Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Everybody seems to like you but nobody seems to be getting out their checkbooks. Most of them are telling you that they just need to see a bit of traction before they’d be prepared to invest. Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Revenue Venture Capital 309

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. Its power is matched only by the amount of confusion that it causes, because its actually quite hard to do. It certainly took me many years to make sense of it. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 213

Software By Rob

AUGUST 11, 2009

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Startup Marketing Advice, “Failure,&# Things I Learned the Hard Way, and more… Why “Luck&# is a Terrible Marketing Plan for Your Startup → How to Compete Against Open Source Competition Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Open Source Software Review Non-Compete Software 62

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

Pascal's View

AUGUST 12, 2009

I liked the Friday, August 7 Wall Street Journal editorial, Washington vs. Silicon Valley , but it does not go far enough. In Silicon Valley, Boston, Austin, and other innovation centers across the country, entrepreneurs and their backers (who are not limited to venture capitalists) are all keenly aware that Washington’s addiction to enacting hasty, one-size-fits–all financial regulation will continue to have far-reaching unintended negative consequences for the U.S. economy: “… Sarbanes-Oxley

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IPO Silicon Valley Merger Sweat Equity 28

VC Cafe

AUGUST 22, 2009

Didn't quite make the grade? - AOL Hot Searches. With the school term finished for the year and exam results received, there are many sixth-form students who didn't get the results needed to enrol on their courses. So what happens next?

Search 75

Search 75

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 1, 2009 The Steve Jobs method Image via CrunchBase Its been a long time since I did a post that was primarily a link to another blog with commentary, but I came across something today that I really want to share. One of the most common questions I get about the lean startup methodology is, "but what about Steve Jobs ?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 206

BeyondVC

AUGUST 5, 2009

My first post about portfolio company Visible World and the future of television advertising was in October 2004 ( see here ). In the post, I wrote about how television advertising needed to change and how the advertisers and those with inventory had to adapt to the rising online threat and offer new technology to make their ads more targeted and measurable.

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Advertising New York Portfolio Technology 68

abovethecrowd.com

AUGUST 24, 2009

[Follow Me on Twitter] Many are speculating that the year two thousand and nine represents a fundamental turning point for the venture capital industry. Some are arguing that the industry is in dire straits after years of poor performance. Others have argued that the math simply does not work for the industry’s current size. Another theory suggests that permanent challenges with the IPO [.].

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Venture Capital IPO LBO Internet 74

VC Cafe

AUGUST 11, 2009

Fantasy football - WAGs. Footballers have enviable lives, they earn mega-bucks playing the game they love, they win the adulation of their fans and they also get hold of incredibly beautiful women. Check out this gallery of the hottest WAGs.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start-up Lessons. &# If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. In the Beginning … This is a very important post to me because I find myself giving this advice all the time and if you don’t follow the basic advice here you can cause yourself much heartache down the line – even if your company ultimately becomes über successful.

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Founder Vesting Intellectual Property IP Stock Options 365

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 24, 2009 Marching through quicksand I have been spending a lot of time lately talking to people in various media companies: editors and agents, executives, journalists, producers and directors. It’s a fascinating time to see content industries in action, because they are facing a constantly changing landscape and are really trying to keep up.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Product Startup RSS 271

Tim Keane

AUGUST 20, 2009

'Startups and angels: Along the way to success. By Tim Keane, Angel Investor, Golden Angels Investors, LLC. Home. Archives. Profile. Subscribe. « Whats Your Alternative? | Main. | Lower values, higher risks? Or a paradise for investors? » August 20, 2009. Are Investors Being Unreasonable? Take a look at this  article. from the August 20th Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  It seems to me this may be a sign of the economic times.  Or, of course, it's possible that Jaso

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Milwaukee Bootstrapping Cram Down Deal Structure 60

abovethecrowd.com

AUGUST 20, 2009

As I was driving to work this morning listening to NPR, it became clear to me that this “free vs fee” discussion has some legs (to listen to the NPR piece click here). Last week, Rosetta Stone was back in the news with regards to an earnings miss as well as pulled secondary offering. Over a [.

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thebarefootvc

AUGUST 30, 2009

Yesterday I went mountain gorilla tracking in Volcanoes National Park in the Virungas. Unlike the elusive chimpanzees I tracked a few days ago in Nyungwe Forest, visitors are able to get very close to the animals. Several habituated groups exist, and the one I visited was a particularly playful one, so much so that one of the toddlers kept coming up to me to peer into my camera lens.

Congo 40

Congo Afghanistan Iraq Matching 40

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it. It chaps my hide. It rips at my core. I don’t get over it easily. I lose sleep. I fucking hate losing. I think about it for months, often years. But I embrace losing. It is how I learn.

Software Review 151

Software Review Technical Review Silicon Valley France 151

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Building a new startup hub Last week, I had a unique opportunity to spend some time in Boulder at the behest of TechStars. It was a great experience to see a relatively new startup hub in action - and thriving. Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. The startup scene here can be ostentatious and serve as an echo chamber, amplifying the cool trend of the week into a deafening roar.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 208

Pascal's View

AUGUST 22, 2009

On Monday, August 10, Barron’s ran a story “Does the IPO Market Shun Smaller Companies?”, written by Mark Veverka, asserting that “venture capitalists want to widen the playing field for the underwriters.” The story includes quotes from former National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) chairman Dixon Doll of DCM and investment banker Paul Deninger, who is the vice-chairman of Jefferies & Co.

IPO 40

IPO Merger Institutional Investors Venture Capital 40

abovethecrowd.com

AUGUST 4, 2009

For those of you that get the subscription VentureWire emails, you may have noticed the subtitle today “Recent buyout-backed IPO activity is a positive sign, but don’t expect any VC-funded IPOs anytime soon.” It also included the equally pessimistic, “…but doesn’t expect any venture-backed companies to price before Thanksgiving.” For the life of me, I [.

IPO 40

IPO Email 40

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 4, 2009

One of the things I continue to struggle with as a VC is the unfortunate fact that I am in the business of saying "no" all the time. Saying "no" in the context of how you invest your time is one thing - fellow VC blogger Brad Feld did a good blog post on this topic in the context of time management a few weeks ago as did Y-Combinator's Paul Graham. But I really struggle with saying "no" to entrepreneurs.

Deal Flow 39

Deal Flow Business Model Entrepreneur Management 39

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons.&# If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. In the Beginning … This is a very important post to me because I find myself giving this advice all the time and if you don’t follow [.]. Tags: Start-up Advice startup.

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RSS Email Startup 365

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley RSS Europe Germany 176

Pascal's View

AUGUST 21, 2009

I will be the keynote speaker at the America Midwest Regional Final competition of the Global Security Challenge (GSC) on September 22nd in Chicago. This event is part of a global competition to deliver innovative solutions to pressing cybersecurity problems. The GSC Security Summit 2009, which will be held November 13 in London, will see the culmination of the six regional finals held around the world in September and October.

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Chicago Security Global America 34

VC Adventure

AUGUST 28, 2009

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Email 65

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 29, 2009

Even though I graduated from college (gasp) 18 years ago, I still think about the school season as my annual planning cycle rather than the calendar year. Having three school age kids reinforces this life rhythm. And so as I was thinking through my personal goals for this coming year, and discussing individual goals with each of my kids (a recently adopted ritual I highly recommend for any parent), this article from The Economist caught my eye.

Entrepreneur 38

Entrepreneur Developer 38

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Lessons Building companies is hard work. I started my first company in 1999 in London at the height of the dot com craze. We also had facilities in Dublin, Ireland where our company was initially founded. We went through the euphoria of massive exposure at the time of our [.]. Tags: Start-up Advice.

Ireland 332

Ireland Startup 332

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Introducing the Lean Startup Cohort subscription program Over the past few months, I have been engaged in another customer discovery exercise with passionate early adopters of the lean startup methodology. I am now ready to move into the customer validation phase. This idea is the brainchild of several venture-backed startups that participated in the lean startup workshops.

Lean 102

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley RSS SBIC California 176

Pascal's View

AUGUST 11, 2009

The accounting firm KPMG recently issued a public policy alert with respect to new international tax regulations that were introduced in May for Congressional consideration. According to the report: Under existing U.S. tax rules, companies may defer paying taxes at rates as high as 35 percent on most types of foreign profits so long as that money remains invested overseas.

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Global Offshore United States Singapore 31

Small Business Force

AUGUST 11, 2009

In the early growth stages of your company, don't be overly concerned with the percentage of equity you retain. By either setting too high a valuation and/or making sure you keep controlling interest , you might do so at the detriment of being able to get the right staff and early capital you need to get the business growing. The name of the game is how much the equity is worth, not how much you have.

Vesting 32

Vesting Equity Valuation Dilution 32

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

AUGUST 31, 2009

Skip to content Follow: RSS Email Twitter Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli On building profitable web applications Home Contact me Creations Blog Books Entrepreneurship & Startups General Online experiments Programming tips and tricks Startup tips and tricks Tags education , entrepreneurship Free online finance classes for entrepreneurs by Aymeric on August 31st, 2009 I have always been impressed by the fact MIT gives away some of their course materials.

Finance 28

Finance Ruby Entrepreneur Australia 28

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Everybody seems to like you but nobody seems to be getting out their checkbooks. Most of them are telling you that they just need to see a bit of traction before they’d be prepared to [.]. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital.

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Venture Capital Technology Startup 316