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.
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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 2, 2012
I’ve recently met with several universities, nonprofits, and government employees who’ve all asked the same question: how can we promote entrepreneurship? Just like me, they’re distressed about the poor economy and jobs situation. By contrast, as a venture capitalist, I can report that almost all of our portfolio companies are desperate to hire talented software engineers, and eager to hire in a range of other roles.
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.
Occam's Razor
FEBRUARY 20, 2012
The single biggest mistake web analysts make is working without purpose. We work very hard. We torture SiteCatalyst. We send out a lot of data. Then we resend it again and again. And yet our work results in very little impact on the business in terms of action taken by company leaders. Why this sad state? Almost always we dive into the ocean of data first.
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.
ConversionXL
FEBRUARY 2, 2012
Somebody asked me the other day, what are all the possible ways one could increase the conversion rate? Is there a library of all the things that have made the difference? I looked for one, but couldn’t find it. So I decided to put one together myself. Here’s a list of 53 ways to increase conversion rate, along with an example for each case of how somebody did it.
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.
ReadWriteStart
FEBRUARY 1, 2012
Tonight in downtown St. Louis the second group of companies to be funded by Capital Innovators will be announced. These will receive $50k in seed funding, free office space and credits toward other useful services as part of their acceleration program. We wrote about their innovative program last fall. Some of the first companies have launched products or services or are in the process of getting there, according to their entrepreneurs.
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.
mashable.com
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Top Stories Photo & Video Galleries Top Lists Trending Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video More Topics. People Recommended Mashable Staff More people. Jobs Join Mashable on Google+ Welcome to Mashable! Sign in with Facebook or Facebook Mashable Social Media All Social Media How-To Facebook Twitter YouTube Google+ Featured in Social Media Tech All Tech Apps & Software Dev & Design Gadgets Mobile Featured in Tech Business All Business Advertising Marketing Media Small Business Star
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 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. —————————————.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Diego Basch
FEBRUARY 19, 2012
Those of us who work in software live in a world of lean practices. We are encouraged to prototype, fail fast and iterate. We have seen software-based companies go from an idea in a kid’s brain to a billion dollar business in the time it would have taken him to get a college degree. Of course, those are the outliers on the positive side. For every extremely successful software project there are a large number of failed ones that we’ll never hear about.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 27, 2012
The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It’s understanding who to listen to and why. Five Cups of Coffee. I got a call from Satish, one of my ex-students last week. He got my attention when he said, “following your customer development stuff is making my company fail.
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).
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