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Everything You Need to Know About Elon Musk Taking Tesla Private

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Elon Musk and the Big Tesla Buyout

In 2010, electric car company Tesla, headed by CEO Elon Musk, became a publicly traded company. The company launched on the NASDAQ at only $17 a share. Right now — in mid-August 2018 — the stock is sitting at $305.50 a share. That might change dramatically in the not too distant future, though. Elon Musk has been talking about taking Tesla private, eight years after it launched on the public market. If the company chooses to go private, what do you need to know? Especially if you are currently a proud owner of some Tesla shares? What will this mean for the company in the future?

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

If the company does go private, current investors have two choices: they can either stay with the company as it makes this transition or they can choose to sell their shares before the change happens. For casual investors, the latter option might be more lucrative. If shareholders choose to sell, they’ll be able to sell their shares at $420 a share. Or instead, a full $115 more than the current share price.

For investors, the switch for Elon taking Tesla private means they’ll only be able to access their funds once or twice a year instead of being able to buy or sell whenever they please. If Musk decides on taking Tesla private, then the shares are no longer a liquid asset.

Experts are advising investors to “take the $420 and run,” in part because a privately traded company would need some extremely aggressive future growth to be able to justify that kind of share price.

Musk would prefer that all current shareholders remain part of the new fund. Still, they all have the right to sell before the transition of being a privately held company if they so choose.

Tesla’s Special Committee

Elon Musk isn’t planning this massive buyout on his own — he’s working with some of the biggest names in the finance industry. On Monday, he announced that he was working with the Goldman Sachs Group and the Silver Lake investment firm to help them hash out the terms of the transaction. This is a bit out of Silver Lake’s wheelhouse — they usually handle financial advice for individuals rather than companies.

The whole situation is a bit unorthodox, especially since Musk announced the plans for the transition to taking Tesla private on Twitter before informing the company’s board of directors. This isn’t the first time Musk has made this kind of announcement on social media before the information was revealed “formally.” While he stated that funding has been secured for the buyout, he declared taking Tesla private before the deal with actually solid.

To help handle any negotiations, a special committee has been established. Brad Buss, Linda Johnson Rice and Robyn Denholm have been given full authority to evaluate the possible transition and handle any negotiations.

At this point, there are no assurances, even if a buyout can be negotiated, that the current shareholders will even accept the proposal.

The Future of Tesla

If the buyout proposal is accepted, what will that mean for the future of the electric car company?

It’s hard to say at this point because we have so few details about the potential transaction. Musk’s social media campaign may have been designed to scare away share short-sellers — a class-action lawsuit has been proposed specifically for that reason. The suit claims that the tweets were designed to artificially inflate the company’s stock prices.

It could be a smart move for the company. First, going private helps reduce management overhead costs. Decisions could be simpler or more streamlined because the company would no longer have to worry about playing to the shareholders or holding a vote every time a major decision needs to be made.

It’s also more difficult for companies like Tesla to function well as publicly traded organizations. Not only can it be distracting, but it can also make it harder for the company to plan a long-term strategy, because they are restricted to a quarterly earnings cycle and reporting.

In the case of popular companies like Tesla, being public traded also makes the company the target of short-sellers. Tesla stock has the distinction of being the most shorted stock of all time. Short selling is the practice of selling a stock when the price is high and buying it back at a lower price to repeat the process. It’s risky for the investor, but it can be damaging to the company as well.

In the long run, a lot of things would remain the same. Musk would still own 20 percent of the company and employees would remain shareholders. Now, instead of being able to trade their shares freely, they’ll have the option to buy or sell every six months.

We’ll just have to wait and see as the negotiations play out over the next few months. Even the industry experts aren’t quite sure where this is going to end up.

Going Private and Beyond

Elon Musk has earned a reputation for being unpredictable, much to the chagrin of his board of directors. This is the latest in a long line of statements on Twitter that have sparked dramatic change and an instant response. Whether the company goes private or not will be up to the shareholders. Even if Musk has already secured the roughly $73 million it will take to complete this massive change.

It might take awhile before we get any comments back from Tesla on how this is going to play out. If the company chooses to go private, it might allow the tech giant to make even more ambitious leaps. They can touch in fields like self-driving cars and artificial intelligence now. Anyone who decides to bail out at $420 a share might make bank. Although, they will be giving up being part of those advances.

It will be interesting to see if this sets a standard for CEOs on social media, too. If a post on Twitter can turn a multi-million-dollar company on its ear, it might change the way company owners interact with the public altogether.

Kayla Matthews is a tech journalist and writer whose work has been featured on The Week, VICE and MakeUseOf. Read more posts by Kayla on productivitybytes.com.

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10 Best AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

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AI tools have evolved fast, and entrepreneurs now rely on them not just to automate tasks but to scale entire workflows. That said, it’s not surprising that many business owners are leveraging the power of cutting-edge technology. And this is where AI tools for entrepreneurs come in. Let’s look at what they are and a few examples you can check out.

1. Aomni Agent

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Packed with powerful AI-driven features, Aomni Agent is a tool that can help you grow your company’s outbound pipeline by conducting research to give you new Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). With it, you no longer have to create account plans for each of your prospects, as the AI tool will do it for you. 

Aomni Agent engages with your customers, provides support, automates routine tasks, and gives you real-time insights and analytics, among many other features. To know its pricing and additional information, you need to contact them directly through their website.

2. Pictory

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

A video creation tool, Pictory, can help you create engaging and professional videos in minutes. It uses AI that automatically generates videos from your text, images, and audio. This means you get excellent results even without any video editing skills.

You can use Pictory to generate videos from your blog posts, articles, and other text. It can also edit existing videos and add images, music, or text. It offers a free trial and three plans with subscription fees that range from $23 to $119 per month.

3. Zeda.io 

Zeda.io has grown into a powerful AI-powered product operating system. With its 2.0 update, the platform now connects customer feedback, product strategy, roadmapping, and internal documentation into a single intelligent workspace.

Its AI engine analyzes thousands of customer inputs, from surveys to reviews to support tickets, to identify patterns, prioritize features, and suggest product improvements. What used to take days of manual synthesis now takes minutes. The updated version also includes AI-generated product briefs, automated roadmap updates, and integrations with popular tools like Slack, Notion, and HubSpot.

4. Slite Ask

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Slite Ask is one of the most reliable AI knowledge-base assistants for teams. Instead of manually searching docs or old messages, entrepreneurs can simply “ask” a question and get an instant answer based on their workspace knowledge.

The AI scans company documents, policies, SOPs, and internal notes to deliver accurate responses without hallucinations. This makes onboarding smoother and speeds up decision-making, especially for remote or hybrid teams.

5. Credal.ai

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Keep your data safe with an AI tool that’s perfect for entrepreneurs. Credal.ai is a software that provides a secure environment for AI applications to run and monitors them for any potential security threats. This helps you protect your business’s sensitive data from unauthorized users.

Credal.ai protects your data from leaks, malicious codes, and unauthorized access. It has a free plan but with limitations, so to get the most out of this AI tool, a Team or Enterprise plan is recommended. Pricing starts at $500 per month.

6. Webscraping.AI

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from a website, such as stock prices, product details, company contacts, and many more. If you want access to this information, you’ll need Webscraping.AI. It is easy to use and won’t require you to have any coding or technical skills. All you need to do is enter the website you want to scrape, and the tool will automatically get the data from the website.

Webscraping.AI can help business owners make better decisions by providing accurate data to identify new opportunities. It can also help them make better decisions for their strategies. Pricing for this AI tool for entrepreneurs ranges from $29 to $249 per month, with no hidden fees.

7. ValueProp.dev

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

A value proposition is a statement that tells your customers what your product or service is all about. This can be tricky, but worry no more, as ValueProp.dev is an AI tool for entrepreneurs created explicitly for this. It uses machine learning to analyze your customer data to generate unique value propositions for you.

ValueProp.dev can help you improve your business by generating value propositions that significantly increase customer acquisition, retention, and sales. It is free for up to three value propositions, but they also have premium plans for more options and features. Pricing starts at $29 per month.

8. Lovo.ai

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

A text-to-speech and text-to-video platform, Lovo.ai can help you create engaging and informative content for your content marketing strategies. It uses AI to generate realistic and human-loke voiceovers, videos, avatars, and others. You can extend your reach globally as this tool can do voiceovers and videos in more than 140 languages.

Lovo.ai can help you increase your engagement, improve your SEO rankings, and boost conversions. You can try their free plan to give you an idea of what the tool can do for you. But for more features, a paid plan that starts at $19 per month can provide more value.

9. Zigpoll 

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Zigpoll remains a solid choice for collecting customer insights, but its capabilities have expanded over the past two years. Today, Zigpoll uses AI to generate survey questions, summarize responses, detect sentiment, and even segment customers automatically.

Entrepreneurs can embed polls on websites, email campaigns, or post-purchase pages, then let Zigpoll’s AI categorize feedback into actionable insights. This helps brands quickly spot trends, product issues, or opportunities for upselling.

10. Pitches.ai 

AI Tools for Entrepreneurs 

Are you looking to increase your business funding? Then creating the perfect pitch deck should be your priority. You can easily and quickly do this with Pitches.ai. It is an AI-powered tool for entrepreneurs to develop and refine pitch decks. 

Pitches.ai analyzes pitch decks and gives you feedback on their structure, persuasiveness, and clarity. This gives you a higher probability of success. It offers four premium plans with prices ranging between $95 to $1,195.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence is slowly becoming popular among business owners. Thanks to their many advantages, it’s no surprise that many will be using the technology from now on. These AI tools for entrepreneurs are a great example, and you should check them out today.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

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What’s the Best Graphic Design Service for Education & eLearning?

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Graphic design for education

TLDR: Best unlimited graphic design services for education and eLearning: ideal for quick turnaround, high-quality designs, and affordable pricing.

84% of communication is visual. Thus, for a world of education and eLearning, graphic design is imperative in the creation of projects for students and complex concepts. From interactive course materials to compelling marketing, strong visuals drive success. But finding a reliable, affordable design partner is tough.

Thus, it’s hard to come by a reputable service that can provide all your needs at a reasonable cost when it comes to project designs, turnaround expectations, anticipated quality and budgetary allowances.

But never fear! We’ve vetted what’s best for you!

1. Penji

If you’re looking for the best for education and eLearning purposes, Penji has the best overall value as quality, turnaround time and offers have placed it at a reasonable flat fee monthly.

Penji is an unlimited graphic design service that works as you would expect – unlimited – which means that for a flat fee monthly, you’ll have access to your very own team of designers.

Features:

  • A Well-Qualified Team of Designers: Whether you need e-learning interactive designs to course visuals (infographics, presentations) Penji’s graphic designers make everything visually appealing to an academic audience.
  • Turnaround: Average turnaround is about 24-48 hours so you can keep churning out material for course creation or marketing.
  • Unlimited Revisions: As many times as needed to get your requested project right.
  • Accessibility and Submission Portal: Penji comes with a site that’s fairly user-friendly for ease of access in submissions, critiques and conversations.

2. Kimp

If you need an unlimited source and don’t mind one that’s second best, Kimp boasts graphics and even video. Consider this option with caution – some reviews do mention turnover can vary and this wouldn’t be the best reliable option if you’re on a time crunch for every project.

Features:

  • Wide Range of Services: Kimp provides both graphic design and video services, offering a versatile creative solution.
  • Dedicated Designers: You’ll work with a group as your designated team so you get to know your specific creators.
  • Easier Feedback Opportunities: Feedback can be given on the Kimp site for creations with visual access as to what you want changed.

3. Design Pickle

Design Pickle: unlimited graphic design services

Design Pickle was one of the first unlimited graphic design services to go for an unlimited design game. This is helpful if you need custom illustrations or a presentation created for a polished look in any educated (or business) endeavor – higher tier subscriptions go with probability – but in all other worlds, it has more value than other sites when stacked against one another.

  • Unlimited revisions to get the exact illustrations or graphics needed for presentations or other projects.
  • Quick turnaround times to keep on schedule with 48 hour returns.
  • Global Design Team: Boasts a diverse team of professional designers, offering expertise across multiple industries to match various client needs.

4. ManyPixels

Many Pixels: unlimited graphic design services

ManyPixels is another reputable source that has unlimited graphic designs services but assignment transparency which means you’ll have one assigned designer to you, but they’re a bit more transparent with regards to who may (or not) be able to help you but will get back to you with good timing. 

  • One Dedicated Designer: ManyPixels is a company that does not have unlimited designs, however you’ll have one assigned who will know your needs better than most.
  • Good Turnaround Time: Generally they’ll turn around assignments within 1-2 days after submission regardless of simplicity/complexity.
  • Reliable Designs: Good for marketing or simple visuals/templates you’d want to use for educational continuity but they may not give as specialized feedback as you’d think.

Cover Image Credit: Photo by Fox on Pexels

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What are the Best Graphic Design Services for Fashion Brands?

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best graphic design service for fashion brands

For many businesses, graphic design means conversions, credibility, and brand recall. So, if you’re in the fashion industry, you also need to have significant visual assets if growth is your priority. If you need help finding the best graphic design service for your fashion brand, we made a list of the top five:

Penji

Best Graphic Design Service for Fashion Brands

An on-demand graphic design platform, Penji offers unlimited graphic design services for fixed monthly fees. This allows you to send as many requests for lookbooks, catalogs, packaging designs, and many other marketing materials for less. Its team of top-notch designers assures you of consistent and high-quality work worthy of your fashion business.

Kimp

Best Graphic Design Service for Fashion Brands

Built to support the creative needs of many businesses, including fashion, Kimp is another platform that offers unlimited design requests. It can craft product mockups, campaign visuals, packaging designs, and social media graphics, among others. It also provides video editing services, making it ideal for fashion companies that run reels, seasonal promos, or behind-the-scenes edits.

Designity

Best Graphic Design Service for Fashion Brands

Combining agency-level creative direction with flexible access to US designers, Designity suits fashion brands that need polish, strategy, and scalability. They can provide you with social media graphics, online ads, label designs, logo and branding, and magazine layouts, among other key services.

Flocksy

Best Graphic Design Service for Fashion Brands

If your business needs video editing, copywriting, and voice-over services, then Flocksy is the best graphic design service for your fashion brand. In addition, it also offers custom illustrations, packaging design, infographics, and many other design services. It operates on a flat-rate pricing model, making it a more cost-effective option than hiring freelancers or working with expensive agencies.

Reel Unlimited

Best Graphic Design Service for Fashion Brands

With its predictable pricing and wide array of graphic design services, Reel Unlimited is an excellent design solution for fashion brands. Like many on this list, it offers unlimited design requests and fast turnaround times, making it the ideal option for those with tight schedules and limited budgets.

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