Funding and Building your Business

"Hire ‘nice’ ’cause you can’t train ‘nice.’"

Though a plurality of American workers still believes staying at their current company offers the best opportunity for career advancement, fewer plan on staying at that company for the long term.

"It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

The fund will be spread out over multiple years and will focus on early-stage startups that can create innovative ideas that will ultimately benefit AmEx and aid in its digital transformation.

In a blog post, Vic Gundotra, Google senior vice president of engineering, said the company wants "to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about — from local businesses to global brands."

Customer centricity is a strategy to fundamentally align a company’s products and services with the wants and needs of its most valuable customers, with the aim of more profits for the long term.

Learn the in’s and out’s of term sheets to negotiate the best terms for your startup

What is this daunting process, and what can you do to optimize your chances of surviving it?

"If you’re constructing a way to present your story, you should be aware that most investors have small attention spans", says McClure. "They may be late to the meeting, they may be reading other stuff on their iPhone. So you want to organize your information in a way that allows them to process it more efficiently".

It’s been a long, hard voyage for each of the companies, starting with a vigorous application process in which just two percent of applicants were accepted.