1. Set up constraints.

2. Start writing and edit ruthlessly.

3. Read it out loud.

Sendinblue, a marketing automation startup founded in 2012, today announced that it raised $160 million. A company spokesperson says it will be put toward accelerating Sendinblue’s go-to-market efforts as the company experiences growth during the pandemic.

Lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders aimed at beating back the novel coronavirus have forced marketers to fully embrace digital. According to a report published by The CMO Survey, some 60.8% of respondents indicated they’ve “shifted resources to building customer-facing digital interfaces” and 56.2% transformed their businesses to focus on digital opportunities. Moreover, marketers reported increased openness among customers to new digital offerings introduced during the pandemic and greater perceived value in digital experiences.

Sendinblue, which was cofounded by Polytechnique graduate Armand Thiberge, competes with companies like Mailchimp and offers solutions aimed at expediting common marketing tasks. Initially focused on email, the company pivoted to address increased demand from businesses for online acquisition and loyalty tools. Using its pipelines, clients can start by sending newsletters before diving deeper with templates and chat tools that tie into their websites. Sendinblue says these products were designed to be accessible and used by marketers without technical knowledge, so that they appeal to a range of companies in industries like hospitality, construction, ecommerce, and manufacturing.

Sendinblue’s platform provides a range of email, SMS, and chat messaging tools as well as integrations with existing customer relationship management systems. Via transactional email and segmentation, customers can set up the design, engagement, and discoverability of messages and send messages in a more targeted way. And with landing pages, signup forms, and retargeting, those customers can create more targeted visitor experiences and grow their email contact list while showing ads to websites visitors as they browse other websites.

But Sendinblue’s differentiator lies in automation. Leveraging AI and machine learning, the company’s email bot — MailClark — extracts relevant content from emails, prequalifies them, and handles certain actions to optimize response time. Sendinblue customers can use MailClark either within the platform or integrate it with third-party apps via an API.

Even before the pandemic, Sendinblue claims it achieved 60% year-over-year growth. But between March and June, the company saw a 50% uptick in business and reached over 180,000 customers across over 160 countries. With 70% of Sendinblue’s revenue coming from abroad, Thiberge says he plans to focus on international expansion. Just recently, the startup opened its first office in Toronto, bringing its total number of offices to five and its headcount to over 400 people.

Sendinblue previously raised $33 million in September 2017. This latest round, which was led by Bridgepoint Development Capital and BPI, brings the startup’s total raised to nearly $200 million.

Glassdoor is now letting employees write diversity and inclusion reviews for companies in a way to make employers more transparent. Employees will be able to rate and review companies on how they treat employees based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other underrepresented groups.

In a poll, Mill Valley, California-based Glassdoor, which has ratings on more than a million companies, found that job seekers and employees trust the employees already working at a company when it comes to understanding the state of diversity and inclusion at a company. Glassdoor said that 76% of job seekers and employees today report that a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers. The company said these new features are part of its public commitment to leveraging its product and resources to help achieve equity in and out of the workplace.

The Glassdoor survey was conducted by The Harris Poll. It found that job seekers and employees report that disparities still exist within companies with respect to experiences with and perceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. The company undertook the effort after this year’s racial unrest.

“In recent months, many of Glassdoor’s more than 50 million users have been telling us they want more insight into what the current state of diversity & inclusion is like at a company,” Scott Dobroski, spokesman for Glassdoor, wrote in an email. “Then, after the murder of George Floyd, we saw employee reviews talking about diversity, racial justice, and related topics rise by 63% on Glassdoor.”

Because of this, the company knew people wanted more data. “We believe we have a responsibility as a platform and as an employer to help drive equity in society, and we can help to create more equitable workplaces,” Dobroski said.

Job seekers and employees also say they want to work at companies that truly value diversity and inclusion as part of their culture. The survey shows that nearly half of Black (47%) and Latinx (49%) job seekers and employees have quit a job after witnessing or experiencing discrimination at work, significantly higher than white (38%) job seekers and employees.

In addition, 32% of job seekers and employees today say they would not apply to a job at a company where there is a lack of diversity among its workforce. This is significantly higher for Black job seekers and employees (41%) compared to white job seekers and employees (30%).

“Glassdoor publicly committed to leveraging its product, resources and platform to help drive societal change toward equality at scale,” Dobroski said.

Diversity & Inclusion rating

Above: Glassdoor’s D&I ratings are now available.

Image Credit: Glassdoor

This rating is Glassdoor’s sixth and newest workplace factor that allows employees to rate how satisfied they are with diversity and inclusion at their current or former company, based on a five-point scale. The rating will appear alongside the five existing workplace factor ratings.

While the product was in stealth mode, employees across 12 companies started to rate their satisfaction with their company’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). So far, Salesforce has the highest D&I rating among this group according to its employees, with a 4.6 rating. Other companies currently rated in terms of their employee satisfaction with D&I include: Google: 4.4, Accenture: 4.2, Amazon: 4.1, Apple: 4.0, Deloitte: 4.0, Facebook: 4.2, McDonald’s: 3.7, Starbucks: 4.1, Target: 4.1, Uber: 3.6, and Walmart: 3.7.

More than 4,000 employees have rated their companies so far.

Demographic information

Above: Employees have the option of describing their demographic info on Glassdoor.

Image Credit: Glassdoor

Glassdoor now enables U.S.-based employees and job seekers to voluntarily and anonymously share their demographic information to help others determine whether a company is actually delivering on its diversity and inclusion commitments.

Glassdoor users can now also provide information regarding their race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, parental status, and more, all of which can be shared anonymously through their Glassdoor user profile.

Glassdoor will soon display company ratings, workplace factor ratings, salary reports and more, broken out by specific groups at specific companies. This information will equip employers with further data and insights to create and sustain more equitable workplaces. Sharing demographic information with Glassdoor will be optional and displayed anonymously.

Diversity FAQ across companies

Glassdoor is also debuting a new Company FAQ resource, offering a list of the most popular questions job seekers ask about companies, including a section dedicated to diversity and inclusion. Responses to the FAQs are taken from the employee reviews appearing on Glassdoor. The tool provides easier access to relevant reviews about D&I at specific companies.

According to the Glassdoor survey, 63% of job seekers and employees say their employer should be doing more to increase the diversity of its workforce. But significantly more Black and Latinx job seekers and employees feel this way (71% and 72% respectively) than white job seekers and employees (58%).

Since I wrote my book The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, many entrepreneurs have asked me if publishing their own book will help them take their business to the next level. Some hope it will attract new business or speaking opportunities. Others want it to become the basis for a new product, such as a course.

I usually tell them it depends.

A book can be very helpful in growing a business, but not always. Before you dive in, it’s important to give it serious thought. Writing and polishing book requires more time and effort than most people think, whether you work with a commercial publisher or self-publish. As an entrepreneur, you’ve got to balance that against other demands on your time—like running your business. 

Here are five questions to consider if you would like to write a book to grow your business. 

1.    Why are you writing it? The most successful authors are generally self-motivated. Even if your spouse, friends, employees, investors or mentors have been begging you to write something, they’re not the ones who will be tapping away at 5 am to make it happen. You will. Make sure you are truly ready to do the work before you begin. Even if you bring in a ghostwriter, you still will need to make time to collaborate, probably every week. Which brings us to another important question...

2.    How much time do you have to devote to it? Generally speaking, it takes at least six months to write a book and typically at least a year, whether you write a book yourself or bring in a professional writer to help you. Most entrepreneurs, in my experience, don’t work on a book full time. They have to fit it in between work, family and their other activities. That can be challenging, especially in an economy like the current one.

If you have any other big projects going on, like a product launch, or are in the middle of major life changes, like getting married or having a baby, it’s best to wait until you can make the book your number one focus for the year. A book is going to take up a lot of “head space” – usually more than people think – and it’s hard to juggle it with other big undertakings. 

3.    Are you familiar with what other authors are writing about your subject matter—and can you move the conversation forward?

Most of us want other people to read our books. It will be much easier to attract readers with a book that covers new ground on a relevant subject than with one that’s an overview of what’s been said before. You’ll know you’re ready to write your book when you can explain what makes it different in a sentence or two. It can take some time to figure that out, and your book will be more successful if you allow for that.

4.   Is the book you envision about your readers? 

Being an author is a little like being a party guest. Readers will enjoy the experience more if you’re focused on them. The more you can strike a balance between expressing yourself and entertaining and informing your readers, the more successful your book will be. Think of it as a conversation, not a monologue, which few writers can pull off successfully.

5. Are you willing to promote it?

It’s a lot more fun to write a book that gets people talking, writing to you, blogging about it, and inviting you onto podcasts than one that no one but your nearest and dearest have read. 

Making this happen requires some effort, usually by building your social media presence, developing an email list or through other means, like hiring a publicist. The earlier you start, the better, as this can take time. 

Sometimes, authors delay doing this, because they fear it will involve brash self-promotion. There’s actually no need to take the “me, me, me” approach. Simply by sharing information that’s helpful and relevant to your audience, such as great articles or videos you’ve come across, can go a long way toward building a following, especially if you commit to doing it once a day.

You’ll be surprised at how a small and incremental effort can pay off. But like every other aspect of writing a book, you’ve got to be willing to actually do it. If you are disciplined, you’ll have a good shot at bringing it over the finish line. And, if you’re lucky, you may find that your book takes on a life of its own, bringing you into contact with more opportunities and like-minded people than you ever knew were out there.

In theory, building a successful startup is simple. All you have to do is build a product people need. In practice, this simple startup success formula can raise hundreds of questions starting with, how do I know what people need?

The reality is, not every entrepreneur is ready to answer this question right now. I believe that all entrepreneurs go through an observation stage, during which they immerse themselves in the entrepreneurial journey before they begin their ventures. This pre-execution stage is not necessarily a research or education phase. It’s living the life of an entrepreneur through the eyes of other founders. In it, we read, observe, dream and feel the entrepreneurial excitement that naturally pushes us to take action.

If you’re eager to start a startup but not ready yet, there are a few steps you can take that will give your startup a head start, even if you still don’t have a startup idea. Follow these three steps.

1. Interview Anyone You Can Learn From

One of the first stages of every new startup is a research phase. In it, you study the market and existing players to identify untapped opportunities and start forming your hypotheses about how you can solve those problems.

Interviewing the founders of the leading startups in your space is not only an opportunity to get inspired by new success stories but also, it’s a rare opportunity to ask potentially your future competitors about the market, customers and their needs.

If you know the space you are interested in, put a list and reach out to suppliers, sellers, influencers, experts, founders and virtually anyone you can learn from, including customers. Even if you don’t have an industry in mind, interviewing entrepreneurs, learning how they identified and captured their opportunities and asking them how you could do the same is the best investment you can make in this research and observation stage.

Every interview is an opportunity to build and nurture a new relationship. Those connections will play a significant role in your startup, whether you need guidance, partners, co-founders, customers, referrals, employees, or funding.

2. Share Your Journey

Create a blog to post the interviews and the lessons you learned along the way. The blog will help you build an audience. If you share value consistently, by the time you launch your product, you will have a group of customers and supporters ready to try your solution and help you spread the word.

Sharing your journey through a blog will also help you reach new interviewees. It will help you build credibility and trust. More importantly, it will keep you accountable, which will give you a sense of responsibility to your audience and connections. Every published conversation is a step forward. Those steps will quickly add up to a giant leap forward.

3. Ask Your Connections

With an audience and numerous opportunities to ask your interviewees, you can come up with startup ideas and run validation tests before building your product. Whether you are targeting businesses or consumers, one way you can test if buyers are interested in your product is by pre-selling your solution.

If you approach a stranger with an idea or a prototype and ask for their commitment, you may get instantly rejected. If you approach an audience you are connected with, even if they are not interested, they will take the time to share their feedback and reasons.

In conclusion, notice how the three steps above, which are designed to help you build entrepreneurial confidence, are exactly what every entrepreneur needs to do to build a successful startup. Understanding the market, speaking with key stakeholders, running validation experiments and involving the customer in the journey is how you can identify untapped opportunities and understand what people need.