2020

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Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 8 – AI – Chris Lynch and Nand Mulchandani

Steve Blank

We just held our eighth session of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. Today’s topic was Artificial Intelligence and Modern War.

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5 Keys To Negotiating Your Fair Share Of Any Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology, or money. So the first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Giving a co-founder a salary won’t get you the “fire in the belly” you want.

Cofounder 435
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Airbnb S-1 (Part 1): So How Profitable Is This Thing Really?

View from Seed

Airbnb’s public S-1 dropped Monday afternoon. One of the most highly anticipated startup IPOs of recent years, we now get a peek inside Airbnb’s business. You can read various articles out there which will give you the cursory facts about Airbnb like their overall revenue or profitability or how their business has faired here in 2020 in the COVID environment.

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SAP Data & Analytics Analyst Summit - a review

deal architect

I was invited to an analyst summit on SAP's Data and Analytics portfolio of products. What a remarkable difference from last year! I had flown to a similar event in Vancouver - first to Seattle, then taken a bus across.

Analytics 488
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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

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

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How To Survive The Loss Of A Main Customer

YoungUpstarts

by Zain Jaffer, serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Zain Ventures. Running a small business can come with a slew of challenges. Among the list: the loss of a major client. In many cases, this scenario is inevitable and difficult to prevent. When it occurs, the consequences can be swift and devastating, wreaking potential havoc on a once steady stream of revenue.

Customer 347
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How Remote Startups are Changing the Game for Everyone

ReadWriteStart

Based on our history, we can see that unprecedented events have the potential to cause permanent mass changes. Remember the 9/11 attack? That attack changed the face of airport security forever. Suddenly, new transit rules were enforced and sophisticated surveillance gear became commonplace. Here is how remote startups are changing the game for everyone.

More Trending

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B2B Marketplaces Revisited

Version One Ventures

Twenty years ago – in the midst of the Web 1.0 boom – expectations were high for B2B (product) marketplaces. The assumption was that online platforms would completely automate all supplier-customer transactions including retailing, wholesaling, and procurement. Yet today, the world of B2B marketplaces still lags far behind its B2C counterpart. Alibaba is an exception.

B2B 213
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24 Entrepreneurs Reveal The Industries That Are Ripe For Disruption

Hearpreneur

Is your industry ready for a change? The decision on which industry one should venture in is often determined by factors such as advancement in technology and availability of capital. The prevailing trends may favor some industry while others prove to be more profitable over time. We asked entrepreneurs and business owners about the industries that are ripe for disruption and here are the response; #1- The hemp extraction.

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The Should-How Fallacy (Or Why “Correct” Isn’t “Useful”)

ConversionXL

Get a chicken. Cook it until it’s perfectly done. Reduce the jus to a nice pan sauce. Then finish it with some butter until it has the right balance of flavors. Enjoy. This is a useless recipe, but it’s not wrong. It assumes, however, that accurate advice on what you should do is as valuable as advice on how to do it—the “Should-How Fallacy.” But being right doesn’t create value; empowering others to succeed does.

Analytics 161
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7 Small Business Trends that Arrived Just in Time for 2021

Duct Tape Marketing

7 Small Business Trends that Arrived Just in Time for 2021 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. This blog post is brought to you by GoDaddy Pro. Every year for the last 20 or so, I’ve wrapped up the year with my predictions for trends in the coming year. I’m usually spot on too. But that’s really more of a testament to the fact that trends tend to creep up on us rather than overwhelm us.

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Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 1

Steve Blank

We just had our first week of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Given the tech-centricity of Stanford and Silicon Valley, Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I thought it was natural to design a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy.

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How Bill Gates Was A Role Model For New Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

Sometimes I like to drop the comment socially that “I knew Bill Gates back when he was a regular guy.” I know that dates me a good bit, but it also shows that I have been hanging around startups for a long time. The honest truth is that I worked directly with him in the early days of Microsoft from my “safe” perch in big IBM, during the startup of the IBM PC.

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A VC’s Blink Reaction to Your Co-Founder

View from Seed

When you are introducing your company to a VC for the first time, their brains are scrambling to try to form as much of an opinion as possible in a short amount of time. Many different details leave some sort of initial impression or are stored away in the “investigate later” category. One of the most important things that VC’s take note of is the impression created by your choice of co-founders.

Cofounder 408
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Wise Words from C.S. Lewis in 1948

Feld Thoughts

The following from C. S. Lewis. was on my fraternity email list this morning. It was written in 1948 after the dawn of the atomic age. In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are

Email 254
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Is Artificial Intelligence Fusing With The Virtual Call Center?

YoungUpstarts

The current business situation has brought new techniques for improving the global market – the fusing of AI with the call center directed to improve a business’s customer interactions. Today virtual call centers are the top users of AI technology from reliable poll ratings. Most businesses in the UK are adopting AI tech to increase the reliability of their call centers.

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Remote Work in the Time of COVID-19

ReadWriteStart

The world has changed… Two months ago, if I told you that remote work would be the global norm by mid-April, you’d have thought I was hanging out with Elon Musk too much. And, if I told you that by the beginning of May, you’d make every hire remotely, you might have laughed in my face. Here is remote work in the time of COVID-19. …suddenly, nearly all technical jobs are remote-jobs, all dev-teams are distributed teams, and virtually all hiring is remote hiring.

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Is the Lean Startup concept of MVP dead?

VC Cafe

“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. (Most of the funds that started in the late part of the boom would be underwater). Angel investment, which was small to start with, disappeared, and most corporate VCs shut down. VC’s were no longer insisting that startups spend faster, and “swing for the fences”. In fact, they were screaming at them to dramatically reduce their burn rates.

Lean 214
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A Guide to Marketplaces: Third Edition

Version One Ventures

We’re thrilled to announce the third edition of “A Guide to Marketplaces.” We published our first edition five years ago and the second nearly three years ago. So much has changed since then – from the rise of B2B marketplaces to new crypto-native platforms. . Even as we explore emerging sectors like climate and crypto, we continue to be excited about marketplaces.

B2B 218
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How to Talk About the Arc of Your Career

This is going to be BIG.

Not everyone’s career moves up and to the right from beginning to end. In fact, I don’t think that actually happens to anyone—but some people are just better at hiding the wrong turns, u-turns, and downturns than others. The key isn’t skipping over them—because a recruiter or potential employer can sniff out a story that doesn’t make sense from a mile away.

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5 reasons why Germany is the best country for startups

The Next Web

Germany has been a startup ecosystem on the rise for quite some time now. It’s produced a number of global success stories including SoundCloud, Zalando, Flixbus, and HelloFresh. In 2019, the country was ranked number one in Europe for startups by NimbleFins. EY reported that Germany’s top 100 startups received a total of $11.1 billion in funding in 2019, a significant increase from the $6.3 billion reached in 2018.

Germany 209
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2021 Trends for Small Business

Duct Tape Marketing

2021 Trends for Small Business written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch . In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I do my annual wrap up of 2020 in a way that predicts what is coming next year! I’ve been doing this post for the last 20 years and I’m usually spot on. That’s not a nod to my prediction ability but more to the fact that trends usually creep up on us and grow.

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The Rapture Happened but I Wasn’t Called

Steve Blank

Last Friday the Secretary of Defense abruptly fired half of the Defense Business Board. For some reason, he forgot me. He appointed former Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie as chair and vice chair and nine other new members. The Defense Business Board is one of several advisory boards that serve as the pleasure of the Secretary of Defense.

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How To Reinvent Yourself As A Business Startup Today

Startup Professionals Musings

The era of stable lifetime jobs for business professionals within a single company are gone. Companies are rightsized quickly now as markets change rapidly, and business professionals are quick to jump to new opportunities for growth and survival, with no ties to special benefits or pension plans. Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs.

Startup 410
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Announcing NextView’s Everyday Economy Accelerator

View from Seed

We at NextView Ventures are sensitive to the challenges which all startups face during these times brought upon us by the current Coronavirus crisis. As we have discussed elsewhere, the world of early stage investing is shifting from FOMO ( F ear O f M issing O ut) to FOLD (Fear Of Looking Dumb). Even though some of the most transformative tech companies are built during difficult economic periods, the aperture of VC funds tends to narrow during these times.

B2B 436
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Exponential Growth and Covid-19

Feld Thoughts

Most people don’t understand exponential growth. It can be counterintuitive and is easily misinterpreted. Understanding it is particularly important right now around Covid-19. The following eight-minute video is extremely well done and uses the historical Covid-19 data to help understand exponential growth. There’s a magic number in this that we should be focusing on, but gets lost in the fog of hysteria.

Green 254
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Starting Up A Business Vs Buying An Existing Business

YoungUpstarts

If you generally have the idea of starting up a business or buying an existing business, each has its advantages and disadvantages to it (If you are looking to fund your new venture and need help comparing the market Nowloan can provide you with some of the best rates on the market just click here ). Businesses can be tricky if you aren’t careful enough.

Employee 324
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7 Ways to Generate Unique Web App Ideas for Your Startup to Consider

ReadWriteStart

Execution of an idea is easier than generating the one. The idea will remain the same for web app idea creation and implementation. If you are a startup , then it is important for you to introduce web applications with a unique idea or less popular concepts. Companies are exploring all possible horizons to introduce new solutions almost every day. It seems quite challenging to stay competitive by launching a unique idea when a high competition out there.

Web 194
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The Creator Economy is rising, but challenges abound

VC Cafe

“A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living” Kevin Kelly, 1,000 True Fans. At the heart of the creator economy (also dubbed the “Passion Economy” or “Hustle Economy”) is the ability of a creator to monetise attention and fandom.

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The Energy Revolution is (Finally) Here

Version One Ventures

It’s been exciting to see so much renewed investor interest in climate tech and clean energy startups. As Peter Thiel documented in detail, the last wave of late 2000s cleantech VC excitement ended in a trough of despair as many of the more well-funded companies went bust (with the notable exception of a few big winners like Tesla, SunRun, and Opower).

Mexico 218
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2020 SaaS Survey Results- COVID Edition!

For Entrepreneurs

KBCM TECHNOLOGY GROUP SAAS SURVEY – COVID EDITION For the eighth year in a row, we’re proud to work with KBCM Technology Group (formerly Pacific Crest Securities) Thank you to the readers of forEntrepreneurs who participated in taking the survey! Thank you also to David Spitz (@dspitz) and the team at KBCM Technology Group for.

Security 197
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Get The Startup Way ebook for $2.99 for a limited time

Startup Lessons Learned

No company can succeed long-term without a culture of continuous innovation and systems of entrepreneurial management that encourage and support change and the visionaries who make it happen. That's why I'm so pleased that from today through March 1st, the ebook of The Startup Way is on sale for $2.99. You can find it on Amazon , at Barnes & Noble , and on Apple Books.

Lean 199
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5 Trends That Impact Consultants and Coaches in 2021

Duct Tape Marketing

5 Trends That Impact Consultants and Coaches in 2021 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. In addition to working with thousands of small business owners each year, I also work very closely with coaches, consultants, and small marketing agency owners. These folks are, of course, small business owners in their own right. Still, this work gives me particular insight into the challenges, workings, and characteristics of this specific niche of business owners.

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Rising out of the Crisis: Where to Find New Markets and Customers

Steve Blank

The pandemic has upended the business models of most startups and existing companies. As the economy reopens companies are finding that customers may have disappeared or that their spending behavior has changed. Suppliers are going out of business or requiring cash-up-front terms. Accounts receivables are stretching way out. Revenue models and forecasts are no longer valid.

Customer 436
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10 Key Elements Of An Open Leadership Framework Today

Startup Professionals Musings

The pervasiveness of social networking and the Internet has caused a new focus and value on “openness,” which leads to a new element of leadership, called “open leadership.” The mantra of open leadership is “Be Open, Be Transparent, and Be Authentic.” This is counter to the traditional business premise of “control,” so many companies are still pushing back.

Framework 397
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Sizing the Ask

View from Seed

One important tactical decision when fundraising is determining the size of “the ask”. Sizing the ask incorrectly is one of the things I see founders get wrong most often, and it ends up having a meaningful impact to the fundraising process overall. Telling an investor how much money you are looking to raise seems like a simple and benign question, but it’s actually pretty complicated.

Valuation 418
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The Great HQ Migration

Feld Thoughts

January 3, 2020, seems like a very long time ago. That day, I wrote a post titled The Future Of Work Is Distributed. I had no idea that four months later, all office workers in the world would be working from home, and within six months, the idea of distributed and remote work would be a topic discussed daily. When the Federal tax laws were changed in 2018 to eliminate the deductibility of state income tax, I made the assertion, in the context of Startup Communities, that this would cause moveme