora survey, today use a variation of the relational database, and for good reason. 79% of organizations A non-relational database is limited in comparison when it comes to simplicity, robustness, and flexibility. One way to get a relational database for your business is to create one. If you have the underlying SQL knowledge, you can build your own database. If not, then you should consider signing up for SQL classes to learn the ropes of how to create your RDB from scratch. Traditionally, there are multiple relational database options to consider. Some popular examples include: MySQL Oracle Database IBM DB2 MySQL is an excellent option because of its ease of use, depth of important tools, and flexibility in data recovery. As an example, Taxi giant to better manage its ordering system. Uber is using MySQL This RBD has proved an excellent choice because previously the company was running into bugs on its old database. With MySQL, Uber has enjoyed great scalability and success. 4. Identify a Server for Your Database With your database figured out, it’s time to consider hosting solutions. How long have you been using your current server? If it’s anything over four years, then you might need a replacement in order to find a reliable home for your new database. This is because an IDC report finds that old servers increase your by the fourth year, a figure that goes up five times a year later. support costs by about 40% What’s more, without upgrading your server infrastructure, your data pipeline will not be able to perform at peak performance. Temperamental servers aren’t ideal for your small business, especially if your data transactions are growing at an alarming rate. So how do you choose the right server? First, you will need to figure out if you need a dedicated hosting solution. If your workflow traffic isn’t that high and consequently your server capacity needs are fairly low as well, a shared server will do the work just fine. On the other hand, if you’re anticipating rampant growth in the next few weeks, then a dedicated hosting solution is a good idea. That’s especially so if your workflow contains sensitive customer PII that you’d like to better safeguard as well. 5. Create a Disaster Recovery Plan No matter how meticulously crafted, your data pipeline may fail at some point. In that case, you’ll want to have contingency measures in place. Otherwise, you’ll have to contend with long periods of data downtime. a Ponemon Institute study reveals. Data outages are tremendously costly, For every single minute of data downtime, it is estimated that within that time. businesses lose $5,000 The cost of repairs and recovery significantly contribute to this amount, but more importantly, the loss is also largely due to the economic consequences of business disruption. That includes lost business opportunities, customer churn, and reputational damages. To better manage outages, you’ll need a data pipeline recovery plan. The first step to that is creating a data management strategy to document operational procedures, inclusive of staff training, to prevent human error which is among the topmost causes of data downtime. Other times the outage could be due to digital crime, usually a denial-of-service attack, which is why for your small business is important. cyber security awareness Moreover, you should also have a disaster recovery plan that incorporates cloud content intelligence to ensure good backup. This way it’s easier to get your systems back up and running after an incident. Conclusion Is your data chaos running rampant? Then get a hold of it today. There’s no better time to learn how to build a reliable data pipeline for your small business and steer yourself out of the path of cyber risk and off-target marketing. Remember, . As a result, the more expensive it will be to build your own data pipeline when you eventually get to it. the longer you wait before taking action, the bigger your unstructured data problem gets Also published here.

Creating a Dependable Data Pipeline for Your Small Business

Entering into strategic partnerships in the early stages of your startup can often do more for your brand than an outright acquisition. Finding the right big-name partner early on can help you build and refine your product much faster, substantially lowering the chances of failure. It also grants your company access to the resources of a major corporation, enhancing your overall market value and giving your brand a competitive edge. It also allows you and your strategic partner to share resources that you wouldn’t generally have access to as a small business, resulting in a win-win collaborative experience because the strategic partner acquires access to technology or intellectual property, and labor resources. A notable of such a partnership is BMA Group, which needed to ensure that new hires were a match with the company culture with the help of a startup TalentTalk. They met through a business accelerator and their partnership was very fruitful, the startup was able to expand its team and branch out into different markets much sooner than if they’d worked alone, while the big corporation improved client retention and satisfaction. example The dream situation is for your company to enter a large corporation’s radar and have them reach out to you through a scouting campaign or accelerator program. Unfortunately, this is not very common, which means startups need alternative plans for finding the best strategic partner for their business. Things to remember when looking for a corporation to partner with . Corporations gain just as many benefits from things like startup innovation, agility and faster time to market. Approach big brands as an equal, and know your worth. You are not a supplicant coming to these brands . There are some cases where a corporation wants to partner with a startup that has already generated revenue, but most are concerned with the near-future potential of your offering. Most companies are only concerned with seeing results that prove your product or service is viable 3. . If your goals aren’t aligned, the partnership won’t be productive. The company needs to believe in your mission and share your ambition 4. , or their own internal agendas might discourage them from partnering with your company. Keep seeking out matches until you find the right one.' Big corporations may see too much risk or competition and decide not to get involved What can startups do to find a partner and scale their product? These are 5 steps that can help you: 1. Find the best product-market fit First, clearly outline the problem your product solves for users, then test your hypothesis to ensure that the problem really does exist and your product solves it better than any other solutions on the market. If you pass these checks, it’s time to move on to a pilot program or beta testers. Assess all aspects of your business and identify areas of growth potential. It is important to establish how a strategic partner can help you. Do you need more exposure on the market, better resources or maybe new equipment? Has there been a product like yours before, and why hasn't it worked? Before engaging with big players, you need to make sure that your product has potential and is worth investing in. For that, you can meet industry experts and your future customers. For example, if you are developing equipment for radiologists, get their feedback on what kind of product they actually need and if there has been anything similar on the market before. 2. Attend industry events and meetups Attending events gives you an opportunity to network and build important connections with potential partners. Firstly, you can look for events that specialize in your niche like local support groups for small businesses. It is beneficial to meet other business owners that you have something in common with. Even if your product is at an early development stage, you can benefit from attending industry meet-ups. They give you insight into the market’s needs and prospects as well as your competitors. Most industries also have a strong presence in accelerators like 500Startups, Plug’n’Play or others. They meet regularly at demo days, so keep up with their local agenda. 3. Stay agile and flexible Remember that initial success doesn’t always mean future success. Stay on top of market analysis and product refinement, collecting feedback and adjusting as the market demands. It’s possible that your partner may suggest alterations or feature integrations that could help you reach a larger portion of your target market. If this happens, it’s wise to pivot your MVP early to maximize your chances of success. 4. Don’t settle for the first corporation to show interest Big companies often have entire teams dedicated to scouting new startups with the potential to form a beneficial alliance. You could be approached by scouts, R&D recruiters, marketers or business development managers who all want to discuss a partnership opportunity. However, it’s important not to jump at the first offer you receive. Even if it sounds ideal, take some time to consider all angles of the partnership first. Remember that what you’re offering is valuable too, so it’s best to wait for a deal that meets all of your requirements. On the other side, if you’re pitching to corporations, you should take just as much care. Research your contact, develop a tailored, compelling pitch, and understand that, even if you don’t agree on a partnership, you’ve still made a potentially valuable connection. Make sure you enter into a with your partner and only then send your product or proposition. nondisclosure agreement 5. Be transparent It is important to be aware of your own potential and resources when exploring new partnerships. Having a clear understanding of the type of partnership you are entering will result in greater trust between companies as well as a stronger sense of accountability. Overall, strategic partnerships are a win-win for both sides. Startups get a helping hand forward, while big corporations get one thing they lack, the freedom to be fast-moving and agile.

Building Strategic Partnerships: A 5-Step Guide for Early Stage Startups 

Here are lessons from managing an IT company in 2022 that can be useful this year. You can follow the tips below to develop (or save) your business in 2023. The year 2022 was a difficult one for businesses all over the world. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession created many challenges, including decreased demand, reduced funding, and increased competition. Right now, many entrepreneurs still have challenges to meet, as evidenced by the many layoffs happening worldwide. In 2023, many tech businesses will continue to face the challenges that started last year. The global economic recession and massive layoffs are key factors impacting tech startups this year. 2022 was a hard year for many countries and businesses. The ongoing war in Ukraine has significantly impacted the world's business climate. I am proud of Ukrainian entrepreneurs who care for their people and continue to work,  develop businesses, and attain results, despite all problematic conditions. After a year after a full-scale war in my native country started, I decided to share tips about managing businesses. With that in mind, here's how to struggle and survive, meet and cope with crises smoothly in the tech business in 2023. 1. Focus on Profitability and Run Rate This will be particularly challenging for VC-backed startups in 2023, as it will be much harder to raise the next round of funding. We are now witnessing a lot of down rounds, e.g., a recent Stripe round, and many start-ups could be on track to lose their unicorn status. Therefore, it's crucial to focus on profitability, and run rate in 2023,  and companies must become profitable as soon as possible. Investors will look for companies that can generate positive cash flows in a challenging economic environment. Companies can demonstrate their viability and competitiveness to potential investors by focusing on profitability. A recent site publication says, "It's mastering the "extrapolation" stage when startups begin to focus on profitability, not just growth." Profit is a new king. Harvard Business Review 2. Be Cautious With New R&D Ideas In the current economic climate, it's important to double-check the feasibility of new, non-profitable business units that may not see a return on investment and that may lead to decreased demand due to the recession. A recent by McKinsey & Company suggests that companies should focus on their core businesses rather than pursue new projects that could distract from their core objectives. By focusing on the core business, companies can better withstand the challenges posed by the recession and emerge stronger on the other side. report Entrepreneurs should pay attention to the current profit spheres of the company/products and develop them. Following this advice will help save your business and company. A substantial R&D investment can, for instance, lead the company to collapse, but it is important to maintain a balance here and not become the next Nokia or Blackberry. 3. Try to Get Independent of Performance Marketing The cost of paid marketing is expected to increase in 2023, while the LTV (lifetime value) will grow at a different pace. For instance, a from (Oct 2022) predicts that total media ad spending will increase by 6.9% year over year in 2023. report eMarketer This growth is driven by the increased use of digital devices and the shift towards digital advertising by businesses of all sizes. The report also states that the rise in digital ad spending will likely drive up the cost of paid advertising, particularly for popular platforms like Facebook and Google. The golden rule of the last 2 years: CPA growth faster than LTV, and that’s not to mention the ever-rising operating costs, which affect profit margins substantially. So, it's crucial to focus on developing organic and referral traffic sources. This will help to mitigate the risk of rising marketing costs and ensure a more sustainable long-term growth strategy. According to a World Advertising Research Center , companies focusing on organic and referral traffic are more likely to experience long-term success and sustainable growth. report By reducing dependence on performance marketing, companies can build a loyal customer base that is more likely to recommend their products and services to others. Users will become brand ambassadors of the company's products. By prioritizing these sources, businesses can minimize the impact of rising marketing costs and ensure long-term success. 4. ​​ Take Advantage of Mass Layoffs. Finally, it's essential to take advantage of , which are happening worldwide. Mass layoffs mean a lot of talent on the market, and this is a good time to hire top talent. As Forbes , "layoffs can be kind of like a cold shower for talent," which can be an opportunity for businesses to hire top performers eager to get back to work. mass layoffs reports Identifying and hiring talented individuals during a recession can bring new perspectives to a company and drive its success forward. Companies that effectively recruit top talent during these times are more likely to become stronger and more competitive in the near future. With many highly skilled individuals seeking new opportunities due to mass layoffs, companies can take advantage of this talent pool to add experience and skills to their teams. With these tips, you can leverage negative economic changes positively. You should take advantage and see the opportunities during the ups and downs period. 2023 promises to be an even more challenging year for businesses. However, with the right strategy and thoughtful steps, companies can survive and thrive in the nearest future, as every cloud has a silver lining.

How to Run a Tech Business in 2023: 4 Tips From a Ukrainian Startup CEO

The dreaded coder’s block! Two simple words that ruined more beginning careers than the whole legion of distant relatives armed with “Just get on with your current job, sweetie, you’re doing just fine” advice. Chances are, you have already encountered this vile beast, and if not, well, you better be prepared for it when it comes. Today let’s discuss the whole thing: what is coder’s block, the reasons for it to manifest, and, most importantly, how do we overcome it and go forth to productivity and success. What is Coder’s Block? The coder’s block is a complete inability to write good code. Or any code at all, even. Trying to develop a concept of approaching the task at hand evokes panic; your mind is blank, your tool screen just as blank, your will an amorphous jelly. Sounds familiar? Do not worry, though. Soon, you’ll dissect the essence of the problem and learn how to deal with it. Why does it happen? There are several reasons, and we’re going to deal with them one by one. Let’s start with the most inward one. Reason 1: You Doubt Yourself Too Much Too many doubts about your skills and capabilities can devastate any chances of even starting anything. If having thoughts like “I just don’t have a mindset for this” or “It requires too much knowledge, I will most certainly become confused and lost” is your thing, just ask yourself, why do such thoughts appear? The answer is because your self-calibration is way off, and that is because you don’t have a correct measuring scale. Try communicating with people like you, beginners. You will see that everyone has doubts, everyone is struggling, it’s normal. Ask professionals of the industry about their beginnings. You might hear a lot of stories akin to yours. Get that motivation engine going: Stop comparing yourself to successful coders because you only see their success; what you don’t see is the path of struggle and hardships they have behind them. You’re probably making much more progress than you think. Just believe me, you’ll see later. Check around: there are hundreds, thousands of people like you going through the same phase. It’s normal, and you will get over it. Reason 2: Too Much Theory, Not Enough Practice No amount of books and video tutorials can make you a successful coder. Amassing knowledge is valuable, but only to a certain point. Then you gotta code. What can you do about that? Several things: Chop the elephant down. Divide your knowledge into small pieces. Then… Use each small detail in practice, one by one. Have you learned something? Now try it. Don’t be ashamed to ask if you don’t understand something. No one understands everything. Reason 3: Your Goals Are Messed Up Are you sure you have your career goals planned out in a clear and comprehensible way? If you have the coder’s block, it might be the problem. Unclear goals mean unclear ways of reaching them, which means you don’t know what to do and do nothing. What is your ultimate goal? Right, you want to become a coder, but why? What do you want to achieve? Write it down. This goal can be as elaborate as you want it. Still, something like “Find a well-paid job and build a successful career” or “Become the leading specialist for BestCodersInTheWorld Incorporated” is good too. 2. Create a plan. It is nigh impossible to reach complicated goals if you don’t divide the path to it into understandable steps. It might be something like this: Complete a Java course to grasp the basics of the language and get familiar with major programming concepts. Create a portfolio project to prove you’re capable of developing solutions on your own. Search for vacancies that suit your level of knowledge and skills. Get ready for the interview. 3. Each step of the plan you’ve created must be now divided further into really simple parts that can be done fast. Let’s take the “Complete a Java course” step, for example, and break it down: Complete a single lesson from the course. Complete the practical part of the lesson. Ideate a similar task but with different conditions and do it. Breaking the large goal down is really crucial to making your first steps. Reason 4: You’re Trying To Be a Lone Samurai Yeah, the thought of mastering your art alone and in complete isolation from the community might seem tempting for those of you who prefer solitude, but trust me on this one: cooperating with the community can skyrocket your progress. From shared experiences and success stories (gotta boost that motivation, remember?) to feedback on your code and career advice, the benefits of being an active member of the coders’ crowd are countless. Actively seek help from experienced programmers. Don’t be shy; just be polite. There’s no harm in asking, and believe me, and many seniors just love sharing their experiences with newbies. Check other people’s open code! It is a perfect opportunity to see how industry standards look in reality and implement their best principles in your work. Join some online communities and spend some time socializing with like-minded people. Here are some platforms to check: : the largest free community of professional programmers, where you can post your question and get a quality answer to help you out. It’s 99% sure that if you have any issues, the helpful tip is already at StackOverflow. StackOverflow : it is a social news aggregation and discussions website. Find the communities (subreddits) about programming, learning to code, and dive into the global developers’ community. Reddit : a forum to learn about and discuss programming. Initially, it was a JavaRanch, so you can easily guess which language had been discussed the most. CodeRanch : it’s a media platform that features the latest security news and connects different communities. For example, security researchers, business grads, and thousands of security professionals. HackerNews Put Your Knowledge Into Practice All right, we’ve dealt with major reasons for the coder’s block and what you can do to overcome those, now let’s proceed to things you can use to press the success. Coder’s block is not something that will leave you forever after you defeat it. It can come back in your darkest hour, stronger than before. That is why it’s important to know how to boost your productivity and get your creative juices flowing. These are just some of the ways for that. Play a Coding Game You’ve probably already heard about the gamification principle; it was a hot topic several years ago. Basically, everything becomes easier and more enjoyable if you make a game out of it. Coding is no exception. How do you gamify coding? Well, you can create some methods of your own, but the good news is a lot of people have already done it for you. I’ve prepared some options for you: : A gamified platform by its essence, CodeGym provides a ton of activities for a Java coder. This platform was dedicated to making learning much less tedious, and they implemented the whole arsenal of visual, storytelling, and motivational techniques to achieve that. Yet another strong point of CodeGym is an emphasis on practice: the course includes 1300+ tasks and coding projects to solidify the core knowledge and level up the coding skill. CodeGym : This platform focuses on providing a gamified learning experience for younger students but can also be quite helpful if you’re an adult. The main projects, CodeCombat and Ozaria, both offer text-based adventures with tasty-looking graphics and cooperation with teachers. CodeCombat : Here you create your robot battle tank (with the coding, of course) and pit it against others. It has a slightly more steep learning curve than in previously mentioned projects. Still, it’s a great way to learn while staying in gaming mode. Robocode : It’s a multiplayer and community-oriented platform with a wide language coverage and tons of tricks and techniques to learn while practicing. As they say, CodinGame lets programmers improve their coding skills by solving the world’s most challenging problems. CodinGame Constantly Practice Using Your Projects and the Work of Others Yeah, I’ve said it before: practice. Practice a lot. Spending one weekend playing with your pet project and trying new things easily beats spending 2–3 weeks watching tutorials online. Therefore, explore some ideas you find interesting and start projects based on them. Experiment. Play. Coding is your oyster, and there are plenty of ways to cook it. Don’t limit yourself to your ideas and projects, though; the Net is full of free stuff, some of it priceless in terms of the inspiration it can provide. Here are some top open-source software places you might want to look at: GitHub: a great programmers community, where you can find tons of helpful information and make your first steps in contributing to open source. I personally recommend starting with this one. GitLab: like previously mentioned, it’s a tool that offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Bitbucket: a source that gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test, and deploy. Beanstalk: a service for deploying and scaling web applications and services developed with numerous programming languages. Try Different Approaches to the Same Task In life, there is sometimes more than one way to do something. In coding, there ALWAYS is more than one. More than five ways, even. Part of becoming the best coder you can be is training your mind to seek new and more effective approaches to problem-solving constantly. Here are some things to train such a mindset: Re-examine your code Think about what you can do differently Consult with other fellow programmers on the forums Check-open sources for similar solutions Conclusion Here you go. Step over your coder’s block and go forth to the shining future full of flawless code. And remember, don’t punish yourself too much if you happen to get stuck sometimes. It happens. We’re all human beings, after all. Just try to overcome it as fast as possible, so it doesn’t affect you all that much. Use the community, your goals and plan, the experience of others, practice, and your motivation drive. And practice a lot. Did I mention practice? Also Published . here

How to Fight Coder’s Block: A Guide for New Devs

Image via Neoseeker While most people know Pokémon as a series of catching wild animals, its spinoffs tell many different stories. Among these is Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, a series by Spike Chunsoft where players take direct control of Pokémon in order to travel through strange and dangerous new lands. It’s not as successful as the main series, but it found its own level of notoriety - which is to be expected, considering . how widespread the Pokémon brand is The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games provide unique gameplay and stories not found anywhere else in the franchise. It’s interesting to see how far its titles evolved throughout the years, alongside how successful they truly managed to be. The only games that won’t be included on this list are the Japan-only Wiiware titles; while numbers for them aren’t known, it’s safe to assume they’d be on the bottom, anyway. The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Games In Order of Copies Sold 5. Rescue Team DX 4. Gates to Infinity 3. Super Mystery Dungeon 2. Rescue Team 1. Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky 5. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX - 1.26 Million Copies Sold A remake of the original Rescue Team titles, Rescue Team DX is the latest Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game to be released. While it follows the same story, it features numerous graphical and mechanical improvements, bringing features from other titles that even the mainline Pokémon games neglected to add. It’s an overall improvement to the originals, and while it falls to the bottom of this list, the fact that its release was only around two years ago shows that this game might still find even greater success. 4. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity - 1.31 Million Copies Sold Though it featured new mechanics and a heart-wrenching story, Gates to Infinity is one of the more controversial Mystery Dungeon titles. Between not allowing players to recruit all Pokémon they encounter and not even having every Pokémon up to the game’s release, Gates to Infinity was somewhat more restrictive than previous titles. But it gave a breath of new life into the Mystery Dungeon series, featuring 3D models and completely original enemies for players to face. Thanks to this title, the series was able to improve in new ways. 3. Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon - 1.65 Million Copies Sold Image via Bulbapedia Perhaps the most ambitious title of the series, Super Mystery Dungeon features every single Pokémon up to Generation 6. Through plenty of twists and turns, references to previous Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, and new mechanics such as Mega Evolution and Wands, Super Mystery Dungeon has an amount of content that overshadows many games today. It’s the latest game in the series that isn’t a remake, and it makes one wonder what a brand-new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon title would look like today. 2. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team - 5.28 Million Copies Sold Back when Pokémon Mystery Dungeon was still in its infancy, it relied on separate versions like the mainline titles do today. Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team released on the GBA and DS, respectively, kicking off the series with the common theme of a human being turned into a Pokémon. The formula of exploring randomly-generated dungeons and connecting with Pokémon-turned-characters kicked off a following for the series, and even with the remake, these titles are worth looking back on to see how it all started. 1. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky - 6.37 Million Copies Sold Image via Neoseeker Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness didn’t change much of Rescue Team’s formula. But it didn’t have to; instead, it built off of a fantastic foundation and gave it an even better story with more characters and charm than ever. A third version, Explorers of Sky, added even more story content and mechanics; some even consider it as . one of the best Pokémon games of all time Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is overshadowed by the main series, but it has a grand appeal of its own. While its recent successes aren’t as amazing as other Pokémon games, it’s still a consistent million-seller. With more marketing and budget, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games have the potential to surpass some mainline titles. One can only hope that such potential will be realized someday, and that more people will experience the wonder and excitement of these underrated gems. ) Sources: 070427e.pdf (nintendo.co.jp) Nintendo Sales Update - IGN (archive.org) Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness - Wikipedia 090508e.pdf (nintendo.co.jp) 100507e.pdf (nintendo.co.jp) Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity for Nintendo 3DS (vgchartz.com 160427_4e.pdf (nintendo.co.jp) Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon for Nintendo 3DS (vgchartz.com) 200507_3e.pdf (nintendo.co.jp)

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Games Ranked by Sales

We speak more through our bodies than our words. The posture we assume, the expression on our face, our hand gestures, and our eye movement convey far more than we would like to expose. A subtle smile in a meeting can indicate a willingness to engage in a dialogue, while a stern look can instantly kill the conversation. Constantly checking the phone or looking at the watch can signal disengagement, while focusing on the other person signals interest. Rolling our eyes expresses distrust or disgust in another person’s idea or behaviour, while our eyes light up when we are genuinely curious about others. Keeping head down while walking in the hallway shows a lack of presence while acknowledging people passing by through a simple nod creates warmth. A firm handshake during an interview can exude confidence and power while a limp handshake can reveal nervousness and weakness. These non-verbal cues form a part of our body language that speaks even when we are silent, revealing how we are thinking and feeling in the moment. Olivia Fox Cabane who has lectured at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT, and the United Nations says - In the scope of human evolution, language is a relatively recent invention. But we’ve been interacting well before this through nonverbal modes of communication. As a result, nonverbal communication is hardwired into our brains, much deeper than the more recent language-processing abilities. This is why nonverbal communication has a far greater impact She then points out “Without our realizing it, our bodies send out thousands of signals every minute. Just like our breath and heartbeat, these signals are part of the millions of bodily functions controlled not by our conscious mind but by our subconscious mind.” Understanding the power of our body language and the role it plays in workplace communication and collaboration can bring us together by adopting positive communication styles as opposed to setting us apart through bridges of misunderstanding. Importance of body language in communication Our body language plays a key role in impression management, the art of influencing how we are perceived by others. A positive body language can show our enthusiasm to contribute, confidence in our abilities, being comfortable in taking on challenges, passion to drive results, and present to recognize future demands. It can open a world of new possibilities. A negative body language can send strong signals of our resistance to contribute, doubt of our abilities, uneasiness to take on challenges, indifferent and uncaring attitude towards outcomes, and disconnected from reality to be able to handle future potential. It can close doors to success and growth. Maya Angelou said, “People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel”. Since our emotions drive a large part of our decision-making, guess who will get the attention when a new project or a position opens up - a person who exhibited confidence in their body language or someone who looked like a nervous wreck? Intelligence and brilliance are not enough to be successful at work. Our self-presentation skills far supersede our verbal communication. The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power—the kind of power that is the key to presence. It’s the key that allows you to unlock yourself—your abilities, your creativity, your courage, and even your generosity. It doesn’t give you skills or talents you don’t have; it helps you to share the ones you do have. It doesn’t make you smarter or better informed; it makes you more resilient and open. It doesn’t change who you are; it allows you to be who you are - Amy Cuddy What happens when what we say is not in alignment with what we believe? We can lie through our words, but our bodies will reveal the truth. The non-verbal cues that we send through our body speak stronger than words. Consider this. Someone approaches you with advice on a new strategy. Instead of expressing your true opinion, you simply nod in agreement. But, the tension around your eyes, the tone of your voice, and many other non-verbal cues can make the other person uncomfortable and leave them feeling unsure of your advice with the decision to never trust you again. The idea is not to be inauthentic through your body language but to be aware of its implications. Research shows that we form impressions about others within a few minutes of meeting them and then our confirmation bias guides us in picking data that confirms our point of view. Anything that strengthens our belief system is readily accepted and that which contradicts it is rejected. Being aware of the role our body language plays in forming this impression can help us twist the outcome of an interview in our favour. For someone in a leadership position, body language is extremely important since people in an organization mimic not only the way leaders talk but also pick on their non-verbal cues. A leader with positive body language appears approachable, open to feedback, and shows a willingness to change while a leader with negative body language appears inaccessible, closed to feedback, and arrogant to adapt and change with the future demands. Amy Cuddy asks, “Our non-verbals govern how others think and feel about us, but do our non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves?” Absolutely. Mastering the art of non-verbal communication not only leads to better communication with others, but it benefits us too. Presenting our best self forward by adopting positive body language enables us to be the creator of our future as opposed to being a victim of other’s perceptions. It leads to more opportunities for growth with higher chances of success. 4 body language mistakes and how to fix them 1. Mind is not attuned to the body When our mind is not in congruence with our body, we may try to portray a state which is in conflict with our inner self by controlling our posture and expression on our face, but sooner or later this incongruence will show up in our body language. A positive body language cannot keep up with the negative mental state - what goes up in our mind will show up in our body. Without our realization, these “microexpressions” will be noticeable to the people around us. Our body language expresses our mental state whether we like it or not. Our facial expressions, voice posture, and all the other components of body language reflect our mental and emotional condition every second. Because we don’t control this flow consciously, whatever is in our head will show up in our body language - Olivia Fox Cabane How to align our mind and the body Research shows that our mind cannot distinguish imagination from reality. So, whatever our mind believes, our body will project. We can bring out the desired body language by catching ourselves in those moments of negative mental states - disagreement, insecurity, angst, frustration, anxiety, criticism, and self-doubt, and choosing to get into a positive one. When you need to project confidence, seek inspiration When you feel angst due to a disagreement, ask yourself “What can I learn from the other person” and “How are my biases causing me to be closed-minded” When all you can see is negativity, choose to ask “What’s the one positive thing I can think about this situation” When self-doubt consumes you, tell yourself “I need to let go of my fears to create a better version of myself” When you exaggerate a negative outcome, ask yourself “what’s the worst that can happen” and “Is it really that bad or am I making up stories” Adopting a positive frame of reference and moving from a problem to a solution mindset can help us shift gears from a negative internal state to a positive one. 2. We do not make a commitment to be present “Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts—can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued”, explains Olivia Fox Cabane. When we are not engaged in a conversation, consumed in our own thoughts, and pretend to listen, it clearly shows up in the non-verbal signals we send to the other person. We may start fidgeting with our phone or laptop showing signs of distraction, look here and there instead of making eye contact signaling we are not interested in what they have to say and may even shift too many times in our position out of discomfort. Without our awareness, our body language will convey disrespect and distrust to the other person. How to be present You must commit to a conversation, even the brief ones, or walk away. If you’re too distracted, admit that to both yourself and the other person. Be present or be gone - Celeste Headlee It’s more polite to walk away from a conversation that doesn’t interest you than pretend to be present. Once you decide to participate, you first need to convince and tell yourself that you want to be present. Say “I choose to be present” and then adopt body language that aligns with it - look at the other person with enthusiasm, lean just a little to build interest, and try to grasp what the other person intends to say. You may occasionally drift away, but by choosing to be mentally present, you can bring your mind back to the conversation. Active listening though difficult is the most effective form of non-verbal communication that requires continuous practice and training of the mind. 3. We ignore context When we talk to someone, their perception of us is based on the context of the meeting, their expectations, and their own personal and cultural filters. Without recognizing that people operate within a certain context, we may send non-verbal signals that conflict with their values, contradicts their mental state, or even violates their sense of self. How to apply context When engaged in a difficult conversation, without empathizing with how the other person might be feeling in the moment, we may appear cold, unemotional, and downright rude. By adopting kindness and warmth in our body language, we can convey the right message without necessarily making them feel bad. When someone is passed up for a promotion, showing an attitude of indifference without understanding the value it holds in their life can make them resent you. Body language that shows presence and concern by giving them an opportunity to express their feelings can build better relationships. When a co-worker is grieving a personal loss, you may appear too intrusive in your body language when all they need is space to let the feelings subside. It could be a personal preference or a cultural nuance, but without understanding their context you may actually do more harm than good. When dealing with difficult people, your body language may switch to a fight-or-flight response. But, if you take a moment to analyze the situation without being at the effect of a fundamental attribution error, you may understand the rationale behind their behaviour. Every situation is unique. We need to project the right body language for each person by taking their context and personal filters into account. 4. We tell a conflicting story We may believe that we are highly approachable, but others may find us unapproachable. We may also think that we are open-minded, while others may find us biased. We may assume that we provide a psychologically safe environment to our people, but our employees may be terrified to make mistakes. Now, it’s easy to say that “it’s just them, not me. I have already communicated to them multiple times”. But really, is that the true story. Your intention may be far from the reality of your situation. Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment—is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion - Kerry Patterson When our body language doesn’t match our words, people pick up on our non-verbal signals - the sign of contempt on our face when someone makes a mistake, pacing back and forth when conveying bad news, showing nervousness by fidgeting when asking for feedback, rolling eyes when we disagree, making hand gestures that signal blame and so on. So, while you may communicate one thing with your words, your body may speak the opposite. And when people get confusing signals, they tend to go with what they observed and not what they heard. How to tell the right story Bring your body language in sync with the message you wish to convey. People find it easy to trust a person when their body language reflects their words. When asking for feedback, look the person in the eye and don’t be distracted. When someone makes a mistake, show curiosity in your face to enable them to learn from their mistakes. When telling people to feel comfortable to approach you, make open arm-hand gestures. When communicating bad news, be intense but show confidence in your ability to make things right by looking at people with passion and hope. People spend a lot of time perfecting their speech without verifying what their speech is conveying through their body. When it comes to making the right impression, don’t just speak through your words, make your body language count too. Summary Master the art of non-verbal communication in the workplace by: : Be self-aware of your negative mental states and choose to get into a positive one. Tuning to a positive state of mind : Practice active listening and engage fully in the conversation instead of being simply present. Committing to being present : Connect with the other person by taking their values, mental state, and sense of self into account. Taking context into account : Bring your body in sync with the message you wish to convey. Telling the right story Previously published here .

Mastering Workplace Communication: 4 Body Language Mistakes and How to Fix Them

It has been approximately 90 days since I started my role at Arm, as a SW Technology Management graduate. To say it has been a rollercoaster is an understatement. Coupled with working from home during a global pandemic and ramping up virtually, it has been an amazing journey so far. I have had many lessons from my time here so far, some of which I learned as in intern previously, and some that I am growing to understand as I go through this role. I thought it was worth distilling them into 5 main lessons I have learned here. 1. It’s actually okay to just learn, and not to do — my struggle with shiny toy syndrome. Before coming into this role, I had constant shiny toy syndrome. Product Management/ Strategy was something I knew I wanted to pursue and grow into, but I was also interested in learning more about user experience design, cloud technologies and many other avenues in technology. I started many blogs, business ideas, and fell under the belief that I had to be every single one of the roles that looked interesting to me. The joy of my role and the beauty of what I do is that I get the opportunity to learn about technology across the stack and across industries. The past 90 days have forced me to learn without trying to be everything. I have a much more focussed idea of where I want to be and what skills I want to have over the next season, and even though they might change, I am happy that the focus right now is stronger than it was before. Whilst I still love learning about user experience, embedded engineering, UI design etc, I know what I want to do, and am focussing on doing those, whilst learning the former. There is no problem (that I can see right now) in learning about many different parts of technology, as the overlap across many different roles is evident, but having more streamlined focus is the goal here on out. 2. Culture really is everything when finding your first job. You know when you have a dream of working at a company for a while and then you finally get there and it is better than you thought it would be? Well that is me with my company. I loved working with my team as an intern and it was the company culture that made me really excited to come back. There is so much opportunity to learn and grow with people passionate about their work and the semiconductor industry. One of the best things about my company is my team. I’m sure I tell everyone this, but it is the honest truth. Having a manager that is supportive of your technology interests, pushes you to do better and provides great career and pastoral care is a luxury in the working world that I feel honoured to have, especially in this time. Having a team that are more than happy to fill me in on what I have missed in the gap between my internship and graduate position and are ready to help whenever they can, is a privilege. It’s actually quite hard to explain the company culture in words, it is one of the things you need to really be there to experience, but it is definitely something that I enjoy. Company culture is so important, and has permanently gone to the top of my list when looking at opportunities in the future. 3. It’s okay to begin again  and start learning from scratch. ‘It’s especially important to not rush anything’ —  Words that my mentor/friend said to me a couple of weeks ago, and have rung true since I have started, and something that my manager and team have also echoed. Starting from scratch and making sure I get the foundations of computer architecture, as well as business and product strategy and the industry is so important to me, as I grow in knowledge and build a solid foundation that I can use to grow in my career in product/technology management. Understanding that this takes time, from someone who sometimes suffers from shiny toy syndrome (as I spoke about earlier) has been a hard lesson, but one I am very grateful for. Taking the time to upskill slowly and intentionally in the beginning of my career where I have the flexibility and space to learn, make mistakes and grow is going to benefit me in the long run. It’s more important right now to be a sponge, than rushing to be at the top of my field in 6 months. Intentional future-proofing and continuous learning > Quick and shaky success. 4. Asking questions is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s the best thing. This is something I knew at university, but has helped me to gauge my learning and growth over the past 3 months. I used to be so scared to ask questions in meetings, and when speaking with engineers and tech leads. I recently had one of my recurring meetings with my manager, and asked him a whole host of questions about JIRA. Not only did it help me to learn more, but it also made me realise that I knew enough to ask questions. Now I enjoy having questions to ask, because it reminds me that I am learning and growing and whilst there is so much to learn, I am enjoying the journey. 5. On balance. Finding the balance between online courses and project work, work and life balance, networking and application of what I am doing. Planning and executing. Being super productive and knowing when to rest. Everything needs balance and I am learning how to find a balance that works for me to achieve my goals and skills. So far, buying a planner using trello and Microsoft to-do have helped me to prioritise and keep on top of everything, but I am always looking and excited to try different techniques until I find out what works for me. My trello Board has become one of my prized possessions, allowing me to keep a track of project based learning, online courses, tasks to complete and people to reach out to. So far it has helped me to keep organised and plan my day, reducing my stress and anxiety, and allowing me to complete my tasks. So far, the experience has been amazing and I am looking forward to the personal growth, development and opportunities to learn more and grow in my role & career. Technology is a growing field, and there is so much to learn. Remembering to make sue of every opportunity, start small and be willing to learn will be useful in the long run. Cheers to the new year, new opportunities and personal and career growth. ——— Hi! 👋 I'm Augustina, a Graduate Software Technology (Product) Manager and public speaker, speaking about my journey into tech. I've recently launched a newsletter over at augustina.substack.com, where I'll be writing  about my journey into technology, and what I learn about tech, startups and business. I also enjoy publicly speaking about my journey into technology, as well as introducing people to emerging technologies, especially AI, ML & IoT.

5 Lessons from My First 90 Days in Tech

No one thought that the finance industry could be in the digital mode, as cash and coins were ruling the roost. First came the Internet banking and the real dynamics of the finance industry started changing. Peer-to-peer payment apps become the go-to-transaction way for consumers, as digital wallet solutions began making inroads in numerous customer-centric industries. Source: Statista – Global Mobile Payment Spending (2010-2017) As the image above shows, the global mobile payment spending is increasing, and consumers are using Digital FinTech solutions to pay for their needs as well as wants. Consumers use digital wallets to pay for their groceries, electricity bills, dining out, travel, and for almost everything. Quick resonance of consumers with the FinTech payment solutions is encouraging businessmen to come up with yet another batch of digital solutions and features that can complement the functionality of FinTech apps. Wondering where this trend is moving? Today you will find an overwhelming number of FintTech mobile apps. However, not every app make it to the top list in the Google play store and app store, as the approach taken towards the FinTech app development makes all the difference. If you are looking to take your offline finance solutions online and up in the app store, you have to take inspiration from these best FinTech apps that are likely to hold pole position in 2020: 1. INLY INLY is an invoicing and payment app, specially designed for freelancers. The app is free to use and download. Currently, it is only available for iOS. You only have to pay the payment processing fees. What are the Key Features of INLY? Freelancers can create professional-looking invoices. The app accepts credit card and eCheck. Recurring payments can be made. Integrated payment calendar helps to know when was the payment received. Why is this App a Success? The app is targeted at freelancers. A large number of individuals are moving from the mundane 9-5 jobs to freelancing. Since high-end development and strict deadlines leave them with little time for account management, INLY can help them do it all at a tap. 2. FINCH App The FINCH app is a popular FinTech app in Australia. It is available on both—Google store as well as the app store. FINCH is described as the “Financial app for social life”. This helps individuals conveniently transfer money. peer-to-peer payment app What are the Key Features of FINCH? Request for money or pay in less than 5 seconds. Bank account details are not required for the transaction. A group of people can split bills equally. If you are spendthrift, the app offers insights into your spending behaviour along with ways to inculcate saving habits. Why is this App a Success? The app is specially designed for millennial, who hang out with their friends and are looking for convenient ways to make transactions. The app offers an excellent transaction experience with its interactive design. 3. EMMA Online payment means no track of where the money is going. This is what EMMA takes care of. EMMA keeps tabs on all your accounts and offers you better control over your finances. The app is available to download on Google Play and App Store. What are the Key Features of EMMA? The app charges zero monthly fees and there’s no minimum amount to be added. Budgeting tools prevent you from overspending. EMMA categories your spendings so that you know where your money is mostly spent. The app includes savings tools that encourage to keep aside a specific part for the future. Why is this App a Success? The app recently came up with a feature that offers the integration of cryptocurrency. This feature will help the users to view their cryptocurrency investments in real-time in one app. This future-intensive approach taken by the developers of EMMA is likely to attract a broad base of investors, thereby making it a success. 4. Tellus This FinTech app is particularly developed for real estate investment buffs. It is available on Google Play and is also featured on the App Store. The app strives to bridge the gap between the landlords, owners, property managers, and tenants. What are the Key Features of Tellus? Online rent payment for tenants. Online rental listing and tenant screening process along with the digital lease. The app can help turn the property into a liquid asset. View service and maintenance request of tenants. Why is this App a Success? The app helps tenants pay their apps, but it does more good to the property owners. It is more than just a rental app. The app offers information about real estate investment opportunities. Once a property is bought, the users can keep track of the asset’s value in real-time. Tellus also provides with the ease to buy and sell these properties at any point of time without any contracts. 5. Matador Matador is a new generation app for individuals to invest and share their experience with friends. The app helps its users invest in any stock without paying any commission fee. The app is currently available only for iOS. What are the Key Features of Matador? Users can buy any stock with any amount starting from as little as US$ 5. The app helps its users invest in ETFs without any commission fees. Referral portfolio program helps users earn free stock. Users can seek advice from other investors by following them. Why is this App a Success? We know more people are moving towards the stock market to generate a passive income. However, the commission fee is a roadblock for them. In such a case, having an app to invest in stock with minimal price without commission fee works well for the new investors. The app also offers 2.5% interest on the cash, thereby creating an attraction among users. Key Highlights for 2020 The year is going to be remarkable. Having analysed these five FinTech apps, one thing is clear—there are more than one ways to get into the FinTech industry and make it big with crucial features. You can develop a FinTech app for sharing money, for online business, transferring money overseas, stock market investment and the list can go on and on. The cryptocurrency has started gaining momentum. It is the right time to pick up the pace and invest in an online business that can help users realise their financial goals.

Popular FinTech App Development and Features: 2020 Edition

No matter how educated, experienced and motivated you are and determined to run a successful business, there is one scarce resource which will make it impossible to do it by yourself and right now, I’m talking about time. Being an entrepreneur means you are constantly under pressure, working with very short deadlines and you are going to need help whether you like to admit it or not. As many investors and successful entrepreneurs will say, business idea is nothing without a good team who will make things happen. Building a team can be very challenging task especially if you don’t have experience with employing people. Finding the right people, talented people, who will help you accomplish your business goals is hard enough as it is, and if you add management of the team into the equation, things can become even more challenging. Assuming you are still at the beginning of your business venture and you don’t have money to get help from professional human resource agencies, let’s set out some guidelines on how to approach the building and management of the team. As a small bonus, I’ll even share some tips about running a team that is around the . distributed world Building a team First of all, let’s rule out some of the most common mistakes people make when starting a business. Starting a business with your close personal friends will cause more problems in running a business than it will help. Entrepreneurship can be a really scary thing considering you are taking a leap of fate in the unknown and putting everything at stake. Because of that, people tend to start a business with close personal friends in order to find support and understanding and even to share stress with people they trust. On the other hand, friends usually avoid giving real feedback which leads to dealing with the wrong information and the wrong assessment of your business situation, and this is exactly what can lead to failure. Another common mistake in building a team is to hire people who think just like you. Your teammates need to share the same enthusiasm for your business, but the way of thinking and solving a problems needs to be different to achieve progress and overcome problems you will face in your everyday life. Now that we ruled out the most common mistakes, let’s talk more about positive examples and tips & tricks for building and managing a great business team: 1. Identify your needs Depending on the industry you are doing business in, you will need different types of team members. It is your job as a company founder to determine what types of people and skills you need in your team and create very accurate job descriptions. Remember that multidisciplinary leads to innovation and better business performance, so focus your efforts on finding people who are talented in areas you require in your team. 2. Think about your company culture Finding a person with the right qualifications doesn’t mean that they will add the best value to your team. I have experienced a lot of time that very talented people get fired or leave the team because they just don’t fit company’s culture. You should always look for people who outline the business culture you are trying to promote and transfer it to the work with your partners, customers and other team members. People you employ need to get on well not only with you, but with the rest of the team. When you build a team that gets along, they will do better work and it will be much easier to go through challenges your team will face. 3. Set clear expectations To optimize your team’s work, you need to set a list of guidelines and procedures your team members will follow. A set of guideline can help new employees catch up pretty fast on the new job and also, they will help you minimize spent time on standardized activities. On the other hand, too many rules can poorly affect productivity and block the creativity. The key to finding the right balance between too many and just enough guidelines and rules is setting clear expectations. Give your employees any necessary resources they need and well-defined guidelines and goals so they know what you expect from them, but leave them enough space to improvise and use their creativity. Celebrate small victories, keep an open communication and organize company events with all employees so they feel that they are part of the team and understand their impact on the company’s success. 4. Value each team member As we mentioned before, multidisciplinary is a secret ingredient behind many successful teams. In order to gather a strong team, choose people with specific skill sets that will help you go the extra mile. Don’t ever hire somebody if they don’t add a unique value to your team. In addition to choosing the right employees, as a CEO, your job is also to make sure that every person in your team is fully aware of their unique value to the team. This will help them gain a sense of purpose and motivate them while boosting their performance. 5. Motivate The hardest part of building and managing a team is not the process of hiring people, it is the process of constantly motivating employees and keeping the enthusiasm high all the time. So, the question here is, what really motivates people. The traditional approach is the more you pay your employees, the more motivated and satisfied they are in their job. The truth is that money is only the first step and it brings only short-term motivation. In order to explain this, let’s take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the picture below. Money will only cover basic needs -psychological and safety needs. When somebody is able to afford a decent living and cover standard expenses, they need to satisfy their psychological and self-fulfillment needs. You can help your employees gain a feeling of accomplishment with words of affirmation and celebrating small victories every time your team members reach another milestone. By setting clear expectations and leaving room for creativity, the thing we discussed before in the second paragraph, your employees can achieve their full potential, which reflects greatly not only on the progress of your employees but the progress of the whole company as well. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 6. Communicate The best way to establish and carry out the first five guidelines of building and managing a team is communication. All employees must have access to information about the company, strategy, current situation and other team members the whole time. Keeping a level of transparency whenever possible is very important, even if information doesn’t directly relate to every person on your team. To help you with communication among team members, use applications such as Slack, Teamwork, Zoom and set up your own CRM system: will help you organize your team conversations in open channels. You can make a channel for projects, topics or any relevant subject you need and everyone participating has a transparent view of the information. You can even create private channels whenever you feel like the information is sensitive. Learn more about Slack: Slack https://slack.com/ is a project management app, chat app and helpdesk software you can rely on. By using Teamwork you can keep all your tasks in one place, run the helpdesk to handle customer support queries and enable real-time communication between your team members. Check out Teamwork at . For smaller teams that don’t need all the bells & whistles of Project Management, a very popular solution today is , available at . Teamwork https://www.teamwork.com/ Trello http://www.trello.com is currently the world’s most popular video conferencing service, and it is a god-send if you wish to have healthy communication within your distributed organization. Although a much younger player than the famous Skype or Google Hangout, it offers superior video and audio quality which is especially noticeable when having a conference with more than a few people. Highly recommended, more details at . Zoom http://www.zoom.us If you’re working with a lot of high-paying customers it is advisable to use Customer Relationship Management (CRM). CRM is a strategy for managing all your company’s interactions with customers. Good CRM will help you increase your company’s profitability and keep your sales force up-to-date with all important information about customers. CRM will help you keep track of everything — calls and emails sent to customers, held meetings and even personal information about customer. A full history of all communications, documents and meetings is stored in one place and available to your employees. An example of good CRM software is , but also for online businesses Platform is very popular, a full-service platform that helps you onboard & retain customers, create & share content, support customers at scale and live chat with customers. For more information visit and . Hubspot CRM Intercom https://www.intercom.com/ http://www.hubspot.com value We will continue to publish certain parts of the book over time so you get the feeling on of all the material covered thoroughly in it and invite you to check out the book for yourself at FromZerotoBusinessHero.com . There is even a big giveaway worth $55K exclusive for the readers ( page 125 ). We hope you’ll like it as much as we’ve enjoyed working on it. Originally published at www.avalon.host .

How to successfully build and manage a team distributed around the world

10 Simple Steps to Engage With Your Potential Customers If you’re creating content and trying to sell products online, chances are you’ve been told to create an email funnel. And if you’re just starting out you might have no idea how to create that email funnel. You might not even know what an email funnel is! An email funnel is a path a subscriber takes to become a potential customer. Everyone in your target market won’t buy from you but there is always a certain percentage of people that will. By creating a strong email funnel you’ll be more effective at selling your products than just putting your products on a products page and hoping people will click on it. That’s wishful thinking at best. Although this topic would be worthy of a fairly long eBook I’ll try my best to digest it into 10 simple steps. 1. Set Up an Email List With an Auto-responder Functionality An auto-responder is an email sequence that goes out automatically. Automagically even! Once a subscriber signs up there’s always a predetermined set of messages that go out. It can start immediately and then be a weekly email, or it can start right away and be a daily sequence. You can also set up email sequences that start on a Monday, like always 20x Your Potential. I’ll bet you $20 that counter resets itself automatically on Monday to open again the following Monday for anybody that subscribes during that week. See that counter on their page? Unfortunately, because auto-responder functionalities are so powerful to sell products they’re usually not included in the free plans of most email software. Even with the 2,000 subscriber free plan on you won’t be able to use their auto-responder feature. Mailchimp [Edit: Turns out, their free plan now does allow you to use their autoresponder feature, so now you have even less of an excuse to set one up.] However, you could test out an email funnel as a stand-alone launch to sell your eBook/course/product. Then, if your product does well you can invest in your business by upgrading your email software. 2. Create a Landing Page for Subscribers A landing page is a page with only a single goal: capturing email subscribers. There are a lot of great landing page solutions out there: (Now Thrive Architect) Thrive Content Builder Unbounce Leadpages Those are three popular ones but a Google search will give a lot more options. I use a combination of Thrive Architect and Leadpages for my squeeze pages and sales pages. I get about 50 — 100 subscribers/day to my email list and my landing pages convert at 62% because I know my audience at really well. Audio Issues Subscribers/Day Conversion Rate for Email Subscription Squeeze Page How you get people to subscribe is the tricky part, and for that you need to give them a reason . why they should 3. Give People Something Valuable in Exchange for Subscribing What’s the incentive for people to subscribe to your email list? Why should they care? What’s In It For Them? Solve a micro problem that you know your audience has. It doesn’t have to be a comprehensive solution ( ). that’s what your product should be Give them one solution to a small but annoying problem you know they have. This is usually called a lead magnet, or an “opt-in bribe,” which sounds way worse than it should. If you know your market well enough you probably have a ton of ideas in mind. Here are a few. You can mix and match or get inspiration for your own. 10 Easy Recipes for the food blogger. Interview with a productivity guru if you’re in the productivity space. 10 comic strip layout templates for graphic artists Website set-up video for entrepreneurs Headline hacks for copywriters And so on and so forth… However, if you’re an author, a musician or an artist then you might approach it a different way. Instead of offering a solution to a problem, offer them something exclusive that your fans can’t get anywhere else. An exclusive live recording A short story not published anywhere else An exclusive interview Behind the scenes videos Think more VIP status than Quick Solution when you’re more of a creative artist than an entrepreneur. Although, a “this is how I do it” video might be a good best of both worlds if your audience consists of people wanting to emulate your success. 4. Help Your Subscribers Out Don’t just stop with the lead magnet. If you have a great lead magnet that solves your audience’s problem then you’ve already earned some of their trust. At that point it’s time to solidify that trust with additional emails that solve further problems. Is there anything in the lead magnet you can elaborate on? Does your market have a tangential problem that you can help with? Those are all ideas for further emails. Once they know that your emails contain valuable information that will solve their problems they’re more likely to open them you’ve earned their trust. because I have to admit, I’m guilty of my emails not being valuable. However, my auto-responder sequence is carefully designed to offer the right amount of value and promotion. always 5. Be Entertaining AND Informative You want to create a relationship with your subscribers. Show your personality and be yourself. Nobody likes stuffy corporate marketing copy. Tell your story about how you overcame the problem they’re having and why you thought you should pay that solution forward. Be personable and let people in. Ask them to respond to you. If you tell your audience you read every response you get, chances are they’ll email you. Use the opportunity to ask your subscribers what they need help with. That’s all great information you can use to make your products. 6. Survey Your Audience In the first email after the lead magnet I usually ask my audience what they’re struggling with the most. I use the from Ryan Levesque, which is a book I highly recommend. Ask survey method Using a simple Google survey I can collect all of the responses from my audience and analyze them later. This helps me do two thing: Gives me content ideas to give to my subscribers that help them out even further. Helps me put together products that I know they’ll want. Once you know what your audience’s pain points are it’s easier to create helpful content for them. It’s really as simple as that. 7. Offer a Comprehensive Solution to Their Problem You may have a product idea already in mind before you ever start the email funnel process. You might have created one based on the survey responses. Or you’ve done a combination of the two where you’ve tweaked your idea to better fit with the audience that’s on your list. Regardless of how you came up with your idea just make sure it’s a real solution to a problem they’re having. already If you ask your market what their problems are and you create a solution to fix that problem they’ll buy your product. There’s a bit of nuance to it but it’s really as simple as that. 8. Anticipate Objections and Address Them Even if your subscribers want to become your customer they might still be worried about whether your product is for them. I recommend dedicating an entire email in your email sequence to those objections. Use a headline like “Is [Product X] Right For Me?” and write it like a frequently asked questions style email. If you’ve received a bunch of questions from your audience about your product, there is a high likelihood that other, more silent subscribers, have those same questions as well. Addressing those objections in an evergreen email reduces the amount of email you have to respond to and it automatically defuses and deflects the concerns of those buyers that are on the fence. 9. Use Testimonials to Add Credibility If your product didn’t help anybody it’s perceived as worthless. A testimonial that talks about the transformation your product helped create is worth a lot more than any promise you can make to them. If your product is new and you don’t have any customers to give you testimonials you can do a couple things: Testimonials About You Use testimonials from people that are about your character, integrity and helpfulness. It doesn’t have to be directly about your product but it can be something along the lines of “[Your Name] has helped me out immensely with [whatever your industry/problem is].” Give-Aways to Get Testimonials If you feel that’s too shady you can run a promotion and give away a few copies of your product in exchange for a testimonial. Giving stuff away for free might undervalue it a little bit but you are making the subscriber work for their free product. Unless you have an incredibly loyal audience you won’t get a 100% testimonial rate on your giveaway. However, if you give away 10 copies and you get 3–5 testimonials back that’s usually enough to create a valuable story inside your email sequence. 10. Survey Your Audience After the Launch Sequence You’ll never convert all your subscribers to customers. That’s extremely wishful thinking. But, you can try to understand your non-buyers better after the launch is over. Knowing why they didn’t buy will help you write stronger copy. It’ll help you structure your emails better. It’ll help you understand what to add to future versions of your products, or what to focus on in the next product you create. Non-buyer surveys are extremely helpful, but don’t neglect your actual customers. Knowing is also very useful. It helps you better understand your target market, their inner reasoning and their vocabulary. why somebody did buy Conclusion Having an email funnel in place is one of the most important business decisions you make with your online venture. If you have traffic coming in and your landing page is converting that traffic to subscribers it’s literally an automatic sales system! Money in your sleep. Money when you’re walking the dog. Money when you’re depressed. Money when you’re on top of the world. I realize that there are a lot of technical things you need to do to set this sort of thing up but if this is something you’re struggling with and would like help with, let me know how I can help. Looking forward to knowing more about you! Björgvin I’m an email marketing expert that helps you grow your email list, generate ideas for engaging content and drive sales with your email marketing. Get Your Awesome Emails Manifesto and learn how to get 100 email subscribers/day in only 6 easy steps.

How to Get 100 Subscribers/Day and Be Awesome at Email Marketing

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset We believe an organization that adapts a growth mindset can position itself to thrive. But what exactly defines a growth mindset? At Emotive Brand, we define a growth mindset as a set of attitudes and behaviors that reflect the belief that an individual’s talent is not set in stone. Talent can be developed. Intelligence can be fostered. Creativity and innovation can be strengthened. Leaders can emerge. People hold potential. This means every employee within an organization has to the ability to develop, grow, and learn. And organizations who believe this seek out individuals who show a capacity for such growth. And we believe that the companies who work to help each of these individuals progress, advance in their roles, take on more leadership capabilities, and constantly evolve their skills and thinking will thrive as a whole. Growth Mindset is Key Strong leadership, continual learning, and innovation are key to thriving business today. And not just amongst the C-suite or those in designated leadership roles. Leadership and learning must be fostered throughout an organization in order for that organization to really progress. Although this often starts at the top, it must ring true throughout an entire business. A fixed mindset — unlike a growth mindset — does not encourage any of these ideals. Nor does it allow employees to grow and new leaders to emerge. And less risk-taking, less freedom, less collaboration, and less acceptance of failure — all behavioral symptoms of a fixed mindset — can be detrimental to business. Adapt a growth-mindset to drive business by: 1. Seeking out learners: Often times, in business, as expertise increases, individuals struggle more and more to see new solutions or ideas. Learning stalls and this leads businesses to get stuck in their thinking. In order adapt growth mindset that can fuel your organization forward, you must focus on people’s capacity and not their pedigree. As such, recruitment should value people who show a real commitment to learning. These people will help build , develop independently, collaborate successfully, and be more able to adapt to whatever challenges arise. a learning culture Individuals that value learning, and show a capacity and passion for continual knowledge have a natural growth mindset that can move any business towards success. 2. Allowing employees to step out of their daily work: Creating a growth mindset means enabling each individual’s work to be more than just their job. Developing new skills — even if they shift outside of someone’s current daily work — is always valuable. We believe that understanding and learning other roles than your own can help promote empathy, collaboration, and encourage new ways of approaching things. And setting aside time to build skills such as collaboration and leadership is key to making your people more productive and inspired at work. 3. Building a culture that is willing to take risks and accept failure: An inevitable part of growth is failure. And adapting a growth mindset means accepting the chance that, in the end, you might fail. But innovation, creativity, and fueling a business forward wouldn’t be possible if people weren’t willing to take risks. And often, this starts at the top. Leaders should set an example but also allow all employees to take on leadership roles — giving individuals the independence and freedom to try things, fail, and learn from their mistakes. Taking on challenges is key. And organizations who view their people as capable of taking on challenges — even if it means failing — position themselves for success. 4. Driving commitment, determination, and innovation: Employees at growth mindset companies feel more committed to their work because they feel they have the potential to grow, learn, and thrive within it. They also feel more motivated to do their best because they know that their personal development and hard work is valued. In fact, that employees at growth mindset organizations pursue more innovative projects. They also behave more transparently, cut fewer corners, and work more collaboratively. And these authentically motivated people will drive innovation and fuel business. Goals and Objectives research has shown Any business who wants to position itself to meet goals and objectives, set new ones, continually move forward, and advance needs to adapt a growth mindset to succeed. It’s all about developing, advancing, expanding, and seeing the opportunity and potential in every moment, individual, failure, and success. A growth mindset will move your business forward and position your business, its brand, and its people for growth, , and success in the future. profit Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency. Originally published at www.emotivebrand.com on October 19, 2016.

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