Artificial Intelligence: Human-Like Behavior For Theatrics Or Solving Real Business Problems?

Quick quiz: what do you visualize when you hear the word robot? Some machine in human form, behaving like a human? Or perhaps one of the massive, spiderlike machines that assemble complex products ranging from automobiles to computers?

In reality, modern robotics follows both paths. However, in spite of the progress with humanlike robots, most business applications of the technology focus on machine forms that are specific to the task at hand, whether it be a Mars Rover or a medical robot assisting a surgeon.

There are exceptions to this rule, however: companies who focus on making robots as humanlike as possible, with the eventual goal of behavior so realistic it can actually fool people into thinking the machine is fully human.

To achieve such levels of verisimilitude, such robots must have sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) built in. For example, take Sophia, the creation of Hanson Robotics that Saudi Arabia recently granted citizenship to, in a lavish publicity stunt.

Sophia has the ability to carry on limited conversations, requiring AI-driven natural language processing. ‘She’ can also recognize faces and respond to interactions emotionally, both via tone of voice as well as through a complex set of facial expressions – all technologies that depend upon AI.

In many ways, however, Sophia is less about AI and more about theatrics. ‘Her’ creators have combined AI, robotics, and elements of show business to prove that a fake person can be sufficiently realistic to be appealing rather than repulsive.
Not In Our Digital House

What they have not accomplished – and in fact, aren’t attempting to accomplish – is to create AI that can simulate human behavior in a way that solves true business problems.





Sophia the Robot at Web Summit 2017STEPHEN MCCARTHY/WEB SUMMIT.

What Do We Really Want from Human-Like AI?

In spite of decades of Hollywood influence, the real money in robotics today is in the massive armlike devices from industry. No witty banter, no subtle smiles here – instead, these machines focus on the tasks at hand.

When we talk about AI, however, we’re on shakier ground, as most of today’s applications of AI in business are not particularly humanlike. True, we have voice interactions like Siri, image recognition, and machine learning-driven predictions based upon crunching massive quantities of data – but if you think about it, these capabilities are only vaguely humanlike at best.

On the other hand, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – that is, true humanlike reasoning ability – is still well out of reach today. In the absence of AGI, then, what are the most advanced AI capabilities we can currently bring to bear to solve real business problems?

I recently spoke with Donald Thompson, Founder and CTO of AI-driven knowledge platform vendor Maana, to get his take on this question. “Maana supports decision making, reasoning, and answering questions,” Thompson explained. “We construct models that represent human expertise and combine them with data models in the context of optimizing a decision flow or equipment like an oil well.”

Where Sophia is able to mimic human expressions and conversations, Maana’s ability to mimic – or perhaps duplicate – human expertise provides the business value context that Sophia’s theatrics cannot.

The essence of Maana’s technology is what Thompson calls ‘digital knowledge.’ “Digital knowledge consists of models of the domain of business artifacts with the business goal in mind. These models digitize decision flows, and provide recommendations that help experts in the organization make better and faster decisions,” he explained.

The business artifacts in question could represent a wide variety of different types of information, from PDF documents to spreadsheets to emails to sensor data to information bottled up in various applications. From these artifacts, Maana is able to create data models, as well as computational models that mathematically model the human knowledge of a specific business process.

Given the rather philosophical questions about the nature of human knowledge, Maana puts a fine point on this conundrum. “We phrase every knowledge model as an answer to a business question,” Thompson said. “These are higher order questions, for example, ‘given the pump failure in a particular oil well, what are other oil wells with similar pumps?’”

The choice of oil wells in this example is no accident: Maana has found traction in the petroleum industry, listing companies such as Chevron CVX +0.66% Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell , and Saudi Aramco as customers as well as investors.

The reason that the oil business has taken to Maana’s AI-driven decision-making capability is due to the combination of the industry’s massive big data sets with its ability to distil its business goals into easily digested statements.

Thompson clarified the types of goals Maana’s technology targets. “The goals include minimization (for example, risks or costs) or maximization (for example, profits),” he said. “For example, given this list of constraints, what risks should we mitigate?”

In fact, Maana’s ability to interpret constraints gives the technology a leg up on modeling human expertise, as such expertise often boils down to dealing with constraints on a day-to-day basis.

For example, a person may know how to accomplish a goal, but also must know about all the various exceptions that might occur and how to deal with them. Such exceptions are a type of constraint.

Knowledge modeling in order to achieve certain goals can be thought of as decision support. “By decision support we mean that the technology can observe a particular domain, reason about the domain, justify and explain its reasoning, and then allow the user to hypothesize about different courses of action.”

The latter point is especially important: the technology does not generally make business decisions itself, but rather supports human decision making – in part by empowering people to simulate the results of different actions they may take.

Such decision support requires a mix of technical capabilities. “It’s a combination of natural language processing, constraint satisfaction, and simulation,” Thompson explained. “Maana adds constraint satisfaction and Bayesian probabilistic inference.”

The result is human-like reasoning, as different from simpler forms of AI like machine learning as the auto assembly robot is from Sophia. “Contrast Maana’s approach with machine learning, which is how to train machines to learn from data,” Thompson said. “Reasoning is the ability to answer a question.”

As with every vendor in the emerging AI marketplace, Maana’s technology will continue to improve over time. However, its ability to model human expertise to answer business questions in order to support mission-critical decisions gives the technology human-like characteristics that provide business value that other technologies cannot, the gimmicks and other theatrics of Sophia notwithstanding.

Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, Maana is an Intellyx customer. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit.

Jason Bloomberg is president of industry analyst firm Intellyx.

Jason Bloomberg is a leading IT industry analyst, Forbes contributor, keynote speaker, and globally recognized expert on multiple disruptive trends in enterprise technology and digital transformation. He is founder and president of Agile Digital Transformation analy...

Several Ways Big Data can Save or Destroy your Business

Nothing about Big Data is Small at all.

The internet pundits some 2 decades ago claimed the world to be becoming paperless and for all data present in the world going digital. With information piling up and computational capacities becoming increasingly heavy, the flow of data has significantly multiplied. As an outcome, for the management of this data, emerged a term called “Big data”. Big data is triggering an enormous change in the way businesses used to work. Companies are becoming heavily dependent on different tools for the management of big data.

Big data is the arrangement and organization of large volume of data. This data can be found in either structured or unstructured format. With massive information present in the market, the analysis and regulation of data get out of hands for many companies. However, big data management serves as a savior for such corporations that tend to accumulate a lot of information from different sources, for the purpose of market intelligence during the course of business. This data can be found in terabytes or petabytes.

The management of big data is the real determiner of a business’ success or failure. Proper gathering and management of information has a make or break effect on a company’s business model. It enables enterprises to search and analyze the data to find solutions to user-centric issues.

There are huge chunks of data and streams available in the market, therefore, the chances of missing on a great amount of important and critical information become high. As the need of market intelligence is increasing, the need for applications that focus on management of data services is gaining momentum too. There are many ventures taking the plunge, yet the question is if a company is actually willing to try luck in making its game better. Working with data analytics can be challenging for many companies as they require immense resources. The risks of loss are as high as the chances of gains.

Any entrepreneur can easily consider it a sign of intelligent business startup that it looks at the consistent players in the arena for muse. It is very vital for any business to look around and observe what trends the other actors in the market are following. This gives businessmen ideas to run the venture successfully and generate profit. It is extremely important that businessmen keep eyes fixed on the activity of the market and see how other fellows are making positive use of the data.

Study and analyze the ins and outs of venture area.

The major reason behind companies failing because of big data is their inability to remain focused on the correct data. Too much data and on top of that, irrelevant data is the recipe to fail a venture you are trying your luck at. In order to succeed, a company is required to properly investigate and study the patterns contemporary market actors are making use of their data through. A company should not just study the models of successful businesses but also those that failed miserably. This is the way they can get proper insight and understand the pitfalls they need to avoid in their endeavors.

It has been observed that marketers mistake in managing and identifying the right kind of data and use irrelevant heavy data in the business. This exhausts the customer when trying to find the required information from the pool of random unnecessary data consuming space. Corporations need to educate employees regarding the management of data to avoid any failure.

Migration.

Heads of different corporations collectively called migration the reason for their usage of low quality data in business. It was also found that more than most of the data migration costs above the estimated amount and take longer time. So, it should not be believed that migration is an easy process, it requires only the technically skilled to complete the task.

Companies should take help of specialists from all departments inclusive of the real data users. It should be made sure that they are familiar with the processes of migration and data management. They know about people with access to the data and how those people are making use of it. The specialists should ensure that data migration takes place step by step, which means that all requirements for the migration are met during and after the process. It has been observed that companies that try to migrate in haste usually cause themselves bigger troubles and financial losses. It takes them more time fixing these issues than allocating proper attention to the step by step process of migration.

A company before migrating data should consider some elements like redefining data and checking the quality of it. It should make a map of all strategies and techniques, also take into account the scope and budget of the data movement.

How to Avoid Internal Collision.

Giant corporations have large data distributed in different places of the organization. Each form of data serves a unique purpose and is regulated by different sets of people. There is hardly any communication among the users of that data as each form of data is relevant to its concerned department.

This can be extremely helpful for many companies as there is no internal collision of data used by different departments. Devolution data is a great step in the management of big data. This step minimizes the chances of a bottleneck situation within the company’s various departments. Segregating big data into sections is the most important function of the management of data. It is a delicate business and requires extremely balanced approach to separate data into right categories.

If data is not stored in the right way, it can affect the decision making of a company, therefore, its considered an important move in the data management and eventually for company’s business results. It is recommended that data is stored in the form of dashboard, reports, services etc. it should be filtered as per the data roles into categories varying from least to most important or however the organization deems fit. However, the main idea behind this division is splitting big data into exclusive smaller sections so, the data consumers can make best use of the available data.

Incorrect Data.

Employees that work with data know that mismanagement of data can leave irreparable effects on the decision making of a company. This can also shake customers’ trust in the company.

Invasive Data Mining

Invasive data use against a customer can infuriate him. A company should follow these ethical rules as principle policies to not use any customer’s information or make predictions regarding their situations based on their purchases. The basic information of a customer’s purchase should be kept secret from people, as violating this ethical code is tantamount to invasion of your customer’s privacy.

Some great online startup business ventures that transformed the way data was perceived.

Data analytics is a big growing industry with many potential investors and companies aiming at developing their business through it. There are many new but already renowned businesses that are leading the way for instance Uber, Foursquare, Spotify and Feedzai.

These companies have been using big data to their advantage and making best use of it.

Final Word :

Big data, market intelligence is one of the fastest growing techniques in the world. This helps the trader assess the market and understand the needs of customers.

Quick Bootstrapping Tips for Entrepreneurs

Bootstrapping your business can be a smart and effective way to go. It gives you an added level of control and independence, as you can follow your own vision (within your financial limits) and not be bound to the opinions of investors.

It will likely require a great deal of patience. Here are a few tips to get the ball rolling.

1. Get acquainted with the term "burn rate."

Know your budget better than the back of your hand. Many burgeoning entrepreneurs are too optimistic about expenses, often underestimating how much they’re actually spending and finding themselves dealing with severe budget issues.

As you engage in the budget-building process, err on the side of caution, increasing your burn rate estimate by 15 to 20 percent of your initial number. From this point forward, you can monitor your monthly spending until you can gain a clearer picture of your actual burn rate.

Additionally, you can look to cut expenses to line up with your projections. Do this in all aspects of your life, not just in business -- as a business owner, your outside financial decisions still impact your overall success.

For example, if you’re paying off a car, look into refinancing your car loan. According to Auto. Loan, there’s a good chance you can lower your monthly payments and interest rates as long as you’ve been on time with previous payments.

2. Become a C corporation.

While becoming a C corporation won’t give you the sexy LLC label, it minimizes the personal risk involved in bootstrapping a startup. As a C corp, you won’t be taxed in conjunction with your business, or rather, you and your business are separate entities.

This way, you aren’t held responsible to pay taxes on everything your startup makes, which, if business is good, can end up being quite a bit. Operating as a C corp gives you a bit more safety and motivates you to keep good track of both individual and business finances.

3. Stay away from credit card debt.

This is where patience really becomes a virtue. Many business owners form an unhealthy reliance on credit card debt as they try to grow. Do whatever you can to avoid this. This debt will stack up, and eventually you’ll have to reckon with it.

As difficult as it can be, you’ll have to learn to operate within the bounds of the money you actually have. This is what makes bootstrapped startups rare, but it is also what makes them special.

4. Focus on becoming well-rounded.

Bootstrapping a business is not for the faint of heart nor is it for the one-dimensional businessperson. In order to successfully bootstrap your startup, you’ll have to wear many hats.

Get ready to become a financial wiz. Be prepared to earn your keep by coming up with a marketing strategy for your product. At least for the first while, it’s going to be your responsibility to fill in wherever there’s a gap.

5. Make connections.

Making a connection doesn’t necessarily mean financially getting involved with an outside party. In this case, making connections can help you find new customers and, more importantly, facilitate the learning process as you associate with established successes.

Remember: Just because you’re funding yourself doesn’t mean you can’t look for help. As you connect with experienced entrepreneurs, pick up as much knowledge from them as possible. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Take their advice on how to apply these lessons to your business. These connections will often prove just as valuable as a financial investment.

Ultimately, you’re responsible for your own success. Bootstrapping your business makes this doubly true. But, if you can patiently navigate the waters of building a startup, it will be worth all the time and effort you put into it.

Written by Nathan Resnick, Guest Writer / CEO of Sourcify

Find "The Right Money" for Your Business"

The Importance of the Internet of Things : Live Business

The Internet of Things (IoT) is not merely a step along the path to digital transformation; it is the driving force.

The real value of the IoT doesn’t come from all the connections it creates but from the data it generates. With real-time data analytics, the IoT becomes a live communications network for fostering insights and improvements. It will also become the foundation of Live Business, in which companies will be able to sense and respond to customers in the moment.

Sensors are the messengers of the IoT, and by 2030 there will 1 trillion of them.³ By putting sensors on everything around us – even inside of us – we will be able to exchange information and participate in a global data network. The IoT will become ubiquitous.

New Interactions Between People, Things, and Machines

We will see many new interactions between people, things, and machines that today seem like science fiction (see Figure 1). Many of the things in our daily lives at home and work will interact with each other, enabling us to use them in new ways. In this connected world, having access to things like cars will become more important than owning them.

At the human-to-machine level, we will be able to gauge the status of machines, receive warnings when they need maintenance, and control their roles in production at any given moment. The IoT will also enable us to control robotic extensions of our bodies, such as replacements for lost or disabled limbs or suits to improve our strength and other capabilities. And humans and machines will work together as teams, communicating through the IoT.

Using the IoT, machines will coordinate and communicate with other machines to create large armies of automated bots capable of acting together in swarms, as ants do in nature. Machines will also be able to monitor one another for potential problems and perform repairs without human intervention.

While mobile made people a part of the digital revolution, the IoT enables everything else to be part of that transformation. Because the IoT will affect so many different aspects of the economy, its generated value will exceed that of mobile.

Mobile started in 1990 with 2G, got more serious in 2000 with 3G, and finally kick-started the smartphone with 4G in 2010. With each technical leap, mobile’s social and economic impact increased in areas such as healthcare, finance, and education.⁴ The Internet may have connected many people in the world, but mobile gave them true global access. Mobile also allowed individuals and small and midsize enterprises to join a global economy that had long been dominated by big companies.

Mobile had a direct economic impact of $3 trillion on a global value chain in 2014, created 11 million jobs in the global value chain, and resulted in billions of R&D investments and startups.⁵ This transformation was the result of a huge investment from many players within IT and telecommunications that developed the core technologies, infrastructures, mobile networks, apps, and devices.

While behind mobile, the IoT is following a similar path. It started as a concept around 2000, is now in its second wave of development, and is experiencing exponential growth. Not only are IT and telecommunications companies investing in the IoT; so are players from outside the classical digital markets.

The IoT won’t remain behind mobile, however. It will spark a transformation that will exceed mobile’s by connecting everything together. We expect nothing less than a reinvention of interactions, communications, and services on a global scale, creating new jobs and opportunities.

As stated earlier, the IoT’s real value isn’t in the connections but in the data it creates. This massive digitization allows us to gather data and information and come up with decisions in the moment. When the IoT is integrated into the overall business strategy, a company has the opportunity to become a Live Business – when the entire business focuses on sensing and responding to customers in all the moments that matter most to them. Only companies that embrace the culture of a Live Business will take full advantage of the IoT.

How do you embrace that culture and create a live IoT strategy? Here are five steps to building that strategy.

Strategic Asset Management

Most companies today don’t have a real-time information repository of their assets, yet fixed assets can account for as much as one-third of all operating costs. Even in a highly automated manufacturing process, then, strategic IoT-based asset management can help save costs and resources and define a new path for innovation. With the IoT, businesses can monitor and evaluate asset usage patterns and maintenance routines, estimate current asset values, and find new ways to optimize asset use. Moreover, companies can share their assets with business partners, which will drive down costs and potentially uncover new business models. Companies can manage their assets with the IoT by optimizing routing for cars and trucks involved in logistics services, reducing machine downtime through remote maintenance and predictive analytics, and improving logistics and production planning by combining data from the IoT with demand and logistics.

Customer Experience

Digitization is radically changing the customer experience. By using the IoT as a direct feedback loop throughout the customer journey, businesses can enhance every purchase and interaction experience to transform passive consumers into live interactive partners and co-innovators. The true benefit of the IoT in this case is to offer a personalized and contextualized experience for customers in the moment.

Product and Service Experience

The IoT is enabling businesses to deliver more proactive and interactive products and services, which improves the brand experience and customer loyalty. Moreover, businesses can use the IoT to improve their products and services and co-innovate with customers, while remaining constantly in touch with them to understand their changing needs and wants.

Environmental Scanning

Sensor technology is constantly improving, which will allow more devices and machines to proactively monitor their environments and deliver a live view of the world around us at a much higher resolution. Companies will be able to use sensors to scan the environment to improve navigation, logistics, city planning, weather prediction, agricultural planning, and pollution management, for example. By combining real-time IoT information with existing data, organizations can react faster to change, create new insights, and develop new products and services.

Advanced Cooperation

Many devices and daily things around us will be enabled to interact with humans and with each other, creating a totally new experience in the physical world. We are already exploring connected and interactive cars and various forms of wearables.

As a Service

The move from products to services has been under way for some time, but digitization will speed up the transition, as the IoT allows companies to more directly serve their customers. The IoT will also help companies meet increasing customer demand for live service. Companies should use the potential offered by the IoT to develop new services along the product lifecycle and look for ways to create services using existing capabilities within the organization.

Resource-Optimized Innovation

Using the IoT, companies can make their products more interactive. They can monitor the actual use of their products, getting live feedback from customers and gathering data about longevity and performance. Products will no longer be designed once but will go through multiple iterations as part of a continuous, real-time innovation process. Not only will products become better over time, but customer loyalty will also be improved.

Omnichannel Customer Experience

Today’s digital customers demand a seamless shopping experience in all channels. Retailers and consumer-product companies must close any gaps between offline and online experiences. The digital IoT-driven channel will improve the brand experience and create opportunities for co-innovation.

Business Awareness

Today’s businesses are operating in a 24-hour real-time environment. Combined with a live-data analytics strategy, the IoT can be used as an antenna to reveal business changes. By getting faster and better information about demand changes and altered buying behavior, by predicting potential disruptions, and by identifying opportunities, companies will significantly increase their resilience in the marketplace.

Steps to Starting a Successful Business

1. Start a side hustle.

Most people underestimate how much time there is outside of work if you have a standard 9-5 job. If you are working at a job you dislike and want to be your own boss, stop complaining about your current terrible job and take action. Grab a cup of coffee after work and start hustling from 6 p.m to 2 a.m. on your new business venture.

If you are an artist, start posting YouTube videos about the details behind your painting process. Open up an ecommerce store on Shopify. Promote your products on Instagram. All of this can be done as a side hustle while you grow your business. Best of all, you are still collecting a paycheck from someone else.

2. Stop boozing.

If you are truly passionate about entrepreneurship, you will quickly understand that the weekends are the most productive time to get work done. You literally can put in 20 hours of work on the weekend to grow your brand. 

This isn't going to happen if you are going to the bars on Friday and Saturday night. First off, you are going to drain your bank account from buying shots for all of your buddies. Secondly, you are not going to be productive when you're hung over.

Start setting your alarm clock and for 6:30 a.m. on the weekends. Put in a full day of work. You won't have any regrets about missing a night or two out when you're in your 30s and have a million-dollar business.

3. Wake up early.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "The sun has not caught me in bed in 50 years." Apple CEO Tim Cook is known for getting up early and sending out company emails at 4:30 in the morning. The youngest CEO in the NBA, Brett Yormark, gets up at 3:30 in the morning in order to get to the office by 4:30.

When it comes to business, the early bird catches the worm. You can actually be playing offense rather than defense, which will allow you to work on growing your business.

Make sure to put your alarm clock on the opposite side of the room, which will force you to get out of bed and not hit the snooze button. Do 50 pushups within 5 minutes of turning of your alarm clock to truly wake yourself up. If you need extra motivation for waking up early, follow Before 5 AM on Instagram.

4. Build your personal brand. 

It blows my mind how much time people spend on social media promoting themselves yet they don't have a website that gives people more information or a place where people can get in contact with them. 

Everyone should see if their first and last name is available for purchase on GoDaddy. If you have a common name, insert your middle name and your craft as part of the URL (example: SarahSmithNYCArtist.com). The next time you go into a business meeting, you'll be amazed how much more impressed people will be by your professional website.

5. Become an expert by contributing content.

In addition to owning a marketing and app development agency, I am also the partner of an ecommerce skincare website that sells dermatology strength products. We are constantly trying to get media mentions from Glamour, Bustle and Teen Vogue. Do you know what I discovered? A ton of the writers on these nationally recognized sites are college students!

If you love sports, start reaching out to sites like YardBarker to become a contributor. If you love fashion, what's holding you back for writing for Teen Vogue? This will boost your personal brand, establish credibility and present new opportunities you never imagined. 

6. Talk it out. 

When you are an entrepreneur, you live on a lonely island. Nobody will ever realize just how much hustle you put in on a daily basis. Your friends who work a 9-5 job won't understand how your business means the world to you. 

Since entrepreneurship can be lonely, make sure you have someone you can air it out with. Whether it is your girlfriend or boyfriend, mom or dad, or just a mentor you can trust, in order to grow, you need to be able to have a sounding board along the journey.

7. Have patience.

The issue with the digital age that we live in is that people are impatient. They expect results yesterday.

Bill Gates was famously quoted saying, "Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years." 

In order to build a business, you need to be patient for the long run. Don't think about where you want your business to be in a year; think about your goals for 10 years down the road and how you are going to execute to make all of your ambitions come to fruition. If you are in your 20s, what will differentiate you as an entrepreneur is patience. Make sure to move fast on getting stuff done but be patient for the long-term gains.

I've owned my company for seven years now. I know that 96 percent of businesses fail before turning 10. I keep that statistic in my mind each and every day because I want to be part of the 4 percent that succeed past 10.

Each year you celebrate your business anniversary, your muscles will continue to grow.

8. Make money. 

I can't stand all of the people who claim they are entrepreneurs. One simple question separates the contenders from the pretenders: "Are you generating revenue?" There are so many people out there who claim to be crushing it with their "entrepreneurial journey" but when you dig into it, they aren't generating a penny in revenue. I'm not even getting into the details of generating a profit, which is what every business must do to survive. 

If you aren't making money with your business, you need to start and you need to start soon. Just like a hockey team needs to score goals in order to win a game, your business needs to make money to actually be considered a business. Stop with the pretend stuff and start selling your product or service. 

9. Start meeting with millionaires.

On a monthly basis, start meeting with a millionaire for coffee. You'll be amazed that there is no secret sauce to succeed in business. You'll learn that hard work leads to better luck and success. You'll also become inspired and motivated while listening to someone who has succeeded in the business world.

If you try and meet with Evan Spiegal from Snapchat, you aren't going to have much luck. You'd be amazed, though, how many CEOs of billion- and multi-million-dollar companies would be willing to meet with you if you are persistent. 

Don't think for a second that you are the only one gaining value from the meeting. The CEOs and founders that you meet with -- who will likely be in their 40s, 50s and 60s -- will be asking you a lot of questions. The reason? Their customers are most likely your age, and they understand the spending power of millennials and Gen Zers.

10. Become an SEO and paid advertising expert. 

Do you want to know a more efficient way to grow your business than attending outdated networking events? Rank towards the top of Google so people will contact you directly for business inquires. Whether you just graduated from law school and plan on opening up your own practice or you are selling customized dog collars, SEO and paid ads can literally help any business.

This is one of the main reasons I've been able to grow my marketing agency quickly and efficiently. In the Columbus, Ohio markets, we crush it for terms like "social media company" and "SEO Company."

There is no college degree or class you have to take to become an SEO or PPC expert. You just have to get your hands dirty, read articles and watch videos. If you are starting a business, you need to be well versed in this area so you can generate leads and sales online each and every day.

11. Be cheap.

Earlier in the article, I talked about how you can save money by not going to the bars every weekend. Do everything you can to be frugal with your money. You never know when the economy will turn south or when your biggest client or customer will drop off. If you are spending lavishly, you won't be well prepared for tough times. 

Start eating more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eat out less. Stop buying clothes at Nordstrom and start shopping at TJ Maxx.

Every dollar is so important when you are starting a business. There's a reason Warren Buffett has lived in the same house in Omaha, Neb., that he bought for $58,000 in 1958. The real winners in business are smart with their money.