More on Entrepreneurship/Creators
Victoria Kurichenko
3 years ago
Updates From Google For Content Producers What You Should Know Is This
People-first update.
Every Google upgrade causes website owners to panic.
Some have just recovered from previous algorithm tweaks and resumed content development.
If you follow Google's Webmaster rules, you shouldn't fear its adjustments.
Everyone has a view of them. Miscommunication and confusion result.
Now, for some (hopefully) exciting news.
Google tweeted on August 18, 2022 about a fresh content update.
This change is another Google effort to remove low-quality, repetitive, and AI-generated content.
The algorithm generates and analyzes search results, not humans.
Google spends a lot to teach its algorithm what searchers want. Intent isn't always clear.
Google's content update aims to:
“… ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
Isn't it a noble goal?
However, what does it mean for content creators and website owners?
How can you ensure you’re creating content that will be successful after the updates roll out?
Let's first define people-first content.
What does "people-first-content" mean?
If asked, I'd say information written to answer queries and solve problems.
Like others, I read it from the term.
Content creators and marketers disagree. They need more information to follow recommendations.
Google gives explicit instructions for creating people-first content.
According to Google, if you answer yes to the following questions, you have a people-first attitude.
Do you have customers who might find your content useful if they contacted you directly?
Does your content show the breadth of your knowledge?
Do you have a niche or a focus for your website?
After reading your content, will readers learn something new to aid them in achieving their goals?
Are readers happy after reading your content?
Have you been adhering to Google's fundamental updates and product reviews?
As an SEO writer, I'm not scared.
I’ve been following these rules consciously while creating content for my website. That’s why it’s been steadily growing despite me publishing just one or two stories a month.
If you avoid AI-generated text and redundant, shallow material, your website won't suffer.
If you use unscrupulous methods to boost your website's traffic, including link buying or keyword stuffing, stop. Google is getting smarter and will find and punish your site eventually.
For those who say, “SEO is no longer working,” I dedicated the whole paragraph below.
This does not imply that SEO is obsolete.
Google:
“People-first content creators focus on creating satisfying content, while also utilizing SEO best practices to bring searchers additional value.”
The official helpful content update page lists two people-first content components:
meeting user needs
best practices for SEO
Always read official guidelines, not unsolicited suggestions.
SEO will work till search engines die.
How to use the update
Google said the changes will arrive in August 2022.
They pledged to post updates on Google's search ranking updates page.
Google also tweets this info. If you haven't followed it already, I recommend it.
Ranking adjustments could take two weeks and will affect English searches internationally initially.
Google affirmed plans to extend to other languages.
If you own a website, monitor your rankings and traffic to see if it's affected.
Davlin Knight
3 years ago
2 pitfalls to stay away from when launching a YouTube channel
You do not want to miss these
Stop! Stop it! Two things to avoid when starting a YouTube channel. Critical. Possible channel-killers Its future revenue.
I'll tell you now, so don't say "I wish I knew."
The Notorious Copyright Allegation
My YouTube channel received a copyright claim before I sold it. This claim was on a one-minute video I thought I'd changed enough to make mine, but the original owner disagreed.
It cost me thousands in ad revenue. Original owner got the profits.
Well, it wasn't your video, you say.
Touché.
I've learned. Sorta
I couldn't stop looking at the video's views. The video got 1,000,000 views without any revenue. I made 4 more similar videos.
If they didn't get copyrighted, I'd be rolling in dough.
You've spent a week editing and are uploading to YouTube. You're thrilled as you stand and stretch your back. You see the video just before publishing.
No way!
The red exclamation point on checks.
Copyright claim!
YouTube lets you publish, but you won't make money.
Sounds fair? Well, it is.
Copyright claims mean you stole someone's work. Song, image, or video clip.
We wouldn't want our content used for money.
The only problem with this is that almost everything belongs to someone else. I doubt some of the biggest creators are sitting down and making their music for their videos. That just seems really excessive when you could make a quick search on YouTube and download a song (I definitely don’t do this because that would be stealing).
So how do you defeat a copyright defense?
Even copyright-free songs on YouTube aren't guaranteed. Some copyrighted songs claim to be free.
Use YouTube's free music library or pay for a subscription to adobe stock, epidemic sound, or artlist.io.
Most of my videos have Nintendo music. Almost all game soundtracks are copyright-free and offer a variety of songs.
Restriction on age
Age restrictions are a must-avoid. A channel dies.
YouTube never suggests age-restricted videos.
Shadow banning means YouTube hides your content from subscribers and non-subscribers.
Keeping your channel family-friendly can help.
I hear you complaining that your channel isn't for kids. I agree. Not everyone has a clean mouth or creates content for minors.
YouTube has changed rapidly in recent years. Focusing on kids. Fewer big creators are using profanity or explicit content in videos. Not YouTube-worthy.
Youtube wants to be family-friendly. A family-friendly movie. It won't promote illegal content. Yes, it allows profanity.
Do I recommend avoiding no-no words in videos? Never. Okay. YouTube's policies are shaky. YouTube uses video content to determine ad suitability.
No joke. If you're serious about becoming a content creator, avoid profanity and inappropriate topics.
If your channel covers 18+ topics, like crime or commentary, censor as much as possible.
YouTube can be like walking on eggshells. You never know what is gonna upset the boss. So play it safe and try to avoid getting on their bad side.
Mr. Beast, Dream, Markplier, Faze Rug, and PewDewPie are popular creators. They maintain it family-friendly while entertaining fans.
You got this.
Matthew O'Riordan
3 years ago
Trends in SaaS Funding from 2016 to 2022
Christopher Janz of Point Nine Capital created the SaaS napkin in 2016. This post shows how founders have raised cash in the last 6 years. View raw data.
Round size
Unsurprisingly, round sizes have expanded and will taper down in 2022. In 2016, pre-seed rounds were $200k to $500k; currently, they're $1-$2m. Despite the macroeconomic scenario, Series A have expanded from $3m to $12m in 2016 to $6m and $18m in 2022.
Valuation
There are hints that valuations are rebounding this year. Pre-seed valuations in 2022 are $12m from $3m in 2016, and Series B prices are $270m from $100m in 2016.
Compared to public SaaS multiples, Series B valuations more closely reflect the market, but Seed and Series A prices seem to be inflated regardless of the market.
I'd like to know how each annual cohort performed for investors, based on the year they invested and the valuations. I can't access this information.
ARR
Seed firms' ARR forecasts have risen from $0 to $0.6m to $0 to $1m. 2016 expected $1.2m to $3m, 2021 $0.5m to $4m, and this year $0.5m to $2.5m, suggesting that Series A firms may raise with less ARR today. Series B minutes fell from $4.2m to $3m.
Capitalization Rate
2022 is the year that VCs start discussing capital efficiency in portfolio meetings. Given the economic shift in the markets and the stealthy VC meltdown, it's not surprising. Christopher Janz added capital efficiency to the SaaS Napkin as a new statistic for Series A (3.5x) and Series B. (2.5x). Your investors must live under a rock if they haven't asked about capital efficiency. If you're unsure:
The Capital Efficiency Ratio is the ratio of how much a company has spent growing revenue and how much they’re receiving in return. It is the broadest measure of company effectiveness in generating ARR
What next?
No one knows what's next, including me. All startup and growing enterprises around me are tightening their belts and extending their runways in anticipation of a difficult fundraising ride. If you're wanting to raise money but can wait, wait till the market is more stable and access to money is easier.
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Darius Foroux
2 years ago
My financial life was changed by a single, straightforward mental model.
Prioritize big-ticket purchases
I've made several spending blunders. I get sick thinking about how much money I spent.
My financial mental model was poor back then.
Stoicism and mindfulness keep me from attaching to those feelings. It still hurts.
Until four or five years ago, I bought a new winter jacket every year.
Ten years ago, I spent twice as much. Now that I have a fantastic, warm winter parka, I don't even consider acquiring another one. No more spending. I'm not looking for jackets either.
Saving time and money by spending well is my thinking paradigm.
The philosophy is expressed in most languages. Cheap is expensive in the Netherlands. This applies beyond shopping.
In this essay, I will offer three examples of how this mental paradigm transformed my financial life.
Publishing books
In 2015, I presented and positioned my first book poorly.
I called the book Huge Life Success and made a funny Canva cover in 30 minutes. This:
That looks nothing like my present books. No logo or style. The book felt amateurish.
The book started bothering me a few weeks after publication. The advice was good, but it didn't appear professional. I studied the book business extensively.
I created a style for all my designs. Branding. Win Your Inner Wars was reissued a year later.
Title, cover, and description changed. Rearranging the chapters improved readability.
Seven years later, the book sells hundreds of copies a month. That taught me a lot.
Rushing to finish a project is enticing. Send it and move forward.
Avoid rushing everything. Relax. Develop your projects. Perform well. Perform the job well.
My first novel was underfunded and underworked. A bad book arrived. I then invested time and money in writing the greatest book I could.
That book still sells.
Traveling
I hate travel. Airports, flights, trains, and lines irritate me.
But, I enjoy traveling to beautiful areas.
I do it strangely. I make up travel rules. I never go to airports in summer. I hate being near airports on holidays. Unworthy.
No vacation packages for me. Those airline packages with a flight, shuttle, and hotel. I've had enough.
I try to avoid crowds and popular spots. July Paris? Nuts and bolts, please. Christmas in NYC? No, please keep me sane.
I fly business class behind. I accept upgrades upon check-in. I prefer driving. I drove from the Netherlands to southern Spain.
Thankfully, no lines. What if travel costs more? Thus? I enjoy it from the start. I start traveling then.
I rarely travel since I'm so difficult. One great excursion beats several average ones.
Personal effectiveness
New apps, tools, and strategies intrigue most productivity professionals.
No.
I researched years ago. I spent years investigating productivity in university.
I bought books, courses, applications, and tools. It was expensive and time-consuming.
Im finished. Productivity no longer costs me time or money. OK. I worked on it once and now follow my strategy.
I avoid new programs and systems. My stuff works. Why change winners?
Spending wisely saves time and money.
Spending wisely means spending once. Many people ignore productivity. It's understudied. No classes.
Some assume reading a few articles or a book is enough. Productivity is personal. You need a personal system.
Time invested is one-time. You can trust your system for life once you find it.
Concentrate on the expensive choices.
Life's short. Saving money quickly is enticing.
Spend less on groceries today. True. That won't fix your finances.
Adopt a lifestyle that makes you affluent over time. Consider major choices.
Are they causing long-term poverty? Are you richer?
Leasing cars comes to mind. The automobile costs a fortune today. The premium could accomplish a million nice things.
Focusing on important decisions makes life easier. Consider your future. You want to improve next year.
Jonathan Vanian
3 years ago
What is Terra? Your guide to the hot cryptocurrency
With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin gyrating in value over the past few months, many people are looking at so-called stablecoins like Terra to invest in because of their more predictable prices.
Terraform Labs, which oversees the Terra cryptocurrency project, has benefited from its rising popularity. The company said recently that investors like Arrington Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Pantera Capital have pledged $150 million to help it incubate various crypto projects that are connected to Terra.
Terraform Labs and its partners have built apps that operate on the company’s blockchain technology that helps keep a permanent and shared record of the firm’s crypto-related financial transactions.
Here’s what you need to know about Terra and the company behind it.
What is Terra?
Terra is a blockchain project developed by Terraform Labs that powers the startup’s cryptocurrencies and financial apps. These cryptocurrencies include the Terra U.S. Dollar, or UST, that is pegged to the U.S. dollar through an algorithm.
Terra is a stablecoin that is intended to reduce the volatility endemic to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Some stablecoins, like Tether, are pegged to more conventional currencies, like the U.S. dollar, through cash and cash equivalents as opposed to an algorithm and associated reserve token.
To mint new UST tokens, a percentage of another digital token and reserve asset, Luna, is “burned.” If the demand for UST rises with more people using the currency, more Luna will be automatically burned and diverted to a community pool. That balancing act is supposed to help stabilize the price, to a degree.
“Luna directly benefits from the economic growth of the Terra economy, and it suffers from contractions of the Terra coin,” Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon said.
Each time someone buys something—like an ice cream—using UST, that transaction generates a fee, similar to a credit card transaction. That fee is then distributed to people who own Luna tokens, similar to a stock dividend.
Who leads Terra?
The South Korean firm Terraform Labs was founded in 2018 by Daniel Shin and Kwon, who is now the company’s CEO. Kwon is a 29-year-old former Microsoft employee; Shin now heads the Chai online payment service, a Terra partner. Kwon said many Koreans have used the Chai service to buy goods like movie tickets using Terra cryptocurrency.
Terraform Labs does not make money from transactions using its crypto and instead relies on outside funding to operate, Kwon said. It has raised $57 million in funding from investors like HashKey Digital Asset Group, Divergence Digital Currency Fund, and Huobi Capital, according to deal-tracking service PitchBook. The amount raised is in addition to the latest $150 million funding commitment announced on July 16.
What are Terra’s plans?
Terraform Labs plans to use Terra’s blockchain and its associated cryptocurrencies—including one pegged to the Korean won—to create a digital financial system independent of major banks and fintech-app makers. So far, its main source of growth has been in Korea, where people have bought goods at stores, like coffee, using the Chai payment app that’s built on Terra’s blockchain. Kwon said the company’s associated Mirror trading app is experiencing growth in China and Thailand.
Meanwhile, Kwon said Terraform Labs would use its latest $150 million in funding to invest in groups that build financial apps on Terra’s blockchain. He likened the scouting and investing in other groups as akin to a “Y Combinator demo day type of situation,” a reference to the popular startup pitch event organized by early-stage investor Y Combinator.
The combination of all these Terra-specific financial apps shows that Terraform Labs is “almost creating a kind of bank,” said Ryan Watkins, a senior research analyst at cryptocurrency consultancy Messari.
In addition to cryptocurrencies, Terraform Labs has a number of other projects including the Anchor app, a high-yield savings account for holders of the group’s digital coins. Meanwhile, people can use the firm’s associated Mirror app to create synthetic financial assets that mimic more conventional ones, like “tokenized” representations of corporate stocks. These synthetic assets are supposed to be helpful to people like “a small retail trader in Thailand” who can more easily buy shares and “get some exposure to the upside” of stocks that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to obtain, Kwon said. But some critics have said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may eventually crack down on synthetic stocks, which are currently unregulated.
What do critics say?
Terra still has a long way to go to catch up to bigger cryptocurrency projects like Ethereum.
Most financial transactions involving Terra-related cryptocurrencies have originated in Korea, where its founders are based. Although Terra is becoming more popular in Korea thanks to rising interest in its partner Chai, it’s too early to say whether Terra-related currencies will gain traction in other countries.
Terra’s blockchain runs on a “limited number of nodes,” said Messari’s Watkins, referring to the computers that help keep the system running. That helps reduce latency that may otherwise slow processing of financial transactions, he said.
But the tradeoff is that Terra is less “decentralized” than other blockchain platforms like Ethereum, which is powered by thousands of interconnected computing nodes worldwide. That could make Terra less appealing to some blockchain purists.
The woman
3 years ago
The best lesson from Sundar Pichai is that success and stress don't mix.
His regular regimen teaches stress management.
In 1995, an Indian graduate visited the US. He obtained a scholarship to Stanford after graduating from IIT with a silver medal. First flight. His ticket cost a year's income. His head was full.
Pichai Sundararajan is his full name. He became Google's CEO and a world leader. Mr. Pichai transformed technology and inspired millions to dream big.
This article reveals his daily schedule.
Mornings
While many of us dread Mondays, Mr. Pichai uses the day to contemplate.
A typical Indian morning. He awakens between 6:30 and 7 a.m. He avoids working out in the mornings.
Mr. Pichai oversees the internet, but he reads a real newspaper every morning.
Pichai mentioned that he usually enjoys a quiet breakfast during which he reads the news to get a good sense of what’s happening in the world. Pichai often has an omelet for breakfast and reads while doing so. The native of Chennai, India, continues to enjoy his daily cup of tea, which he describes as being “very English.”
Pichai starts his day. BuzzFeed's Mat Honan called the CEO Banana Republic dad.
Overthinking in the morning is a bad idea. It's crucial to clear our brains and give ourselves time in the morning before we hit traffic.
Mr. Pichai's morning ritual shows how to stay calm. Wharton Business School found that those who start the day calmly tend to stay that way. It's worth doing regularly.
And he didn't forget his roots.
Afternoons
He has a busy work schedule, as you can imagine. Running one of the world's largest firm takes time, energy, and effort. He prioritizes his work. Monitoring corporate performance and guaranteeing worker efficiency.
Sundar Pichai spends 7-8 hours a day to improve Google. He's noted for changing the company's culture. He wants to boost employee job satisfaction and performance.
His work won him recognition within the company.
Pichai received a 96% approval rating from Glassdoor users in 2017.
Mr. Pichai stresses work satisfaction. Each day is a new canvas for him to find ways to enrich people's job and personal lives.
His work offers countless lessons. According to several profiles and press sources, the Google CEO is a savvy negotiator. Mr. Pichai's success came from his strong personality, work ethic, discipline, simplicity, and hard labor.
Evenings
His evenings are spent with family after a busy day. Sundar Pichai's professional and personal lives are balanced. Sundar Pichai is a night owl who re-energizes about 9 p.m.
However, he claims to be most productive after 10 p.m., and he thinks doing a lot of work at that time is really useful. But he ensures he sleeps for around 7–8 hours every day. He enjoys long walks with his dog and enjoys watching NSDR on YouTube. It helps him in relaxing and sleep better.
His regular routine teaches us what? Work wisely, not hard, discipline, vision, etc. His stress management is key. Leading one of the world's largest firm with 85,000 employees is scary.
The pressure to achieve may ruin a day. Overworked employees are more likely to make mistakes or be angry with coworkers, according to the Family Work Institute. They can't handle daily problems, making the house more stressful than the office.
Walking your dog, having fun with friends, and having hobbies are as vital as your office.