Announcing the WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund

At WPBeginner, we are on a mission to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys. Today, I want to take the exciting step and bring these values to the WordPress business community with our new growth accelerator fund.

WPBeginner Fund

What is the WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund?

WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund is the first-ever growth fund focused entirely on WordPress businesses.

As part of this accelerator, we will invest between $100k to $500k in a small group of WordPress focused businesses. Along with the investment, we will work intensively with founders to refine and optimize their existing product / processes by using the Awesome Motive playbook.

Companies will also get to benefit from our vast media resources and the business network that we have built over the last decade.

The Story Behind WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund

Over the last decade, we have spent a lot of time talking to users and figuring out how to make things people want. Usually we can see fairly quickly the direction in which an idea should be expanded to make the biggest impact.

It took us a long time to get to this level, and I would have never been here without the help of my mentors and other amazing entrepreneurs who were kind enough to share their wisdom with me.

This kind of mentorship is available in a lot of other verticals, but it’s not openly available in the WordPress business community.

The WordPress small business community is full of amazing people. Over the last few years, I have had the pleasure to talk with so many of the talented entrepreneurs about their businesses and their inspiring journeys.

Several of them expressed interest in joining the Awesome Motive family, have me join their board, or getting an investment to fast-track their business growth. Few also expressed their frustrations about lack of investor interest in the space.

The problem is that the WordPress market is not very well understood by investors. And frankly, majority of WordPress businesses are not large enough to meet their criteria.

But this doesn’t mean that WordPress businesses don’t have the potential. It’s quite the opposite – they have a lot of potential. There are tons of opportunities to grow in the WordPress ecosystem with the right playbook, and I want to help prove that.

After a lot of thought and discussion, I have decided to create the first WordPress-focused growth accelerator fund to help boost the WordPress small business community.

Our Philosophy

We know that independence is one of the main reasons why people want to create a business in the first place, and it’s also one of the reasons why businesses succeed. Our goal is to interfere as little as possible with the day to day.

We believe that founders of WordPress-focused companies are great at hacking. We want to empower them with our framework and resources to do just that.

Most investors offer a combination of money and help. In our case, money is by far the smaller component. We want to share our experience, knowledge, and resources (collectively “needle-movers”) to help founders grow their business.

We will offer a lot of advice, but we will never force anyone to take it.

The kind of advice that we will give literally can’t be bought because very few companies have the WordPress-specific insights like we do. And those that do are not in the business of consulting.

Format

For our first round, we will start small by hand-picking five WordPress companies to invest and work with. And no, we won’t ask you to move to the Bay Area or another big city.

If you have an existing WordPress business, then you can apply here.

We will review your application and invite the most promising groups to have a series of conversations with us. We will make our funding decision shortly after that.

Once funded, we will work closely with you to identify the growth levers in your business and help you implement the right processes to take your business to the next level.

Below are some of the benefits that you will have access to:

  • Our playbooks for product development, growth, and operations.
  • Office Hours with Awesome Motive Partners (including me)
  • Office Hours with Other Industry Experts
  • Bi-Annual Mastermind Meetings
  • Exposure on our media properties and access to our PR team
  • Private Founders Slack

How to Apply

If you already have a WordPress-focused business, then you can fill out the application below.

Important Note: this fund is for existing WordPress-focused businesses (i.e WordPress plugins, themes, and services) that have been around for at least six months.

(List as City, State, Country – for example: Miami, FL, USA)
3 – 6 months6 months – 1 year1 – 2 years2 – 5 years5+ years
YesNo
(Please use USD. If none, enter ‘0’)
YesNo
For example: Delaware C Corp or Nevada LLC
(Pending lawsuits, co-founders who have left, etc.)

Final Thoughts

I am committed to the WordPress ecosystem, and I have two main goals with this fund:

  1. Help WordPress-focused companies succeed
  2. Help introduce more user-focused WordPress products

If you like a specific WordPress product that you think we should invest in, then please reach out to them and let them know about the growth accelerator fund.

Yours Truly,
Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post Announcing the WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

The post Announcing the WPBeginner Growth Accelerator Fund appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Don’t update to Pie if you own a Samsung wearable (Update: Fix and app name change)

Update, August 14, 2018 (11:15AM EST): Samsung has fixed the problem listed below with Samsung-branded wearables not linking correctly with the Samsung Gear Android app. Along with the fix, Samsung also rebranded the app to Galaxy Wearable, furthering the company’s ambitions to do away with the Gear branding.

After updating to the new Galaxy Wearable app, you will finally be able to use your Samsung smartwatches, headphones, and fitness bands with your Android 9.0 Pie device. Other than the rebrand (and the inclusion of the new Samsung Galaxy Watch), the app appears to function in much the same way as it did when it was Samsung Gear.

Click the button below to update your app:


Original Article, August 9, 2018 (01:21PM EST): While there aren’t too many phones out there that are currently capable of updating to Android 9.0 Pie, you should know that updating to the latest version of Android might cause some problems for your Samsung wearables.

According to users on Reddit, the Samsung Gear app won’t connect to your wearable if you are running Android Pie. The Gear app will work on the phone just fine, and the smartwatch, headset, or fitness tracker will be fine on its own, but the two devices will not be able to communicate.

Editor’s Pick

If you attempt to connect a wearable with the Samsung Gear app on an Android Pie device, the process begins but then crashes before completion.

While we don’t have an exact list of the affected wearables, the Reddit thread makes it seem that this is a Samsung Gear-wide issue, not a problem with specific wearables.

Users are already complaining in the Google Play Store listing for the Samsung Gear app, and Samsung reps have chimed in to say that the company is aware of the issue. However, we don’t know a timeline yet for the fix.

Hopefully, the fix comes soon as Samsung just launched the newest wearable in its roster: the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Read more about that here, and also check out our info on the other device Samsung announced today: the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

NEXT: Samsung announces Galaxy Home smart speaker and big Bixby improvements

Source: Android Zone

The post Don’t update to Pie if you own a Samsung wearable (Update: Fix and app name change) appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus is a 10-inch tablet that delivers a lot for its low price

An image of the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 next to the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus. Xiaomi

  • The Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus is a new 10-inch tablet that packs a Snapdragon 660 processor.
  • Its most expensive variant packs LTE and 128GB of storage for only about $305.
  • As of now, the tablet is available or pre-order in China only.

Back in June, we told you about the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 – an 8-inch tablet that packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, a first for the brand.

Now, Xiaomi is officially launching a 10-inch version called the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus. Along with a bigger display, it packs some extra RAM and a hefty amount of internal storage.

One would then think that Xiaomi is also asking a pretty penny for the Plus variant, but the company is keeping things very reasonable (unlike a Korean company we know of that just released two incredibly overpriced tablets).

Editor’s Pick

The Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus starts at 1,899 Chinese yuan (~$276) which gets you 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. You can also upgrade the storage capacity to a 128GB version which will cost 2,099 Chinese yuan (~$305).

In both scenarios, you can choose between the same black or gold color options offered for the original 8-inch Mi Pad 4.

A series of images of the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus in its gold color. Xiaomi

There is one caveat (if you could call it that): the Mi Pad 4 Plus only comes in LTE variants – there is no Wi-Fi only model. One would assume that if Xiaomi offered a non-LTE model it would cut down on the price a little bit, but since the prices are already more-than-reasonable, it’s hard to complain.

The LTE bands that the tablet supports are TDD-LTE bands B34/B38/39/40/41 and FDD-LTE bands B1/3/5/7/8. Check with your carrier to see if it supports these bands.

If you don’t need the LTE or don’t have the right band support, oh well – the tablet will still work as a Wi-Fi unit with an additional feature you’re not using.

The Mi Pad 4 Plus has a 1,920 x 1,200 display, a USB Type-C port, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, a front-facing fingerprint sensor, and an 8,620mAh battery. It weighs a little over a pound.

The tablet is currently only available in China as a pre-order – we don’t know if it will launch in other countries. Hopefully, it will, as this will bring some much-needed competitive pricing to the tablet market.

Source: Android Zone

The post Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 Plus is a 10-inch tablet that delivers a lot for its low price appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.