If your meetings are running too long, there is a simple change you can make that will encourage people to keep things brief.

Try Holding Stand-up Meetings

By making standing mandatory, it becomes clear to everyone that the meeting is meant to be short. When someone does get long-winded, the restlessness in the group’s body language is more apparent, which encourages people to speak their mind and then yield to the next person.
– The Startup Daily

It’s the customer, not your best product, that is the center of your brand’s story. Every aspect of your business that touches your customer impacts your brand’s image.

Your Brand Is the Sum of Your Best and Your Worst

Your finest product affects the perception of your brand, but so does your most embarrassing flop. Your star employees on their best days contribute, and so do the biggest mistakes of your worst hire. If you have one available, even the state of your restroom at its best and worst will contribute.

The more goodwill you can build for your brand through a pattern of positive impressions, the more forgiving your customers will be of your missteps.
– The Startup Daily

Experts in a given field can develop a strong intuitive sense that allows them to quickly make the right decisions, often without knowing why they made them. But the success of these instinctive decisions makes these experts susceptible to overconfidently trusting their intuition in situations where a careful analysis would be more appropriate.

An Expert’s Level of Confidence is a Poor Indicator of Accuracy

If the environment is not sufficiently stable, such as when predicting financial markets or the success of startups, or if the expert has not had sufficient time to train their intuition in that type of situation, then a logical analysis will give a better decision than trusting an expert’s gut instincts.
– The Startup Daily

Reading a prepared speech or presentation is guaranteed to bore your audience to tears. Unless you’re able to spend days practicing your delivery and you have access to a teleprompter, leave the reading to the politicians. Accurately memorizing your entire talk is also unlikely to be a realistic option.

Use a Single Page Outline as Your Cheat Sheet

Create a simplified outline of your talk using a large font, with no more than three or four words per bullet point. Use just enough text to remind yourself of each key point that you want to make.

As you deliver your presentation, pause after each key point and read the next item to yourself. Then shift your attention back to the group and discuss that item in comfortable, conversational sentences. The large font and short bullet points ensure that your attention is never off of the group for more than a few seconds.
– The Startup Daily

Don’t discount tapping into your own customer’s creativity for finding new markets.

Pay Attention to Unintended Uses of Your Products, They May be Pointing at New Opportunities

Baking soda was originally sold for use in cooking. Arm & Hammer was smart enough to pay attention when people started using it for cleaning and odor control, and a new and much larger market opened up for them.

What are your fringe customers doing with your product?
– The Startup Daily

When teaching yourself a new topic or skill you may have a tendency to gloss over aspects that you don’t see an immediate use for.

The Best Way to Learn Something Is to Teach It

When learning to teach others you gain a deeper understanding all aspects of the topic. First during preparation, which will be more thorough. Then again, when your understanding of the topic is challenged by your student’s questions.
– The Startup Daily

When teaching yourself a new topic or skill you may have a tendency to gloss over aspects that you don’t see an immediate use for.

The Best Way to Learn Something Is to Teach It

When learning to teach others you gain a deeper understanding all aspects of the topic. First during preparation, which will be more thorough. Then again, when your understanding of the topic is challenged by your student’s questions.
– The Startup Daily

Deciding on specific tactics you will take before deciding on your strategy will lead to chaos.

Strategy Is Where You Want to Go, Tactics Are the Specific Steps to Get There

Defining your strategy should be the first step after clarifying your vision.

Tactics are specific, measurable steps that arise from the strategy. A tactic should always have a clearly defined deadline and a point person who is responsible to make sure it gets done.
– The Startup Daily

Designing for efficiency makes sense when you know exactly where you are going, what you are doing, and you don’t expect that to change. But efficiency means avoiding the unpredictable and the friction it creates.

Entrepreneurs Choose Serendipity Over Efficiency

By sacrificing efficiency and embracing serendipity you will have more opportunities to improvise, experiment, and innovate.
– The Startup Daily

Remember that the bottom line for a business—especially a startup—is getting the work accomplished. When faced with a process or procedure that isn’t working, don’t accept that you are helpless to change things. Ignore the rules and come up with a better solution.

It’s Better to Ask for Forgiveness Than Permission

Smart leaders are always looking for others with leadership potential, and taking the initiative to fix what’s broken is what a leader does.
– The Startup Daily