Your startup is as fragile as a newborn baby. It has blood in its veins (capital), but can’t fend for itself yet because of insufficient customers, no word-of-mouth advertisement, and not enough sales. No wonder startups cry a lot and fail a lot.

According to new research by Harvard Business School’s Shikhar Ghosh, 75% of all startups fail. But what is the reason behind this massive failure?

Many entrepreneurs and executives attribute the colossal failure to a number of reasons. Some of these reasons include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Poor management
• Poor execution
• Poor business model

Notice how all these factors (and much more not mentioned here) are attributed to the founders.

• A startup fails because of a founder’s poor management
• A startup fails because of a founder’s poor execution
• A startup fails because of a founder’s poor business model

The truth is a single founder can hardly build and run a business to a success. They need the right partner, the right team or the right people to help them through. And understanding how to hire the right people will not only save your startup from failure but will also increase its chances of success.

See Also: From Startup Idea to Successful Business: 7 Questions to Ask Before You Pursue That Venture

Look for passionate people

No one wants to be rejected by an employer. Job applicants are skilled at wearing masks (covering their shortcomings with perfect resumes and decorated titles) to lure the CEO into hiring them.

How do you select the right ones? How do you find those candidates who will do their very best to build your startup to success?

Look for passion.

Passionate people are the right hires for your business. They don’t just want to get hired for the paycheck; they want to get hired for the love. They love the job.

Because they’re passionate, these people will not just carry their responsibilities. They will fill other roles as well, and support your cause with hard work, enthusiasm and affection.

And noticing them is easier than you think. Just ask the following questions during the interview:

• What are your hobbies? Understand the applicant’s hobby outside of work, and see if it is in line with your business.
• How do you maintain a work-life balance? Is the candidate an all-work-and-no-play kind of guy? If they are not balancing life and work as normal, passionate people do, let them go.
• If recruited, how do you see yourself five years from now? Listen to this one more closely. Passionate people will tell you something greater than what you’ve ever imagined. They might even give you a hint of a great business idea.

The point is to find true answers that come from the heart and not just lip service covered in looks and a suit.

Look for applicants with a unique skill set

Now that you’ve discovered a passionate candidate, don’t celebrate yet. There is still some more digging to do. Look for their unique skill set, and ensure that it matches what your startup needs at the moment.

Because let’s face it: your startup can’t afford fancy employees with expensive qualifications yet lacking the basic skills you need to scale your company.

If your business is struggling with sales, for instance, what kind of applicant would you look for? A great marketer of course, but more especially, one who has a unique skill set like a growth hacker to take your business to the next level.

See Also: 5 Steps to Creating a More Productive Sales Team 

Look for people who fit your company culture

Your startup culture is like your personality. It makes you unique and makes you stand out from the rest of your competitors.

Hiring a candidate who doesn’t fit your company culture can cost your business between 50-60% of the person’s annual salary, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

To ensure that you recruit for cultural fit, ask the following questions during the interview:

• Why do you want to work for us?
• How would you describe our culture?
• What organizational culture do you grow in?

Listen to the reason why the candidate wants to work for you, about their description of your company culture, their story concerning the organizational culture they grow in, and, most importantly, their tone of voice and honesty.

Bad people with no passion tend to speak in an overconfident, verbose way to cover their true self — a trait that will choke your little startup to death.

 

The post How to Save Your Startup by Hiring the Right People appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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How to Save Your Startup by Hiring the Right People

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If you’ve ever looked a map of the Arctic and thought, “There’s probably nothing up there but polar bears and ice,” you’d be wrong! At one point in time, there were Nazis up there. But not anymore, thankfully.

Russian researchers have discovered the secret Nazi base in the Arctic after it was abandoned during World War II. The base, called “Schatzgraber” or “Treasure Hunter,” was supposedly a weather station. It sits on Alexandra Land in the Franz Josef Archipelago in the Arctic Circle, reports Russian news outlet Regnum. It is a Russian territory and, as you would expect of a piece of land so far north, quite isolated.

After researchers started exploring the island, they came across over 500 relics, according to the Daily Express. They found “the ruins of bunkers, discarded petrol canisters and even paper documents.” Everything had been preserved by the island’s icy climate.

It’s believed to have been built in 1942 under orders from Adolf Hitler himself, a year after the Nazis invaded Russia. And then:

It was then in service from 1943, before being abandoned in July 1944 when its crew were all poisoned after being forced to eat raw polar bear meat infected with roundworms while running low on supplies. The men became seriously ill, and survivors had to be rescued by a German U-boat.

The website English Russia also adds that half of the crew died from the illnesses.

The Daily Express points out that up until now, Schatzgraber was more or less a myth that only existed on written sources. This discovery proves that it was real. Everything found will be taken back to Russia, where hopefully they will one day be put on public display.

You can watch a news report on the discovery here, via Russian news outlet Russia 24.

Nowhere in the sources I read did I find mention of the Tesseract discovery, however. It seems the secret is safe still.

Hail Hydra.

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Russians Discover Secret Abandoned Arctic Nazi Base

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Do you miss Alton Brown’s classic cooking show Good Eats? You’re about to get more of it… and then some. In a live chat with fans, Brown has revealed that his previously hinted-at internet cooking show will be a spiritual sequel to Good Eats, but without the corporate limits that kept him from cooking certain meals or exploring techniques while on TV. He may cook rabbit, for example, or work with sous vides — those just weren’t options on the Food Network, Brown says.

As a sign of the change in direction, the chef spent most of his chat soliciting ideas from fans. You could see him cooking with only a microwave, trying Hawaiian food or making poutine. He even floated the idea of making a Brunswick stew with squirrel meat. The internet-only show won’t debut until sometime in 2017, but it’s already evident that Brown plans to take full advantage of his online freedom — this won’t be sanitized for the sake of nervous broadcasters.

Source: Alton Brown (Facebook)

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Alton Brown’s internet cooking show will be a ‘Good Eats’ sequel

Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s running mate said Friday he is "fine" following his plane skidding off the runway at LaGuardia Airport on Thursday night, adding there were about 10 seconds of "uncertainty." The Indian governor said, "It was about 10 seconds of uncertainty last night, but we’re just so grateful to the pilots and to the first responders on the scene and (that) everybody came off the plane safely." From a CNN report: The press pool in the back of the aircraft, a Boeing 737-700 chartered from Eastern Airlines that was painted with the campaign’s logo, could also feel the plane fishtailing as it touched down and slid off the runway before coming to a very sharp halt in the grass off the side of the runway. Once the plane came to a full stop, the Indiana governor walked to the back of the plane to check on the press. As everyone on board deplaned, Pence could be seen speaking with emergency responders. Donald Trump said, I just spoke to our future vice president, and he’s OK. Do you know he was in a big accident with the plane?" A report on Business Insider explains how "crushable runway technology" saved Pence’s plane: The positive resolution to a potentially disastrous event can be attributed to the Engineered Material Arresting System located at the end of the runway. The system is designed to prevent a runaway airplane from careening into the roads, buildings, and bodies of water commonly found near many airports. EMAS is made up of massive blocks of material designed to collapse as the wheels of an airplane roll over it, sinking the plane into the runway and bringing it to a safe and gradual stop. The system is designed to be able to stop aircraft traveling at speeds up to 80 mph. The Federal Aviation Administration began studying the technology in the early 1990s in conjunction with the University of Dayton, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the company Zodiac Arresting Systems in New Jersey. According to the FAA, more than 60 US airports — including JFK and LaGuardia in New York and O’Hare in Chicago — have installed the technology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Crushable Runway Technology Saved Mike Pence’s Plane

By Chris Heinonen

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read the full article here.

After testing five projectors for 70 hours, we’ve concluded that the BenQ TH670 is the best cheap projector. It offers the best contrast ratio and the best color quality of everything we tested, as well as 1080p resolution, low input lag for video games, integrated speakers, plenty of lumens for any size screen, a backlit remote, and up to 10,000 hours of life from a single bulb. It also provides the best selection of image adjustments, with settings that are easy to understand, so it gives you more control over the displayed image than its competitors do.

Who this is for

If you already own a 1080p projector, you can stick with what you have. A new, cheap projector is unlikely to offer better performance than a 1080p projector that is a few years old. These days, 1080p resolution is finally becoming affordable enough to appear in models at this pricing tier.

If you have an older 720p or lower-resolution projector, something meant for business presentations, or a cheap LCD projector, a new 1080p model can offer improvements. With a 100-inch or larger image, the difference between 720p and 1080p is much more noticeable than it would be on a 32- or 50-inch TV screen. Newer projectors are also much brighter than models were a few years ago, giving the image more pop and making for a better viewing experience.

Though we like the BenQ TH670, we recommend that anyone looking at a cheap projector seriously consider saving up a bit more (around $200 more as of this writing) and getting our current pick for the best $1,000 projector, the BenQ HT2050.

How we picked and tested

Our contenders (top to bottom): the InFocus SP1080, the Optoma GT760, the BenQ TH670, and the ViewSonic PJD7828HDL. Photo: Chris Heinonen

Because most people buy a projector because they want a large image—often 100 inches or larger—having double the resolution of a 720p projector produces easily noticeable results. We decided to look only at cheap projectors with 1080p resolution. This eliminated all non-DLP models from consideration. All of the LCD models in this price range were 720p, or maxed out at a 16×10 resolution such as 1280×800.

Every projector for this test group had to have at least one HDMI input. We also needed a brightness of at least 1,000 lumens to clearly differentiate this category from pico projectors in the same price range. In addition, we looked for integrated speakers, wider zoom range, and standard USB ports to easily connect a streaming device (such as our favorite media streamer, the Roku Streaming Stick) and power it directly from the projector.

Comparing two projectors side by side in a darkened room. Photo: Chris Heinonen

After reading all the reviews we could find for models that fit those criteria, we called in the ones that looked promising: the BenQ TH670, the InFocus ScreenPlay SP1080, the Optoma GT760, and the ViewSonic LightStream PJD7828HDL. We tested all the contenders on a 100-inch Silver Ticket white screen, our current pick for the best projector screen, and measured the results using CalMAN software with i1Pro2 and C6 meters. We also compared each projector side by side on the screen using an HDMI repeater. For most of the testing, we focused on the best image we could get from the projector when calibrating using only a Blu-ray disc; we took this step because we assume most inexpensive projectors won’t get a professional calibration costing hundreds of dollars. We watched a variety of TV, streaming, and Blu-ray content on all the projectors.

Our pick

The BenQ TH670 is our top pick. Photo: Chris Heinonen

The BenQ TH670 is the best cheap projector for most people because it offers the best combination of contrast ratios and color accuracy in this price range, and lets you choose which is more important to you. It has a very bright image, lots of flexibility in the controls, a decent zoom range, integrated speakers, a backlit remote control, and 3D support.

Zoom and focus controls on the BenQ TH670. Photo: Chris Heinonen

The BenQ TH670 offered better contrast ratios than all the other inexpensive 1080p projectors we tested. Contrast ratio refers to the difference between the black and white levels a projector can create; it’s by far the most important aspect of a display’s picture quality. A projector with more contrast offers an image that is more lifelike and dynamic than one with a lower contrast ratio. All the DLP projectors we tested achieve their contrast ratios by using a feature called BrilliantColor. What sets the BenQ TH670 apart is that it gives you the ability to disable this feature completely, so you can choose between better contrast or more accurate color. You can read more about color management in our full guide.

Among the remote controls for the projectors we tested, the BenQ’s stood out. Photos: Chris Heinonen

The BenQ’s integrated speakers do the job but aren’t anything special. For impromptu movie nights or video game sessions, they’ll suffice. If you’re having everyone over to watch football on your big screen, however, the yells of everyone watching will easily overwhelm the sound. Having the integrated speakers is better than not, but they won’t replace a true pair of speakers.

In the most accurate picture mode, the BenQ TH670 produces 970 lumens with BrilliantColor off and 1,939 lumens with it on. On the 100-inch Silver Ticket screen, 970 lumens creates an image that’s 32 foot-lamberts bright. For comparison, the SMPTE-recommended brightness for a projector screen in a dark room is only 14 to 16 foot-lamberts, so the BenQ TH670 is plenty bright. Even when the lamp hits half brightness in a few thousand hours, it will still be bright enough. And if you want to go even bigger, the TH670 creates an image of 23 foot-lamberts on a 120-inch screen.

Runner-up

Our runner-up, the InFocus ScreenPlay SP1080. Photo: Chris Heinonen

If the TH670 isn’t available and you don’t want to spend the extra money on BenQ’s HT2050 or HT1075, the InFocus ScreenPlay SP1080 is your next best option. In our tests, this model came in second to the BenQ TH670 in color accuracy and contrast ratio. Unlike the TH670, it offers no way to disable BrilliantColor. It also provides only a single HDMI input, and it lacks a standard USB Type-A port to power a streaming stick.

As for picture quality, the whites on the InFocus SP1080 are slightly bluish next to those of the TH670, though this difference is hard to notice without making a direct comparison. Overall, looking for one of the BenQ models is worthwhile—the TH670 is a nicer projector and worth the small premium over the InFocus SP1080.

Upgrade pick

If you want a better image, look at our picks in our guide to the best $1,000 projector. Our current pick in that category, the BenQ HT2050, is only slightly more expensive than the BenQ TH670. For the additional money, you get much better contrast ratio and more accurate color. This model is easier to install thanks to lens shift and a wider zoom range, and it offers much quieter operation and better performance overall. And dual HDMI ports make hooking multiple devices to it easier.

Care and maintenance

All of these projectors use UHP lamps that need replacing over time. The lamp in the BenQ TH670 is rated for 4,000 to 10,000 hours depending on which mode (Eco or Normal) you run the projector in. Even at four hours of use a day, you should get three-plus years out of the bulb before it requires replacing. When that time rolls around, we recommend buying directly from the manufacturer, as counterfeit lamps are very common elsewhere. Counterfeits can explode, damaging the projector’s internals, and we’ve seen cases where replacement bulbs are dimmer than the half-dead ones they replaced.

We recommend using a Blu-ray disc (you can also use the THX app for iOS or Android if you don’t have a Blu-ray player) to set up your projector correctly. We advise against copying picture settings from what other people post on the Internet, even for the same exact model, because we’ve found that these usually lead to a worse image.

This guide may have been updated by The Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

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The best cheap projector

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