Datapeople announces $8M in raised capital as it works to make recruiting more equitable

This morning Datapeople, a startup that sells software designed to make recruiting more equitable, announced that it has raised $8 million across two funding events, including a $5 million round in mid-2020.

The company, which counts Uncork Capital, NextView Ventures and First Round Capital as backers, does two things. Its initial product, what Datapeople calls “Language Analytics,” scans job postings, offering suggested edits to customers to help them attract a more diverse group of applicants.

And, coming shortly, Datapeople is rolling out what it calls “Recruiting Analytics,” a service that provides a high-level view of a company’s aggregate recruiting efforts. The recruiting side of its software service will keep tabs on diversity data such as the pace at which a company’s job posting attracts women against related jobs’ own performance, among other bits of data-focused reporting.

Per a release that TechCrunch viewed ahead of publication, Datapeople’s view isn’t that there aren’t products in the market that provide charts of how a company’s recruiting process may be performing at a surface level. Instead its view is when it comes to asking more complex questions about the treatment of different groups of people, current solutions fall short. That’s the space it intends to place its new product.

Why CEOs should spend up to half their time recruiting

TechCrunch caught up with Datapeople co-founder Phillip Reyland to chat about its recent capital raises and business performance.

According to Reyland, his startup’s language product is sold to in-house recruiting teams at mid-market through Fortune 100 companies. Related startup Textio raised more capital last spring, implying that there’s enough market demand for job-focused language tooling to support at least two venture-backed companies.

On the recruiting analytics side of the Datapeople house, Reyland told TechCrunch that the recruiting industry is today where marketing was 20 years ago. Given the rise in marketing software that we’ve seen over that time frame, Datapeople sees a long, broad market for new tooling in its target market.

It will be interesting to track how well Datapeople’s new product performs, as Reyland told TechCrunch that 2020 was the best year in its history. That, plus the capital it raised last year, means that the startup has a high bar to clear this year. Perhaps the new service will help it meet said goals.

The company intends to roughly double its mid-30s staff number to meet those expectations. It’s off to a good start, with Reyland telling TechCrunch that its Q1 2021 was “awesome.” As the company is, per its fundraising history, pretty early-stage, we’re willing to wait one more round to hammer it for more specifics.

Grab an opportunity to pitch in front of global influencers at TC Disrupt 2021

Picture it. It’s September, and you’re at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 about to present your virtual elevator pitch to thousands of attendees around the world. In the short span of 120 seconds, your company will become known to a rapt audience of early-startup influencers including potential customers, investors, tech icons and the media.

An awesome opportunity, amirite? Don’t just picture it — make it happen by exhibiting in Startup Alley. Yes, it really is that easy. Every early-stage startup that exhibits in Startup Alley gets to pitch to the Disrupt audience.

It’s not only a tremendous opportunity to practice, pitching at Disrupt can have long-term benefits. Don’t just take our word for it. Jessica McLean, the director of marketing and communications at Infinite-Compute, talks about her company’s experience pitching last year at Disrupt 2020.

“Startup Alley exhibitors got to pitch to attendees, and we were thrilled with how it went. I recorded the pitch, and now we just shoot potential investors a quick video saying, “take a look at our CEO pitching at Disrupt 2020.” It’s a great piece of marketing collateral.”

Along with the epic exposure that comes from pitching at Disrupt, Startup Alley exhibitors also have a shot at being interviewed during one of the many hour-long Startup Alley Crawls. Each tech category gets its own crawl — we’ll post the specific times in the agenda closer to the show’s opening — and TechCrunch journalists will interview a select number of exhibiting founders from each category.

Here’s yet another reason to buy a Startup Alley Pass sooner rather than later. Your pass makes you eligible to participate in Startup Alley+, a curated experience designed to help founders increase their opportunities for exposure and business growth. Only 50 companies — chosen by TechCrunch — will form this cohort, and there’s no additional cost. Here’s the kicker — the benefits start months before Disrupt 2021 begins. Learn more about the Startup+ experience here.

Did you know that TechCrunch editors award two Startup Alley exhibitors with a Startup Battlefield Wild Card? Those founders get to compete for $100,000 in the always-epic Startup Battlefield competition. Who knows? You might follow in the steps of RecordGram. That startup, chosen from Startup Alley as a Wild Card, went on to win the Startup Battlefield competition.

Bottom line: Exhibiting in Startup Alley is a savvy strategy. You’ll pitch your company to a global audience, gain valuable exposure, meet and connect with influencers and potential customers. Win-win-win.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. If you want to take advantage of every opportunity, there’s just one item to cross off your to-do list. Apply for Startup Alley before the early-bird price ($199) expires on May 13 at 11:59 pm (PST).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Strength-training startup Tonal crosses unicorn status after raising $250M

When the pandemic unfolded last year, demand for at-home fitness equipment skyrocketed, and Tonal was no exception. The maker of a smart home fitness trainer experienced an explosive increase in sales, and now the six-year-old San Francisco-based startup is gearing up for its next stage of growth. Tonal is adding $250 million of new funding in a Series E round valuing the startup at $1.6 billion.

Participants in the round include Dragoneer, Cobalt Capital, L Catterton, Sapphire Ventures and athlete investors Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Maria Sharapova, Mike Tyson and Sue Bird. According to Tonal, the new funds will allow it to spend more on marketing its strength-training product to shoppers to increase brand visibility, grow its catalog of streamed fitness classes and invest further in operations and scaling its business to meet increased demand. To date, the at-home fitness tech startup has raised $450 million.

“We’re really getting ready to scale the business: we’re pouring a lot more capital into marketing and brand awareness, and we’re pouring a lot more capital into scaling our supply chain to get ready for the next phase, which I really think is the next two holiday seasons,” says Orady.

As part of its efforts to increase staffing across the organization, Tonal also added three new executives to its bench: COO Shannon Crespin, a former Johnson & Johnson executive; Chief Strategy Officer Gregory de Gunzburg, who previously served as head of Corporate Strategy and Development at NBCUniversal; and CTO Bryan James, whose previous employers include Google, Nest and Apple. Ostensibly, Crespin, de Gunzburg and James will be crucial to Tonal’s next chapter, as the startup continues to scale on all fronts, including hardware and content production.

This latest round of funding and set of new hires are all steps the startup is taking as part of a slow march toward an IPO, says Orady, although Tonal’s chief executive declined to give a timeline regarding when the startup may go public.

“We’re going to IPO at a time when it’s best for the business, because being a public company can be incredibly distracting,” adds Orady. “I get SPAC offers, or inquiries, almost daily, and our answer is consistently ‘no.’ While an IPO is a great milestone for the business and gives us access to a certain class of capital and liquidity, we also know that you’ve got to do it at the right time.”

Founded in March 2015 by Orady, who was motivated to start Tonal by his own personal quest to shed weight and strength train, Tonal has since carved out a reputation among fitness enthusiasts for an all-in-one design and digital weights system that enables the device to replicate different gym weight stations. Extra Crunch’s EC-1 on Tonal, published earlier this week, offers a unique deep dive into this rapidly growing fitness startup, exploring Tonal’s origin story, product launch, customer engagement strategy, and future outlook.

The Tonal EC-1

Tonal’s Series E follows an extremely eventful year-and-a-half for the startup, which saw sales increase 800% from December 2019 to December 2020, causing delivery delays of between 10 to 12 weeks — an issue the company previously told TechCrunch it’s working to address by ramping up production of devices, increasing employee headcount and air-shipping equipment from Taiwan to the U.S. to meet demand. This March, Tonal also announced a new partnership with Nordstrom, placing 50-square-foot stations in the women’s activewear departments of at least 40 Nordstrom locations across the U.S., bringing the total number of Tonal physical locations to 60 by the end of 2021.

How a homegrown experiment became one of the fastest-growing companies in fitness tech

Here’s what’s you don’t want to miss tomorrow at TC Early Stage 2021

In less than 24 hours, thousands of new startup founders from around the world will tune in to day one of TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising. They’ll choose from a wide range of presentations that span the startup ecosystem and actively engage with top experts ready to help them develop and strengthen their core entrepreneurial skills.

Want to build a better startup? Buy your ticket, join your community and learn the best startup practices from those who earned their expertise by doing.

Here’s a look at just some of the 22 discussions, topics and presentations happening tomorrow at TC Early Stage 2021. Check the packed agenda, strategize your day and get ready to move your startup forward!

Finance for Founders

As a founder, you not only have to master your company’s finances, but you also have to tackle your own personal finances. Managing your money as a founder comes with a unique set of questions (see: QSBS). Leveraging her expertise from LearnVest and as a Certified Financial Planner, Alexa von Tobel (founder/managing partner, Inspired Capital Partners) will share financial planning best practices so founders can remove this layer of stress from the pressure of building a business.

Building and Leading a Sales Team

Contrary to popular opinion, even the very best products don’t sell themselves. Salespeople do. Hear from Zoom’s Chief Revenue Officer, at the helm of the company’s sales team during the biggest period of growth of any software company ever, lay out how to build a stellar sales team.

Bootstrapping and the Power of Product-Led Growth

Building a bootstrapped company forces you to be creative. For Calendly, it pointed the company toward a product-led growth model built on virality. Hear from Calendly’s Tope Awotona and OpenView’s Blake Bartlett, as they cover pro tips on bootstrapping, PLG and when a profitable company should consider raising capital.

There’s plenty more to explore, and TC Early Stage offers something for everyone. Here’s what Chloe Leaaetoa, founder of Socicraft, told us about her experience at Early Stage last year.

“This conference caters to early stage founders no matter where you are in your process. Maybe your pitch deck is set but you need to hire internationally — they had a session on that. The range of topics was all-encompassing.”

Don’t worry about missing out. Your ticket includes access to video on demand, so you can catch any presentation you miss once the conference ends.

Day one of TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising starts in less than 24 hours. Don’t miss out on your chance to learn the best ways to build your startup, avoid pitfalls, foster community and expand your network. Click here and buy your ticket today.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Early Stage 2021 — Operations & Fundraising? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

5 machine learning essentials non-technical leaders need to understand

Snehal Kundalkar Contributor

Snehal Kundalkar is the chief technology officer at Valence. She has been leading Silicon Valley firms for the last two decades, including work at Apple and Reddit.

We’re living in a phenomenal moment for machine learning (ML), what Sonali Sambhus, head of developer and ML platform at Square, describes as “the democratization of ML.” It’s become the foundation of business and growth acceleration because of the incredible pace of change and development in this space.

But for engineering and team leaders without an ML background, this can also feel overwhelming and intimidating. I regularly meet smart, successful, highly competent and normally very confident leaders who struggle to navigate a constructive or effective conversation on ML — even though some of them lead teams that engineer it.

I’ve spent more than two decades in the ML space, including work at Apple to build the world’s largest online app and music store. As the senior director of engineering, anti-evil, at Reddit, I used ML to understand and combat the dark side of the web.

For this piece, I interviewed a select group of successful ML leaders including Sambhus; Lior Gavish, co-founder at Monte Carlo; and Yotam Hadass, VP of engineering at Electric.ai, for their insights. I’ve distilled our best practices and must-know components into five practical and easily applicable lessons.

1. ML recruiting strategy

Recruiting for ML comes with several challenges.

The first is that it can be difficult to differentiate machine learning roles from more traditional job profiles (such as data analysts, data engineers and data scientists) because there’s a heavy overlap between descriptions.

Secondly, finding the level of experience required can be challenging. Few people in the industry have substantial experience delivering production-grade ML (for instance, you’ll sometimes notice resumes that specify experience with ML models but then find their models are rule-based engines rather than real ML models).

When it comes to recruiting for ML, hire experts when you can, but also look into how training can help you meet your talent needs. Consider upskilling your current team of software engineers into data/ML engineers or hire promising candidates and provide them with an ML education.

Image Credits: Snehal Kundalkar

The other effective way to overcome these recruiting challenges is to define roles largely around:

• Product: Look for candidates with a technical curiosity and a strong business/product sense. This framework is often more important than the ability to apply the most sophisticated models.
• Data: Look for candidates that can help select models, design features, handle data modeling/vectorization and analyze results.
• Platform/Infrastructure: Look for people who evaluate/integrate/build platforms to significantly accelerate the productivity of data and engineering teams; extract, transform, load (ETLs); warehouse infrastructures; and CI/CD frameworks for ML.
  
  
  

Pipe, which aims to be the ‘Nasdaq for revenue,’ raises more money at a $2B valuation

Fast-growing fintech Pipe has raised another round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, just weeks after raising $50M in growth funding, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Although the round is still ongoing, Pipe has reportedly raised $150 million in a “massively oversubscribed” round led by Baltimore, Md.-based Greenspring Associates. While the company has signed a term sheet, more money could still come in, according to the source. Both new and existing investors have participated in the fundraise.

The increase in valuation is “a significant step up” from the company’s last raise. Pipe — which only launched its platform last June — has declined to comment on the deal.

A little over one year ago, Pipe raised a $6 million seed round led by Craft Ventures to help it pursue its mission of giving SaaS companies a funding alternative outside of equity or venture debt.

The buzzy startup’s goal with the money was to give SaaS companies a way to get their revenue upfront, by pairing them with investors on a marketplace that pays a discounted rate for the annual value of those contracts. (Pipe describes its buy-side participants as “a vetted group of financial institutions and banks.”)

Just a few weeks ago, Miami-based Pipe announced a new raise — $50 million in “strategic equity funding” from a slew of high-profile investors. Siemens’ Next47 and Jim Pallotta’s Raptor Group co-led the round, which also included participation from Shopify, Slack, HubSpot, Okta, Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya, Marc Benioff, Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, Republic, Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six and Joe Lonsdale.

This Pipe-ing hot startup just raised $50M to be the ‘Nasdaq for revenue’

At that time, Pipe co-CEO and co-founder Harry Hurst said the company was also broadening the scope of its platform beyond strictly SaaS companies to “any company with a recurring revenue stream.” This could include D2C subscription companies, ISP, streaming services or a telecommunications companies. Even VC fund admin and management are being piped on its platform, for example, according to Hurst.

“When we first went to market, we were very focused on SaaS, our first vertical,” he told TC at the time. “Since then, over 3,000 companies have signed up to use our platform.” Those companies range from early-stage and bootstrapped with $200,000 in revenue, to publicly-traded companies.

Pipe’s platform assesses a customer’s key metrics by integrating with its accounting, payment processing and banking systems. It then instantly rates the performance of the business and qualifies them for a trading limit. Trading limits currently range from $50,000 for smaller early-stage and bootstrapped companies, to over $100 million for late-stage and publicly traded companies, although there is no cap on how large a trading limit can be.

In the first quarter of 2021, tens of millions of dollars were traded across the Pipe platform. Between its launch in late June 2020 through year’s end, the company also saw “tens of millions” in trades take place via its marketplace. Tradable ARR on the platform is currently in excess of $1 billion.

Cryptocurrency wallet and blockchain tech startup imToken raises $30 million Series B

ImToken, the blockchain tech startup and crypto wallet developer, announced today it has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Qiming Venture Partners. Participants included returning investor IDG Capital, and new backers Breyer Capital, HashKey, Signum Capital, Longling Capital, SNZ and Liang Xinjun, the co-founder of Fosun International.

Founded in 2016, the startup’s last funding announcement was for its $10 million Series A, led by IDG, in May 2018. ImToken says its wallet for Ethereum, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies now has 12 million users, and over $50 billion in assets are currently stored on its platform, with total transaction value exceeding $500 billion.

Ethereum wallet imToken raises $10M Series A from IDG to expand in the US, Asia and Africa

The company was launched in Hangzhou, China, before moving to it current headquarters to Singapore, and about 70% of its users are in mainland China, followed by markets including South Korea, the United States and Southeast Asia.

ImToken will use its latest funding to build features for “imToken 3.0.” This will include keyless accounts, account recovery and a suite of decentralized finance services. It also plans to expand its research arm for blockchain technology, called imToken Labs and open offices in more countries. It currently has a team of 78 people, based in mainland China, the United States and Singapore, and expects to increase its headcount to 100 this year.

In a press statement, Qiming Venture Partners founding managing partner Duane Kuang said, “In the next ten to twenty years, blockchain will revolutionize the financial industry on a global scale. We believe that imToken is riding this trend, and has strongly positioned itself in the market.”

As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom

Crypto boom continues as Chainalysis raises $100M, doubles valuation to over $2B

Dear Sophie: What should I know about prenups and getting a green card through marriage?

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives.

More posts by this contributor

• Dear Sophie: When can I finally come to Silicon Valley?
• Dear Sophie: What type of visa should we get to fundraise in Silicon Valley?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

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Dear Sophie:

I’m a founder of a startup on an E-2 investor visa and just got engaged! My soon-to-be spouse will sponsor me for a green card.

Are there any minimum salary requirements for her to sponsor me? Is there anything I should keep in mind before starting the green card process?

— Betrothed in Belmont

Dear Betrothed,

Congratulations on your engagement and thanks for reaching out!

There are several things to keep in mind before you tie the knot. These important considerations are particularly relevant since you’re a startup founder, currently on an E-2 visa, and if you’ll continue to live in California.

My law partner, Anita Koumriqian, who is an expert in family immigration law, recently interviewed Lydia Hsu and Kara Foster, the co-founders of Foster Hsu, LLP, a California family law firm, on our podcast. They cover the ins and outs of family law and prenups, and what to know before you tie the knot and pursue the green card process.

California is a community property state, which means if your marriage doesn’t work out, all of the assets acquired by you and your spouse during the marriage will be divided up equally unless you have a prenuptial agreement (prenup) in place before you get married. Since you are an E-2 investor and I imagine you have significant assets, it’s beneficial to consider entering into a prenup before you become legally married.

This is especially important for you in pursuing a marriage-based green card because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) often looks to see whether couples are commingling funds in a joint bank account when assessing if your marriage is good-faith to approve your green card.

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

“A prenup may not be right for you,” says Kara, “but at least you should be educated going into a marriage and know what you’re going to be responsible for, what your obligations are going to be, and how California is going to treat your property, assets and income during the marriage. We have a lot of people coming in later for a divorce saying, ‘If I had known this, I would have done everything differently.’”

In addition to California, there are several other community property states in the U.S., including Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

From the immigration side of things, keep in mind that the Affidavit of Support (Form I-864), which is required for a marriage-based green card, will remain in effect even in the event of a divorce—and takes precedence over any spousal support designated in a prenup.

India’s HealthPlix raises $13.5 million to help doctors treat patients more efficiently

There are fewer than 300,000 doctors in India actively practicing medicine. They serve hundreds of millions of patients who suffer from chronic illness in the world’s second-most populous nation.

A doctor only has a few minutes to spend on a patient, remember the past diagnosis by glancing at their record and formulate a plan of management.

HealthPlix, a Bangalore-based startup, believes it can help doctors serve these patients more efficiently with the limited time they have.

The startup has developed a software for doctors that helps them in a methodical template keep tabs on the symptoms a patient has displayed in the past, the medicine that was prescribed to them and if they are showing any improvements.

But it doesn’t stop there, said Sandeep Gudibanda, co-founder of HealthPlix, in an interview with TechCrunch. The software has a knowledge base that is making a determination of all the other factors that a doctor needs to assess as they treat the patient.

For instance, if a patient has diabetes, and they have mentioned that they had swollen feet and are experiencing more frequent visits to the washroom, said Gudibanda, the doctor can quickly assess that the patient’s symptoms are getting worse and needs to start looking at the function of the kidney and other organs and monitor blood sugar.

“As a doctor, you are able to see how my disease is progressing, what medicine was prescribed to me and if they are working. So you are not going to prescribe me some medicine that didn’t work two months ago. Based on the data of more than 12 million patients we have, our software is also able to inform doctors what other things I am exposed to,” he said.

“Doctors have immense knowledge, but they have very little time. So how do we help them make better decisions on the few minutes they have with a patient,” he asked. “These few minutes matter most. It is in this precious interaction that health decisions get made, diagnostic tests get prescribed, pharmaceutical brands get chosen, surgical procedures get planned, and hospital referrals get made. This interaction is the moment of truth, where $88 billion of annual healthcare spend is decided.”

Image Credits: HealthPlix

Scores of health tech startups in India today are attempting to serve patients. What distinguishes HealthPlix from most is the approach it has taken. Unlike other startups, HealthPlix’s solution puts doctors at its centre, said Gudibanda, who has spent nearly two decades in entrepreneurship in health tech.

He said in a country like India, where there are so many people suffering from chronic diseases, a doctor’s intervention is needed for best results. “While going through the patient’s route, we might achieve some scale, we realized that the stakeholder they reason with and listen to is the doctor. A doctor here serves hundreds of patients. You work with the doctor and you make a bigger impact,” he said.

“Second, because of the immense workload on doctors, who can only spend 2-3 minutes to serve a patient, if he or she doesn’t have all the information, their thinking might get compromised. Hence the doctor had to be in the piece.”

Does early-stage health tech need more ‘patient’ capital?

HealthPlix initially started in late 2016 to help doctors connect with patients digitally. But that model, he recalled, wasn’t working. The current model is growing fast. More than 6,000 doctors today are using HealthPlix for over four hours a day, he said. The startup plans to reach over 50,000 doctors in two years.

On Wednesday, the startup said it has raised $13.5 million in its ongoing Series B financing round. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The startup has now raised about $23.5 million to date.

“What sets HealthPlix apart is its doctor-first B2B approach. Doctors are the most influential decision-makers in healthcare. We believe whichever platform wins their trust will have the sole right to orchestrate the entire $88 billion of healthcare spend,” said Vaibhav Agrawal, partner at Lightspeed, in a statement.

“The impact is very clear — improved health outcomes for patients, better practices for doctors, 10x better Insights for pharma and med device companies, and superior underwriting capability for insurers.”

Gudibanda said the startup will also deploy the fresh capital to tackle some acute diseases.

Entrepreneur to Millionaire Will Solve Your Cash-Strapped Problem

This book has been sitting on my coffee table for weeks.  Maybe it was the title because it read like an undeliverable promise.  Most small business owners aren’t yet at the “I want to be embarrassingly rich” stage of the conversation.  They’re just trying to make ends meet. 

Maybe it was the forward by Mark Cuban. “I wish I had this book when I was getting started.” — really, I mean you’re Mark Cuban for crying out loud.  I don’t think any single book made Mark Cuban a great entrepreneur.  Mark Cuban made Mark Cuban a great entrepreneur.

Sorry if I’m being a bit salty.  I just want you to understand the headspace I was in before I read Entrepreneur to Millionaire.

Call me a jaded marketer, but all these magnetic marketing titles and phrases that have been tested on small business owners and optimized for conversion rates, make me want to run away.

So, the book just sat there, week after week. I knew I should have picked it up and read it, but I had already told myself that it was going to be one more book filled with war stories from someone who had success but couldn’t convert his experience to business owners like you — and like me.

As it turns out, what Mark Cuban said in the forward was what I thought when I finally read the book,“I wish I had read this book when it showed up!”

Those darned marketers.

Kent Billingsley Knows How to Make Millionaires

Over the last 20 years, Kent Billingsley has “created content and trademarked programs that have turned thousands of entrepreneurs into millionaires and multi-millionaires.” He’s known as America’s Revenue Growth Architect.

Billingsley is committed to solving one main problem every entrepreneur has  — being great at what they do, but not making enough money.

While I’m not a fan of the writing style of this book, the passion and advice is spot on.  Billingsley writes with an authoritative style and he pulls no punches when she shares his advice.  He writes with passion and confidence when he introduces his counterintuitive principles that land like a loving whack on the side of the head:

“None out of ten entrepreneurs don’t need more of most things they believe they need to grow and make money. They need less:

• They don’t need more leads — they need fewer leads of higher quality.

• They don’t need more proposals, they need to learn how to win more and lose less. 

• They don’t need more customers, they need higher quality customers who pay more. “

It’s Time to Work Your Business Instead of it Working You

The question isn’t whether or not you can succeed using Billingsley’s process, it’s whether or not you have what it takes to take a critical look at your business.  

I think that’s the most difficult part of this book. Taking the time to read each chapter and seriously reflect and look at the mistakes you’ve been making.  

Yep.  In each chapter, you’ll either find common mistakes or popular excuses that Billingsley has run into with clients.

Here are some of the ones that really stood out to me:

Relying on word of mouth for fast company growth: Yikes! You and I both know that the most popular marketing strategy for every small business I know is word of mouth or referrals.  But, Billingsley says that word-of-mouth alone is no way to grow a profitable business fast.  I can understand why.  Most small business owners don’t have a referral system . Hence, their referrals aren’t controlled and they are unpredictable. And, since they don’t have a referral system, referrals don’t scale and they tend to be of inferior quality.

Or, here is another example.  Which of these excuses for weak marketing messages have you used?

• We’ve just overhauled our entire website and we don’t want to change.
• Our marketing message is fine.
• We hired an expensive ad firm and they created our content.
• None of our prospects have reacted negatively to our message.

Things I love about Entrepreneur to Millionaire

There are so many elements of this book that I found powerful and useful.  The organization of the book is spot on.  Each chapter contains short sections with large headings. And that makes the book easy to read.

What Would Make the Book Even More Transformational for Small Business

As it is now, Billingsley shares his wisdom and it’s up to you to make the most of it.  Personally, I like that.  I like reading through a book with a notebook and taking the time to think things through, brainstorm and strategize.

Some folks, however, prefer to have access to worksheets and guided questions as they go through a process. 

If you visit Billingsley’s website RevenueGrowthCompany.com you’ll find a variety of resources that are a companion guide to the book.

How Long Are You Willing to Wait for Real Success

Every entrepreneur has a dream.  Whether yours is to become a millionaire or not is beside the point. What’s more important is whether or not your business is working for you and delivering on the reason you started it in the first place.

My guess is that it’s not

While many business books focus on a specific problem that YOU think is keeping your business from being successful, Entrepreneur Millionaire will address the root cause of what keeps your business from scaling to its best, most profitable self.

Image: amazon

This article, "Entrepreneur to Millionaire Will Solve Your Cash-Strapped Problem" was first published on Small Business Trends

Leeway is a contract workflow service for your legal team

Meet Leeway, a French startup that is building an end-to-end software-as-a-service solution for your contracts. Leeway lets you centralize all your contracts in a single repository, go through multiple negotiation steps and trigger a DocuSign event for the signature.

The company raised a $4.2 million seed round from HenQ, Kima Ventures as well as several business angels, such as the founders of Algolia, Eventbrite, Spendesk, MeilleursAgents, Livestorm and Luko.

If you’re working for the legal department of your company, you’re probably working with multiple tools. Chances are you’re using Microsoft Word to write a contract, a cloud service to store and share the contract with your teammates and business partners, an e-signature and archival service.

Leeway is optimizing this worklfow at every step. First, you can store all your contracts on Leeway. In addition to making it easier to find a contract later down the road, you can get reminders when a contract is about to expire so that you can renew a contract.

Second, you can edit your contract from Leeway directly. For instance, a manager can review a contract and write changes in Leeway’s interface. The employee can then start a revision and save a new version of the contract.

After that, you can send the contract from the same interface. Administrators can set up approval workflows so that several people need to approve a contract before it is signed. As everything is centralized, you can get an overview of all your contracts that are currently in the pipeline.

Image Credits: Leeway

Up next, Leeway is thinking about integrating conditional clauses within the product. Usually, big companies have several versions of the same clause — very favorable, favorable, not so favorable, etc. When a client is negotiating, Leeway customers could switch the clause from very favorable to favorable for instance.

Right now, around 30 companies are using Leeway to manage their contracts. Clients include Voodoo, Evaneos, Ifop and Fitness Park. “We have a very specific customer base — the legal department of companies with 100 to 500 employees,” co-founder and CEO Antoine Fabre told me.

It doesn’t mean that smaller and bigger companies shouldn’t be using Leeway. But companies with less than 100 employees don’t necessarily have a full-fledged legal department. The sales team or the finance department could act as the legal-ish team. But Leeway still has a lot of room to grow.

Image Credits: Leeway

Hex lands $5.5M seed to help data scientists share data across the company

As companies embrace the use of data, hiring more data scientists, a roadblock persists around sharing that data. It requires too much copying and pasting and manual work. Hex, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a way to dispense data across the company in a streamlined and elegant way.

Today, the company announced a $5.5 million seed investment, and also announced that it’s opening up the product from a limited beta to be more widely available. The round was led by Amplify Partners with help from Box Group, XYZ, Data Community Fund, Operator Collective and a variety of individual investors. The company closed the round last July, but is announcing it for the first time today.

Co-founder and CEO Barry McCardel says that it’s clear that companies are becoming more data-driven and hiring data scientists and analysts at a rapid pace, but there is an issue around data sharing, one that he and his co-founders experienced first-hand when they were working at Palantir.

They decided to develop a purpose-built tool for sharing data with other parts of the organization that are less analytically technical than the data science team working with these data sets. “What we do is we make it very easy for data scientists to connect to their data, analyze and explore it in notebooks. […] And then they can share their work as interactive data apps that anyone else can use,” McCardel explained.

Most data scientists work with their data in online notebooks like Jupyter where they can build SQL queries and enter Python code to organize it, chart it, and so forth. What Hex is doing is creating this super-charged notebook that lets you pull a data set from Snowflake or Amazon Redshift, work with and format the data in an easy way, then drag and drop components from the notebook page — maybe a chart or a data set — and very quickly build a kind of app that you can share with others.

Image Credits: Hex

The startup has 9 employees including co-founders McCardel, CTO Caitlin Colgrove and VP of architecture Glen Takahashi. “We’ve really focused on the team front from an early stage, making sure that we’re building a diverse team. And actually today our engineering team is majority female, which is definitely the first time that that’s ever happened to me,” Colgrove said.

She is also part of a small percentage of female founders. A report last year from Silicon Valley Bank, found that while the number was heading in the right direction, only 28% of US startups have at least one female founder. That was up from 22% in 2017.

The company was founded in late 2019 and the founders spent a good part of last year building the product and working with design partners. They have a small set of paying customers, and are looking to expand that starting today. While customers still need to work with the Hex team for now to get going, the plan is to make the product self-serve some time later this year.

Hex’s early customers include Glossier, imgur and Pave.

Pinecone lands $10M seed for purpose-built machine learning database

Ensemble raises $3M to help divorced parents avoid arguing about money

At the age of 14, Jacklyn Rome saw firsthand how divorce can impact families, and how arguing about finances both during and after the process can impact children.

The experience stuck with her. As an adult, after leading new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron,  Rome came up with the concept behind her startup, Ensemble. The expense tracking app quietly launched in the App Store in 2020 with the mission of reducing tension among co-parents and making sure kids’ needs aren’t negatively impacted by a divorce.

Today, Ensemble is coming out of stealth with $3 million in seed funding from TTV Capital, Lerer Hippeau and Citi Ventures.

Put simply, Ensemble’s mission is to improve the lives of co-parents and their children by giving parents a streamlined way to track shared expenses.

“Most co-parents either figure out finances on their own ad hoc or rely on child support payments — however, child support only covers food, shelter and clothing, which is only half of the cost of raising a child,” Rome points out. The other half of expenses, including medical bills, extracurricular activities, transportation, etc., often end up being discussed by co-parents via text messages and spreadsheets.

Ensemble founder and CEO Jacklyn Rome. Image courtesy of Ensemble

Ensemble kicked off a six-month pilot in January 2020, when the credit-first version of the app went live. In April 2020, the dual functionality version — where two parents could connect their accounts — went live.

Since its App store launch last spring, Ensemble has seen “strong organic growth and referrals” from its users, according to Rome. Ensemble’s users, on average, are tracking over $1,000 per month in shared expenses for their children.

Roughly 30% of Ensemble’s downloads were organic in people discovering the app in the App Store, she said.

“Even in the most amicable divorces, money is the number one thing that divorced parents end up arguing about. In more contentious divorces, it often gets used as a power lever among two emotionally charged individuals with no other tools at their disposal,” Rome said. “We set out to build a product that eases tense communication about shared finances and serves the nuanced needs of separated parents.”

For now, the app is free. Ensemble plans to begin monetizing with the use of funds from its seed round.

Eventually, the company is planning to build out a paid subscription model. Over the long term, it’s also planning to expand beyond being an expense tracking app to offering a suite of financial products and primarily banking products, for things like shared credit cards with tight spending controls, Rome told TechCrunch.

“Ultimately, we want to help make sure that the children of divorced parents are not at a financial disadvantage when it comes to building for their financial future,” she said.

Are subscription services the future of fintech?

Rome founded Ensemble while she was an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Co-Created, a venture studio based in New York, with support and funding from Citi Ventures’ D10X program.

“A key insight that Citi had given us was that for them as a bank, it’s incredibly hard to acquire new customers because people don’t often change banks,” Rome said. “One of the few times in life that people regularly change banks is when they get divorced. And that sparked the thought process around the pain points that people feel through their divorce, specifically as it relates to finances.”

Luis Valdich, managing director of venture investing at Citi Ventures, says the bank has been “tracking for some time” how the financial needs of individuals have been evolving given societal trends, while at the same time identifying potential investment opportunities in startups that address underserved needs.

“One growing gap is for divorced or separate parents to track and manage shared expenses,” Valdich said. “Ensemble solves this problem by striking the optimal balance of delivering ease of use, visibility and empathy for modern co-parents, minimizing the need for back-and-forth communications. While it is early, we found its user experience to be substantially superior to the alternatives in the market, and Jacklyn brings a unique perspective on the challenge Ensemble is trying to solve.”

And while he could not speak to specific plans between Citi and Ensemble, Valdich said that Citi Ventures’ approach has always been to invest in companies with an eye toward future collaborations.

“We are proud that the majority of our portfolio has been commercialized within Citi and/or with Citi clients and we will certainly explore opportunities for collaboration when mutually convenient for both parties, as we always do,” Valdich added.

Meanwhile, TTV Capital Partner Mark Johnson said his firm has been investing in fintech for over 20 years and that it’s clear “people are craving digital tools to simplify communication and finances.”

He called Ensemble’s app “a sleek and simple platform” that addresses those needs for co-parents.

Zapp, the on-demand delivery and ‘dark’ store operator, picks up backing from Lightspeed and Atomico

Zapp, one of a number of startups currently battling it out in London and beyond by promising to let you order everyday items on-demand from its own delivery-only stores, has quietly raised a new round of funding from leading VCs, TechCrunch has learned.

According to multiple sources, Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed and Europe’s Atomico (the VC firm started by Skype founder Niklas Zennström) have invested in Zapp’s unannounced Series A. Those same sources have also confirmed that Zapp has raised around $100 million in total, including via an earlier seed round.

In addition to Lightspeed and Atomico, other investors in Zapp include 468 Capital, and Burda, alongside notable angels such as Mato Peric, Christopher North (former Amazon UK CEO), and Stefan Smalla (Westwing CEO). One source tells me that the startup’s Series A is the first deal that consumer-focused partner, Sasha Astafyeva, has led on Atomico’s behalf since joining the London-headquartered VC firm.

“We’re relentlessly focused on delighting our customers and generally do not comment on our capital structure. We are excited to bring Zapp to millions of customers in London and beyond this year,” said Zapp, in a statement issued to TechCrunch when asked about the Series A and list of investors.

In conversation with Sasha Astafyeva, Atomico’s new consumer-focused investment partner

Started last summer, Zapp’s founders are Joe Falter, who was part of the founding team at Jumia where he led the on-demand services business through to the group’s IPO, and Navid Hadzaad, who most recently was a product leader at Amazon’s Seattle HQ after founding GoButler and scaling several ventures at Rocket Internet. The leadership team also spans ex-employees of Deliveroo, Just Eat, Dominoes and Tesco, to name just a few.

Zapp operates a vertical or “dark store” model, seeing it set up its own micro fulfillment centers. They include several locations in London already: Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham, Notting Hill, Hammersmith, Shepherd’s Bush, Shoreditch, Islington and Angel.

Shunning the gig economy model used by companies like Deliveroo, Zapp employs its riders directly. It also emphasises sustainability and utilises an all-electric fleet.

From what we can glean online and through conversations with sources, Zapp also looks to be focusing less on fresh food/groceries and more on convenience a la goPuff in the U.S., thus targeting impulse purchases rather than trying to usurp the traditional grocery shop. This is in contrast to many of the other dark store competitors, although there is clearly cross-over in all of the offerings from a multitude of players.

Alongside Zapp, dark store operators in London alone include Getir, Gorillas, Jiffy, Dija and Weezy — with some also raising and deploying significant amounts of capital, including, in some instances, employing heavy discounting as the land grab accelerates.

Gorillas, the on-demand grocery delivery startup, raises $290M and ‘surpasses’ $1B valuation

Best WordPress Drag and Drop Page Builders

WordPress is a popular blogging and Content Management System (CMS) that has become an invaluable asset to businesses of all sizes. This free platform offers a do-it-yourself opportunity to spruce up the look and feel of a website without knowing any coding or having to hire developers. This helps businesses create enticing landing pages for sale events, products, services, and more.

A WordPress drag and drop page builder offers a number of design elements and add-ons. WordPress page builders include functionalities like responsive controls, export/import, and a real-time editing system with all the bells and whistles to power a full-fledged website.

This open-source platform can accommodate a variety of page builders to give users the ability to create secure and customizable sites faster and with relative ease. You also have the option to choose from a collection of pre-built options which you can add to any of your pages. Simply put, you have the ability to re-arrange and style your home page to suit your particular needs.

15 WordPress Page Builders for Small Business

Here are 15 of the best WordPress page builder plugins around. Take a look and choose the WordPress page builder that will make launching your website a breeze.

1. Elementor

Elementor is among the best drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins around. This live WordPress page builder plugin allows you to see the changes in real-time as you edit them. With Elementor, users can easily start creating sections and select the number of columns for each of your web pages. They can then drag and drop widgets from the left panel to the place where they belong on the page.

Elementor has a wide selection of widgets including the most commonly used website elements available to design your pages. These range from basic image and text widgets to advanced options that include sliders, testimonials, icons, social media, tabs, and more. The Essential plan for Elementor comes with a $49 annual subscription fee and provides you with over 90 widgets, 300+ templates, over 10 full website template kits, drag and drop page builder, a theme builder, a form builder, a WooCommerce builder, and more. With its landing page builder, you get handy tools for maintenance mode, under construction pages, landing pages, and more.

2. Oxygen

Oxygen is another popular WordPress page builder option and offers a What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) visual editor so you can create headers, footers and everything in between without leaving the confines of your WordPress dashboard. One of the best drag and drop WordPress website builder options for publishers, it provides users with a collection of building blocks, pre-built components, and standard WordPress features to build sites without needing to code everything from scratch. Oxygen can be considered a full-fledged site builder for designing your entire site from the header to footer and everything in between, guaranteeing faster loading with cleaner markup.

Oxygen’s drag and drop WordPress page builder plugin lets you create powerful WordPress websites with a combination of pre-built templates and other basic features. Its drag and drop editing lets you drag items to the right spacing, or re-order options on your pages. Oxygen is one of those developer-friendly page builders meaning it lets you create fundamental HTML; use a layout block editor; and write PHP, CSS, and JS live. Oxygen starts at a set price of $99 for an unlimited lifetime license.

3. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is a popular drag-and-drop page builder plugin that works with no coding and helps users to create and customize their website. It offers a visual editor, so the page you are tweaking looks almost exactly like what the public sees.  The Beaver Builder also offers a page builder for WordPress featuring pre-built homepage templates and inner page layouts such as contact, portfolio, about us, and services among others.

In addition to allowing you to add rows, columns, videos, testimonials, and galleries, Beaver Builder also lets you format text, place images, and embed content from platforms like YouTube. It also includes mobile-friendly responsive layouts. Beaver Builder works with any theme and you can switch themes without losing your content. Even if you decide to stop using Beaver Builder, your content gets imported right back into the WordPress editor. Beaver Builder comes with a free WordPress theme called Beaver Theme. The payment for Beaver Builder starts with the Standard tier set at $99 and comes with unlimited sites, page builder plugin, support for one year, premium modules, and templates.

4. SeedProd

SeedProd is considered one of the best drag and drop page builders for WordPress around. It is a user-friendly WordPress Landing Page plugin builder that helps you create website pages and layouts within minutes with no coding required. You can create a variety of landing pages including sales, opt-in, coming soon, maintenance mode, webinar, login and thank you pages.  Landing pages created through SeedProd work across all devices no matter which size screen your audience uses to browse.

It also helps you to track subscribers with or without a third-party email provider — such as MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit and Constant Contact — and get metrics through visual data about page subscriber counts and new subscribers over time. You can also use pre-built sections like headers and calls to action, so you don’t need to be a designer to create layouts. The paid plan starts at $39.50 for an annual subscription. This includes pro templates, page blocks, section templates, drag and drop page builder, maintenance mode pages, email marketing integrations, subscriber manager, and more.

5. Divi

The Divi builder offers a comprehensive design framework that allows you to design and customize every part of your website from the ground up. In addition to offering a collection of design tools, the simple drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress lets you build your marketing lists with Bloom pop-ups, promote your website on social media, and even increase website conversions with the Divi builder feature known as Leads split testing. The Divi builder comes with pre-packaged wraps in a fully customizable theme that works perfectly with all other features.

This easy-to-use complete website builder replaces the standard WordPress tool with a visual editor. In fact, unlike other page builders, the Divi builder lets you edit your content using both a visual interface and a back-end interface. With it, you can add, delete and move things on the front of your website with no coding and no complicated back end options. You get access to dozens of unique page features and thousands of design options. The paid plan starts at $89 for annual subscription and offers access to hundreds of website packs, the Divi page builder plugin, product updates, premium support, and more. The Divi builder is compatible with WooCoomerce and offers specific WooCommerce integrations to boost your eCommerce efforts. This WordPress page builder also offers a lifetime of updates and support.

6. Visual Composer

Visual Composer comes with a free intuitive drag and drop visual editor that lets you create professional sites. It offers templates, blocks, elements, and extensions to easily start building your custom website with the capability to see results with a truly what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor. Visual Composer is among the few plugins available that allow you to edit all aspects of your landing page such as logo, menus, headers, footers, sidebars, and others.

As a complete website builder, Visual Composer works well with any other WordPress theme and comes with a free cloud marketplace with weekly content updates that offers you more options to create a website. This is in addition to more than 300 unique content features that include simple images or buttons along with advanced slideshows, tabs, and WooCommerce blocks without the need to know any coding. You also have a Popup builder that will help you create your own unique popups to boost conversion rates that are mobile-friendly. Although a lightweight, free version of Visual Composer is available the robust paid version starts with an annual subscription of $49. Visual Composer also works well with all WordPress themes allowing you to switch your themes without losing custom layouts that you created with Visual Composer.

7. Themify Builder

Themify is a WordPress theme shop that offers some useful features to help you build responsive sites while designing your custom layout. This quick and easy website builder comes with a drag-and-drop interface so you can drag content based on your design needs. It also offers pre-designed layouts and sections; front end and back end builder interfaces; more than 60 animation effects; and the ability to style everything from color, background, font, spacing, border, and more.

All content made inside of Themify builder is touted to be 100% SEO friendly and is completely indexable by search engines. The paid plans start at $59 and come with one year support and updates along with Themify builder and WordPress themes.

8. GoDaddy Website Builder

Even though it is more famously known for domain names and web hosting, GoDaddy can also help you build your own pages without the need for any coding skills. This website builder makes it simple to create a modern, professional site with no technical knowledge. Using GoDaddy InSight, you can access an all-around solution including marketing with its content creator to create social media posts, a blogging feature, an email marketing tool, and an SEO Wizard to help you optimize your site.

This website builder helps you create layouts that are responsive and adapt to mobile phones and tablets. You can even use the tool on your mobile devices. A free version is available with some limited features. It comes with the godaddysites.com domain where an ad will be displayed at the top of all pages. Paid versions start at $9.99 a month and offer editing capabilities; five social media messages a month; 100 email marketing messages a month, website security (SSL), and more.

9. Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect is another landing page builder for WordPress with a visual website builder. It helps you boost your outreach and conversions. Thrive architect works with all WordPress themes regardless of which WordPress theme you want to use. It integrates seamlessly into your website, making it one of the most popular WordPress page builders with users.

It offers a good selection of full-page templates and sections where you can add almost any type of page to your WordPress website or create your customized designs using the pre-built sections. You can improve the user interface for easier content editing. Thanks to its drag-and-drop content editor, you can see the changes you make in real-time by just clicking. With Thrive Architect, you also get a large selection of customizable buttons, testimonials, countdown timers, and lead generation forms that integrate with your favorite email marketing tools. Thrive Suite comes with a monthly subscription of $19 that allows you to install up to 25 sites with unlimited support and updates. This makes it ideal whether you are a freelancer or a small business.

10. SiteOrigin Page Builder

SiteOrigin’s page builder makes it easy for you to build responsive grid-based sites that are also mobile-friendly. The drag and drop interface helps you to generate light-weight, SEO-friendly code without the need for any skill as a coder. This page builder helps you create your custom homepage layout including advanced designs for your ‘About’ and ‘Contact’ sections and also upgrades the standard WordPress editor to expand your design options with live editing.

In terms of widgets, you have the option to select from a wide range of choices including a fully customizable buttons module; row builder; responsive Google maps; image and video widgets to let you add responsive images and videos; a pricing table widget, and more. Pricing for SiteOrigin starts at $29 billed annually, while its business license starts at $49.

11. WPBakery Page Builder

WPBakery’s page builder helps you build responsive sites and manage content thanks to its intuitive WordPress front end editor. You can create ready-to-use content features through its drag and drop interface without grappling with a single line of code. You also have the option to browse through an online template library and build your pages in seconds. Download any template you like without any restrictions. The library is constantly updated with new templates.

For its part, the grid builder helps you to display posts, portfolios, and any other custom types of posts or media in a masonry grid with access to over 40 predefined styles. Paid plans start at $45 where you get free updates, premium support, and access to a template library for a single website.

12. Fusion Builder (rebranded as Avada Builder)

Avada builder offers users the ability to create sites with no coding knowledge required in virtually any design style. Its drag and drop editor helps you to place, edit, and customize layouts, add features, and start typing your narrative all in one go. The intuitive visual design and editing tools help you to create sites with relative ease. You can also work with over 70 design elements with Avada’s Global Styling Options. Then edit individual features by changing the options for each once added to a page.

You can import any prebuilt website with the click of a button. In terms of compatibility, Avada is built with HTML5 and CSS3, SEO optimized, and perfectly compatible with plugins like Yoast SEO. Regular licensing for Avada starts at $60.

13. WPForms

WPForms offers a drag and drop online form builder that allows users to create forms in WordPress. Options range from Contact forms to Order forms, Multi-page forms to Offline forms. This plugin comes with pre-built templates to help you save time as well. On top of that, WPForms are responsive and work on mobile, tablets, and desktops.

The tool allows you to split long forms into multiple pages to improve user experience and even integrates with AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Sendinblue, and other survey and email marketing platforms through add-ons. Paid plans start with Basic at $39.50 a year. You get unlimited forms; advanced fields; templates; multi-page forms; spam protection; conditional logic; one year of support and more for one website.

14. Live Composer

Live Composer offers users an all-in-one solution for creating and customizing WordPress sites. It simplifies building a website by adding new sections and modules or you can opt to choose from a wide selection of themes. This best page builder has a drag and drop interface along with over 40 content modules for quick and easy page composing all with no coding skills required. In terms of editing, the content is built directly on the pages saving you time and providing instant feedback on the changes you make. The core website builder is free, but there is a paid option that starts at $49 and offers more robust support including premium extensions.

15. WP Page Builder

WP Page Builder is a drag and drop WordPress page builder for creating websites brought to you by Themeum, an established WordPress developer. You can create professional websites by using the intuitive live page composer with no coding knowledge required in just minutes. You also have a choice of ready-to-use features, predesigned templates, addons, and more to create your desired layouts and bring different styles to your website. Website layouts built with WP Page Builder plugin will fit into smartphones, tablets, and desktops. This WordPress page builder plugin helps you build beautiful websites like a professional.

Though a free version is available, a premium version comes with a number of pre-designed layouts and a wide range of ready blocks with priority support starting at $39 for a single license. WP Page Builder plugin is built with all-inclusive features and is literally built for everyone.

Why use a drag and drop WordPress page builder for your business website?

The popularity of WordPress page builders is due to the relative ease with which users can build websites and make changes to their feel and look. These WordPress page builders offer a one-stop-shop for creating a functional website that helps set you apart from the competition without spending money on a developer. They allow you to create custom page layouts by using templates, adding widgets, building elements, and customizing navigation menus.

If you are looking for an easy way to build and customize your WordPress site, drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins are the way to go. Drag and drop WordPress plugins are a subcategory of page builders that offer features to quickly and easily build custom websites.

Here are some of the key benefits:

User Friendly Features: They come with an intuitive interface to help you perform most tasks with just a few clicks and without the need to know any code. This translates into saving time and money as it is a Do-It-Yourself option. In essence, these plugins make it easy for you to redesign existing elements of your page as you see fit.

Pre-Built Modules:  With a drag and drop WordPress plugin, you can add pre-built content elements, blocks, modules, and widgets. You can customize, move, and arrange these elements on your site with relative ease.

Templates to create websites faster: Drop and drag plugins offer you a good selection of templates that can help you create websites faster. This means that you can choose any layout that matches your specific needs, tweak it to fit your content, and launch a complete website quickly. Some of the best drag and drop page builder templates help you cut across the process of creating a website from scratch and get the job done in relatively less time.

Real-Time Editing: Drag and drop plugins provide a real-time review of your website.  You can tweak the layout of the page while creating it. This includes making changes to layout elements such as rows and columns and even content elements like sliders.

Which WordPress page builder is best for your business?

Elementor can be considered the best drag and drop page builder for WordPress. This popular page builder is compatible with most popular WordPress themes, and is user-friendly and flexible. Its intuitive user interface helps you to easily figure out how to build your site section by section with relative ease. Users do not have to grapple with code and are not required to have technical knowledge of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

With Elementor, you get access to content widgets that are customized to function in the live page builder. These widgets cover headlines, text, images, videos, galleries, testimonials, and much more. Other key elements you can easily control using the drag and drop function include buttons, social media icons, and other elements. All you have to do is to drag and drop them to the page you are building and you are done. Elementor offers you the ability to design flexible popups using all the regular Elementor widgets. This lets you create email opt-in popups, contact form popups, and more. Besides this, Elementor is compatible with other third-party widgets allowing you to integrate them into your page design. This makes it easy to build a robust website that gives visitors a positive online experience. Elementor is the best drag and drop page builder for WordPress business when it comes to its features and ease of use.

What should you look for in a drag and drop for WordPress?

The best drag and drop editors offer ease of use and flexibility for users who might want to add custom modules. Selecting the right tool for your business lets you create, manage, and optimize your website quickly and easily. Now that you have a good pool of popular WordPress page builders to choose from, here are some core features to look for when making your selection:

•  Ease of Use: It is important your website design process doesn’t cause for frustration and headaches. The WordPress page builders you choose should be easy to use right from the start and provide you with a good selection of design options.
• Versatile features: The ideal drag and drop plugin should come with features that include styling options, pre-built templates, and other content elements to give you the options for easily building your site.
• Real-Time Customization: The ideal drag and drop plugin should help you make live edits and see the changes in real-time for easy and speedy tweaking.
• Responsiveness: Your page builder should create a website that is responsive in terms of ease of access and should be SEO-friendly. You should also make sure your page builder can help you create a website that is compatible with all devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
• Compatibility: If in the future you plan to change your existing WordPress theme, you will need to check whether the drag and drop plugin is compatible with your WordPress theme and other plugins you might want to use.

One of the greatest benefits of using WordPress to build your website is the market share it holds. WordPress is now powering 39.5% of all websites in the world. What this means for you is that you will have a thriving ecosystem of tools such as WordPress Gutenberg and support when you choose this platform. The page builders for WordPress are getting easier to use and more intuitive so you can start building your website with minimal technical expertise.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "Best WordPress Drag and Drop Page Builders" was first published on Small Business Trends