Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 26, 2012
I recently wrote a post about negotiating with suppliers called “ The End of the Mexican Road.” The post talked about how to find the lowest acceptable price & terms in a deal through testing. In the post I made clear that I believe that all negotiations should seek to find fair deals where both parties can feel good about the outcomes.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 21, 2012
Cash is the fuel of every startup. Your burn rate is the rate at which that money is being spent, and allows an estimate of how long you can go before refueling (runway). That refueling is when you will need more investment, or when you will break even and begin that steep profitable growth curve. Investors also look at your burn rate to see how efficient and effective you are at running the business.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 14, 2012
This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live. To get your question answered , email me at asmartbear -at- shortmail -dot- com. Freshman Salesman writes: I’ve read somewhere in your blog about how you had a very large organisation as the first customer for your software.
David Teten
FEBRUARY 3, 2012
Following is a guest post from ff Venture Capital winter intern Max Segan , a Colgate senior majoring in computer science, who is starting at Facebook this summer as a software engineer. From our perspective, Facebook is both our friend (training hundreds of talented future entrepreneurs) and enemy (competing with our portfolio companies for top talent like Max.
Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic
Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 26, 2012
Singaporeans’ love affair with technology continues unabated, judging by the plethora of electronics stores around the island and the massive crowds swarming the four major electronics fairs every year. But if one trend seems to come across strongly in recent years, it’s not just about selling electronics and devices anymore; it’s about selling a lifestyle.
Startup Lessons Learned
FEBRUARY 1, 2012
I don't normally comment on the day's news, but I want to make an exception today to share something from Facebook's S-1 filing. Over the next few days, astronomical amounts of attention are going to be paid to Facebook's incredible business results: the 800+ million active users, the $3.7 billion (!) in revenue, and their growth rates, too. I hope at least some of that attention will be paid to the culture and process that made those results possible.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 17, 2012
Every engineer who has invented some new technology, or is adept at creating solutions, believes that is the hard part, and it should be a short step to take that solution to market as an entrepreneur. In reality, that short business step embodies far more risk, and a poor technology solution is not near the top of most lists of common reasons for business failures.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 2, 2012
University research is a big business for many schools. It certainly worked out pretty well when Stanford licensed the search technology that Larry and Sergei had been working on back to them at Google. They netted more on that deal than Fordham has in it's whole endowment (but still, go Rams!). On top of that, most of a school's major donors are likely to be entrepreneurs in some way.
David Teten
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
On February 16, I visited Washington, DC, where I attended an HBS Club of DC lunch on the Case Foundation and Startup America. Michael Smith, leader of the Social Innovation team at the Case Foundation , introduced the Foundation as a non-profit started in 1997 by Steve Case (AOL co-founder) and his wife, Jean Case. Its mission, to invest in people and ideas that can change the world, is supported by a venture philanthropy model that is funding a dozen “big ideas” in a focused way.
The Equity Kicker
FEBRUARY 24, 2012
I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I am reading Clayten Christensen’s new book, Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. I’m still really enjoying it, and I now have a second major takeaway. As I wrote last time, the first take away was that to a large extent innovation is a learnt skill that can be self taught. The new insight is that the skills of a good innovator – associative thinking, questioning, observing, experimenting and networking are very different to
crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 17, 2012
Six weeks ago I saw a tweet about a new thing from Codecademy called Code Year. It promised to teach you how to code in 2012. I signed up right away and am now one of 396,103 people who have signed up as of this moment. Like a good MIT graduate, I’ve procrastinated. When I was an undergrad, I liked to say things like “I want to give all of my fellow students a four to six week handicap.” Yeah – I was the dude that blew off too many classes at the beginning of the semester
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 12, 2012
Many professionals in business, from startups to multi-nationals, assume that team leader or executive is an appointed position, and the skills come with the title. In reality, leadership is best demonstrated while not in a position of authority, and is a skill that must be sharpened every day of your life. Most experts agree that leadership, as perceived by people around you, is more about behavior than it is about specific skills or knowledge.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
There, I said it. Oh, so you had noticed. Great. then at least we're all starting on the same page and I don't need to explain half the story to you. Don't know who he is, besides that? Well, he's the Knick point guard who dropped 38 on Kobe Bryant the other night. And also Asian, yes. A Harvard grad--all listed 6'2'' of him. So who cares, right? Well, people did care--at least they used to, but not in the right way.
David Teten
FEBRUARY 26, 2012
If you’re a healthcare-focused VC or angel who has made at least 3 investments in the trailing year, please contact me if you’d like to attend our upcoming Harvard Business School Angels pitch night on February 29, co-hosted with the HBS Healthcare Alumni Association. The evening is sponsored by a Fortune 500 medical technology company. This is the first industry-specific HBS Angels pitch night.
The Equity Kicker
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Fortieth in a series of weekly posts by myself and Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief which answer the fifty questions you should ask before raising venture capital. We expect the series to run for a year after which we will collate the posts into a book. You can find the rationale behind the series here , and the list of questions here. We welcome your comments on any and every aspect of what we are doing. —————————————.
crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
I’ve been working on CrankyAds.com now for over a year, although there have been a few start-stop sessions, so it hasn’t been exactly all-steam ahead during that time. Developing software is a lot of fun, when you have the people who can make your vision a reality.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 4, 2012
After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process. For no good reason, this process seems shrouded in mystery, when in fact it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.
The Entrepreneurial Mind
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
Entrepreneurs face a difficult challenge in how they should be spending their time as a business grows. The dilemma is commonly referred to as needing to "work on the business rather than work in it.". Typically, entrepreneurs are heavily involved in working directly with their customers during the startup phase. They do much of the work necessary to generate revenues.
Ben's Blog
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
I’ve seen the future and it will be. I’ve seen the future and it works. —Prince, The Future. Major technology platforms tend to last about 25 to 30 years. This gives them time to gather sufficient developer momentum, enable a set of transformational ideas, build those ideas, and form a large industry around it. The platforms then sustain for an additional 5-10 years due to inertia and lock-in.
The Equity Kicker
FEBRUARY 29, 2012
Most of the posts I write are optimistic and upbeat. Not this one. I have just come from an excellent breakfast hosted by Qualcomm where we had half a dozen talks about the future for mobile. We heard about the potential for NFC, augmented reality, mobile commerce, and mobile operating systems, but the presentation that really caught my eye was about the growth in mobile malware.
Duct Tape Marketing
FEBRUARY 21, 2012
The Single Most Important Word In Any Business This content from: Duct Tape Marketing. I want to ask you to take a little test. Go out and grab five or six of your best customers and pose this question to them: What’s one word you would use to describe how you think about our organization? The ability to capture and hold one word in the mind of your intended market is perhaps the most telling measure of marketing success.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 20, 2012
Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She’s a painter and a self-proclaimed Bohemian. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn’t start her company in Northern California. Tracy built her company, Recycled Media , out of necessity. She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She drove her company to profitability before paying herself a modest salary.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 1, 2012
If your startup can’t be bothered with social media, or has no plan to take advantage of it, then you are definitely at risk these days. But simply jumping in is not enough. Before you start spending money and time being a user, you need to understand how it can help you and your business. Using it randomly or incorrectly is a waste of your precious time.
The Entrepreneurial Mind
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
Developing a sound business model is key to the successful launch of a business. But you should never assume the business modeling is finished once the business begins to grow. Keeping a business model current is critical for long-term success. A business model helps to ensure that all of the "moving parts" of the company are working together. What is the value that is offered to the customers and what is it worth to them?
Ben's Blog
FEBRUARY 29, 2012
’Cause right now you’re just a liar. a straight mentirosa. today u tell me something. y manana es otra cosa. —Mellow Man Ace, Mentirosa. When a company starts to lose its major battles, the truth often becomes the first casualty. CEOs and employees work tirelessly to develop creative narratives that help them avoid dealing with the obvious facts.
Software By Rob
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
Photo by psiaki. This is final installment of a 3-part series covering my acquisition of HitTail. I’d originally planned on a 2 part series, but when parts 1 and 2 went to the top of Hacker News I received so many questions that I decided to add this prologue to answer them. Every question below has been asked via email, comment or Twitter over the past four weeks.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
While entrepreneurship is in the news fairly regularly, I seldom make news myself. Today, however there are two important updates for entrepreneurs everywhere. Let me be brief…. The “Startup Owner’s Manual” goes On Press Tuesday 2/14. Two years in the making and literally ten years in development, I’m proud to announce that my new book, The Startup Owners Manual , goes onto the printing press next Tuesday.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
My friend and fellow SoCal venture capitalist Peter Lee wrote a post about the different roles within a VC and spent much time on the role of an associate. VC’s keep different titles but the most common that I’ve come across that are investment professionals are (in ascending order of seniority): analyst, associate, principal and partner.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 14, 2012
The official start date for your startup is the date you incorporate the business. This is obviously important for tax purposes, but may also dramatically influence how potential investors, customers, and competitors look at you. My rule of thumb expectation is that it should take two months to set up the legal entity, six months to finalize the business plan, and by the end of the first year have a prototype product ready for customers.
Rob Go
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
I have the benefit of seeing lots of startups pitch their teams and watching many seed-funded companies establish their early org structures. I’ve found that there are certain types of orgs and titles that I have a naturally visceral reaction towards. For example: - Having any more “C’s” than the CEO and CTO. - Seeing a head of product that isn’t a founder. - Seeing VPs (the more I see, the worse I feel).
deal architect
FEBRUARY 24, 2012
Maybe because of my books the last few years, but I have become much more aware of a large community of developers, musicians, authors, SAP Mentors, Oracle Aces. They share a common trait – they are not entrepreneurs or employees.
Genuine VC
FEBRUARY 12, 2012
We at NextView Ventures often invest in a startup’s first round alongside other funds; either seed stage focused ones like ourselves or larger traditional firms. Just as often, however, we’re investing alongside individual angel investors who are participating in the round as well. Angel investors come in many shapes and sizes, however. And it’s not always easy to recognize the pros and cons of taking money from individual investors, or how to even seek them out in the first place.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 16, 2012
Alexander Osterwalder and I spent last week in Salt Lake City, Utah as judges at the 2 nd Annual International Business Model Competition , hosted by Professor Nathan Furr , and his team at the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. The idea of a Business Model competition first emerged when I realized that Business Plan writing ought to be taught in English Departments – as they’re the best example of creative writing entrepreneurs will ever do.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 11, 2012
Negotiations. We all think we’re good at them. Most people aren’t that good. For many the idea of negotiations is “let’s split the difference 50/50.” In some situations this is the right answer. In many cases it’s not. I learned many of my negotiation techniques through experience. But I did read a couple of books on the topic that were useful: 1.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
293 
Let's personalize your content