A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

'You’re a builder, a creator — whether a back-end programmer, a Linux hacker, a Javascript ninja, a UX magician, a designer. You make stuff. That’s great of course, because in a new startup everyone needs to be either making stuff or selling stuff — there’s no room for managers and executives and strategists. But this also produces a natural weakness , and when I look at what made me a successful entrepreneur — not just a great coder — it’s that I

Fractional CTO 310

Fractional CTO Coder CTO Hire Design 310

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'By Sean C. Castrina, author of “ 8 Unbreakable Rules For Business Start-Up Success “ You have a respectable, steady job. You provide for your family. You do home improvement projects on the weekends and even find the time to coach your son’s Little League team. But as you slog away at your 9 to 5 and go through the motions of daily life, in your own mind, you feel that true success is still eluding you.

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur Hiring Web Development Government 225

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

'A while back I received a discouraging note from an entrepreneur with a patent and a medical software application who couldn’t find a dime of investment, and was grousing that seed funding just wasn’t available anymore. After exchanging a couple of notes, I concluded that she was more likely a victim of item #1 on my reject list below, rather than a drought on seed funding.

Software Review 265

Software Review Due Diligence Elevator Pitch Startup 265

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

'We’re deep into teaching a Lean LaunchPad class for Life Sciences and Health Care (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health) at UCSF with a team of veteran venture capitalists. (The class has talked to 1,440 customers to date.). One of the objectives of the class was to become the Life Science Center of Excellence for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps.

Lean 263

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 263

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

Startup

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

'Tal Raviv is the co-founder of Ecquire. This post was originally published on OnStartups. There is an unspoken rule: to launch a startup, you need to build a product, and to do that you need someone that can write code. Whether that means chasing down a technical co-founder, learning to code, or even building that “Lean MVP” – the conventional wisdom is that without tech abilities you’re nothing more than a dude (or dudette) with a Powerpoint.

Artificial Inteligence 167

Artificial Inteligence Cofounder Startup Widget 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

'Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. We’ve made some cool additions to our pre-conference webcast lineup , including two conversations with founding figures for methods that underlie Lean Startup. On November 14 (that’s this Thursday) at 1p PT, Eric Ries will speak with Kent Beck, a creator of Agile software development, about facilitating the work of engineers and product teams.

Product Development 167

Product Development Software Review Technical Review Developer 167

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

'by Tricia Meyer, managing attorney at Meyer Law. Although it’s impossible to know exactly what will happen as your business grows, many issues can be avoided, and many others made easier to overcome, if your company has carefully laid its legal foundation. Too many startups expose their business to unnecessary risk by making some common legal mistakes.

Intellectual Property 215

Intellectual Property Framework Technical Review Social Media 215

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 24, 2013

'Large corporations and conglomerates, the engines of growth and vitality in the twentieth century, have lost their edge and their image. They have proven themselves unable to innovate, and they have lost more jobs than they create. My friends who “grew up” with lifetime careers in General Motors, Exxon Mobil, or even IBM, are now often too embarrassed to even mention it.

Entrepreneur 263

Entrepreneur Offshore Merger Technical Review 263

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'2014 is almost here. How to make much more money in the coming year? Here are my 10 rules for #winning in 2014. This post is based on my keynote presentation at Mesh Marketing last week. Question: what do these 4 things / people have in common? The awesome book (and mediocre movie) Moneyball. Barack Obama. Jeremy Lin. Nate Silver. Any guesses? Moneyball was a story about a mediocre, under-funded baseball team achieving great things when managed by looking at the data.

PPC 123

PPC Analytics Conversion SEO 123

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

'When it comes to scaling your startup’s Web development resources (or lack thereof), it seems like you can never have enough assistance. But for startups, which is really better: in-house talent or outside agencies? And at what price? In order to find out, I asked a panel of 12 successful founders from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question: What are the pros/cons of hiring an agency to do development work, vs. having all your technical talent in house?

Developer 145

Developer Hiring Startup LLC 145

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

'This post co-written by Sarah Milstein and Eric Ries, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. Our goal in hosting The Lean Startup Conference —which starts in just over two weeks—is to help entrepreneurs learn absolutely useful things from each other. For our participants to stay open to the unique ideas we’re presenting and to share the advice they each have, we need an environment that’s dynamic, professional and respectful.

Software Review 167

Software Review Lean Hosting Ruby 167

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

'Adi Bittan, co-founder of a startup that failed due to a bad partnership. Like every new entrepreneur, Adi Bittan planned for success. With her business savvy and the scientific minds of her three other partners, the team planned to take Wall Street by storm. They were creating a high-tech calculator of sorts. Their product would help a financial firm crunch numbers instantly, so investors could make trades faster and set themselves apart from competitors. “We spent months at a venture fi

Partner 126

Partner Cost Technical Review Cofounder 126

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

'Reid Hoffman. Essays on Entrepreneurship, Civics and Intellectual Life. Essays. About. 6.7K Flares. 6.7K Flares. × At Greylock , my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

'Many startups fail before reaching that magic “cash-flow positive” position they have been striving for, despite seemingly reasonable financial projections. A closer analysis often indicates the cause to be a lack of diligence in handling common business finances. These mistakes are usually masked by excuses, like the economy turned on me, or my competitors played dirty.

Technical Review 251

Technical Review Entrepreneur Salary Finance 251

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 24, 2013

'I woke up this morning to several articles about Bitcoins. From Dave Taylor’s explanation in the Boulder Daily Camera to a paywall article that you can’t buy with bitcoins (ironic) in the NY Times ( A Bitcoin Puzzle ) to Fred Wilson’s blog ( A Note about Bitcoin ), I was surrounded by words about them. We have an awesome CEO list that covers plenty of topics.

United States 153

United States Software Engineering Government Design 153

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

'Justin is the Product Manager for Industry Mailout. He’s passionate about building products that delight customers, and also blogs on justinjackson.ca and tweets via @mijustin. Working remotely is a hot topic of debate these past years. Many companies are beginning to allow the flexibility to help cut costs while boosting employee productivity. Then, there are companies like Yahoo that claim remote offices do not help promote company culture or collaborative thinking.

Software Review 165

Software Review San Francisco Silicon Valley Technical Review 165

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

'Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. Our fall webcast series concluded on a high note with three extraordinary conversations about the origins and implications of Lean Startup. If you missed these when they went out live, we encourage you to watch them now , as they lay a strong foundation for The Lean Startup Conference , December 9 -11 in San Francisco—less than two weeks from today.

Lean 165

Lean San Francisco Cofounder Programming 165

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

'In a seed or friends and family round, tough questions, in the eyes of many founders, signal an investor that will either a) never get to the writing a check part or b) be such a pain in the ass afterwards that it might not be worth taking their money. Especially if you already have the round circled, without anyone giving you a hard time, why bother stopping for that one investor who wants more detail on how you''re going to scale?

Technical Review 136

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Venture Capital 136

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

'I was asked to contribute to a crowdsourced book about the future, looking to predict the world in 2020. While it doesn’t seem that far away, I took the liberty of virtually ‘closing my eyes’ to imagine how Media, Context and Education would change in 6 years time. In the words of Theodore Hook. “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Media in 2020.

Media 122

Media United States New York China 122

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'As a mentor and advisor to entrepreneurs, I find it’s easy to recognize “street smarts” when I see them, but it’s hard to explain the specifics to someone on the other end of the spectrum, even if they are willing to learn. Some people argue that street smarts are only a natural born skill, but I disagree. I believe they are disciplines that can be taught and learned.

Partner 247

Partner Entrepreneur Finance Revenue 247

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

'I am not the biggest of sports fans, but I do love watching a great team from just about any sport working together as a unit. The beauty of an powerful individual performance, wrapped in the cohesion of great team work is a thing of wonder and a treasure to behold. The grace, power, and skill of athletes at just about any level is something people from across cultures are taught to admire, but behind those performances is one person responsible for pushing, prodding, organizing, teaching, prai

North Carolina 107

North Carolina Entrepreneur Leadership Small Business 107

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

'Ernst-Jan Pfauth is the former Editor in Chief of Internet at NRC Handelsblad, as well as an acclaimed technology author and columnist. He also served as The Next Web’s blog’s first blogger and Editor in Chief, back in 2008. At De Correspondent, Ernst-Jan serves as publisher, fostering the expansion of the platform. He originally published this post on on Medium.

Netherlands 158

Netherlands Campaign Europe Advertising 158

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for T he Lean Startup Conference. We’ve posted the full program for The Lean Startup Conference , and it includes more than three days of events for Gold pass holders and six days of events for VIP pass holders. We wanted to give you a rundown of what’s in store, along with particular insight into two of the workshops we’re most excited to have lined up for Gold and VIP attendee s—one session with Jez Humble on implementing continuous delivery and one with Alist

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

'I’ve been researching an industry (coin operated vending) in preparation for a speech I’m giving. I make an effort to tailor my keynotes, as much as is practical, in order to deliver more specific value to my audiences. Who Says Elephant’s Can’t Dance? In doing my research some obvious (to me) opportunity areas for innovation have become apparent.

Guerilla 106

Guerilla Technical Review Restful Audience 106

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

'Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes. This edition of Everything Entrepreneurship with Walter and Yaro focuses on passive income. We also review what I call the “holy trinity” of concepts necessary to feel completely satisfied with your business, especially as a lifestyle entrepreneur. Here are some of the subjects we discussed -. Can buying a website lead to true … Read the rest of this entry » The post Structuring Your Projects For Passive Income And The “Holy Trin

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Restful Web Hiring 100

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

'Ego Metrics: What Measurements Matter? written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Andy Crestodina – Enjoy! photo credit: samuiblue. There are lots of ways to measure results. There are just as many ways to compare ourselves and our businesses to others.

Metrics 70

Metrics Social Media Widget Chicago 70

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

'One of the unavoidable realities of building a startup is having to fire people. In a normal business you can often sweep bad performers under the rug and not deal with them. When you have millions or billions of dollars of revenue you can suffer a few bad performers or bad apples. You can miss a quarter’s target and not cull the inefficiencies.

Hiring 338

Hiring Employee Leadership Revenue 338

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

'Jeremy Rappaport is a writer at Fueled , the leading iPhone application developers and masters of mobile design in New York City. This post was originally published on the Fueled blog. What exactly is the “Internet of Things”? It’s a popular phrase used to describe a category of physical devices like home -monitoring devices, lamps, watches and cars that now connect to PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Internet 132

Internet New York City Technical Review Software Review 132

Jeff Hilimire

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

'This article, 7 things really respected people do , was suggested to me from @gumboshowjoe for a blindpost. I decided to write a list of some of the people that I respected the most and then ponder what it is about them that I respected so much. Below is that list, with the name of the person following the thing I respect the most about them. I had to force myself to stop at a dozen people!

Cofounder 75

Cofounder Atlanta Leadership Founder 75

deal architect

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

'15 years ago, I made a trek to Fargo, ND to the Great Plains (now part of Microsoft) Stampede user conference. Doug Burgum, the CEO used his entire keynote to tell the story of an English clockmaker, John Harrison who.

Software 329

Software 329

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

'Every startup I see invariably puts up a competitive analysis slide that plots performance on a X/Y graph with their company in the top right. The slide is a holdover from when existing companies launched products into crowded markets. Most of the time this graph is inappropriate for startups or existing companies creating new markets. Here’s what you need to do instead. ——-.

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital Customer Development Business Model Lean 335

Seeing Both Sides

NOVEMBER 30, 2013

'Last week, I used Aileen Lee''s excellent TechCrunch article on Unicorns as a jumping off point to analyze the role of the MBA in creating these unusually valuable companies. This week, I want to take a local lens and analyze these special companies that have been created in Boston. As was the case last week, I was ably assisted by HBS 2nd year MBA student Juan Leung Li.

Boston 55

Boston Technical Review Silicon Valley Software Review 55

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

'Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. The link for the video is here and if you want a short firsthand view on our changes it’s a great resource. I often advise startup companies not to try and pin all of your brand equity into an announcement.

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

'Aaron Skonnard is the CEO and co-founder of Pluralsight , an online training resource for Web developers and IT professionals. Venture capitalists look for a variety of intangibles when evaluating the entrepreneurs who they consider backing — vision, passion, integrity, confidence — but how many look for a background in software development? Whether they’re computer science grads or self-taught coding wunderkinds, business leaders with 0s and 1s in their blood have a leg up on their B-school co

Founder 125

Founder PHP Software Developers Software Development 125

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

'Hummingbird and Hashtags: Keeping Your Google Plus Content Strategy Alive written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Lauren Hogan – Enjoy! Photo credit: misspixels. With Google’s recent Hummingbird update, anyone who does online marketing was forced to review & revamp their marketing strategy.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Social Media SEO Small Business 68

deal architect

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

'4 years ago, in The New Polymath, I quoted Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE “I believe that a popular, thirty - year notion that the U.S. can evolve from being a technology and manufacturing leader to a service leader is.

Cloud 329

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