You can still keep your company moving forward while keeping your feet firmly planted in the day-to-day details. Here are three reasons to do so.

You often hear the phrase "in the weeds" in restaurants referring to a server who has fallen behind, but in this post I'm going to use the phrase to mean being involved in the day-to-day details.

As the CEO of my online marketing company VerticalResponse, you might imagine that I spend my days in a corner office, attending board meetings, and generally moving things forward. And you'd be right. But what you might not know is that I love the day-to-day stuff just as much, and more often than not, you'll find me right there in the weeds with my teams.

You might wonder, how can you lead when you're busy in all those details Janine? I'll tell you...

1. It Grounds Me

Even though I spend a huge chunk of my day in meetings with my leadership team, you'll still find me every Tuesday at 3 p.m. in the trenches with my core marketing team working through the challenges and opportunities of the week. We might be looking at the conversion funnel or which keywords result in the most new sign-ups for us. And guess what? I love each and every minute of it. Why? Because the minutia grounds me.

I've been a marketer a quarter of my life. It's what I know and it allows me to focus. And often because of that laser-like focus on the details, it enables me to uncover opportunities like when we saw that people who signed up for our service and loaded their customer list into our e-mail marketing system were three times more likely to purchase than those who didn't. That's just one example of how being "in the weeds" led to an important way to move our company forward.

2. I Stay In the Know

It's amazing the things I learn or hear just by being present at meetings like the one I mentioned above. It's mostly managers in this meeting and we go over a myriad of topics. I often hear about projects being sidelined or obstacles they face because of another functional area in the company or process that isn't working.

Just recently in one of these meetings I found that a new person was having issues getting an answer to something that only people who have been at our company for a few years would have known. I gave the back story about the situation to him and the team he was getting his information from, we documented it and now it's no longer an obstacle. By having this information I am able to work with my leadership team to address issues like these and remove obstacles that I might never know about otherwise.

3. I (Still) Think Like a Customer

Even though I've been living and breathing this business every day for over 12 years, I still think like a small business owner. And as much as my teams do this too, there are often times that they are so close to what they are doing and know so much about it, that I serve as the SMB voice of reason. For instance when looking at a new tool we were developing, one of my team members voiced that she would want all the reporting at the very top with the action items underneath. Her reason was simple. She looks at a lot of reporting and would want it straight away. I understood her point, but made the counterpoint, "you're not a typical small business owner, they don't think like that."

I'll always be driving this business forward and looking for the best opportunities for growth for us and our customers, but you can bet you'll always find my feet firmly planted in the weeds.

How do you lead and still take on the day-to-day details? I'd love to hear.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, sign up for the free VR Buzz weekly newsletter and check out the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog.

How humility and honesty brought one start-up founder life-changing publicity.

Long before bloggers were household names, John Lusk, along with his co-author and business partner Kyle Harrison, leveraged their humble company's newsletter into The MouseDriver Chronicles, a New York Times bestselling book. Along the way, they created a supportive community of emotionally attached stakeholders that would be the envy of any social media manager. Here's how they pulled it off.

After graduating from Wharton in the late 1990s, John and Kyle launched a start-up based upon a simple product: a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf driver. They named their novelty product a "MouseDriver".

The company's newsletter was initially created to share their entrepreneurial journey with a few family and friends. Says John, "I said, 'Hey, listen were going to start writing this newsletter and it's going to highlight our trials and tribulations, our failures and our successes. It's gonna highlight our emotions, our ups and our downs. If you want to be kept informed just send me an email and let me know that you're in, and that was it. And of those 35 people... everybody opted in."

Here's what was in that first newsletter:

Dear Friends,

We have no income and no venture capital funding. Our inventory is being financed by companies with names like Chase, Citibank, First USA and Capital One. Our office consists of a refrigerator, oven, sink, two desks, a bay window and one very large Texas flag... We're motivated, passionate, excited, terrified and at many times, have absolutely no idea what we are doing. Every hour of the day is filled with constant mood swings and the question of "What the hell are we doing?" enters our minds on a daily basis.

Without realizing it, John and Kyle had begun to build a community of virtual stakeholders who were developing an emotional bond with the company.

To John's surprise, the number of subscribers to the company's newsletter began to quickly grow."Within three months, we had over 500 subscribers and again, you had to send me an email that said,' I'm in.' We weren't marketing the newsletter, it was just out there, sort of growing organically."

Crowdsourced Advisors

In addition to providing a source of emotional support and encouragement, John began to use the newsletter to solicit advice. "The newsletter became sort of a de facto Advisory Board for us. We would send out some of our issues, we would highlight some of the problems and the challenges we were having with MouseDriver and all of a sudden, people would respond. I'm not talking about one or two people responding, we get 10, 15, 20 responses for a particular problem.

The popularity of the company's newsletter soon began to grow--faster than MouseDriver's sales. Per John, "We continue to grow the business and as the newsletter grew, the media kind of picked up on the story as well. The media... wasn't... saying, 'Wow, this is the best product ever and you guys are just killing it.' It was...'Wow, we've heard about your newsletter, and it seems to be motivating and inspiring entrepreneurs around the country. We'd love to talk to you about it.'"

Enter Inc. Magazine

The turning point for John and Kyle was a cover story in Inc. magazine. "February of 2001, Inc. magazine ended up doing a cover story on Kyle and me called, An American Start-Up. Again, the story wasn't about how our product was just knocking it out of the park. It was about our newsletter and how we weren't afraid to put things out there, and to talk about how hard it was to be an entrepreneur.

The Inc. article generated tremendous interest in the newsletter. In the pre-blogging days of 2001, John had to literally send each newsletter out via Outlook, which limited the number of recipients that could be included in each email. As the number of subscribers grew, so did the cost and time committment.

In John's words, "(After the Inc. article) our newsletter completely took off. We went from five thousand subscribers to ten thousand subscribers in less than... six months. We got so many responses we kind of were trying to figure out, 'What do we do with all these people?"

From 10,000 Readers to Bestseller

However, before John and Kyle could fully harness the power of their growing newsletter audience, their focus was drawn to codifying their entrepreneurial experiences in book form. "Once the media picked up on it, every major publishing house... (called) from Time Warner and Harper Collins and Harvard Business Press and Perseus. Saying, 'Hey, we want to pay you to write a book.'

We really wanted to encourage people to do what we had done. You know, despite the fact that we had all these highs and lows, we felt like we had learned so much about ourselves. The 4 years that we spent with MouseDriver, we'd learned... everything we learned in business school and then some, especially around common sense and street smarts and how to read people and these are things that you just don't get from any other corporation and these are things that are going to help you in everyday life."

Not every business will be able to transform its story to a bestseller. Nevertheless, there are a number of community-building lessons entrepreneurs can draw from John and Kyle's experiences:

1. Journalize: Maintaining a journal helps you keep your successes and failures in their proper perspective. It will be invaluable you when it's time to write your own bestseller.

2. Consistency: Communicating with your constituents on a set schedule keeps your community engaged and forces you to create content, even when you feel you don't have time to spare.

3. Vulnerability: Most people tend to be more empathetic, and thus more helpful, when you share your shortcomings and mistakes, along with your triumphs.

4. Ask For Help: Don't be afraid to call upon your community for specific assistance.

5. Speak, Don't Preach: These folks are already believers; don't alienate them by talking "at" them. Rather, write in a conversational style that encourages your fans to add to the discussion.

6. Sales Matter: Although they did many things right, John and Kyle failed to generate significant MouseDriver sales from their community. As John noted at the conclusion of his talk, "The book did help us increase sales... but we could have increased a lot more, had we had the distribution, had I been actually focused on sales like I probably should have been, instead of writing the book."

You can watch/listen to how John and Kyle turned their email newsletter into an international bestseller in this nine-minute excerpt from John's recent talk at UC Santa Barbara.

A productivity junkie who's done it all decides to stop planning entirely. Will his experiment work?

Have you tried about a dozen different productivity systems but failed to see long-term results?

Computer scientist and professor Cal Newport empathizes. After noticing he had more research ideas than he could possibly turn into papers, he "launched at least six different plans aimed at increasing my research output," he wrote on his blog.

Were any effective? Not really, he confessed, so he decided to try something new: the anti-plan plan.

He defines it this way: "An anti-plan has you to throw out all … rules and just dive in, adapting, the best you can, to your circumstances. It requests only that you keep a record of your experience, capturing, for later review, your thoughts, triumphs, and frustrations."

To keep this record, Newport devised a system called a "gournal," where he regularly emails updates and reflections to a special email address, which automatically sorts them by labels. Here's what he hopes to get out of it:

The theory behind anti-planning is that it exposes you to a much wider swath of the productivity plan landscape. Your journal will keep you updated on how well you’re doing, which provides the selective pressure needed to drive you toward some novel approaches to getting more depth out of your working habits.

People sometimes worry that anti-planning will tank their productivity. The reality is usually the opposite: the flexibility and constant self-reflection tends to increase the rate at which you produce valuable output.

For these same reasons, however, anti-planning can be draining (all that reflection and decision making reduces willpower). So I usually only last a month or two before falling back onto a more structured set of rules.

The key, however, is that the system I end up after anti-planning is often more effective than where I was before.

The anti-plan, then, is not so much a long-term change as a means to get a better sense of how you work. Rather than blindly adhere to someone else’s system, you watch your own patterns to develop tricks and schedules that maximize productivity. It's an approach Newport thinks many folks could benefit from.

"If you’re frustrated with the effectiveness of your productivity plans, spend some time without one, and see what bubbles to the surface," he suggests.

Want to track Newport's progress? You can follow developments on his blog.

Will you give the anti-plan a try?

The two online food delivery services are merging to scale growth.

Two online food delivery services, Seamless and GrubHub, agreed to merge, Bloomberg tweeted Monday morning.

GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney will keep his title at the new company, while Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will assume the role of president. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The name of the combined team--Grubless, anyone?--has not yet been announced.

TechCrunch explained the significance of a possible merger over the weekend, noting how big the online food biz has become. Citing research from Cornell University, TechCrunch said more than 40 percent of adults have ordered food online, and 10 percent of restaurant orders originate online.

While Seamless has traditionally dominated the New York City market, particularly in worker hub midtown Manhattan, GrubHub has made the midwest its launch pad.

GrubHub, which was founded in Chicago in 2004, has expanded to more than 500 cities and 18,000 restaurants, and raised $84 million in venture capital funding in the process.

Seamless, on the other hand, launched in 1999, was acquired in 2000, and then became its own entity in 2001. It rebranded from its earlier name Seamless Web two years ago. Today it's in 12,000 restaurants, and reportedly generated $85 million in revenue last year, according to Reuters.

Both brands are also visible--through signage--in restaurants and cities they serve.

The merger will, ideally, enable both companies to expand farther.

Neither company had an easy time of it, and to this day the founders struggle with balancing life and work. As GrubHub's co-founder Matt Maloney told Inc. in a video: "It's super tricky all the time."

If you approach Monday from the right perspective, it can be your favorite day of the week.

It's Monday morning--early. Soon, my Facebook feed will start to fill up with "I hate Monday!" and "Looks like Monday snuck up on us again!" posts. To which I respond, "Fools! I love Mondays!"

Maybe my reaction is not typical, but here's why I love Mondays.

I'm an introvert who works at home. I love my husband and my children dearly, and I do look forward to the weekends, where we do a lot of stuff together. But, they are extroverts and I'm not. I'm an introvert, which means I need some alone time to recharge. From the time school gets out Friday until everyone is out the door on Monday, that time is rare. But, Monday morning comes, and I drop the kids off at school, and kiss my husband and send him to his office, and then I can sit down in front of my computer, alone. In the quiet. And did I mention, alone? Ahh, bliss.

I'm also a bit of a workaholic. Sometimes I joke about being lazy, and I am with certain things (like folding laundry and washing windows). But, I'm not when it comes to writing, which is what I do for a living. I write a lot. I read a lot, in order to be able to write things that are of value. I talk to a lot of people. (Yes, I know the taking to people seems to contradict the introvert thing above, but there's a difference between chit-chatting with someone at the church picnic and interviewing someone about their micro-multinational business.) So, I like to get back to Monday mornings, when I can get some work done.

Monday is full of possibilities. Monday gives you a whole week to look forward to! I like to take time on Monday morning to review my schedule and plan for the week. See what is coming up, with whom I need to speak, and what needs to be done. I do try to wrap lots of things up on Fridays so I don't get hit with old stuff on Mondays (although that isn't always possible). But, Monday is the time to start fresh.

Nobody else likes Mondays. Okay, I admit it. I do like to rub my love of Mondays into my Monday hating friends. They don't call me Evil HR Lady for nothing.

Brains aren't inexhaustible; like any piece of sophisticated equipment, they're delicate and can break.

I got kidnapped one weekend last month. My husband and daughter pretty much frog-marched me out of the house, into the car, and out of town. I didn't know where I was going but was promised I could be back at my desk in 48 hours.

I found it wonderfully soothing that I didn't know where we were going or what we would be doing. I hadn't made the plans so didn't feel responsible for them. All I knew was that I wasn't allowed to work.

And then I found myself ensconced in an insanely-charming hotel overlooking the sea. We ate a lot of wonderful fish, had some great conversations and, the next day, went for a challenging walk that ended with a great outdoor lunch.

The reason for my kidnapping was complicated but suffice it to say that this was my first day off since New Year's Day. I had seriously forgotten how to do anything except work. I worked in my sleep and in the bath, I talked about work over meals, and listened to work while I cooked dinner. I wasn't much fun to be around and it wasn't a ton of fun being me. But worst of all was knowing the perils of overwork. Clock in more than 11 hours a day (something I did regularly) and you significantly increase your chances of depression and cognitive decline. You forget words, are less good at solving problems, and find it harder to be creative.

Knowing this should make you work differently. Anyone managing another human being needs to remember that brains aren't inexhaustible; like any piece of sophisticated equipment, they're delicate and can break. Many organizations are led by bulls in china shops, wantonly wrecking the assets they most depend upon.

My biggest problem, of course, is that I work for myself. I don't have a boss to tell me to stop and I'm lucky enough to love what I do. Like most entrepreneurs, it's hard for me to see where work stops and I start--and that's how I like it. But the medical evidence scared me--it still scares me--and I think that, overall, I'd rather have a long career than go out in a blaze of glory.

So I was lucky to be kidnapped. Within 47 hours and 35 minutes, I was back at my desk. But not for long....

Mark Suster explains why you should never be afraid to ask for what you want.

No.

The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept.

I said it.

Now let me walk you through a broader story because avoidance of the word in and of itself will seem cliche. Stay with me.

When I was little I had a role model for entrepreneurship - my mom. She was a natural leader. She was president of the UJA in Sacramento. From this I saw civic involvement and leadership first hand.

She was a nurse but was never graduated from a four-year college. Still -- she can do the NY Times crossword puzzle better and faster than I. Even today.

She was a hustler. And a ball buster. And a natural sales person. She was never afraid of the word "no" even to the point of embarrassing me.

My youth was filled with her arguing with vendors if they tried to pull a fast one. As my wife will tell you -- arguing is cultural -- you grow up with it or you don't. I did. It's very Jewish. For better or worse. She's learned to embrace it in me. If a maitre d' tries to seat me at a table in huge traffic flow or a corner she knows not to bother sitting down.

My mom bought our family's first computer and encouraged me to learn it at 13.

She opened two businesses -- a bakery and then a restaurant. I worked in both before leaving to work in a software company at 17. I never knew a world in which you weren't supposed to work and make money. Even though my dad was a doctor and in retrospect I probably didn't need to earn my own money. My mom always taught me it was my responsibility to do so.

When I was younger my mom taught me something I never forgot:

"You don't ask, you don't get."

It's simple. I know. But it amazes me how many people don't really get it.

Here are two stories:

Story one:

When I lived and worked in London my wonderful assistant was Deborah Halliday, who was raised a very "proper" British young lady. Her brother played rugby for the English rugby team and went to Oxford. That’s kind of like having a brother in the NFL in the US.

If there was any society in which being a hustler was out of step with the norm is was England. Yet I was a foreigner so I got away with being different.

I used to ask Deborah to book my travel plans in France and Germany were I went one to two times a month. There were online tools to book this stuff but the Internet booking sites were early.

I would tell Deborah, "I found this hotel near the Champs Elysees for 170 Euros. But I don't want to pay that much. Tell them I'll stay if they'll give it to me for 120 Euros."

"What? You want … what? Mark, you can't do that! You can’t just name your own price."

Me: "Of course, I can. Tell them you found a hotel down the street for 100 Euros but I prefer to stay at their hotel. Haggle. See what you can do."

Deborah was mortified. Bless her cotton socks. I put her outside of her comfort zone.

Me: "Deborah, you don't ask, you don't get! What’s the worst they can tell you? "No?" If so, we'll call back an hour later and pay 170 Euros. It's not like they're going to tell you 'no' in an hour. You might as well try!"

Classic Mexican Road strategy.

Here's the thing. They NEVER said 'no.' Such were the times. They weren't fully occupied.

She began to love it. It was liberating. I taught her to make it a game. I would challenge her to see how cheap she could get rooms. I can still hear her giggle at how ridiculous it was in her mind's eye. And yet how eye-opening it was that you could have almost anything you wanted. If you just asked.

Story two:

Fast forward. My son Jacob. He's now 10. When he was seven or eight, my wife used to sit down with him to do homework and train him in the importance of getting it done early and well. Luckily I have such a terrific and organized wife. Or Jacob would be screwed.

They sometimes did homework at Le Pain Quotidien. And if Jacob was good, he could get a treat.

Tania once took him up to the counter to pick out a treat. He pointed at a chocolate cake and told Tania he wanted a piece.

"No, honey. That's a whole cake. You can't have a piece. It's not cut. Why don't you find something else?"

Jacob: "Of course I can have a piece. Just ask them!"

Jacob has IJ. He knows to ask for what he wants. He is respectful. But he has an inner compass that instead of saying "O.k." to adversity he says "Why not?"

She had him ask the lady behind the counter directly. She said, "No problem."

My wife smiled and couldn’t wait to tell me the story.

My wife thinks Jacob's an over negotiator but she secretly loves it. I always take it as a compliment.

Both stories have something in common. Not being ashamed to ASK. As I tell people almost weekly, "What's the worst that could happen? That they would say 'no'?"

And I mean it. I promise you that 95 percent of the people I meet are afraid of people telling them no. They are personally embarrassed by it. Or insulted. Or view it as failure.

I'm told "no" all the time because I often ask for more than others do and therefore you need to be willing to hear "no."

I was on a flight last year from DC to LAX. I had a business class seat due to status of flying a lot and my family was in economy. I felt bad and was planning on rotating.

But when I sat down I asked if my family could upgrade since there were three open seats. I assumed the answer would be "no" but I figured I had nothing to lose.

The flight attendant said "O.k., but you’ll have to pay a small upgrade fee and I can't move them until after take-off." But move them she did. And she decided it wasn't really important to make me pay since the seats were unoccupied.

Score!

We had also just been upgraded from London to Baltimore.

Two times in a row--unreal. My wife was a bit incredulous (but grateful). I simply pointed out that our kids learned a more important lesson than the downside consequence of their expecting to always sit in business class (which isn’t going to happen!).

They learned to ask, "Why not?"

You don't ask. You don't get.

And here's the thing about "no."

I know first hand just how chicken people are about hearing it. I've sat through so many meetings where sales reps didn't ask for the order. I've been pitched by hundreds of entrepreneurs who never actually asked me whether I would invest. Very few people do.

Here's an experiment for you.

Hold interviews with tech people, marking people, ops people, finance people -- whatever. They always finish the interview with a "thank you" and barely ask next steps.

Any great sales person will ask you at the end of the meeting, "So, how'd I do? Who else have you spoken with? How do I stack up? What do I need to convince you of to get an offer? What is the next step in the process?"

Great sales people are trained to "ask for the order." If you interview a sales person and they don't ask for the order, be worried.

I like to flip things on their heads. I like to ask in reverse in interviews, "If we did get aligned to offer you this role, do you plan on accepting? What other offers do you have? What do we need to do to win? What steps do you still need before you decide to go with us?"

I want to know. And I have nothing to fear in the answer.

My favorite (not!) is dealing with lawyers (or VCs) who say, "As a firm, we never do a, b, c." Let me tell you now that often this line is BS. But my standard response is, "I don't care what you normally do. I think it's right for our situation. So unless you explain to me logically why it doesn't make sense at our company, my assumption is that it's a good idea."

In summary, I recommend some honesty with yourself. "Asking" is a skill that can be practiced and learned but you need to be self aware.

How comfortable do you feel with asking for the order? How confortable do you feel with asking awkward questions or asking for things that are out of the norm, "Could we have your room for 120 Euros so we don't have to stay down the road?"

If you don't find it within your confort zone - practice in small ways for asking for slightly unreasonable things just to get used to it. It's a skill you're going to need as an entrepreneur.

After all--you don't ask, you don't get.

These affordable models are fast and efficient--and they've got extra features to boot.

These affordable models are fast and efficient--and they've got extra features to boot. Time for an upgrade perhaps?--John Brandon

This 14-inch ultrabook is priced to sell at $899. It has a 1.8GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 64GB solid state drive. For a cordless set-up, add the Dell D5000 wireless dock ($189 with the laptop) and the Dell 1601 WiGig card ($37.50). That way, you can connect the ultrabook to your keyboard, mouse, and monitor wirelessly. To re-connect and use the dock, which also has three USB ports, you just need to be in the same room.

For $1449, the Chromebook Pixel is not exactly entry-level. But it has several unique features that will appeal to business users. The 13-inch touch notebook has an Intel Core i5 1.8GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 64GB solid state drive. The biggest surprise: With a screen resolution of 2560 x 1700 or 239 pixels per inch, the Pixel has the sharpest screen I've ever seen. The laptop includes 1TB of cloud storage for free for three years, plus 12 free GoGo Inflight wireless sessions for your next trip. Google also offers a version of the Pixel that does not have Verizon LTE for $1299.

The 12-inch EliteBook 2170p, priced at $999, packs quite a bit of punch into a small package. The entry-level version uses an Intel Core i3 1.8GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB drive. At 2.9-pounds, this is the one of the smallest and lightest notebooks around. While the EliteBook 2170p feels more like an old-school netbook, it has a speedy processor that's suitable for business apps and Adobe Photoshop. The killer feature: The 2170p is rugged, so it can withstand short drops and dings.

The 14-inch ThinkPad T431s, priced at $949, is a classic business notebook with a unique, innovative trackpad. For business users, the basic design remains unchanged--there's even the same red pointer you can use to control the mouse. But the trackpad now lets you swipe, click, and make gestures unlike previous Lenovo models. And, the T431s has carbon fiber reinforcements to make the notebook business-rugged enough to withstands bumps, bruises, and short drops. The base model uses an Intel Core i5 1.8GHz, 4GB of RAM, and 500GB hard disk drive but you can max out with an Intel Core i7, 12GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk drive or a 256GB solid state drive.

At $749 for the base model, the 15-inch Asus S500 is the lowest priced notebook of the bunch. It has an Intel Core i5 1.7GHz processor, 6GB of RAM, and both a 500GB hard disk drive and 24GB solid state drive. The most unique feature is called Super Hybrid Engine, a technology that manages power and performance. For example, the notebook can resume almost instantly from standby mode. Like the Chromebook Pixel, the S550 comes with free cloud storage for three years--but it's only 32GB.

Making big decisions for your company? Add these foods to your regular diet to keep your mind sharp.

Most entrepreneurs are accustomed to long days and hectic schedules. But if you want to make smart decisions for your company, what you put in your body matters almost as much as how many hours you put in at the office.
Here are seven foods you should add to your regular diet if you want to keep firing on all cylinders. These foods may not make you smarter, but they'll help you stay sharp and think clearly--especially when you've been glued to your desk for 12 hours.

1. Salmon. This is one of the best brain foods out there. Salmon is rich in Omega 3 essential fatty acids that have been shown to enhance memory and cognition. Plus, Omega 3s have anti-inflammatory properties that have been shown to reduce the incidence of heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's. Shoot for three servings of wild Alaskan salmon a week.

2. Flax. This plant-based source of Omega 3 is perfect for vegetarians and vegans. Not only does flax improve brain function, but it helps reduce inflammation and improve circulation. Flax also helps lower cholesterol and balance blood sugar, making it a great supplement to include in any diet. Sprinkle a tablespoon of ground flax seeds to oatmeal or add a tablespoon of flax oil to smoothies or salad dressings.

3. Blueberries. These berries contain flavonoids--antioxidants that have been shown to help improve your ability to learn and enhance motor skills. Flavonoids also help prevent degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. Add a cup to your morning oatmeal or to a smoothie. Or simply keep them on hand for a quick and healthy afternoon snack.

4. Nuts and seeds. This perfect afternoon snack is a good source of both Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids, which improve brain function. Plus, nuts contain vitamin E, which has been shown to help protect the brain from free-radical damage. Walnuts are best for brainpower. Cashews and sunflower seeds contain an amino acid that helps boost serotonin levels and alleviate stress.

5. Eggs. Eggs are a great source of choline, a necessary building block for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which helps you concentrate and recall information. Studies have shown that people with Alzheimer's have depleted amounts of this important neurotransmitter.

6. Dark green leafy vegetables. Kale, chard, spinach, and other dark green vegetables contain B-vitamins, including folic acid, which help shield your brain from the effects of aging. These veggies are also loaded in antioxidants that help protect against heart disease and cancer. Eat dark greens daily in salads or as a side dish.

7. Chocolate. This treat is rich in flavanol antioxidants that increase blood flow to the brain, helping to protect brain cells. But the percentage of cacao is important--the darker the chocolate, the better. Enjoy a small square of dark chocolate after lunch for an afternoon boost.

There's no longer any excuse for letting your marketing slide.

As an entrepreneur running a bootstrapped company, marketing is not likely at the top of your to-do list. Bootstrapped companies are by definition lean, so founders don’t usually spend much on formal marketing. After all, great products sell themselves, so why bother?

Unfortunately, if you’re not doing much marketing, you’re missing a huge opportunity to scale your business. When done right, marketing will help attract new customers, strengthen your brand relative to competitors, and position your company for long-term revenue growth. The best part: You don’t need to spend a fortune to do it.

New marketing channels are growing exponentially as digital communication evolves. So the first step is to identify opportunities that deliver the most bang for your buck. The following strategies and tools can be a great starting point for cash-strapped CEOs looking to kickstart their marketing programs on the cheap.

Make Organic Search Your Best Friend

Your company’s website is often the first opportunity to make an impression on a prospect. But first, you have to get potential customers there. The most cost-effective way to do that is search engine optimization. SEO is the practice of improving the content and structure of your website to make it appear prominently in free organic or non-paid search results. Understanding how Google, Yahoo and Bing algorithms work to rank certain web pages takes one part mad technical skill, one part alchemy. However, there are a few simple tools that make SEO easier.

Google’s free Adwords Tool can help you identify the search terms with the most volume and relevance for your business. Next, try a tool like SEOmoz or Raven Tools, which can cost less than $100 a month, to get recommendations for specific site content and structure changes. Additionally, these services let you monitor your competitors’ performance in SEO as well as your own.

Become a Google Analytics Guru

Once potential customers arrive at your website, you’ve got to do everything you can to keep them there and get them to convert - whether that’s making a purchase, filling out a lead form or watching a demo.You work too hard to get potential customers to your website not to take full advantage of these visitors once they get there. Our advice: Become a pro at Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is much more than a tool for simply measuring monthly website visitors. Google offers over 200 dimensions and metrics to help you segment site visitors based on browser type, mobile device, click behavior, geography or other variables. Segmenting your visitors will allow you to connect the right prospect with the right content to increase conversion and close sales.

Listen To Your Customers

Now that you’ve brought visitors to your site and converted them to customers, you need to keep them happy and loyal. That begins with listening. When you launched your company, you probably knew your first customers well. But once you have hundreds or even thousands of customers, how can you stay close to them all? The answer is to use digital feedback tools.

Online feedback can be bucketed into two categories: solicited and unsolicited. Each serves a distinct purpose.

Unsolicited feedback often comes in the form of unstructured data in blogs, social media and online reviews platforms. There are plenty of costly services that allow companies to track this feedback, but for companies with limited resources, Google Alerts should be your first listening tool. Google Alerts allows you to track mentions of your brand or products (and your competitors’) primarily in news stories and across the web.

Then, try services such as SocialMention, Trackur or Sprout Social, which are free or cost less than $100 a month, to track mentions of your brand on social networks and forums. These tools don’t offer in-depth analytics, but they’ll at least help you find negative mentions about your company.

Solicited feedback is a different beast. Online surveys allow companies to capture more specific feedback from their customers at scale. Survey Monkey and Survey Gizmo are the two most well-known survey products in the market, and each has a pricing option for less than $100 per month. With surveys, you can ask customers questions that will help improve marketing, merchandising and customer service, without worrying that the world is listening to potentially critical (and valuable) feedback.

For bootstrapped companies, marketing should never be an afterthought, especially with so many new, ultra-cheap digital marketing tools at your disposal.

Communicating from the proper perspective is essential to good business results. Here are 3 ways to make you're able to do that, every time.

Recently, when I picked my eleven-year-old daughter up from school, she began to tell me about a writing competition at school. The winner would receive a $100 savings bond. So I asked her, “What are you going to do?”

She responded, “Daddy, I need you to take me to the store and buy me pens and a notebook.”

I said, “Okay, but that did not answer my question.”

“Yes I did,” she said. “You asked me ‘what,’ not ‘how.’ But I’m just messing with you. My plan is to write a tear jerker!”

She proceeded to tell me that the pens and notebook are the tactics, her plan was to write a tear jerker, and the objective was to win the savings bond. I was amazed. She really had been listening to me talk about “Ways” all this time!

What my daughter understands is that a Way is not a person or a position, but a method of thinking and communicating. Here’s how I break it down:

• Way One thinking: identify the objective.
• Way Two thinking: develop the plan.
• Way Three thinking: execute the details.

Understanding the Ways helps us understand how we need to think and communicate in any situation with any individual at a specific moment. When you have a conversation with someone and can quickly assess which Way he or she is thinking, you’ll be able to more efficiently communicate.

As in the example with my daughter, understanding the Ways helps us tell if someone is talking about objectives, plans, or actions. Once we know that, we can respond appropriately.

If someone is talking about his or her objectives, it’s not constructive to jump in with a list of tactics that could help meet the objective. Finish discussing the objective, develop a plan to meet that objective, and then list the tactics you’ll use to execute on the plan. In the example with my daughter, I was thinking “How,” but I asked a “What” question.

The Ways of thinking are simple, but unfortunately most people aren’t aware of how they’re related to communication and execution. For example, answering phones at the office is a tactic--a “What.” Does the receptionist answer the phone because it’s ringing or because it’s part of good customer service? The “What,” or the tactic, is answering the phone. The “Why,” or the objective, is customer service.

How many of your employees understand how their tactics are aligned to an objective? I can guarantee that when people understand how their “What” is aligned with a “How,”--that in turn directly influences the “Why,”--you’ll begin to see better communication as well as increased employee engagement.

Thinking is individualistic, but communication occurs between two or more individuals. For communication to be effective, you not only have to be thinking the right way at the right time, but the individual you’re communicating with has to, too. Otherwise, you’ll both leave the conversation unclear of what you’ve accomplished.

The three Ways to think and communicate are part of daily life. We might switch thought processes on our drive home from the office, but majority of the time the Way we think and communicate does not change. I might be responsible for my companies’ “Why,” or objectives, but I know that when I get home I need to perform the tactics aligned to my wife’s plan!

By the way, my daughter came home from school the other day and said, “The teacher did not have a very good strategy today.” I’ve created a monster.

Concerned about getting your money's worth when your team is spread across the country--or the world? Relax. Here are the secrets from a virtual-company pro.

Entrepreneurs and small-businesses sometimes need support, but don't want to take on the overhead of a physical office space. And for those who are bootstrapping a start-up, office space is rarely an option. Hiring staff to work remotely may be the answer but how can you be sure you are getting your money's worth out of team members who aren't physically present?

We ask James DeJulio, the president of Tongal, a social video crowdsourcing platform, what lessons he's learned from his experience in using thousands of remote staff.

"I will never de-emphasize the value of collaboration with team members, but we're really in an age where collaboration can happen in a lot ways other than purely physical ones," says DeJulio. "For example, if Yahoo started to look at the work its remote staff was doing as if no one would do it unless they really wanted to, they'd completely reexamine how they motivate employees."

Tongal also advises that employers should provide the opportunity for remote workers to be physically present whenever they feel the urge.

"This has worked wonders for us, both with the Tongal community and our staff," he says. "We have employees in various parts of the country, and if they ever want to spend time at the Tongal mothership, the door is open."

Since 2008, Tongal's formula for using remote workers to create stellar video content has earned it major clients, such as Procter and Gamble, Google, Coca-Cola, Ford, Lego, Lucasfilm, and NASA. The best part is, the company's network of crowdsourced remote staff gets the opportunity to work with these huge companies from anywhere in the world. Videos produced by Tongal's remote workforce have been used as commercials during major events, including the Super Bowl and the MTV Movie Awards.

Here are DeJulio's tips for successfully building and managing a successful virtual team.

Make the Work Enjoyable

Find ways to motivate your remote workforce--and that doesn't just mean higher pay.

DeJulio stresses that motivation is not directly correlated to economics. Just because you're willing to pay a lot, doesn't mean that someone will do a good job. Provide a mix of challenge and fun. If you can capture the magic that makes work feel more like play, you can ensure that you'll get a great effort whatever area code your staff is in.

Provide Latitude and Structure

DeJulio believes that if people are working remotely, chances are they prefer working when they want to tackle tasks--kind of like an employee Montessori school. However, you need to impose deadlines and structure in the work. In DeJulio's experience remote workers, like right-brained people, need this--and will thrive if you give it to them.

Hire People Who Have (Successfully) Worked Remotely in the Past

If your candidate has excelled at remote work with other companies, you'll know that the work ethic and discipline are already present. If that's not an option, DeJulio recommends seeking potential employees who are motivated to do their job (or former jobs) unconventionally. For example, don't hire a remote worker whose goals are purely economic, hire a remote worker who is motivated by developing a new product, fixing a problem, or disrupting the way things have been done in the past.

Reward Overall Results

Maximize results by letting your virtual team know that you value a sustained contribution. Show that that their work is appreciated and contributing to a bigger vision and plan. For example, Tongal has a bonus system that rewards its top performers over a predetermined amount of time. Consider: What creative opportunities will you have in store for your remote staff?

Some bosses say the darnedest things during yearly performance reviews.

Want to feel good about your management skills (or those of your boss)? No matter what happens, you probably won't say (or hear) anything as stupid as these real-life comments made during real-life salary reviews:

10. "Yes, I know you are my best employee and you train all our new employees. However, I don't see how that qualifies you for a raise."

9. "That's right, no raise this year. Maybe next year when you come off that high horse, you'll get my coffee when I ask you to."

8. "No, I'm not going to send your staff off for training. Those idiots have no idea what they're doing!"

7. "No, we don't promote family members first. It's just coincidence."

6. "I've got great news. You managed to avoid a salary decrease."

5. "Before you came to my department, you were such a shining star--full of new ideas and enthusiasm. What happened to you?"

4. "I don't care if you worked nights and weekends to meet an impossible deadline. Around here, hard work doesn't count, only results."

3. "I don't know why you are complaining about the small raise. Your wife is working and I know that with both of your salaries, you guys make more than me."

2. "I'm very disappointed in your communication skills. Not once during the year did you ask me to review your shortcomings. Now I'm forced to rate you poorly in all those categories."

1. "This is a salary review. Let's not focus on the money."

If I recall correctly, this list originally came from listener call-ins to a business radio show that I co-hosted a few years back on WRKO in Boston.

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Overconfidence can be fatal for start-ups. That's why seed investor Mike Venerable, hoping to build a Midwest entrepreneurial hub, prefers founders with unconventional traits.

Of all the industrial heartland cities trying to re-emerge as start-up hubs, you'd probably never pick the river town once nicknamed “Porkopolis” as most likely to succeed. While the meat-packers that earned Cincinnati its nickname have long since gone elsewhere, the city’s profile remains conspicuously non-entrepreneurial: Its economic imprint is shaped by the large number of corporate bigfoots holed up there, including Procter & Gamble, Kroger’s, Macy’s, Fifth Third Bank, and GE’s aircraft engine division.

So Palo Alto it ain't, but still, Cincinnati is trying. It has a well-regarded accelerator, the Brandery, which borrows the regional expertise in consumer marketing (this is the homeown for P&G, after all) to help start-ups build a brand. Research at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and local Children’s Hospital has fed a number of life sciences startups. And venture funds at the Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city supply more capital than you might expect.

The opportunity has been significant enough to lure back a few homegrown entrepreneurs from either coast. One of them is Michael Venerable, the co-founder of Talus, a DC-area data warehousing company sold in 1998, and a managing consultant to Palo Alto-based Sagent Technologies. He is now managing director of software and digital at CincyTech, a six-year-old public-private seed fund in downtown Cincinnati.

That puts Venerable in a smaller entrepreneurial pool than he once knew, but his new home gives him what Twitter CEO Dick Costolo refers to as an “outside the beltway” perspective on what your startup needs to do to get funded. He spoke to Inc. editor Eric Schurenberg at the National Venture Capital Association annual conference last week.

Q: So, Mike, uh…Cincinnati?

A: Economically, the city punches above its weight. We have more than our share of big companies, and we have world-class expertise around consumer marketing and branding. For example, you know that whatever Procter & Gamble chooses to do in advertising will wash over the whole industry.

And while we don’t have as many hip young people as Palo Alto or SOMA or Dumbo, the entrepreneurs who come through our doors are smart and have that midwestern work ethic.

Also, we’re starting to see a lot of what I call boomerangs--people who decide to move back to raise kids. I’m one of them. And one of our portfolio companies, Zipscene, just hired Red Bull’s North American head of IT from the West Coast to be CTO. He happens to be a graduate of UC.

Q: What adjustments do you have to make to launch scalable companies in the midwest?

A: You have to right-size your expectations. We’re looking for companies that have identified an addressable market of $250 million. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that they have to own the whole market. We’d be happy with an exit of $50 million.

We’re a seed fund, so we want to bring companies along to the point where they get venture capital. One of the questions we ask is,"How long do we have to sustain one of our companies to make it viable?" We figure we need to stick around until they are showing metrics you'd ordinarily see in a B round of venture capital. For SaaS companies, that means, for example, that we want to exceed the minimum threshold monthly recurring revenue; for consumer companies, we want, among other things, to achieve usage rates that actually bring in revenue. We understand that many of the investors we want to attract don't have the advantage of physical proximity to our portfolio companies, and so we de-risk them more than might be necessary if they were located on either coast.

Q: What do you look for in the entrepreneurs you fund?

A: Well, by nature and my own history, I’m a boot-strapper--so it’s kind of ironic that I stand here in front all this start-up capital.

But the fact is, I like to see a company that has built a certain momentum with little or no outside money in hand. Part of our process is to see what people do when they don't have money.

You can think of every business idea as a stack of assumptions. If you’re trying to prove that you have a viable business, you have to start with the most dangerous assumptions first--the ones that will kill you if you got them wrong. If you get a bunch of money too soon you can easily waltz right past those assumptions. You saw it happen many times in the last bubble: Companies got so much money they just walked by the fundamental problems staring them in the face.

Q: What about the entrepreneurs themselves, the people?

A: I want to see deep domain insight and expertise--someone who has been in an industry or pursuing a scientific topic for a long time.

After that, I want my entrepreneurs to show unrelenting curiosity about their business. I want them terrified of what they don't know. They should constantly feel starved for information and never feel confident that they have their business idea nailed. Smart and scared--those are the people we keep.

The ones we let go are the ones who think they know everything. Ego will kill you in a startup.

Finally, I want to see focus. Most entrepreneurs are actually introverts. They didn’t choose to follow this path because they love business plan competitions and pitch contests. They just see something wrong with the world and want to fix it.

But you can get distracted by all the things a start-up has to do. So I tell my entrepreneurs they have to focus on the one thing the company needs to do well to survive. You should never do more than you can measure and test so that you can see what’s actually working and what isn’t. If you try to do too much, you end up not really understanding what’s happening in your business.

It’s partly defensive. If you run out of money but you have a lot of data about what happened, you might be able to get someone to fund you again. But if you just ran out of money and didn't learn why your idea didn’t work, you have nothing.

The world's richest man says everyone needs feedback beyond one-word descriptors.

Bill Gates, who recently reclaimed the title of the richest man in the world, took to the stage earlier this month for a TED talk on one of his pet causes: improving the quality of education. Specifically, the Microsoft creator focused on the need of quality feedback for teachers.

"We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve," Gates told the audience. He continued:

"When Melinda and I learned how little useful feedback most teachers get, we were blown away. Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers just got one word of feedback: satisfactory. If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?"

Gates feels thorough peer evaluations, as well as evaluations of teachers by students, might help teachers improve in their career. As an example, Gates used the high-achieving province of Shanghai, China, noting their key to success has been "the way they help teachers keep improving."

"They made sure that younger teachers get a chance to watch master teachers at work. They have weekly study groups, where teachers get together and talk about what's working. They even require each teacher to observe and give feedback to their colleagues."

In other words, real dialogue engendered real feedback.

Like teachers, employees need feedback from their boss. Rather than rely on impersonal one-word evalutations, identify specific aspects of the job workers need to improve on.

How have you helped your employees improve?

A group of community-minded start-ups hope to ease the burden of college tuition with the concept of crowdfunding.

Striking out on your own is hard, but it's even harder with college loan debt.

It's no surprise, then, that a number of start-ups have popped up recently with the mission of tackling America's student loan crisis.

According to Federal Reserve Bank of New York, this debt has almost doubled since 2007 and is nearing $1 trillion. In fact, it's already surpassed the mark of auto loan debt, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $783 billion, and credit card debt, which stands at $679 billion.

With almost 40 percent of student loan borrowers owing up to $10,000 and 30 percent more owing up to $25,000, these start-ups have their work cut out for them.

Here are six hoping to lessen the burden:

Campus Slice This "social funding platform helps you slice your tuition bill by getting support from your family and friends," says its website. By setting up an education and funding goal, and then inviting family and friends to help reach them, students can effectively crowdfund their education. Supporters are asked to make small monthly contributions, thereby keeping costs down while providing the student with a steady flow of income.

GiveCollege On this crowdfunding site, parents must register their child's 529 college savings plan on GiveCollege's platform, taking care to mention fundraising opportunities--birthdays, holidays, graduations, etc.--and invite friends and family to contribute.

By selecting the type of college parents want their child to attend, GiveCollege can predict the cost of the tuition. "We do this based on the college type you chose, your child's age, the average cost of that college currently, and then the average increase in the cost over the past few years," says Angela Merrill, co-founder.

GradSave This start-up aims to crowdfund college tuition, allowing young people to receive monetary birthday and holiday gifts that directly go toward college savings plans, CEO Marcos Cordero told Inc.

"Friends and family can contribute directly to their savings in lieu of other temporary gifts," so graduates can "focus more on accomplishing dreams of entrepreneurship rather than on paying back loans."

Pave With Pave, prospective students can set up an "innovative social-financial agreement." What does that mean exactly? Students accept a one-time payment from backers in exchange for "a small, affordable percentage of income over a period of 10 years," sort of like selling stock in themselves. The success of the prospect is in their best interest, so backers might opt to provide career guidance, mentorship, and network connections.

Tuition.io This start-up is "saving students and graduates time and money, while working with the lenders to streamline the entire process so that everybody wins," says founder Brendon McQueen. Like Mint.com but with a focus on loan debt, Tuition.io helps users manage their student loan portfolio by providing helpful reminders, personalized advice, and tools such as customized payment plans.

Upstart Similar to Pave, this start-up lets grads barter funds for "a small share of their future incomes," per its website. "The idea of Upstart is, can you provide a window of economic freedom as well as some guidance and mentorship for people that want to take a non-traditional path?" says founder Dave Girouard.

The innovative production company received top honors for its brand-driven content this week.

It's no secret the advertising production company B-Reel is changing the industry. The company made waves last year with the viral sensation The Wilderness Downtown, and this year it released The Beauty Inside, an interactive branded film that invites viewers to play the lead role.

On Friday, B-Reel announced it had swept the prestigious CLIO awards, winning not one, but two Gold distinctions in the Film and Branded Entertainment categories. Other recent award wins include six One Show awards, two Golds for SXSW, five Art Directors Club awards, and four Webby awards.

"The Beauty Inside is a truly integrated project, where the boundaries between traditional storytelling and user interaction is totally blurred,” Pelle Nilsson, executive producer and founding partner, said in a statement. “And it shows that a great collaboration between agency and production company is what makes for outstanding execution."

B-Reel, which has its roots in Scandinavia, has traditionally shied away from straightforward ad work, even as it lacked the technology.

"Limitations are frustrating, but they can also trigger a really creative side in you," Petter Westlund, the company's chief creative officer, said of the company's hacker mentality. To date, the company has created dazzling ad campaigns for Mitsubishi, State Farm, Doritos, and Google.

The Beauty Inside is not the first B-Reel production to receive accolades this year. Both that film and another short for Google Maps Cube received numerous nominations and won four Silver Pencils and one Bronze Pencil from The One Club, which promotes excellence in advertising and design.

B-Reel currently runs six offices worldwide and five divisions, including commercials, content, digital, feature films, and products.

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine gave USC $70 million to fund a degree for creative entrepreneurs. The program's success may depend on these things.

With a modest $70 million grant from Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, the University of Southern California announced a program for creative entrepreneurs this week nicknamed "the degree in disruption."

The program, featured in The New York Times, sounds like an entrepreneur's dream come true. Beyond attending an academy conceived by the mind behind the hip hop hit, "Let Me Ride," students will dive into the business world by way of music, marketing, patents, and prototypes. The four-year program culminates in a senior thesis project, in which students team up and spend a year designing a prototype.

Iovine and Dre told The Times' Jenna Wortham they never expected to start a university program. But at a time when Internet giants like Yahoo are acquiring young start-ups in order to stay relevant, the degree offers the hope of discovering the next Steve Jobs. That's a good look for USC and a strong selling point for cash-flush VCs, who might scour the campus in search of young talent.

The only question is: Will it work?

The true test of the program's success depends on three factors, says Chris Vance, a Kellogg School of Management graduate and CEO of the start-up Playground Sessions.

Vance says, "It's going to come down to the strength of the curriculum, the teachers, and admissions committee's ability to accept--and nurture--students with that entrepreneurial spirit, which is a difficult thing to teach and define."

Given USC's track record for turning out top-notch talent--both Don Bayne (Trader Joe's) and Henry Caraso (Dollar Rent-A-Car) graduated from the Marshall School of Business in the late 1960s and early 1970s--this endevour should have no problem churning out winners.

Although, Vance is wary of any entreprenurial program that is too narrowly focused on business. "It has to have a strong liberal arts foundation," Vance stresses. "Philosophy and even foreign language should be taught on top of the more focused coursework." He agrees that the marketing curriculum will be important because "you've got to know how to sell your product," and that working in groups helps to "develop leadership qualities and listening skills." The latter is what makes an entrepreneur sensitive and aware of the fact that "the best idea is the product of many," he says.

Despite some early pitfalls, the social network has successfully made the transition from start-up to publicly traded company.

It's the eve of Facebook's one-year IPO anniversary, and what a strange year it's been.

The Menlo, California-based company has successfully ginned up revenue to the tune of $1.46 billion in its first reported quarter, up 36 percent from $1.06 billion a year ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But while the company has made good on its decision to ramp up advertising, the jury's still out on whether users appreciate it.

According to The Journal, the days of relying on desktop ads in the right-hand column of its website, which the company did before filing for its IPO, are all but over.

Facebook's begun running ads for the first time on mobile devices and in its News Feed, and created "special widgets" for ads that promote installments of third-party applications. The company also launched a now-fledgling e-commerce store, which some say has dilluted the user experience.

To be fair, Facebook admitted a year ago that it was "not originally created to be a company," but was "built to accomplish a social mission--to make the world more open and connected." The company has succeeded on both counts, of course, but as The Journal points out, the idea that revenue would stem from user engagement hasn't "been enough to push Facebook's stop back up to its IPO price last May of $38.

Although that's not to say Facebook hasn't tried. After changing its tone on revenue last year, the social network made efforts to connect with advertising clients, going so far as to organize boot camps for employees and trips to meet with bigwigs like Procter & Gamble.

To date, Facebook has not delivered on all its shareholders' expectations, but some companies told The Journal the revenue-friendly attitude has encouraged them to spend more money on the site. Online retailer JackThreads.com, for example, says he's taken advantage of Facebook Exchange, a real-time marketplace that sells ads based on what sites users are visiting.

The missing link between intelligence and performance is grit, says Angela Lee Duckworth.

Angela Lee Duckworth, a former consultant at McKinsey, knows all about pushing past limits.

At the age of 27, Duckworth left her high-flying post in management consulting to teach math in New York City's public schools. As a teacher she realized some of her strongest performers didn't have "stratospheric IQ scores," but would fare better on their tests than their smarter peers.

What was the missing link between their limited abilities and their performance? Duckworth knew immediately it had to be grit. All the students could learn the material if they worked long and hard enough at it. Innate intelligence wasn't a factor--what mattered was doing the work.

"Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals," Duckworth said in a recent TED talk. "Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint."

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about grit, she continued, was how little scientists understand it. So far, the best idea she's heard is growth mindset, the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed and can change with your effort.

"We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuition, and we need to test them," Duckworth said. "We need to measure whether we've been successful, and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned."

How have you applied grit at your business?

Harvard Business School grad Angela Newman left a high-paying consulting career to launch her own line of high-tech women's undergarments. Below, she shares five tips that any start-up CEO can learn from.

When Angela Newman was getting an MBA at Harvard in 1994, creating a line of undergarments couldn't have been further from her mind. "Never in a million years," she laughs now. But after graduating with her MBA in 1996, she landed a consulting position at McKinsey where she became an expert in textiles. It was something that was already in her blood. She grew up North Carolina, the heart of the U.S. textiles industry, and for many years watched her father hard at work as an executive at Milliken, a high-tech textile company that was big on R&D.

In 2009, Newman started developing what would eventually become Knock out!, a line of specialized undergarments made from odor- and moisture-absorbing fabric. In April, Newman beat out some 130 global entries to become the first woman-owned business to win Harvard Business School's Alumni New Venture Contest. Below, Newman shares some of the lessons she's learned from spending 11 years in the textiles industry and five years at the helm of her own company.

1. Play the Field
Every founder has "positions" they love to play, but this is a hazard in a start-up! With my passion to make undergarments, I spent nearly all of my early time on R&D and production. I eventually had to force myself--sometimes over strong objections--to get involved in EVERY area--including IT, legal, distribution and customer service. My goal was to gain an understanding, not necessarily do everything. Knowing enough about each area to ask the right questions and establish the right measures should be a part of every CEO's tool kit. Plus, it keeps life interesting!

2. Stay close to the customer
With all the breadth of work and pace of change that occurs in start-ups, it is easy to lose contact with the most important aspect for success of any business--the customer. We don't have a big market research budget, but I get valuable information by going direct to our wholesale and retail customers on everything from marketing messaging to prototype testing. These unfiltered customer opinions help us avoid mistakes and actually enhance the overall relationship between our company and our customers--which is invaluable in our over-marketed world.

3. Enter business competitions
Start-ups are often operating on a tight budget and everyone is going 200 miles per hour, so the idea of adding some non-critical item to the TO DO list is not popular. But the benefits business competitions offer cannot be overlooked--feedback on the concept, new contacts, and publicity to name just a few. I entered Knock out in three business plan competitions within our first two years--investing over a full month of my time toward these contests. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Knock out won the Harvard competition and was chosen one of the Top 15 Global Startups by Kauffman Foundation. The payoff was enormous. Experienced feedback, money, many contacts with venture investors and faculty, and lots of publicity.

4. Don't forget to live
No person can keep up the start-up pace indefinitely. It is easy to become engrossed in the business and forget friends, family, fitness, and hobbies. Every founder must learn to step back and enjoy life--not only will it improve health and happiness, but it will provide the much underappreciated time to take a step back and reflect on the business. I never miss my gals trips.

5. Be willing to let go
Every entrepreneur will tell you the "new venture" is more like a new baby. Full of energy, endless needs, joyous and frustrating all at the same time and all consuming in the early days. But just as babies grow up and become more independent, so should the startup. Building infrastructure, hiring great people and making yourself "expendable" should be the goal of every startup that wants to grow up.

Four simple, destructive behaviors that doom a marriage--and a business.

Kim Kardashian and I have one thing in common. Neither of us would know the other if we tripped over them.

Before a few days ago, I was aware that she's famous, that she's had reality shows and a sex tape, that she had a 72-day marriage to the NBA's Kris Humphries, and that she has more Twitter followers (17.8 million million as of last count) than all but three U.S. states have people.

But then, the other night, a friend posted a link on Facebook to Scientific American: "How to Have a Longer Marriage Than Kim Kardashian."

I clicked. I read. I learned. I learned about Kim Kardashian--but I also learned some great tips for running a business.

The article was based on a study of married couples that lasted 14 years (about 71 times the length of the Kardashian-Humphries marriage). As I read, I realized that psychologists John Gottman and Robert Levenson's advice about saving a marriage also adds up to great practical advice for leading stakeholders in your business.

Gottman and Levenson didn't actually study the Kardashian-Humphries marriage, but they wanted to identify early signs that couples would split. So, they asked 80 Midwestern married couples to describe a recent argument. They recorded how the couples interacted with each other--and then they tracked them for 14 years.

Here's the amazing part, according to writer Melanie Tannenbaum:

Gottman and Levenson eventually realized something incredibly important: They didn't actually need to note down all that much. In fact, there were just four behaviors that could be used to predict which couples would still be married 14 years later -- with 93 percent accuracy.

Gottman and Levenson refer to the troublesome quartet of behaviors -- contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling -- as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (This is where the Kardashian part comes in, because Tannenbaum cleverly illustrated each behavior using clips of Kardashian and Humphries arguing on TV.)

Avoiding these four behaviors might be good for a marriage, but they're also an excellent guide for any business leader who wants to improve communication. So here's an examination of the four, along with what you can do to avoid them in your business.

1. Avoid contempt by building a culture of appreciation.

Contempt "is a potent mix of anger and disgust," Tannenbaum writes. The Kardashian clip she chose to illustrate contempt shows Humphries telling his soon-to-be-bride that her career is "essentially worthless" during a heated debate over what state they should live in.

To avoid contempt, Gottman and Levenson advise leading by example, with constant, proactive, respect. This might mean giving credit for accomplishments, but also offering admiration for their work in things that you don't do as well. (Think of the marketing person who shows sincere interest and respect in how the product developers learned their craft.) It also means demonstrating that you, as a leader, expect the same kind of respect in return.

2. Make criticism about actions, not people.

Gottman and Levenson draw a distinction between personal criticism and legitimate complaints. Tannenbaum illustrates this with a video clip in which Kardashian tells Humphries that his messy tooth-brushing habits are "gross" and that people like him are "one of [her] pet peeves."

The old adage, "praise in public, criticize in private" has fallen out of favor, so it's even more essential now that you promote a culture in which expressions of contempt are verboten. People need to think about whether they're legitimately criticizing their colleagues' performance, or launching more ad hominem attacks.

3. Avoid defensiveness; be responsible.

The best offense may be a good defense, but defensiveness only gives offense. Tannenbaum illustrates this with a clip in which Kardashian blames Humphries when she loses of a $75,000 pair of earrings in the ocean--refusing to accept her possible responsibility for say, wearing $75,000 earrings in the ocean.

Gottman and Levenson advise avoiding defensiveness by actively accepting responsibility when things go wrong.

"This doesn't mean shouldering all the blame," Tannenbaum writes, but simply acknowledging your acts and omissions that may have contributed to someone else's less-than-stellar performance. Doing so might help you quickly navigate the personal minefields in a difficult situation and approach the real problems.

4. Don't tolerate stonewalling.

They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. To illustrate this Tannenbaum chose a clip in which Kardashian told Humphries she did not plan to take his last name.

"This clearly bothers him," she wrote, but "rather than talking this out and coming to some sort of compromise or reasoned conclusion, Kris completely shuts her out."

Stonewalling can be a behavioral response to stress, she continues, "accompanied by increased physiological responses like an accelerated heart rate, higher blood pressure, and sweating." If you feel yourself reacting in this way, or if you observe it in your employees, Gottman and Levenson's advice is to "engage in something called 'physiological self-soothing,' which basically just means taking deep breaths and trying to mindfully relax."

In other words, take a deep breath, count to 10, and remind yourself that your business (or your relationship) is well worth the price of this momentary stress. As H.G. Wells said, "The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow."

The fast-growing data visualization software company puts Seattle back on the IPO map.

Tableau Software, the Seattle-based data visualization software company, joins the sparsely-populated ranks of tech start-ups that have gone public so far this year, pricing its stock at $31 per share for Friday's IPO.

Under these pricing terms, Tableau will have a market capitalization of $1.7 billion, Forbes reported. The company is offering up 5 million shares Friday, while stockholders are offering up 3.2 million, GigaOm reported. Shares will trade under the symbol "DATA" on the New York Stock Exchange, and co-founder and CEO Christian Chabot rang the opening bell this morning.

Tableau's first-quarter revenue in 2013 reached $40 million, up more than 60 percent from $24.7 million in the same period last year, Forbes reported. Even if pricing stays flat all day Friday, GigaOm's Derrick Harris wrote, the company stands to rake in $155 million from its 5 million shares.

The company has landed on the ranks of the Inc. 5000 for five consecutive years starting in 2008. That year, the company had $13.2 million in sales revenue which increased 373 percent to $62.4 million in 2011.

Tableau is the first Seattle-based tech company to go public since Zillow's public offering in July 2011, GeekWire reported.

Yes, crowdfunding is cool. It's democratic. It's disruptive. And it's a bad idea for a lot of start-ups.

There are two completely different ways of looking at crowdfunding. It is either a) the best thing to happen to start-ups since Red Bull; or b) while sometimes useful, it’s no serious substitute for other sources of money, including family & friends. Even bootstrapping.

This may not endear me to some of my friends, but increasingly, I lean towards the latter.

Yes, I know, I know. Crowdfunding is revolutionary. It lets you raise funds without sacrificing ownership or having to face relatives across the table at holidays, or needing to promise a return besides a free sample of your product or some other “reward.” At least until the SEC weighs in with rules on how you can crowd-source equity investors, you don’t need to do much of anything to apply for that money except create a decent color scheme and tell a nice story. Even so, crowdfunding has drawbacks. Here are three:

1. It makes it too easy to kid yourself

Ever written a business plan? If you have, you know how much painstaking thought you have to put into crafting mission statements, identifying supply chains, forecasting sales and determining costs, etc. It’s like going to college--you put in the effort to show what you’re capable of. Granted, not every professional investor will demand a business plan, as such, but all of them will demand to get under the hood of your business proposal. Until you’ve validated every decision you made in creating your company and developing your product, you’re not getting anywhere with them.

With crowdfunding, it’s a bit different.

Even if you have a real business in mind--as opposed to, say, a campaign to cover your expenses while you study art in Florence--you know one thing: No one on Kickstarter, Indiegogo or their imitators is going to ask you to estimate your cost of customer acquisition or the size of your potential revenue streams or any other tough business questions.

Yes, running the numbers is hard, let alone using those numbers to win over skeptical investors. But there’s a reason for that. Business is hard. Convincing real investors that you’ve got what it takes is your company’s first reality check. Crowdfunding can let you postpone reality, but not indefinitely. It’s better to ask the hard questions before you’ve burned through a year of your life and $100k of other people’s money.

2. It isolates you from people who can actually help you

Raising money from professional investors forces you to be think hard about your company and be honest with yourself. But it also gives you the benefit of having real, seasoned experts thinking hard about your company, too.

A seasoned angel or VC can help you decide, say, whether to incorporate, how to cope with a cash crunch (which you will have, trust me), and where to turn for advice about a thorny business development question. Crowdfunding may connect you with seed money, but ultimately your company stands a higher chance of success with the benefit of the tactical savvy, strategies for market capture, and smart financial practices that a seasoned investor can provide. Also, a well-connected veteran with a serious stake in your success can open doors that a pack of starry-eyed strangers chipping in $50 apiece simply cannot.

3. I'd never recommend investing in a crowdfunded company. What does that tell you?

I recently reviewed a crowdfunding proposal from a company that makes nutritious snacks using a global supply chain in West Africa. The company is looking for $50,000 on indiegogo.com to fund production. The campaign offers 11 contribution categories, with perks ranging from a personal thank you on their website to a weekend in Napa complete with wine tastings, hikes, and quality food.

After researching this company's team, it became apparent to me that no one had any financial experience. In fact, only one team member had any qualifications listed on the crowdfunding site at all. If you are serious about starting and building a company that lasts, why would you want to surround yourself with company like this?

Realizing your dream as an entrepreneur is hard. Crowdfunding sites, in my opinion, distort the dream. Granted, funding can help supplement other sources of money and help you try out a product, but the true test of a business is what happens after the funding is done. And that’s when you’ll need the discipline, expertise and sense of urgency that comes putting your own money at risk or that of serious investors who expect a real return.

One YC partner makes an exit, while Paul Graham introduces five new ones--including Groupon founder and ex-CEO, Andrew Mason.

Y Combinator founder Paul Graham took to his blog yesterday to announce the hire of four new part-time partners--including Groupon founder and ex-CEO Andrew Mason.

The other part-time partners, who will advise the next class of YC start-ups, include Michael Seibel, the founder of Socialcam, Steve Huffman, the co-founder of Hipmunk and Reddit, and Dalton Caldwell, the co-founder of Imeem and App.net.

Kevin Hale, the co-founder of Wufoo, will join YC as a full-time partner.

"We've known all these guys for years and we can already tell it will be great to work with them," Graham wrote. Harj Taggar, the first-ever YC partner will be leaving the firm.

But the big news here is the surprise return of Andrew Mason, the Groupon founder who was, for all intents and purposes, canned from his last gig as Groupon's CEO. He's not just becoming a part-time partner at YC, either. In a blog post on his own site--timed with Paul Graham's post--Mason had a few announcements of his own.

"If there's a silver lining to leaving Groupon, it's the opportunity to start something new," Mason wrote. "I've accumulated a backlog of ideas over the last several years, my favorite of which I'll be turning into a new company this fall."

He doesn't offer many details about the new company, but Mason also used the post to announce a third new project that's currently in the works--a music album targeted at young people entering the workforce.

Yes. For real. (Well, so he says. But honestly, we're talking about Andrew Mason, after all.)

In his words:

I came to realize that there was a real need to present business wisdom in a format that is more accessible to the younger generation. It was with this in mind that I spent a week in LA earlier this month recording Hardly Workin', a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce. These songs will help young people understand some of the ideas that I've found to be a key part of becoming a productive and effective employee.

We'll be sure to stay tuned.