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Startups that help people to rent their homes and driveways are unhappy with George Osborne

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George Osborne

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne delivered his annual Autumn Statement at Westminster today but a number of British startups believe he's missed a key opportunity to support them. 

Sharing economy startups — those that allow individuals to share their homes and possessions in return for a fee — were particularly disappointed.

Sharing Economy UK, a trade body that counts the likes of Airbnb, Hailo, BlaBlaCar, JustPark, and Hassle.com as members, wanted to see Osborne introduce a sharing economy tax relief so that individuals could earn tax-free money when renting out their belongings.

Debbie Wosskow, chair of SEUK and Founder and CEO of Love Home Swap, said: "I am disappointed today that more hasn't been done to support the individuals who want to supplement their income by renting out spare rooms, unused storage or space in their driveways.

"A sharing economy tax relief would encourage individuals to unlock previously unused or under-used assets, helping these microentrepreneurs to make and save money. What's more, changes from the government on this matter would be a bold statement that the UK is leading the charge globally in best harnessing the sharing economy."

Debbie Wosskow SEUK Love Home Swap

Earlier this year, the Chancellor announced changes to the Rent-a-Room allowance, meaning that from April 2016 homeowners will be able to earn £7,500 tax-free by renting out a room in their property, up from the current limit of £4,250. 

But Wosskow wants the government to do more. 

"More can be done by extending this tax relief to £10,000 and also broadening the remit to include driveways and unused storage," she said.

Startups also criticised Osborne for failing to allocate further funding to improving the UK's broadband network. 

"Today’s budget will be a disappointment to many colleagues within the technology community," said Richard Higgs, CEO of Scottish data centre and cloud provider, brightsolid. "While broadband was mentioned in the full spending review policy paperwhich is really encouragingthe details were missing in Osborne’s speech. Despite having recently promised to make access to fast broadband a legal right for everyone by 2020, the omission in today’s announcement suggests that internet provision is not seen as a priority."

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Slant wants to transform online media by paying writers 70% of ad revenue — but will that make a difference?

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Slant group

When Amanda Gutterman talks about her vision for Slant, a platform-publisher hybrid that "soft launched" in July, you can tell she believes it has the power to shake up the online media landscape.

Gutterman is Slant's editorial director, and came from the Huffington Post with the goal of giving up-and-coming writers two things they aren’t usually afforded: editing and money.

That’s the promise of Slant, whose editorial team of a half-dozen give all posts a minimum editorial scrutiny, and which pays writers 70% of the ad revenue generated by their work. The amount each writer makes is decided by views (clicks, if you will) — the more views, the more money.

amanda guttermanGutterman says Slant is meant to sit in the middle of two types of publications, each with its own set of problems.

The first are "selective publications." Gutterman gives the example of The New Yorker, where she interned. These types of publications are hard for new writers to break into, and, Gutterman adds, do not always include a diversity of voices.

The second general type of publication is what Gutterman describes as “big content farms,” that give essentially no editing and “leave views on the table” by not packaging the stories in a way that will succeed on social media. They also tend to not pay well, or even pay at all.

Here’s how Slant is different, according to Gutterman.

All Slant stories are copy edited, fact-checked, and repackaged for social media. This means that any writer can get access to basic editing. Since the close of its beta, Slant has allowed anyone to submit articles, and will publish them as long as they are factually accurate. The opinions of the writers, Gutterman says, can be as repugnant as they want. As a counterpoint to its open publishing, Slant chooses a selection of stories it deems to be high quality, and promotes them on its homepage and social media.

What does this editing amount to in practice? 

Seamus Kirst, who has written 21 stories for Slant, says he hasn’t noticed much editing beyond things like typos (disclosure: he was a classmate of mine). He says the few times he has corresponded with Slant’s editorial staff, it has been because his facts weren’t properly sourced. Slant requires that all statements of fact that aren’t common knowledge be hyperlinked to a credible source, Gutterman says.

The second way Slant is different is the payouts. Gutterman says the ad deals are constantly changing, so it’s hard to nail down a specific estimate of how much a writer gets paid per view. But Kirst provided Business Insider a sample of what he’d made on one article: $3.24 for 966 views, which is about $3.35 per 1,000 views.

This is just one data point, but Kirst says he’s seen consistency over his 21 articles (in revenue versus views). And Gutterman says the split is democratic, with everyone getting the same rate per view.

seamus kirst

That means it’s likely a writer, at least for now, makes something like $3.35 per 1,000 views, $33.50 for 10,000, or $335.00 for 100,000. For context, 100,000 views means you might have landed on the front page of Reddit.

“No one is getting rich off this,” CEO and publisher Aviram Elad says. It’s more about getting writers opportunities. Slant publishes about 30-40 stories per day, and had 1.5 million views in October.

“If you have a following, you might be able to make money,” Kirst says. “Maybe if you are a YouTube star or a celebrity.” And as an alternative to platforms like Medium, which give you no money for your content, it’s nice to know that if something goes viral you can make a few hundred bucks, Kirst adds. But Kirst quickly lost the misconception that Slant could be another stream of income, even though Gutterman says Kirst is doing great work on the platform.

Elad says a few writers have made in the hundreds of dollars so far. 

What stories have made money?

Gutterman says one of Slant’s first huge hits was an article that looked at how little money the US women’s soccer World Cup team made (for winning the whole thing) compared to the men’s team. Though the page doesn't display views, this article has been "shared" around 2,200 times.

But Slant's democratic pricing has other benefits beyond money. Gutterman says a prominent music video director, who has worked with Rihanna, agreed to be interviewed by a Slant writer simply because he was moved by the business model. This is a chance the writer would not have gotten associated with another platform.

Here is a chart of how Slant's views have grown over the past few months:

Screen Shot 2015 11 25 at 12.52.54 PM

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This controversial founder’s supposed email to a VC sounds like something out of an episode of 'Silicon Valley'

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Craig Brittain

Craig Brittain, the controversial founder of now defunct revenge-porn website IsAnybodyDown?, is back with a new venture: an Uber competitor called Dryvyng.

And Brittain is already raising eyebrows.

On Monday afternoon, developer and security researcher Asher Langton tweeted out screenshots of emails sent to him from one of his Twitter followers.

This follower had, it appears, reached out to Brittain, presumably about potentially investing in Dryvyng. Brittain apparently responded to the person with a screed that sounds straight out of an episode of the HBO parody "Silicon Valley."

Here's part of the first message:

"If you don't invest, it's probably because you have no real money to invest and/or you work for a competitor. As an extremely talented company with an incredible idea, our worthless, idiotic competitors are doing everything they can to sabotage our genius. Likewise, anyone who won't invest in us is a f------ idiot. I hope you get a terminal illness. Rot in hell, Ben."

More screenshots of Brittain's emails can be found here. They include obscenity-laced rants against "socialist economics," Democratic voters, and government regulation.

"The fastest solution to regulatory interference is open defiance," reads one portion.

Brittain has responded on Twitter to the discussion about the screenshots, saying he doesn't feel sorry about calling out "fake investors, competitor agents of limousine liberal socialists."

Dryvyng seems to be an Uber competitor, marketing itself as a fast, affordable, safe way to hail a ride and get to where you're going. According to Dryvyng's Twitter account, it has investors and is announcing a new round of funding soon.

The company claims to have 35,000 people signed up and pre-qualified to drive before it has even launched. Dryvyng accepts cryptocurrency and the pricing model is a negotiation between the driver and the rider, according to Dryvyng's own Twitter account, which has been tweeting out people's responses to the screenshots in addition to tweeting about "SJWs," short for "social justice warriors," a derisive term used by some individuals to describe progressives and feminists.

Prior to Dryvyng, Brittain was, infamously, the founder of IsAnybodyDown?, a website that posted hundreds of nude photos of women. After reaching a settlement with the FTC earlier this year, Brittainapologized on his blog for "a series of poor decisions" and says he's "a different person now."

We've reached out to Dryvyng for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

SEE ALSO: This reaction to a venture capitalist's rejection proves that some startups have lost their minds

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20 lessons for succeeding as a leader that you won't learn in business school

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office, boss

The job description for CEOs is simple on paper. Lead your company to success.

But, as any CEO will tell you, it's anything but simple. There are no manuals for how to handle the curveballs that get thrown your way. When you have so many people to answer to — board members, investors, customers, and employees — it's easy to lose your way. That's why so many founders, the ones with the big idea, don't last long as CEOs.

I'm lucky to count myself among a dwindling group of founder/CEOs still at the helm of a growing public tech company. To put it into perspective, the average tenure of a Fortune 500 CEO is about seven years, and the average life expectancy of a public company is less than 10. Needless to say, I've been on quite a journey and learned some important lessons along the ride.

While we are entering a generation where we see entrepreneurs "make it" with their first big idea (e.g., Zuckerberg), the reality is that most leaders try, fail, and fail again before tasting success. Before I started LivePerson 20 years ago, I had already started (and lost) one company, but without that failure, I never would have found success.

As LivePerson is now celebrating its 20th year in business, I wanted to share the 20 most critical lessons learned that brought us here today.

1. A company's purpose has to be greater than the product or service it's selling.

2. Meaningful connections are everything in business.Taking the time to personally connect can significantly impact how you work with your employee, customer, or investor for the better.

3. Losing a big customer isn't the end of the world and sometimes is necessary.It can spur you onto even greater things.

4. Learn to find the value in failure.Instead of defeat, failure is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and create a better outcome.

5. Don't obsess about the stock price. Just focus on delivering value to your customers.

6. Complacency is a disease. Even when things are good, motivate yourself to constantly evolve and change. Standing still is what kills a company.

7. Growth and innovation happens when you take risks, so it can be a good sign if you're feeling uncomfortable.

8. Never follow.Copying and one-upping will lead to a lifetime of being compared to other companies, so create your own journey. Invent your own category.

Attendees at a job fair line up for an interview carrying their resumes in leather bags in a Washington hotel, August 6, 2009.     REUTERS/Jason Reed

9. Take a competitor's eye to your offerings and build the product that could kill your business.

10. If you're in a rut, "fire" yourself and treat the next day like day one of a whole new, better, you.

11. Never let anything get in the way of a good night's sleep. True success is a long game; to go the distance, you need to reset and refocus every day.

12. A good leader creates other leaders. He doesn't "manage" his employees: he empowers them.

13. A strong culture is what will sustain a company not just high growth and high profits.

14. Company culture is more than great perks and a cool office it's the how and why you do what you do.

15. Kill the corner office. Sitting in an open format will improve your work culture and dynamic dramatically.

office space cubicle milton

16. Keep good ideas in the company by investing in your employees as entrepreneurs and owners.You never know where the next great idea will come from.

17. Finding the right employee is not unlike marriage.You need to share the same values to make it work.

18. If you find yourself talking about someone's character more than the quality of their work, then it's time to evaluate whether they're a right fit for the company.

19. Don't hire people whom you can control, but those whom you trust to help you build an outstanding company.

20. The most valuable employees are the ones that have more than the right skills for the job. They have the will to do the job with passion.

Whether you're just starting out in business or already running a company of any size, I hope the lessons here can serve you and help you in your journey.

SEE ALSO: A psychologist explains how to organize your computer desktop for optimal productivity

SEE ALSO: The 27 jobs that are most damaging to your health

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This Scottish unicorn has huge revenues but US authorities are threatening to kill it

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nigel eccles fanduel

Scottish online sports betting startup FanDuel was today unveiled as one of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the UK.

The company ranked sixth on Deloitte's annual "Fast50" report, which ranks UK technology firms based on their revenue growth rate over the last four years.

FanDuel's exact revenues couldn't be revealed because it is a private company but it is said to have grown a whopping 4,632% since 2011, putting it ahead of fintech heavyweight Funding Circle in 8th on 2491% and Scottish neighbour Skyscanner in 38th on 392%.

The ranking would suggest FanDuel is on top form but the reality is FanDuel's executives have a big challenge on their hands, with US courts threatening to shut down their business.

Where is all the money coming from?

FanDuel has a betting platform that entices sports fans into creating fantasy teams for US sports that can be pitched against strangers.

The platform — used by five million people and operational in 40 US states — has proved incredibly popular with NFL (football), NBA (baskeball), and NHL (ice hockey) fans.

Last year, Techworld said FanDuel took$600 million (£390 million) in bets and kept $60 million (£40 million) of that as profit.

There’s big money to be won (and lost) on FanDuel's betting platform. Gambler Chris Prince has won $762,388 (approximately £494,094), according to the company’s homepage, where he is pictured with a big smile across his face and a quote reading: "Playing a game in one day and getting paid the same day is awesome."

FanDuel Chris Prince

Technology investors are keen to capitalise on the company's success, with high-profile names such as Google Capital, Time Warner Investments and Turner Sports taking part in this summer’s $275 million (£176 million) round, which brought total investment in the company up to $361 million (£234 million.)

But recent development might have them wondering if they've put their money in the right company.

Legal battles

There's a potential roadblock in the way for FanDuel: a New York court is investigating it for illegal gambling.

Earlier this month, New York state attorney-general Eric Schneiderman insisted that FanDuel and rival DraftKings be terminated, accusing them of operating gambling companies without a licence. The pair argued their case in New York on Wednesday.

The Sunday Times ran a piece last weekend where it stated that it's likely to be the first of many US legal cases for FanDuel. The piece – written by Peter Evans and Kiki Loizou and titled "Unicorn to Unicorpse"— paints a worrying picture for FanDuel, which started in Edinburgh in 2009.

Class action lawsuits are already being assembled in several states that will seek to reclaim money lost to "illegal" bookmakers, the British broadsheet stated.

A court in Tennessee is suing FanDuel for $10 million (£6.6 million), while a DraftKings employee is facing accusations of insider trading after winning $350,000 (£233,000) through FanDuel competitions.

Jason Trost, the US-born co-founder of online betting exchange Smarkets, told The Sunday Times: "It’s very possible that Americans will get rid of this completely."

In response, FanDuel said: "The trend in the States is clear: towards regulation and keeping our game legal, and we are fully in support of smart regulations."

It remains to be seen whether FanDuel will be banned or whether it will continue to exist in a more regulated landscape.

An American exit would be devastating for the company and embarrassing for the company's investors but it may not be enough to kill it. There are other markets FanDuel could operate in. For example, FanDuel has stated its intent to launch outside the US, possibly in its home country the UK.

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Here's what it was like to party in New York with The League, the 'Tinder for Elites'

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the league party

The League— a selective dating app for elite, successful individuals — first launched in San Francisco in early 2015, and a few months later it launched in New York City.

Stanford graduate Amanda Bradford founded The League and raised $2.1 million with the ultimate goal of matching up highly motivated and interesting single professionals.

When The League launched in New York City, it held a prelaunch party at The Jane hotel exclusively for its selective group of New York users.

Not everyone who attended is on the app, though. Some attended as wingmen and wingwomen to support their League-worthy single friends.

SEE ALSO: We got inside the 'Tinder for elites' — here's what it's like to use

If you want to join The League, founder Amanda Bradford says, the most important trait you need is ambition.



The League's users often have advanced degrees from prestigious universities.



They tend to be in their late 20s.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The 32 best people in UK tech to follow on Twitter

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sarah wood

Sure, you get your tech news from Twitter, but who do you follow for insight, analysis, and jokes? 

We rounded up some of the UK's most interesting Twitter users for tech news and analysis.

We've sorted Twitter users according to how much they tweet, how much they engage with other users, and how useful their tweets are.

32. Tess Alps

Handle: @TessAlps

Occupation: CEO of Thinkbox

Why: Want to know what the future of TV will be? Alps is someone you should follow.

Sample tweet:

 



31. Taavet Hinrikus

Handle:@taavet

Occupation: CEO of TransferWise

Why: Hinrikus is the CEO of TransferWise, one of London's most well-known technology startups. He's clued into startup news, and also shares updates from his company.

Sample tweet:

 



30. Bruce Daisley

Handle:@brucedaisley

Occupation: Vice president of direct sales for Europe, Twitter

Why: Daisley is one of Twitter's most senior employees in Europe, and his tweets are all about either tech or music.

Sample tweet:

 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The 32 best people in UK tech to follow on Twitter

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0

sarah wood

Sure, you get your tech news from Twitter, but who do you follow for insight, analysis, and jokes? 

We rounded up some of the UK's most interesting Twitter users for tech news and analysis.

We've sorted Twitter users according to how much they tweet, how much they engage with other users, and how useful their tweets are.

32. Tess Alps

Handle: @TessAlps

Occupation: CEO of Thinkbox

Why: Want to know what the future of TV will be? Alps is someone you should follow.

Sample tweet:

 



31. Taavet Hinrikus

Handle:@taavet

Occupation: CEO of TransferWise

Why: Hinrikus is the CEO of TransferWise, one of London's most well-known technology startups. He's clued into startup news, and also shares updates from his company.

Sample tweet:

 



30. Bruce Daisley

Handle:@brucedaisley

Occupation: Vice president of direct sales for Europe, Twitter

Why: Daisley is one of Twitter's most senior employees in Europe, and his tweets are all about either tech or music.

Sample tweet:

 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A London startup CEO explains how she uses LinkedIn to poach top employees from companies like Bloomberg

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Melissa Morries Network Locum

The CEO of a healthcare startup says she has come up with a formula to help her steal the most talented individuals from large corporates like Bloomberg and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Melissa Morris is the cofounder and CEO of Network Locum, which provides a platform to help self-employed locum doctors find work at GP practices and to help GP practices find cover when they need it.

"This is what I'm doing to take your talented people," she told an audience of employees from firms such as Barclays, Google, and Shell at the FT Innovate conference in London on Tuesday.

Eight months ago, Network Locum had 10 people at its office in Clerkenwell, London. Now it employs 30, with half of those coming from Oxbridge, according to Morris, who won the Sky TV show "The Pitch" in 2012.

Several of Morris' team members have been poached from consultancy firms like PwC and financial giants like Bloomberg, where Network Locum cofounder William Hoyer Millar hails from. Other members of her team were hired from JustGiving and the London cleaning startup Mopp.

Morris, a University of Bath graduate who worked for the management consultancy firm McKinsey and as a strategist for the NHS in London, said she begins her hiring process by finding six companies that she perceives to have high-calibre employees.

Persistent LinkedIn messaging pays off

She then goes on her £700-a-month LinkedIn Premium account, which she says is cheaper and better than hiring a recruiter, and finds 100 potential individual hires.

Each person on this list is contacted by Morris directly through LinkedIn, which is "by far the best" hiring tool she's ever used. If they don't reply, she'll persist, contacting them up to three times in 72 hours if needed.

"It might sound a bit annoying, but actually my response rate goes four times after messaging three times," she said. "Also, I make sure not to send the same message each time."

About 30 of the 100 people she contacts come back and say they're interested, Morris said. Most of the others respond but say they're not interested.

Morris then meets with each of the interested individuals, who she says are "much smarter" than her, and "whittles them down to one or two" through a series of tests.

Culture-fit test

The first test is a "culture-fit" test. The metric for passing this test is: "Could you sit next to this person on a train for two hours?"

Morris then gets candidates to try to solve a problem that one of the Network Locum project teams has been struggling with for two or three weeks. Candidates will get only two hours, so they're not expected to solve the problem, but they are expected to make progress.

Morris said this tested a candidate's intelligence and ability to "get s--- done."

Anyone left at this stage will be invited in for team drinks with the rest of the Network Locum employees.

Business Insider asked Morris how she persuaded the top employees and the best graduates to come and work for her when they could potentially walk into a company like Google or Facebook, where they could be paid significantly more.

Morris replied that Network Locum salaries were competitive, adding that the company was small enough to give away attractive stock options.

A journalist from The Register also questioned Morris on whether she was looking to hire people who were similar to her, but Morris said there was a lot of diversity across her company.

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HP, SAP, and other big tech companies have a new way into the red hot Israeli startup scene

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Israeli startup accelerator The Junction

In the last six months, an exclusive startup accelerator called The Junction, created by Israeli VC Genesis Partners, has come up with a way for huge multinational corporations to use Israel's bustling tech startup community to their own sweet advantage.

These companies partner with The Junction, helping it fund its operations and mentor its startups, and in exchange they get to help it decide which startup technologies to pursue and which startups to accept. Then they work with the startups to test and shape the tech they build.

Business Insider has learned that HP (the PC/printer company) has joined The Junction in this way. In addition, The Junction just announced that huge multinational insurance company Munich Re has signed on as such a partner, following SAP who signed on six months ago, as did Australian wireless company Telstra.

HP is looking for entrepreneurs working on 3D printing, Internet of Things, and 3D visualization graphics.

Multinational corporations have always shopped Israel's startup up community looking for cool tech to acquire. But in the past six months, they've been flooding into the country, trying to get even more involved at earlier stages, mostly through investing, says Barak Rabinowitz, a partner with Genesis who runs The Junction. 

"Their main interest is to have a first look at cutting-edge of innovations, then generate commercial pilots with companies," Rabinowitz tells us. While a partnership with The Junction doesn't give them special first-rights to fund or acquire the startup, it gives them such close relationships that this is often a practical outcome.

Israeli Startups, startups, office workers, The JunctionThe Junction is a particularly exclusive accelerator, too. It accepts only five companies per class, and they enter a six-month program that includes the option to accept either $50,000 or $100,000 seed money for 5% or 10% of the company. Startups don't have to take the investment, and can raise a seed round elsewhere, although Genesis Partners retains the right to participate in the first round of funding should the startup make it that far.

The program also includes sending the founders to Silicon Valley for 2 to 3 weeks where they can show the tech off for feedback and to find more investors.

200 hopefuls applied to The Junction last year. With help from these corporate sponsors, they were whittled down to 25 finalists who then spent two days and nights, holed up in a kibbutz, trying to convince The Junction and the corporations to accept them into the program.

As we previously reported, 2015 was a particular break out year for the Israeli startup scene. The country grew its first bunch of $1 billion valuation unicorns, broke records for VC funding, saw private equity investors swoop in and cut big checks, and caught the eye of Asian investors, especially from China, who are have swarmed in, too.

US multinationals like HP, Apple, Intel, Microsoft have also stepped up their presence there. HP, for instance, has a full-time person in the country looking for startups to fund. 

SEE ALSO: 50 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2016

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A former Wall Street rainmaker says running a bank is a 'breeze' compared with a startup

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Sallie Krawcheck

Compared to running a startup, being Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup or president of the Bank of America's wealth management division is a "breeze."

That's according to Sallie Krawcheck, one of the most recognizable women on Wall Street, who held both of those positions.

Krawcheck who now runs Ellevate, a network for professional women spoke with Bloomberg's Betty Liu during a podcast.

Krawcheck was one of the highest paid women on Wall Street when she was still an executive at Citigroup. In 2006, she reaped in $10.6 million, becoming 2007's 12th most highly paid woman in Fortune's rankings. In 2010, Krawcheck pulled in $6.2 million at the Bank of America. She acquired Ellevate in 2013. 

Running Ellevate was a huge shock for the Wall Street veteran, in part because small firms are so dependent on each individual employee. 

"If everybody doesn't show up for work, fully show up for work every day, the business doesn't get done," she Krawcheck. For example if the website crashes:

"When you're running Merrill Lynch, there are people who are all over this. When you've got a small company there's a guy. And, by the way, telling the guy to work faster doesn't particularly work very well," she said.

And then there's the sleep schedule. Krawcheck said she used to sleep through the night when she worked at the big banks.

"When you're an entrepreneur and you start off, you have five people working for you.... I didn't sleep in the first couple of years as an entrepreneur, I would wake up at 3:30 in the morning and just iterate through this problem, this challenge, this issue," she told Bloomberg's Liu.

Aside from the lack of sleep, the early days of her venture were also a roller coaster. Some days, Krawcheck had trouble balancing the books. Other days, she'd feel terrific.

 "You have to tell people, entrepreneurialism isn't for everybody," she said. "You have to have the mental and physical fortitude for this stuff, and everyone doesn't have it.

Thinking back on her life on Wall Street, she thought, "What a breeze, I ran these big important businesses."

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This French CEO insists his mobile dating app can’t be used to stalk people

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Happn CEO Didier Rapport

Mobile dating app Happn can’t be used to stalk people, according to the company’s CEO, despite what some reports have suggested.

The Happn app allows single people to set up their own profile and choose what kind of person they’re looking for based on sex and age. The app shows users who they’ve “crossed paths” with and how many times. After two Happn users express an interest in one another — by tapping a red love heart on the other person’s profile — they are able write messages to one another.

When asked about whether the app can be used to stalk people, Happn cofounder and CEO Didier Rappaport claimed it isn’t nearly accurate enough.

"You can cross with people who are around you but it is not really precise because it’s in a circle of 250m, which in a big city is very large, so you cannot really stalk the people," he said.

Those who use Happn for several months may start to notice that they’ve crossed paths with certain people close to 100 times, indicating that this person probably lives or works very close to them. It’s perfectly possible that Happn users may start to recognise the people they’ve matched with on Happn on the street.

Rappaport told Business Insider that Happn is planning to introduce a voice messaging feature so that users can talk to their “crushes” in a more realistic way. Like rival app Tinder, Happn will also be integrated with Instagram so users can see what photos their love interests are posting.

Happn app

"For us the evolution of our product is really important," Rappaport said. "We want to make a service that is more and more rich for our users to allow them to express themselves much more."

Some have suggested that Happn’s proprietary algorithm could be used by the police to track people who have gone missing but Rappaport said the company’s technology wouldn’t be able to pinpoint an individual’s location any better than the technology that’s already built into smartphones, namely GPS.

"We like fostering magic and we want to keep our app in that mood," said Rappaport.

Happn has 700,000 users in the UK, with 450,000 of those in London where a high population density allows Happn users to cross paths with more people. Globally, Happn is used by some 8 million people and 1.2 million people are joining the platform every month. Rappaport said he expects Happn to have 25 to 30 million users worldwide by the end of 2016 and just as many users as Tinder by 2017.

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A Dutch startup that helps Microsoft and Uber find meeting rooms is about to expand to the UK

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Founder Jeroen Arts

An Amsterdam startup that allows businesses to search and book places to work is planning to expand its platform to the UK after raising €1.5 million (£1.05 million) in seed funding.

Deskbookers— launched in Amsterdam in 2013 before expanding throughout the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany — allows startups, corporations, and freelancers to book meeting spaces, meeting rooms, training rooms and work spaces.

According to a study from American research firm Gallup, almost 40% of employees have worked remotely, and the trend is increasing rapidly. Deskbookers, which employs 23 people, wants to profit by providing office space to these people at short notice that is paid for on an hourly rate.

The platform is currently processing over 7,000 bookings per month and nearly 100,000 bookings have been made to date. Technology giants like Microsoft, Uber, and T-Mobile are among those using Deskbookers to find business-savvy venues, which are rated in a similar way to Airbnb properties.

"In the Netherlands Uber turned to Deskbookers to find meeting and work spaces to support local members of their staff with the perfect environment for building the business and facilitating training of new drivers," Jeroen Arts, cofounder of Deskbookers, told Business Insider via email.

"What is important for Uber is that all venues also represent the Uber brand in a good way: i.e. provide they same high-class quality as people expect from Uber. That is something Deskbookers can easily provide."

Deskbookers said it plans use the money from Berlin venture capital firm Point Nine Capital and a number of angel investors to expand to five more countries in Europe over the next year, including the UK. The funding will alo be used to extend Dekbooker's mobile app, and add new features to the Deskbooker venue management system. 

"We will use the seed funding to double down on expansion and growth and attract the best talent to our product and marketing teams," said Arts. 

Mathias Ockenfels, principal at Point Nine Capital, added: "Deskbookers' rapid growth and experienced team set it apart from its competitors and made the choice to invest an easy one. Without taking any previous capital, Deskbookers has already become by far the fastest-growing platform in Europe. We are confident that the team has the drive and expertise to take this momentum and quickly expand to new markets globally."

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Tiger Global just raised $2.5 billion for a new VC fund

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Tiger

Tiger Global Management just raised $2.5 billion for a new venture capital fund, according to a filing.

This is Tiger Global's tenth venture capital fund, and it will be called Tiger Global Private Investment Partners X, L.P. 

Lee Fixel, the head of Tiger Global's private equity and venture capital investing, will oversee the fund.

Tiger Global's founder Chase Coleman wrote in a letter earlier this year that Fixel has spearheaded many of the fund's "most important and successful investments."

Fixel, who joined the fund in 2006, has led investments in privately-held companies, including Facebook, Linkedin, Warby Parker, Eventbrite, Makemytrip, Flipkart, Netshoes, Square, MercadoLibre, Trendyol, Jobs.ch and CatchoftheDay.

Tiger Global declined to comment. 

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This British startup has created a high-tech banking app and credit card — here's what it's like to use

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Mondo team

Mondo is a London fintech startup that's looking at banking in a different way. It doesn't have branches, and its current account is controlled from a smartphone app that analyses spending and can be used to contact the company at any time.

You can't actually use a Mondo card yet, as it's still being alpha tested to make sure that everything works (you don't want your bank account to have problems).

However, we were given access to one of the alpha testing cards. Here's what it's like to use a digital bank:

Mondo invited lots of developers and startup figures to its office-warming party where it gave out the alpha cards.



Here's what the Mondo card looks like — just like a normal card. Pink is the only colour choice for now.



I stuck £50 on the card. You have to transfer money onto it from another account to get started.



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One of Google's startup investments has sold a million children's books (GOOG)

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Lost My Name

A London publishing startup that's received money from Google Ventures announced today that it has sold over a million of its personalised children's books.

Lost My Name — founded in 2012 by Asi Sharabi and Tal Oron — creates customised books based around a child's name. The books are created and ordered online, then sent out to printing partners around the world.

The Hackney-based company, which took investment from Google Ventures in June when it raised $9 million (£6 million), revealed the milestone in a press release today where it also highlighted how "The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name" has gone from being an obscure book to the bestselling picture book in the UK, Australia, and Canada. The company also claims it is the highest grossing picture book in six markets, including the US.

"As a technology company, we’re very proud to be innovating on one of the oldest media formats in the world - the physical book," said Oron. "We think technology equals possibility. And possibility is the dominant currency in wonderful, nostalgic storytelling, where the book’s job is to inspire children to believe in adventure; that anything can happen if they imagine it. As screens become more and more seductive to children, there is an increasing need to inject more magic into books - to find new ways to spark their imagination."

Last month, Lost My Name released a second book called "The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home".

To celebrate the million books sold milestone, Lost My Name released some data showing how naming trends worldwide are reflected in the books it has created.

  • Lost My Name has created books for 97,827 different names, of these 64,027 appear only once.
  • Globally, Oliver and Olivia are the most popular names
  • Lost My Name found interesting correlations between popular culture events and their influence on children’s names trends. For example:
    • Nine months following the release of Disney’s Frozen in December 2014, Lost My Name saw a spike in sales of 'Elsa' and ‘Anna books
    • A similar trend was discovered in the months following Game of Thrones Season 4. There was a spike in Lost My Name books ordered for names from the series e.g. Arya, Daenerys & Cersei
    • "Taylor" books peaked in September 2014, following the release of "Shake it Off"
    • Names with the highest scrabble score include: Mackenzie (26 points), Zachary (24 points) and Elizabeth (23 points)

Most popular UK names

  • Top 5 boys names in the UK:
  1. Oliver
  2. Harry
  3. Charlie
  4. Jack
  5. William
  • Top 5 girls names in the UK:
  1. Olivia
  2. Emily
  3. Amelia
  4. Isla
  5. Sophie

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A top VC firm just put together a stunning presentation on the state of startups

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Startup workers employees computer

Outside of the sweeping generalizations of ping-pong tables in offices and engineers who wear hoodies, it's hard to get a read of what it's like to actually run a startup in 2015. 

A top NYC VC firm, First Round Capital, decided to poll more than 500 founders what it's like and, in an industry first, release data on the state of the startup industry, which they've let us republish in full here.

Here's how startups are feeling about everything from raising money (pessimistic) to overhyped industries (wearables) to what time people get into work in the morning (not as late as you might think).

SEE ALSO: Having an app isn’t enough: The next phase of mobile now that everybody has a smartphone







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More than 95 percent of startup founders are pessimistic about raising money now

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struggle rock climbing

While startup founders are typically optimistic both about their technologies and the future, a new survey of startups in 2015 from First Round Capital found a surprising number of founders who are expecting fundraising to get a lot harder in the next few months.  

"Some of these findings showed more of a lack of optimism, or more pessimism is a better way of saying it, than we'd been expecting," said Josh Kopelman, a partner at First Round. 

If you had asked Kopelman in advance how many founders thought it would be harder to raise money, he would have said it would be 60 to 70 percent that would find it harder. Instead the results showed 95 percent of seed-stage, 97 percent of Series A, and 99 percent of late-stage founders thought it would either remain the same or get harder to raise money. 

"When you only see one percent of late stage founders thinking it’s going to be easier, that’s a pretty extreme measure on the pessimism scale and that’s surprising," Kopelman said. "More than seven out of 10 thought we were in a bubble."

To be clear, that's not a sign that startups are struggling to raise cash. 

Sixty-eight percent of the founders said they completed their last round in three months or less, and founders indicated in the survey that their number one concern right now is hiring the right people. Raising capital came in fifth in their worry list.

Instead, The pessimism towards raising more cash is likely more indicative of the moment in time right now where startups are being told to tighten their belts. Founders are bracing for a change in the market condition when it might take four months instead of three to fundraise if the cash flow to startups does indeed slow down. That market change they're wary of may never come to fruition.  

The other results that surprised Kopelman:

  • Mobile, an eight-year-old industry with already established winners, was the most under-hyped technology.
  • Wearables and bitcoin are the two most over-hyped
  • Despite their worries about it being harder to raise capital, founders' top concerns were hiring the right people followed by revenue growth.
  • Late-stage companies think it will take longer to IPO than early-stage companies. "I think that somewhat has to do with founder’s natural optimism. When you’re young, you think you’re going to IPO much faster than what you end up seeing," Kopelman said. 
  • Enterprise companies are twice as likely to deny the bubble and twice as likely to think that their company will reach profitability in the next year than their consumer counterparts. This bullish sentiment may be related to the upcoming Atlassian IPO, an enterprise company that is going public as a profitable company.

Read the full report on the State of Startups in 2015 here

SEE ALSO: A top VC firm just put together a stunning presentation on the state of startups

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Four ex-Skype engineers are desperate to make their messaging app go viral

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Fleep founders

Fleep — a messaging platform launched by six Estonians, including four former Skype engineers — is set to launch a new feature as it looks to go viral in the same way as Whatsapp.

Fleep allows people to IM each other, and keep files and pinned notes synced across multiple devices. In order to message someone over Fleep, the user needs to enter the recipient’s email address or Fleep username.

Ultimately, Fleep wants to change the way businesses and individuals communicate. "Leave email behind and manage all conversations with your team, partners and clients in Fleep," the company writes on its website.

Fleep CEO Henn Ruukel, who used to be director of engineering within the Skype for Business group, told Business Insider today about the changes he is making to help Fleep go viral.

With just 35,000 users across Europe and the US, Fleep has a long way to go if it wants to scale to the same size as platforms like Whatsapp and Skype.

Firstly, the company, which employs 15 people in total, has overhauled its app within the last few weeks with a completely new user interface (Fleep 2.0) that Ruukel hopes will make people want to share it with their friends.

But that's not all. Ruukel realises that Fleep needs to further expand its product and offer deeper integration with other messaging services if he wants to get more users.

Fleep

Currently users can only send and receive email to their Fleep ID’s (e.g. sam@fleep.io) but that's about to change.

"In early 2016, Fleep will launch an email integration feature, which will enable users to send and receive email messages in Fleep while maintaining their existing email addresses," said Ruukel, adding that he's optimistic the new feature will help Fleep to ramp up its user numbers.

Fleep also hopes to scale up its business by raising another round of funding over the next 6 months. So far the company has raised €1.9 million (£1.34 million), including an undisclosed amount from Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn.

"I really don’t like email as a communication method and there’s a good reason for this,"Tallinn told Techworld in April. "It was invented in the 70s and it was intended for much lower volumes."

He continued: "Fleep is kind of like Skype IM on steroids because it was developed by people who were behind Skype IM in the first place. All the familiar mechanisms have been imported and it works very much like Skype IM, except that it’s much better.

"We absolutely have to get more people using it. I think in terms of features it’s already up there with the big players of the world but in terms of users, no."

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A Belgian startup is trying to make 'the world's safest drone'

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Fleye

A Belgian startup called Fleye has built a drone that won't hurt you if you accidentally come into contact with it.

The company, which launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter today, claims that its spherical, football-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and enclosed propeller make it the world’s safest drone.

The drone is expected to retail at €1,250 (£884) but a handful of Kickstarter pledgers will be able to get it for €599 (£424). 

Drone safety has been brought into the spotlight after a rogue quadcopter (a drone with four propellers) cut Spanish pop star Enrique Iglesias' finger during a gig in June and another took out a British toddlers eye.

Fleye cofounder Laurent Eschenauer said: "Although drones are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life, the lack of safety standards and regulations in the industry are still the elephant in the room.

"We realised that the classic drone design has many shortcomings and decided to go back to the drawing board to create Fleye, the next-generation drone that can exist in perfect harmony with people."

Fleye said its drone, which weighs 450g and can fly for 10 minutes at a time, is particularly well suited for use close to people and indoors. It added that the robust frame allows users to "hold, touch, push and walk into the drone without any risk of injury."

Fleye

The Fleye drone is controlled via an iOS or Android app that is also able to instruct the drone's onboard camera when to take photos (up to 5 megapixels) and shoot 1080p videos.

The team behind Fleye hopes that other developers will build their own apps for the drone. As a result, Fleye has published its application program interface (API) and software development kit (SDK), meaning developers can write custom applications to control it remotely or run directly on the drone’s on-board computer.

Fleye has raised €600,000 (£424,000) to date and hopes to raise an additional €175,000 (£124,000) on Kickstarter to cover the manufacturing costs of bringing its drone to market. The Kickstarter campaign will run from today until January 15 2016.

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