Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

'We all intuitively know how important human connections are in business but for many people it’s like exercise or eating well – one of those things you keep meaning to get around to. It reminds me of a line my wife and I often jokingly say to each other after seeing the awesome film “ Notorious ” about the life of Biggie Smalls. “I know mothafuckas who know mothafuckas.” Please just take 8 seconds to listen to this clip on YouTube – it’s priceless

Networking 366

Networking CTO Hire Technical Review Email 366

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

'While the Lean LaunchPad class has been adopted by Universities and the National Science Foundation, the question we get is, “Can students in K-12 handle an experiential entrepreneurship class?” Hawken School has now given us an answer. Their seniors just completed the school’s first-ever 3-credit semester program in evidence-based entrepreneurship.

Lean 335

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 335

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 26, 2014

'By Russell Harley, veteran project manager and Director at PMO. There is some thinking that equates project management with being a roadblock to speedy delivery of critical projects. This is reinforced by the number of processes and documentation that can be involved in a project. After all, when a company is trying to meet market needs or break into trends, the last thing it needs is a project manager/PMO saying, ‘We need to have all this documentation before we can start working on this

Management 223

Management Software Review Technical Review Agile 223

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2014

'More and more entrepreneurs are hearing about the successful graduates and investors queued behind a few well-known startup incubators, including Y Combinator, TechStars, and the Founder Institute. They dream of appearing at the door, with their idea on the back of a napkin, and popping out a few months later with investor money to burn. The reality is far different.

Incubator 259

Incubator Technical Review Entrepreneur Due Diligence 259

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

MARCH 16, 2014

'Herbert Lui does marketing for clients such as Pivotal Labs, Busy Building Things, and Renegades. This post originally appeared on the Busy Building Things blog and was edited by Robleh Jama. What do software development hosting service GitHub, venture capitalist Fred Wilson, and entrepreneur Karen Cheng have in common? They all practise every day.

Software Developers 162

Software Developers Software Development Hosting Web 162

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 4, 2014

'If you don’t have a dedicated website for your startup or small business, you are not alone. But you’re in grave danger to fall further behind your competition. You might be slowly building a fan base on Facebook ( if you’re buying fans on Facebook by advertising, you’re very likely wasting your money ), sharing small bits of content on Twitter and posting images to Pinterest.

Web 134

Web Small Business Design Marketing 134

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

'President Bieto, Dean Sauquet, members of the faculty, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen….Thank you for the kind introduction. I’m honored to be at a university noted for knowledge, and in a city with 2000 years of history – home of Gaudí one of the 20 th century’s greatest innovators. I’d like to start with a request. Everyone, hold your phone up in the air like this.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

'by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. If you were looking for a lawyer to represent your company for a multimillion-dollar merger, what kind of lawyer would you want? A DUI lawyer? A jack-of-all-trades, I’ll-make-your-copies-too lawyer? Didn’t think so. Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers.

Fractional CTO 228

Fractional CTO Product CTO Hire Merger 228

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2014

'Perhaps sparked by the recent recession, I’m seeing a new era of the entrepreneur, with startups springing up all around. Based on my own mentoring and investing experience, the best entrepreneurs are pragmatic problem solvers. They have an uncanny ability to find elegant, easy, and fast solutions to pain points in the marketplace, as well as their own challenges.

Entrepreneur 255

Entrepreneur Technical Review Restful Partner 255

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

'Here’s a problem I bet every non-technical founder has experienced: the communication gap between what the biz dev team wants and what the tech team thinks they want, and vice versa. It’s disruptive, and for founders, very frustrating to watch. The thing is, everyone is actually working toward the same end goals – or at least they should be. So why is it so hard to get these departments on the same page, collaborating in peace?

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 19, 2014

'You may noticed from prior posts that we’ve had a difficult time at Foundry Group managing our growing portfolio of WordPress sites. We are not alone. You would think that by now, managing websites would be a solved problem, but that’s just not true. Talk with any professional marketer about their websites and two things will become clear: 1) websites are absolutely central to how digital marketing gets done and 2) websites are a giant pain in the ass.

Hosting 139

Hosting HTML Bandwidth Portfolio 139

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

'By now you likely know that Marc Andreessen weighed in on anonymous apps in a 12-part Twitter diatribe. Anonymity. As the old joke goes, “on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog.” I have been weighing in slowly on the topic over the past few weeks on Twitter but have avoided writing a blog post about it until now. This was in part due to a tremendously busy 30-day period for me (in which my overall writing has been down) and in part the inevitability of knowing that weighing

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Reputation Naming Internet 329

Gust

MARCH 23, 2014

'Image via Flickr by krossbow. These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Of course, having no reputation is usually better than a bad one, but don’t wait for someone else to establish a good one for you. It’s time for every business and business person to proactively create a positive presence, before someone else puts you in a defensive mode that is hard to win.

Reputation 178

Reputation Affiliate Technical Review Social Network 178

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 19, 2014

'by Jeffrey Fermin, cofounder of Officevibe. Have you ever wondered what really makes an employee awesome in the eyes of the boss? There are always the obvious answers: they love friendly, motivated, enthusiastic workers that are passionate about their job. That’s great and all but how do we actually become this kind of worker and how do we use that to advance in the corporation?

Cofounder 226

Cofounder Salary Developer Employee 226

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2014

'Everyone can recognize a great manager a mile away, so why is it so hard to find one? We all remember a few that are “legends in their own mind”, but that doesn’t do it. In fact, the clue here is that the view in your mind is the only one that matters, rather than the other way around. Almost every one of us in business can remember that one special manager in their career who exemplifies the norm, who commanded our respect, and treated us like a friend, even in the toughest of personal or busi

Technical Review 252

Technical Review Leadership Employee Management 252

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

'Vivek Ravisankar is the co-founder of Y Combinator alumnus, HackerRank , a platform for coding contests used by programmers to hone their skills and a tool for companies to streamline their own recruiting process. The hiring process for technical talent is broken. Across the board, the number one problem for any company is hiring programmers. Whether it’s a series A-funded startup or a large multinational corporation, hiring technical talent takes up a lot of time, energy, and money – and does

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Hiring Software Review Coder 145

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

'You’ve likely already heard that explainer videos can boost conversions anywhere between ten and ten bazillion percent. You’re probably even toying with the idea of doing one for your company. The question is… Can you make it any good? With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high.

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 13, 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!

Social Media 96

Social Media Small Business Design Media 96

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 17, 2014

'Here are two contrasting startup stories I''ve seen firsthand. With one company, a founder and his super inspirational, creative, and established buddy hatch a plan to build a very strong content brand that serves as a platform for a lot of diverse revenue streams--events, ecommerce, advertising. You could think of it as a spin on Thrillist. With the author staying close as an advisor, they build a real, cashflow positive business and start to think about where they could go with some outside c

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Venture Capital Angel Investor Hiring 150

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 9, 2014

'by Thomas Moran, CEO of Addison Group. It’s inevitable that new job hunters will run into a plethora of career advice, both wanted and unwanted. As the job market continues to be tough and technology is increasing competitiveness the dos and don’ts of job searching are changing. But while career advice is a useful tool in the job hunt, it can also be extremely outdated and counterproductive.

Technical Review 204

Technical Review Social Media Chicago Search 204

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 31, 2014

'These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Of course, having no reputation is usually better than a bad one, but don’t wait for someone else to establish a good one for you. It’s time for every business and business person to proactively create a positive presence, before someone else puts you in a defensive mode that is hard to win.

Reputation 248

Reputation Affiliate Technical Review Social Network 248

The Next Web

MARCH 9, 2014

'Jason Freedman is the co-founder of 42Floors , making it easy for everyone to rent office space. He’s a two-time Y Combinator alum and blogs regularly on humbledMBA. This post was originally published on the 42floors blog. I want to share an interesting conversation I had with Kiran Divvela back when he was still interviewing for our company. Kiran runs all of our data supply chain activities.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Due Diligence Coder Cofounder 165

mashable.com

MARCH 20, 2014

'Mashable. Mashable. Sign in. Like. Follow @mashable. see more > Search. Must Reads. Social Media. Tech. Business. Entertainment. US & World. Watercooler. Jobs. More. Channels. Must Reads. Social Media. Tech. Business. Entertainment. US & World. Watercooler. Jobs. Company About Us Licensing & Reprints Archive. Contact Contact Us Submit News.

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Software Review Exit Strategy San Francisco 103

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 28, 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!

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

ConversionXL

MARCH 16, 2014

'“Typography is the detail and the presentation of a story. It represents the voice of an atmosphere, or historical setting of some kind. It can do a lot of things.” Cyrus Highsmith. We only have a handful of tools to communicating online, really. Words, images, colors & composition are the usual suspects – but they’re stealing most of the credit for what goes into making effective websites & landing pages.

Conversion 133

Conversion Georgia Technical Review Design 133

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 28, 2014

'The guys at Andreessen Hororwitz are on a hell of a tear. The firm was founded in 2009 and they just announced the closing of their fourth fund at $1.5bn. On top of that they’ve invested in a large number of marquee companies that have had big exits, including this weeks hot story Occulus Rift, and Twitter and AirBnB. They are one of the firms that inspires us here at Forward Partners , particularly for their operational model which we have adapted and extended so it works for early stag

Technical Review 125

Technical Review Venture Capital Early Stage Cloud 125

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 7, 2014

'Most of the entrepreneurs I know realize they have some bad habits, like maybe procrastination or not listening well, so they focus on dropping these. New studies indicate that a more productive approach would be adopting new good habits and behaviors that clearly move your business forward, like good time management and implementing customer recommendations.

Programming 245

Programming Entrepreneur Product Partner 245

The Next Web

MARCH 2, 2014

'Andrea Francis is a growth-hacking oriented marketer who loves to work with startups. She currently works for Twoodo and is helping out at FailConNL , embracing failure as a learning experience ( Amsterdam, March 4th ). As European talent in the form of startups and entrepreneurs continue to flock towards the USA, the question remains: why? Is it attitude or is it money?

Europe 163

Europe South Korea San Francisco Portugal 163

Hunter Walker

MARCH 9, 2014

'Early Google engineer and now Twitter Ads engineering manager Jeremy Ginsberg follows up on my New Grad Career Advice with some of his own thoughts. tldr: CS Degree Won’t Make You A Great Engineer, Your First Job Will. A CS degree is generally the best foundation for a career in software (for PM’s and SWE’s alike, IMHO), but it won’t make you a great engineer: your first 2 years working in industry are when you really develop your skills and learn best practices.

Engineer 119

Engineer Software Hiring Email 119

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 7, 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!

Social Media 98

Social Media Small Business Design Media 98

TechEmpower

MARCH 4, 2014

'As we and our collaborators prepare Round 9 of our Framework Benchmarks project, we had an epiphany: With high-performance software, a single modern server processes over 1 million HTTP requests per second. Five months ago, Google talked about load-balancing to achieve 1 million requests per second. We understand their excitement is about the performance of their load balancer 1.

SEC 514

SEC EC2 Architecture Java 514

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

'One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you “no.” But then again most entrepreneurs fail. There is that rare breed that doesn’t accept “no” for an answer. It is impossible advice to give because there is such a fine line between being persistent and being annoying and it’s something you probably can’t teach.

Email 389

Email Europe Venture Capital Leadership 389

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 24, 2014

'Have you noticed that more companies beg you to participate in their business today? It started with an email survey on your last stay at their hotel, but now includes requests for online product reviews, to social media input on the design of future products. They do it because engaged customers become loyal advocates and buyers. Welcome to the “Participation Age” of marketing.

Technical Review 238

Technical Review Marketing Social Media Partner 238

The Next Web

MARCH 5, 2014

'Ryan Matzner is the Director of Strategy at Fueled , the leading iPhone application developers and masters of mobile design , based in New York and London. This post was originally published on the Fueled blog. As Fueled has grown from its infancy to more than 100 employees, I regularly interview many smart candidates who could answer your standard interview questions in their sleep.

New York City 162

New York City New York Startup Application Development 162

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 7, 2014

'Copywriting Tips and Tricks in a Digital World 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 Christopher McMurphy – Enjoy! As a marketing tactic, copywriting has been around since the days when the Mad Men of advertising were knocking back highballs in the afternoon.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Social Network Social Media Advertising 76

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

'In the last few years we’ve recognized that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. We’re now learning that companies are not larger versions of startups. There’s been lots written about how companies need to be more innovative, but very little on what stops them from doing so. Companies looking to be innovative face a conundrum: Every policy and procedure that makes a them efficient execution machines stifles innovation.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335