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Showing posts from August, 2016

Around the world in an iPhone

Traveling in China, I spoke the universal language of app Landing late at night in Shenzhen for my first trip to China, I was nervous about being able to navigate the city. I didn’t speak the language and had never been to Asia. Starting the next day I would have the services of a local translator, but for that first night, I was on my own. Normally I use  Google services for everything , but those are blocked in China. I opened my iPhone, connected to an international Mifi, and tapped the Uber app. The interface alerted me that I would be switching to the Chinese version, controlled now by Uber’s rival turned business partner Didi. The black screen turned a deep shade of red, and just like that, I had hailed a cab. MY CHAT APP ALSO PROVIDED INSTANTANEOUS TRANSLATION I used Apple Maps to locate the apartment we had reserved through AirBnB. Then I found the same spot on the map in Uber, which automatically translated the location into Chinese. I showed that to the driver

Xero Helps Startups Use Financial Transparency To Raise Capital

At any life stage of a company, being truly open and transparent about your finances can be intimidating. If you’re doing well, you may be happy to show them off. But if you’re starting out or going through difficulties, you’re opening yourself up to scrutiny. What if our accounts show we’re wasting money? What if we’re not making enough money? What if our competition finds out and is doing a lot better than us? It’s understandable to be paranoid. At last week’s XeroCon in San Francisco, Xero’s inaugural conference, the idea of being financially transparent emerged in a conversation with founder and CEO Rod Drury. For startups raising money from an investor or a bank, sharing financials is expected. But with Xero’s online accounting software, customers can share a read-only version of accounts in real-time with anyone all the time. Xero accounting dashboard “ Startups  should be capturing data to build up value. They should have a clean set of financials to get funded

World's First Self-Driving Taxis Hit Singapore

Earlier in the week, Uber made waves when the company announced that it would be deploying self-driving cars to assist in its operations in Pittsburgh before the end of the month. This Thursday however, in Singapore, a relatively unknown startup named nuTonomy has pipped mighty Uber to the post  with the launch  of what could possibly be the world’s first self-driving taxi service. The company, a spin-out from MIT, has already begun public trials in Singapore’s One-North district, picking up select members of the public. For the time being, nuTonomy’s fleet of vehicles is limited to either  a Mitsubishi i-Miev or a Renault Zoe but the company will be adding more cars in the near future. nuTonomy was founded in 2013 and has received nearly $20 million in funding from the likes of Ford Chairman Bill Ford, Samsung Ventures and EDBI, the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board. Customers with nuTonomy’s app are able to summon a vehicle anywhere in the test a

13 ways companies should improve their data security in the age of IoT

As our world gets more and more connected, consumers and businesses alike must think fast about how they protect important information. In particular, there’s a burden on businesses that work in and around the Internet of Things (IoT) to ensure that they’re serving their customers’ best interests by taking every measure to protect sensitive information. To learn more about how to adapt security measures considering the complexity of today’s technologies, I asked a group of entrepreneurs from  YEC  the following question:  How should companies ramp up their data security as the Internet of Things grows? Have backups in place  As security hazards evolve, so must security measures. I don’t think it’s just about protection; it’s about having backups to restore your info in case your systems need to be rebooted. That’s something you need to invest in. –  Alfredo Atanacio ,  Uassist.ME Plan and protect for a security breach With the growth of the IoT, chances of a secu

Your Competitor Just Copied You. Now What?

If you’re an entrepreneur, you probably have an unstated yet pervasive fear of a competitor copying your work. I know I certainly did when I first started  BodeTree . My co-founder and I chuckle now when we look back at how paranoid we were in the early days. We went so far as to request prospective venture capital firms to sign nondisclosure agreements before we agreed to talk about our product. Eventually, and after many sobering conversations with our advisors, we came to our senses. Here’s the thing about competition: if you’re good at what you do, others are going to follow suit. Sometimes that means “borrowing” successful product features, while other times it’s out and out plagiarism.  Regardless of its form and severity,  intellectual property theft is deeply personal for entrepreneurs. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be paranoid. Instead, you simply need to be prepared. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery My company, BodeTree, has always marched to the