Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
How to Interpret Analyst Reports. The headlines in the media are filled with that latest stats. Stats sell. The stats are often quoted from the latest reports. People then parrot them around like they’re fact when most of them are complete bullsh*t. People throw them around at cocktail parties. Often when they do I throw out my favorite statistic: 73.6% of all statistics are made up.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
I'm sick of being admonished that success is predicated on spending the next 10,000 hours of our lives becoming "an expert.". I'm sick of hearing about how I should be molding my life in the image of Michael Phelps or Albert Einstein, because the only thing that separates me from genius is identifying my strengths and working really really hard. I'm calling bullshit.
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Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 11, 2010
The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. In Discovery startups take all their hypotheses about the business model: product, market, customers, channel, etc. outside the building and test them in front of customers.
Startup Lessons Learned
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 22, 2010 Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Diversity is the canary in the coal mine for meritocracy. As entrepreneurs, more than any other industry, we’re in the meritocracy business. The companies that make decisions based on merit, rather than title, politics, or hierarchy execute faster and learn faster than their competitors.
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
SoCal CTO
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
I just got done reading a post by Roger Ehrenberg Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business where he suggests that CTO Founders should not move too early in finding a business cofounder: Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 5, 2010
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. That refueling is when you will need more investment, or when you will break even and begin to make a profit. Investors look at your burn rate to see how efficient and effective you are at running the business.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
www.forentrepreneurs.com
FEBRUARY 2, 2010
Skip to content Home Startup Help Conceiving, Refining and Validating your Startup Idea Getting your Startup Funded Building your Startup for Success Business Models Customer Acquisition & Monetization Why Startups Fail Recurring Revenue The Low Cost Sales Model Viral Customer Acquisition The Power of Free The Touchless Conversion Lead Gen Models Field Sales Channel Sales Building a Sales & Marketing Machine Intro Building the Machine Instrumenting the Machine Solving Blockage Points Re
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Customer Development is a technique startups use to quickly iterate and test each part of their business model. How you execute Customer Development varies, depending on your type of business. In my book, “ The Four Steps to the Epiphany ” I use enterprise software as the business model example. Ash Maurya , the CEO of WiredReach, has extended my work by building a model of Customer Development for Web Startups.
crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
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 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! Seven deadly sins of Javascript – [link]. 30 Free Fonts Best for Business Logos – [link].
SoCal CTO
FEBRUARY 2, 2010
I love blog conversations. Based on my posts Startup CTO or Developer and Acting CTO , Chris O’Meara wrote an interesting post Startup CTO: Could It Work? Chris starts with a description of the person that pretty much every startup is looking for: Their primary characteristics are deep technical skills and a hacker mentality. They tend to have the knack for architecture.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
The traditional mode of starting a company is to plan a serial process, where you complete only once all the steps, leading to the “big bang” launch of the company. I strongly recommend a dramatic departure from this model, called “planned iteration,” where you assume you won’t get it right the first time. This idea was well articulated by Paul Graham in an old essay, called “ Startups in 13 Sentences ” in which he talked about “making a few people really happy rather than making a lot of people
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 27, 2010
Nature vs. Nurture. You’ve all heard the question before. Let’s talk about kids for a moment. I grew up believing that human behavior was 20% nature, 80% nurture. Now that I have two boys (4 and 7) I’m convinced it’s the other way around. There’s no question that both factors are involved. There have been many studies done on the topic including looking at twins raised in separate families.
venturehacks.com
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Venture Hacks Good advice for startups. SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. It’s more important than your product, market, and investors.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 21, 2010
I have a number of friends who are patent attorneys. Some have strong negative feelings about software patents that mirror mine while others keep me entertained by arguing both sides of the situation with themselves while I sit around and listen. One of my friends – let’s call him Sawyer – has very strong negative opinions as he’s spent most of his time recently defending his clients against software patent suits including an increasing number from patent trolls (non-practicing entities).
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. We realized that there were certain open positions in our portfolio we wanted to call extra attention to. Over 1,000 senior professionals have since signed up for the mailer, which goes out on Fridays. I tried to make it a little more entertaining than your average job RSS feed. If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here.
Life Beyond Code
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Note : This is part of an ongoing mini-research (less than six weeks each) on topics that catch my attention. At the end of this post, you will find links to outcomes of the other two (previous) mini-research projects. Over the years I have heard many young people complaining (in various flavors) that they work hard but their hard work goes unappreciated.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 8, 2010
If you are a startup founder or small business owner, how do you find that right CEO to get you funded and kick start your company? It makes logical sense to scour the job boards, engage an executive recruiter, or scan the networking sites like LinkedIn for a good array of candidates, and then interview the ones with the best resumes. If that’s as far as you go, you are taking a big risk.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
A reminder that it is important for all entrepreneurs is to remember to be careful about “deal drift.” I think the perfect saying to have as a reminder is “time is the enemy of all deals,” or as my wife is all too tired of hearing me say, “Don’t pop the champagne until the ink is dry on the contract and the money is in the bank.”. So, where does this all come from and how can you apply it in practice?
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Tyrone Shum has participated in both my Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind programs. He’s special because not only did he study the materials (which is rare enough!), he went on and has built himself a successful blog and last year launched a membership site too, so he’s a real action taker. Part of the reason he’s one of the unusual people who actually gets stuff done is because Tyrone knows how to outsource, in fact that is his specialty.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 18, 2010
After not seeing the word patent in my daily information routine for a few weeks, I saw it twice today – first in an article titled Turning Patents Into ‘Invention Capital’ (in the NY Times) and then in Region Sustains Robust Patent Production in the WSJ. Both stirred me up early this morning, but for different reasons. If you are interested in patents, I encourage you to read Turning Patents Into ‘Invention Capital’ as I’m very interested in your reaction.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
I am excited to share the news of First Round Capital 's recent investment in cloud-to-cloud backup service Backupify. This is the first deal I've closed for FRC and I've also joined the board of the company. Josh Kopelman will be working closely on this investment as well. Joining our investment in the $900k round were General Catalyst, Betaworks, Jason Calacanis, and Chris Sacca.
VC Cafe
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
A bout 50,000 visitors from 200 countries are expected to attend the 2010 GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, starting tomorrow February 15th. After a somewhat disappointing congress in 2009, in which companies showcased products from previous years, this year is expected to be faster, greener and ‘cloudier’ Looking at the conference agenda , it’s not hard to spot the trends for 2010: Mobile Clouds – additional storage and new revenue streams to operators.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 20, 2010
By Ernst H. Gemassmer Startups struggling for survival are not uncommon, due to economic changes, management problems, or product issues. If these challenges can’t be resolved by the existing team with “course corrections”, an investor will often bring in an experienced CEO to tackle the “turnaround” before or after bankruptcy. This is a hard and painful process for everyone, but it’s usually better than the alternative of liquidating or losing the assets and antagonizing many customers.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
Back in November I agreed with Nivi over at VentureHacks to do a series on the ten most important attributes of a successful entrepreneur. This is the last post in that series. This is actually an addendum to my list rather than “on&# my list. That in itself will be controversial, I know. When Nivi published the series he titled it “the top 10 things I look for before I write a check.&# As a result I felt compelled to add this final attribute because it matters a lot to me.
crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 9, 2010
In Part 1 of this blog series, I presented a rather dysfunctional conversation going on between software consultants and you, their client. I explained what consultants mean when they use the word “productivity,” why it gets convoluted, and how understanding this can lead you to making better choices for your company. I originally promised that in Part 2 I would go into some specific software products.
Start Up Blog
FEBRUARY 11, 2010
I recently saw a job posted on a web developer recruiting website. It involved some people looking for coders to make a copy of my web business and livelihood www.rentoid.com. What was interesting was the lack decorum shown in the coder recruiting process where the person said – build me a replica of this website. Here’s a screen print of it below.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here: [link]. **Correction: Last week's CTO position at Modcloth is actually a San Francisco opportunity, not Pittsburgh. VP of Business Development, DNAnexus - Palo Alto, California In the not too distant future, everything will be determined by your DNA--your job, what retro 50's decor you'll buy, how tightly you'll slick back your hair, whether or not you can date Uma
Growthink Blog
FEBRUARY 27, 2010
Nothing is more important to U.S. consumers than their entertainment choices, but are movies and broadcast TV even relevant in the new world of entertainment? Or will the convergence of content, internet, mobile applications, games and social media be the onrushing asteroids that will soon destroy the movie dinosaurs? Is it a 3-year fad, or will new technologies like 3-D keep going to the movies from being relegated to the dustbin of history like Vaudeville, the afternoon newspaper, the evening
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 10, 2010
If your startup is looking for an angel investor, it makes sense to present your plan to flocks of angels, and assume that at least one will swoop down and scoop you up. Or does it? I’ll come back to that later. One of the most common questions I get is “How do I find angel investors?” With today’s access to the Internet, and Google searches, it really isn’t that hard.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 7, 2010
This is the final part of my series on Entrepreneurial DNA that was originally published on VentureHacks. OK, it’s not really my final part. I started with a Top 10 list for Nivi (at VentureHacks), but I couldn’t cram it into 10 so it became a Top 11 list. I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.&# If it stuck to this theme then I would stand by my top 11.
crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 10, 2010
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 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! 50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files - [link].
Austin Startup
FEBRUARY 8, 2010
The fourth annual Relationship and Information Series for Entrepreneurs (RISE) returns to Austin, Texas, March 1-5, 2010 with five full days of free sessions covering a wide range of topics of interest to aspiring, new and established entrepreneurs in all industries. If you’re interested in becoming a host or participant, you can register online at www.riseaustin.org.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Over the weekend I attended Ed Dale’s 30DC Coming Home three day event in Melbourne. Ed Dale, if you don’t know him, is one of Australia’s most well known and likable Internet marketers, who adds a uniquely Australian flavour to the industry. Currently he is most well known as one of the founders of the 30 Day Challenge , an introductory program that aims to take any person from absolute beginner to making their first few dollars online, and beyond, within 30 days.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 7, 2010
About a year and a half ago, I wrote that New York needed more dedicated early stage capital. Let’s look back at what has happened since the beginning of August ‘08… Betaworks raises more than $10 million in September ‘08. First Growth Venture Network formed to mentor high potential seed and early stage companies. First Round Capital makes 11 new investments in NYC, hires me to be here fulltime, and announces a new NYC office in Union Square.
VC Cafe
FEBRUARY 8, 2010
M ore and more consumer electronics products now include features which leverage internet connectivity – current generation gaming devices, entertainment systems, and of course smart handsets are a few examples that demonstrate this trend. Despite the powerful new features that are made possible internet connectivity in consumer electronics products, however, consumers have difficulty obtaining unified access to content and playback across devices.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
I love the Pogoplug. We’ve been investors in the company for about a year and it has been a blast working with the team. Pogoplug is in our Digital Life theme and has a lot of conceptual similarities to our previous investment in Sling Media (now part of EchoStar). We love products like the Pogoplug and the Slingbox “software that ships with a little plastic box that does magic stuff” that, in Pogoplug’s case, provides you access to any of your external hard drives from anywhere in the world on
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