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Strategic Productivity: How to Maximize Your Throughput Without Feeling Drained

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Strategic Productivity: How to Maximize Your Throughput Without Feeling Drained

There is a distinction between the habit of being productive and being busy — being busy is activity-based execution with no direction, and being productive means executing the activities that bring you closer to the experience of personal and professional fulfillment. Busy-ness diminishes your well-being, while true productivity enriches you from the inside out.

At Valence Advisory, we've put together a simple 5-point productivity cycle that will help you:

  • Focus on the work you find rewarding and enjoyable.

  • Lead, manage, and foster reports, helping them develop a stronger immune response to ‘productivity theater.’

  • Feel clearer, more confident, and in control.

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Founder WellBeing: Our Top 9 Ways to Recharge in 'No Time'

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Founder WellBeing: Our Top 9 Ways to Recharge in 'No Time'

To think that work-life ‘balance’ exists for founders during the formative and growth stages of a company is an illusion— the operating contexts is demanding, and appropriately so. However, that does not mean:

  1. Growing your startup needs to be net-negative to your wellbeing. 

  2. Caring for your wellbeing has to be time-consuming.

In this post, we share 9 simple activities we use to optimize our wellbeing without having to sacrifice large amounts of time. We have shared them with our professional networks informally— clients, colleagues, and partners. In codifying it in a post, we hope it inspires you to create your own rituals around wellbeing and happiness. 

Our Story: Why We Started Valence Advisory

Our Story: Why We Started Valence Advisory

Valence was born over a series of lunch meetings— fries, soda, tea, and sandwiches. During those meetings, we discussed the themes we are about to share with you here. To start: 

Think of a product you love. 

Think of a product you’d hate to lose. 

Think of a product you can’t imagine living without. 

All those products started as ideas— electrons lighting up different neural networks in someone’s brain. 

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Values Fulfillment: A Simple Way to Determine Core Values, Grow Self-Awareness, and Connect with Others Effectively

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Values Fulfillment: A Simple Way to Determine Core Values, Grow Self-Awareness, and Connect with Others Effectively

One way to grow your self-awareness is to clarify and articulate your core values. Understanding your— and others'— core values can lead to several benefits:

  • Clearer and more confident decision-making. 

  • Inspired action-taking. 

  • Ease of identifying the right stakeholders you want to partner with— investors, employers, advisors.

  • Better trust and alignment with people in your life— colleagues, reports, partners, family, and friends.

  • Greater personal satisfaction and fulfillment. 

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How to Write a Great Email Request for Introduction: Investment, Hiring, Sales, and Anything Else.

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How to Write a Great Email Request for Introduction: Investment, Hiring, Sales, and Anything Else.

A friend of a friend happens to be looking to hire someone like you. 

Your ex-boss decides to be an angel investor just as you choose to found a startup. 

A relative happens to work for the key decision-maker at the very company you want to secure an enterprise contract with. 

You successfully raise a round of funding, and an employee happens to know a team of talented, tight-knit engineers looking for a new company to work for— 

— These serendipitous events can turn into great opportunities for everyone involved. However, unless someone activates their relationships and networks with clear intent, a lot of these brilliant opportunities can go by unrealized.

The opportunity: when you combine the right approach with modern-day technology, you can effectively activate your networks to reach people who would otherwise remain strangers.

Emerging Manager ‘Must-Dos’: The Path to Your First Fund

Emerging Manager ‘Must-Dos’: The Path to Your First Fund

Capital is a great amplifier. When great ideas meet the right people, the proper application of capital helps startups commercialize incredible products and services. The great news: there is an increasing number of talented, mission-driven emerging managers entering the venture space. These emerging managers possess the following:   

  1. The authentic desire to enrich the startup ecosystem by building lasting relationships, and effectively deploying capital to support founders and their teams. 

  2. Empathy, which enables them to resonate with founders and their teams. 

  3. First-hand operational experience, as a founder or an executive. 

  4. Strong recognition of the importance of helping investors (Limited Partners, LPs) realize returns on their investment. 

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The Essentials of Early-Stage Startup Fundraising: How to Quickly Find and Secure the Right Investors

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The Essentials of Early-Stage Startup Fundraising: How to Quickly Find and Secure the Right Investors

How can you find the right investors for your company— the trustworthy ones that are values-aligned? How can you quickly fundraise so you can get back to building your company? In this post, I share the process and psychology behind fundraising to help you:

  • Find the right investors (and fast).

  • Secure the funds your company needs.

  • Get back to building your company.