Connect with us

How To

How To Work A Room

Published

on

How To Work A Room,Tips To Work A Room,5 Ways To Work A Room,Top Tips to Work at Room,Work from Room,Awesome Business Tips and Tactics,Startup Stories,Startup Stories,2017 Most Read Startup Stories

Networking is a key aspect of an entrepreneurs life. Even with the advent of networking websites, meeting people and attending conferences takes up a big chunk of an entrepreneurs time. At such meetings, it is important to not just meet the most number of people but to make the right contacts. Knowing how to work a room just right can make the difference between it being a boring waste of time and an exhilarating event that expands your circle.

Here are some pointers on how you can work a room, filled with important people, to your advantage.

1. Plan Ahead
Before walking into a room filled with strangers make a master plan about all you want to accomplish from this conference. Set up a couple of targets and try to accomplish all of them. Goals will help you avoid wandering around aimlessly or trying to strike up forced conversations with people who don’t interest you or won’t be able to help you out. Keep an updated list of the different people attending the meet and the list of people you would like to meet. 

2. Maintain confidence
It’s not enough to just feel confident, you also need to show that you are composed and self assured. Right from the moment you enter the room till you are ready to walk out. Wear your best clothes, strike that power pose and sometimes fake it, till you make it. Travel light with just the essentials like important documents, business cards, a pen and a note pad. Don’t fumble with too many things in your hand while making new contacts.

3. Do your homework
Read the poster for the event, learn who all will be attending the gala, make a list of people you would like to meet and study a little about their interest to break the ice. Catch up with the latest news and current trends to engage in small talk before getting to the main point. Express an interest in topics beyond work, comment on the food, the venue or even the host of the event. It’s easier to segue into conversations regarding work rather than starting conversations with work related topics.

4. Learn the local culture
Different cultures have different meanings for simple gestures and words. Some phrases may have different meanings in different cultures and may also be considered rude. For example, ‘getting pissed’ in America refers to getting angry, where as the same phrase in Britain means getting drunk. Never make the mistake of assuming everyone is on the same page as you are. It is always better to be informed and aware of where the other person comes from before making small talk.

5. Body Language
While trying to connect with people it is important to not seem closed off to any conversation. Crossed arms generally give off a feeling of someone who is not interested in the conversation while yawning means you’re bored of the person. Be conscious of how you present yourself. A smile will make you seem approachable while a frown will push people away. Additionally, it is important to have a firm handshake to show you are friendly, interested, responsible and dependable. But overly powerful and dominant handshakes will only make you seem bossy and compensatory. A handshake is meant to signal cooperation and not aggressive competition.
Along with these pointers also remember to transverse the entire room instead of waiting for people to come to you. Once the event is over and you have successfully collected different important contacts, follow up with either a phone call or an email referencing the event. This way the others will not forget about you and touch base when ever required. Introducing them to other people you know will put you in their good books and most people generally appreciate a favor and want to reciprocate. 
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel StartupStories for the inspirational videos on successful entrepreneurs.  

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Artificial Intelligence

Reddit Soars After Strong Earnings and Upbeat Outlook

Published

on

By

Reddit, the social media platform known for its online communities and meme culture, saw its stock price jump significantly after releasing its first earnings report since going public in March. Investors were impressed by the company’s strong financial performance and optimistic forecasts for the future.

The report highlighted a surge in user engagement, with daily active users increasing by 37% to 82.7 million in the first quarter. This growth was accompanied by an 8% rise in average revenue per user, indicating Reddit’s success in monetizing its platform. 

Perhaps the most significant factor driving the stock price increase was Reddit’s forecast for the second quarter. The company projected revenue to fall between $240 million and $255 million, exceeding analyst expectations. Additionally, Reddit anticipates achieving break-even status or even generating a profit, surpassing predictions of a loss.

This positive outlook can be attributed in part to Reddit’s flourishing advertising business. The company is also capitalizing on a new revenue stream: content licensing deals with artificial intelligence (AI) firms. Reddit’s vast collection of user-generated content provides valuable data for training AI models, attracting companies like Google.

Analysts believe Reddit is still in its early stages of monetization and predict continued growth in the coming quarters, fueled by advancements in ad targeting and measurement tools. This optimism is reflected in the stock price surge, which has climbed roughly 70% since Reddit’s IPO.

Overall, Reddit’s first earnings report paints a bright picture for the company’s future. With a thriving user base, increasing revenue opportunities, and a promising outlook, Reddit appears well-positioned for continued success in the ever-evolving social media landscape.

Continue Reading

How To

How Does Investment Startup Robinhood Make Money?

Published

on

How Does Investment Startup Robinhood Make Money?,Startup Stories,How Robinhood Makes Money,How Does Robinhood Make Money?,How Robinhood Makes Money,How to Make Money Trading Stocks with the Robinhood App,Here's How To Make Money With Robinhood,My First Two Months Trading Stocks with Robinhood,How to Invest With Little Money: Our Beginner Guide,Robinhood,Robinhood Company

If you are an avid follower of news on the social media platform Twitter, chances are you might have read about GameStop and how a group of Redditors took on Wall Street hedge fund billionaires.  It all started when a Reddit user found Melvin Capital, a hedge fund company was shorting the GameStop stocks.  An analogy would be if a person x wants to buy 5 bananas which are being sold at INR 10 in the market,  and another person y already purchased 5 bananas.  X could borrow y’s bananas for a while and sell them with the hope the price will go down below INR 10.  Then x will purchase 5 bananas for a lesser price than INR 10 and give back the bananas to y thereby making a profit, in the difference of buying price.  A group of Redditers noticed what hedge funds were doing with GameStop stock and decided to buy all the available shares in the market which in turn led to stock value soaring through the roof.  Now imagine the bananas as GameStop stock and x is the hedge fund.  Now hedge funds have to return the borrowed shares but since they already sold, they had to buy it for a larger price than they hoped.  This in turn led to more than $ 5 billion in losses for hedge funds because they were shorting the GameStop stock.  

However, Robinhood, the zero commission investment and trading startup found itself in the midst of the storm.  This is because thousands of normal small investors wanted to purchase the GameStop stock and they did it via Robinhood.  Wall Street was not happy with the way a group of Redditors held hedge funds by their collars and lobbied to have the stocks delisted.

Mounting pressure from the Government and Wall Street forced Robinhood to delist GameStop, AMC and Nokia stocks from their trading roster which in turn led to huge customer backlash and lakhs of 1 star reviews on app stores of Apple and Android.  

Background

Robinhood was founded by Stanford University graduates Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev co-founded the company in 2013, with the aim of democratizing finance and making it more accessible to young and less affluent investors.  This was due to trading being carried on commission based platforms like ETrade and TD Ameritrade and by a very small set of people. What made the app so attractive to the normal public was the ease of using the platform and its zero commission slogan.   More importantly, Robinhood made the appeal of trading fun and interactive for the general public and the working class.  Investment applications normally charge a nominal fee or commission on the execution of any successful trade.

However, the app gained huge traction in 2019 just when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.  Stock markets crashed suddenly, wiping out billions of dollars in investor wealth.  However, this phase saw the rise of a new kind of investor.  Americans were given $ 1200 stimulus cheques to protect them from the economic fallout of COVID-19 pandemic.  Armed with these cheques, millions of trading novices began investing in the stock market via Robinhood.  

ALSO READ: How Does WhatsApp Generate Revenue

Revenue model

How does a startup which calls itself a zero commission brokerage earn revenue and manage to be profitable?  Robinhood was designed to make profits by selling the customer trading data to several investment firms on Wall Street.  This practice is known as high volume order flow.  In financial markets, payment for order flow refers to the compensation that a broker receives, not from its client, but from a third party that wants to influence how the broker routes client orders for fulfillment.  It is not illegal but it is often frowned upon, to use this strategy as it is also called a ‘kickback.’   This accounts for a lion’s share of revenue for Robinhood.

The second revenue generator is through interests.  Robinhood makes money from interest made by lending out investor’s idle cash.  Robinhood lends out uninvested cash sitting idle in customer accounts.

The third revenue generator is Robinhood Gold, the company’s premium account, allows investors up to $1000 of margin thereby allowing them to trade with more than they have in their cash balance on the app. 

While Robinhood has been caught in the middle of a nasty war between Wall Street and retail investors, there is no denying the fact that it changed the way people invest in the stock market.  

Continue Reading

Articles

How Do IPL Franchises Make Money

Published

on

How Do IPL Franchises Make Money

If there is one thing that every Indian and every cricket fan waits for all year, it is the Indian Premier League, which is the world’s biggest cricketing league.  Professional cricket players from all over the world vie to get selected by one of the eight franchises which compete in the league.  The entire league is a star studded affair and Indians manage to forget their differences and band together for all the time the league is aired.  Each franchise boasts of a loyal fan following who have supported their teams through thick and thin ever since IPL was inaugurated in 2008.  While the entire league is a melting pot of entertainment and competition, have you ever wondered how the franchises make money in IPL?  In this article we will decode the business models behind the IPL teams and how they earn money.

Franchises need to bid for players every year before the start of the IPL season in an auction.  Each franchise has a maximum spend limit of Rs. 80 crores to buy players in the auction.  Apart from buying players each franchise also needs to bear the cost of travel, support staff and logistics.  The following are the different avenues from which franchises earn money.

1) Sponsorships

Franchises earn a major chunk of their revenue from sponsorships, but they do not get the money from sponsorships directly.  The IPL governing council gets money from sponsors and in the case of this year it is from Dream 11, which is the title sponsor while VIVO was the title sponsor last year.  All the money which is earned from sponsorships is divided into a ratio of 60:40 with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) retaining 40% of the sponsorships.  The remaining 60% is distributed among the ten franchises.  BCCI owns and operates the IPL in India.  The ratio of distribution might change in the coming years depending on the decisions taken by the BCCI.

2)  Media rights

Broadcasting companies bid for the media rights and the winning bid will get to air the IPL on their channel.  Star India bagged the media rights for IPL with a bid of Rs. 16,345 crores for five years (2018-2022.)  The money from media rights are also distributed in the 60:40 ratio with BCCI keeping 40% and the franchises getting an equal distribution from the remaining 60%.

3) Franchise sponsors

Each franchise has its own dedicated sponsors which pay a huge amount of money to the franchise.  The logos and names of the companies which you can see on the sporting attire of every IPL team are actually the dedicated sponsors of their respective franchises.  The profit from dedicated sponsors depends on the deal the franchise has made with their sponsor. The income generated from dedicated sponsors might differ from team to team.

ALSO READ: 5 Cricketers Who Are Entrepreneurs

4) Sale of tickets

Each franchise can choose a home ground from the available venues in the BCCI roster like Sunrisers Hyderabad, choosing Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders choosing Kolkata.  Only the home franchise can fix the price of tickets for the matches happening in their home ground.  Bigger stadiums with large seating capacity earn the most from ticket sales.  Kolkata Knight Riders home ground Eden Gardens has the highest seating capacity in India and therefore KKR earns the most from ticket sales.  

5) Merchandising

Each franchise makes some money by selling official jerseys, caps, wrist watches, souvenirs etcetera.  The merchandise is sold through the official franchise websites.

6) Prize money

Franchises battle it out in a long season to become the winner of the IPL season.  The winning team also wins a hefty prize money which is an additional source of revenue.  In 2019, the winning franchise won Rs. 15 crores while the runner up won Rs. 10 crores.

IPL is a big stage for franchise owners to earn their revenues as well as the perfect opportunity for players to make their mark and win big auctions.  This is how franchises earn their revenues from the IPL.  As this year’s edition is off to a flying start, IPL has been a blessing in disguise for millions of Indians in the gloomy times we currently are experiencing.  

 

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Recent Posts

Advertisement