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Now that we’ve entered the second half of a challenging and unpredictable year, it’s time to re-look at 2020 goals, and begin the planning and budget cycles for 2021. But how? Maybe it’s the unknowns, maybe it’s concern for the impact goals can have on your team’s morale and motivation—this feels particularly hard this time.

The CCPA was created with the goal of enhancing the privacy rights of California residents. Going into effect on January 2020, the CCPA requires businesses to take several steps to be compliant. The law is comparable to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but takes certain measures even further, like having a broader definition of what constitutes private data.

Whether you’re launching your first product or expanding internationally, a strong marketing plan is essential. Ensuring continued growth requires new perspectives and new strategies in many areas of the business. We’ve created a guide with sales and marketing best practices for five different stages of growth. Here are some highlights:

Report from XPONENTIAL 2018

With more than 8500 attendees, the AUVSI XPONENTIAL show is the largest event worldwide for drones, robotics, and unmanned systems spanning over 20 different industries. In our second year of attendance at the show, we noticed significant shifts in the market makeup, exhibitor’s strategy, and the unmanned industry as a whole.

Whether you’re starting a new company, establishing a spinoff, or considering a total rebrand, your company name is an important decision that will drive a lot of other aspects of your business.

Ben Burton, president and CEO of iuvo BioScience, talks with us about his five-year strategic plan, targeting aggressive growth both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. The acquisition of Moog’s laboratory services business and recent divestiture of iuvo’s sterilization facility, LINK, in Erie, PA, will allow the company to focus on investing in expanding testing services.

Ben spent more than eight years at Bausch + Lomb as vice president of quality for its pharmaceutical business. We had the pleasure of tapping into his thought process on acquisition strategy—considering both cultural and branding implications.

The dream of any entrepreneur is to build a successful, profitable business that can survive long after he or she retires. Often the goal is to pass the business down to children or close relatives, as evidenced by the fact that 80% of businesses worldwide are family-owned. In the U.S., family-owned companies are responsible for 60% of all employment and 78% of new jobs.

Despite their prevalence, 70% of family businesses last just one generation before they either fail or are sold. Some common pitfalls can cause problems in transitioning the company down the road.

For today’s Beer & Blog, we spoke with Lisa Belodoff, vice president of business development at Rochester Precision Optics. Lisa has worked in sales and marketing throughout the optics and photonics industry, helping to build LightWorks Optics for successful exit, working in fiber infrastructure at CABLExpress and in medical devices at Masimo. She is a driver of change and growth, and we’re honored to collaborate with her.

Change is a constant. It's in times of change that Launch Team becomes involved with clients, whether they’re going through a merger or acquisition, a new product launch, new market entry, or channel reorganization. External and internal communication in these times of change are key.

Patent Portfolio ROI

Each year, more and more American companies are cutting research and development budgets, moving further away from fundamental research and instead focusing on products that are closer to commercialization and monetization. As Fortune Magazine reported in December 2015, DuPont’s former CEO Ellen Kullman resigned under much criticism last year, and one of the complaints coming from opponents was her heavy investment in R&D.

Last week, we spoke with Greg Gribben and Katie McGuire of Woods Oviatt Gilman about trademark entity discovery during a company rebrand. This week we'll share our conversation about the main intellectual property challenges for companies in their second stage of growth. From exit strategy to working with outside vendors, growing companies have a lot to consider.

At Launch Team, we are often brought in at a point of change in second stage technology companies; these companies have grown to a certain size and created a brand in some markets but are ready for the next stage of growth. This change is often triggered by new leadership, and in many cases, the next generation of leadership. They bring their own ideas to the business, such as new product launch, new marketing strategy, and interest in entering new markets.