Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 14, 2014
'The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. I often get asked about the real alternatives to bridge this valley, and there are some good ones I will outline here.
View from Seed
JULY 31, 2014
'Two weeks ago, my partners and I here at NextView Ventures announced our second fund. And since we will continue to look proactively at new seed-stage tech startups over the next few years, the question becomes: What, then, will these companies look like? Rather than merely speculate, a more interesting exercise is to examine what we’ve actually seed funded at NextView recently as a reflection of our current investment interests.
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Both Sides of the Table
JULY 23, 2014
'There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. On the surface the narratives have been. The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The poor performance of the asset class (this analysis has largely been wrong as I pointed out here –> most analyses were clumsy rear-view mirror looks at the data).
YoungUpstarts
JULY 23, 2014
'By Ralph Dangelmaier, CEO of BlueSnap. On May 7, 1947, Levitt & Sons announced their first rental homes in Levittown, New York. Of the 2,000 homes, more than 1,000 were rented within two days. The Levitts decided to build another 4,000 homes, which they were building at a rate of 30 houses per day by July of 1948. Their assembly chain approach to construction brought in a level of efficiency, cost-savings and quality that was previously unmatched.
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
Steve Blank
JULY 30, 2014
'Startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but interestingly we see that companies are not larger versions of startups. I’ve been spending some time with large companies that are interested in using Lean methods. One of the conundrums is why does innovation take so long to happen in corporations? Previously Hank Chesbrough and I have written about some of the strategic issues that impede innovation inside large corporations here and here.
Up and Running
JULY 22, 2014
'Digging into your business’s financials can feel a bit like eating your fruits and vegetables, but what’s good for your business’s health is good for you. Financial experts will have different opinions about what should be included in a financial plan, depending on the type of business you have and what you’re trying to accomplish with your business plan.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
The Next Web
JULY 1, 2014
'Janine Yancey is the CEO & President of Emtrain — an organization dedicated to creating user-friendly, memorable and scalable ethics and harassment prevention training for the workplace. Before I get into the “ethical duty” mentioned in the title, allow me to quickly run a few things by you. In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of entrepreneurs at startups make some serious ethical and professional mistakes.
Gust
JULY 23, 2014
'The most useful meetings with an investor are ones where going in everyone understands that there may actually be a rational reason for the investor to be interested. So even if my own mother asked me to meet with you, and you were pitching me a biotech opportunity for a $10 million investment at a $90 million valuation, I might take the meeting, but it wouldn’t be particularly useful for either of us.
YoungUpstarts
JULY 2, 2014
'by Jon Gordon, author of “ The Carpenter: A Story About the Greatest Success Strategies of All “ You care deeply about your clients, employees, and coworkers. Of course you do. But if you’re like most people in the workplace (be they leaders, front line workers, or someone in the vast middle ground in between), you may occasionally do (or not do) things that send the wrong signal.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 11, 2014
'I heard a great phrase from Jenna Walker at Artifact Uprising yesterday. We had a Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network Colorado meeting with her and her partner and in the middle of the discussion about their business Jenna used the phrase “digital paralysis” to describe one of the things she thinks is driving the incredible engagement of their customers.
Up and Running
JULY 24, 2014
'The World Wildlife Fund, which works to conserve the Giant Panda (also featured in their logo), is funded largely by individual contributions. Whether you are thinking of starting a nonprofit, or you are running a nonprofit that is looking to expand, you’re bound to have funding sources on your mind. You probably know everything there is to know about your community or cause, but making decisions about the right approach to handling nonprofit finances can be a challenge.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 24, 2014
'Most small businesses are trying to forget the recent recession, and get back to “business as usual.” They don’t realize that business as usual is gone forever. With social media and smart phone conversations, real product information spreads at astounding speeds. Entrepreneurs that are not listening, not engaging, and not changing will be left behind even in the best of times.
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 10, 2014
'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!
ConversionXL
JULY 15, 2014
'Raise your hand if you would like to get extra revenue with an ROI of 1300% , that is for every dollar you invest you get back 14. What if, once the system were set up, it was fairly easy to maintain and continue making more money? I don’t know about you but I would LOVE to have such a system in place. What I’m talking about of course is affiliate marketing.
YoungUpstarts
JULY 25, 2014
'Airline engineering issues arise due to lack of oversight; methods used for risk management and the use of temporary employees and outsourced specialists. An annual conference is held each year in London to discuss the latest trends, allow key players to meet, adapt new business strategies, understand challenges and solve issues, build relationships and learn best practices for the airline industry.
K9 Ventures
JULY 24, 2014
'No, not that kind of non-verbal gesture. I believe this was in April 2010 and if memory serves me correct it was an event hosted at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos by Sand Hill Angels , where Vinod Khosla gave a talk. I was relatively new to the investing world at the time having started K9 Ventures just a year before in April 2009. In his talk Vinod walked through some examples of different companies he had invested in through Khosla Ventures.
Up and Running
JULY 7, 2014
'Let’s be honest, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ answer to this question. What someone going into an aircraft business needs to know is entirely different to what someone starting a restaurant needs to know. That said, we’re talking about more than industry-specific knowledge. We’re talking about lessons that hundreds of entrepreneurs had to learn before achieving success.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 9, 2014
'If you think you are the perfect fit for the entrepreneur lifestyle, but you’re not yet sure if you’re ready to start your own, then I recommend that you take a job with an existing startup first to validate the culture realities against your dream. Without risking all your life savings, you may find that corporate desk you have as an alternative is a lot more satisfying.
abovethecrowd.com
JULY 10, 2014
'On June 18, Aswath Damodaran , a finance professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, published an article on FiveThirtyEight titled “ Uber Isn’t Worth $17 Billion. ” This post was a shortened version of a more detailed post he had written for his own blog titled “ A Disruptive Cab Ride to Riches: The Uber Payoff.” Using a combination of market data, math, and financial analysis, Professor Damodaran concluded that his best estimate of the value of Uber is $5.9 billion, far short of the value re
ConversionXL
JULY 3, 2014
'When was the last time you took a long hard look at what makes your customer base tick? Think customer personas – those detailed representations of the different segments of your target audience. Fueled by data driven research that map out the who behind the buying decisions of your products or services, customer personas can help inform everything from more effective copy to product development.
YoungUpstarts
JULY 17, 2014
'By Topher Morrison, author of “ Collaboration Economy: Eliminate the Competition by Creating Partnership Opportunities ”. If you need any further proof that the information age is dead and the collaboration age is now in full swing, bitter rivals Apple Inc., and IBM have announced that they are going to be collaborating to create approximately 100 business apps for the iPhone and iPad.
Hunter Walker
JULY 22, 2014
'Hey founders, want to hear something incredibly frustrating about seed financing? I don’t believe the forecast you show me. You know the one that inevitably has you at $100 million in revenue by Year Three? Yeah, that one. It’s a great discussion point to understand how you think of your business’ potential but as an operating plan?
Up and Running
JULY 7, 2014
'If your dream is to open a hair salon, now might be one of the best times to do it. According to a report from the Professional Beauty Association, the salon industry is growing. Since the recession, the industry has rebounded and analysts expect continued growth for at least the next five years. While the timing might be right, you’ll still face a lot of competition.
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 13, 2014
'Steven Covey started it all with his seminal book, “7 Habits of Effective People.” His work has spawned hundreds of blog posts – a quick search turns up the “21 Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs,” and the “7 Habits of Effective Managers,” even the “10 Habits of Happy Mothers.” All of this exploration of habits and success, habits and effectiveness, habits and happiness led me to ask myself: “Self, I ask, what are your habits?
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 21, 2014
'Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. Venture capitalists have raised increasing amounts of money from their investors (LPs) every year. An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. We’ve had an explosion of alternate sources of financing from crowd-sourcing, angels, accelerators, incubators, corporates, corporate incubators.
ConversionXL
JULY 29, 2014
'After reading some of our subscriber feedback , we noticed that many ConversionXL readers didn’t have a solid foundation with a proper Google Analytics setup. That’s a problem, because if your analytics isn’t properly configured from the beginning, how could you ever expect to gather any insight? When it comes to gathering visitor information, GA can’t collect or change data on visits that have already happened, which means time spent waiting to add or correct certain settings
Duct Tape Marketing
JULY 25, 2014
'30 Tips for Great Digital Marketing written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest post is from Tara Banda – Enjoy! A man walks into a bar/restaurant/hotel/car repair shop. Chances are, he found it online. That’s because today’s consumers, 80% according to Google , rely more on the Web to find and choose local businesses.
deal architect
JULY 22, 2014
'Oracle invited me to moderate a panel in their DaaS launch today. Watch the whole hour for some great perspectives on this exciting new market category, and our panel starting around 26.00. Talking to Steve Miranda and Omar Tawakol before.
Up and Running
JULY 23, 2014
'The exit strategy isn’t about you, it’s about your investors. Startups looking for angel investors or venture capital (VC) absolutely need an exit strategy because investors require it. The exit is what gives them a return. Exit strategies related to startup funding are quite often misunderstood: The “exit” in exit strategy is for the money, not the startup founders or small business owners.
Steve Blank
JULY 8, 2014
'“ Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not ?”. Robert Kennedy/George Bernard Shaw. I got a call that reminded me that most people live their life as if it’s predestined – but some live theirs fighting to change it. At 19 I joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Out of electronics school my first assignment was to a fighter base in Florida.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 27, 2014
'I recently attended and presented at Dave McClure’s PreMoney conference in San Francisco. I go every year because I love events hosted & moderated by insiders involving discussions by insiders because it maximizes the amount of real discussions people have. What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. tl;dr version.
ConversionXL
JULY 22, 2014
'According to eConsultancy, up to 30% of eCommerce visitors will use internal site search. Typically speaking, due to the increased level of purchase intent, are also known to convert sometimes up to 5-6X higher than the average non-site search visitor. Natural language processing software Inbenta mentions in this article a client who noticed their site search customers converted 43% higher, and eConsultancy talks about cases where site search visitors are making up as much as 13.8% of the overa
Duct Tape Marketing
JULY 18, 2014
'SEO Blended Copy: Dos and Don’ts for Boosting Your Website’s Organic Discoverability written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest post is from Maria Orozova – Enjoy! These days, it’s all about organic: organic produce, organic pressed-juice, holistic baby diapers made from all-organic materials – the list goes on.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JULY 29, 2014
'Everyone said this would be the most embarrassing moment in the band’s eight-year career. Depeche Mode had decided to play the Pasadena Rose Bowl — capacity 60,000 — for the 101st show of their 1988 tour. To sell out would make it one of the largest music concerts ever played in America — highly unlikely for an English electronic band.
Up and Running
JULY 2, 2014
'Sales forecasting is much easier than you think, and much more useful than you imagine. It’s not about guessing the future correctly. We’re human; we don’t do that well. Instead, it’s about assumptions, expectations, drivers, tracking, and management. You review and revise your forecast regularly. Since sales are intimate with costs and expenses, the forecast helps you budget and manage.
Steve Blank
JULY 1, 2014
'Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor to assess project maturity or quantify risks. Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress.
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