Embeddings in OpenAI and Azure OpenAI on Your Data

Embeddings is the knowledge that exists in the “brain” of an LLM system. What an embedding does is simple: It gets as input a text, and it creates a vector for this text. E.g, it gets the text “Hi, my name is Fotis” and it creates a vector [0.2, 0.1, ….-0.3]. Then, it stores all these vectors in …

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How to Build a Motivating and Fair Sales Compensation Plan in your Startup

As a startup, you’re facing aggressive sales targets, and it might be a challenge to structure a fair bonus incentive scheme for your sellers. Let’s explore an approach that could work well for you. TLDR Mindmap: Here is a mindmap of this blogpost, created by ChatGPT+Whimsical: First, let’s consider the most common challenges from a seller’s perspective: …

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Innovation in Retail from China and around the Globe

Retail is an amazing area for tech innovation: AI, Big Data, IoT, Drones, Autonomous Delivery Vehicles, Social Media, Influencers…It’s all there. This week we had a very interesting retail industry session on the latest trends and innovations by Noah Herschman, our Online and Offline Retail Innovation Leader, and as we are working with many ISV …

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Service as a Software Business Model

You probably know the Software as a Service business model (SaaS). But there is a new kid in town! The Service as a Software business model is a new trend that emerges thanks to the advances of AI and Machine learning. Here are some thoughts on what opportunities this might bring in the next years. What is Service as …

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12 Reasons to Move your Software Solution to the cloud

In my discussions with software houses that already have an on-premise software solution, the question of “Why should we move to the cloud?”, often comes up. I know it is 2019 and in many parts of the world the discussion is not “Why Cloud?” but “Which Cloud?“, but a lot of software companies founded before 2005 …

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How to Pitch Your Idea and Your Startup

At the Founders Institute in Athens, we are working with teams on pitching their ideas and try to develop them into viable startups. The teams get better and better as the number of pitches increases and the feedback they get gets more concrete, so here is a guide on how you can get a better pitch …

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30 Startup Buzzwords You Should Know

There is a specific language that is used in the startup world. Yes, it contains many buzzwords and there are also humorous infographics on them, while many people -who are many years in the space- make fun of new teams over(ab)using them (read posts at quora). However, you should still invest some time in learning and understanding them, in order …

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I have a startup idea! Should I tell it to others?

Yesterday we had a Startup Pitch presentation at Founders Institute in Athens (click) and one of the questions that came up was: “I have an idea for a startup. I am afraid that if I tell it to others, someone may steal it. Should I tell my idea and how can I protect it?”. The short …

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A Quick Guide to Remarketing

Remarketing (or retargeting) is a relatively new trend in online marketing, so here is some information on how you can use it to increase your customer’s loyalty, conversions and sales. 1. What is Remarketing Remarketing is a technique that lets you reach people who have previously visited your site, and show them relevant ads across …

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Mobile App Economy: 10 Questions Answered by Vision Mobile

A lot of Greek Startup teams focus on developing applications for mobile platforms, so we asked the opinion of the experts :). This is a guest blog post from Andreas Pappas (@PappasAndreas), Senior Analyst at VisionMobile (visit VM’s great blog here). #1: You have just delivered the Developers Economics Report for Q3 2013. What are the top 3 findings? No1. …

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How to Build Trust for your Startup

We had the TIE Athens Bootcamp yesterday and one of the subject that was discussed is: I am startup, my brand is not that well-known, so how can I make others (website visitors/investors/potential customers) trust me? Here are some ideas on how you can build trust for your startup: 1. Build an Advisory Board Wouldn’t people look …

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Business Plan and Business Model for Startups

Here is the problem: You are a team of great developers and you are building your dream product. But you have no marketing or business skills. And you’re still thinking of getting some 50k accelerator/seed funding, or even a bigger VC investment. Well, you are not alone. A lot of tech startups are in the …

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Athens Startup Weekend 2013: How to make the most out of it

In a few days the 5th Athens Startup Weekend takes place. ASW is a 54 hour event which can help you to get your business idea to the next step. At ASW you can pitch your idea, get developers/designers/business people in your team, get support from advisors and work intensively on your idea for 54 hours. At the end, …

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3d Printing and Business Opportunities

3d printing is the next trillion dollar opportunity according to many economists.  This is a post to raise awareness to the greek startup ecosystem and examine some business opportunities. What is 3d Printing? To put it simply, it is a machine in which you place some raw material (plastic/metal etc), you download a 3d printing file and it …

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TechCrunch Athens | Startups Meet up | Jan.13

A few days ago the Techcrunch Meetup Athens event took place in the Museum of Benaki (#tcathens or #tcath,  fotos from vrypan here), with more than 400 attendees from the startup community of Greece. The event was organized by Niko Bonatso and Alexia Tsotsis, with the support of OpenCoffee and Microsoft Innovation Center in Athens among others and there were different panels on startup …

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