May, 2009

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Founders and dysfunctional families « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

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

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Social Networking and Business Value

SoCal CTO

Just a quick note that I'll be moderating a Technology Council Event : Social Networking as a Business Strategy May 19, 2009 - Culver City Social networking media are used on a daily basis to grow businesses and expand career opportunities. Individuals use social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo as career-advancing tools, even more useful in a down economy.

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Fear is the mind-killer

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 7, 2009 Fear is the mind-killer Fear is an emotion that slows teams down. It makes us more cautious. It makes us over-invest in prevention. It makes us less willing to trust, to communicate openly, and - most painfully - to take risks. It is the dominant reason I see teams fall back on "best practices" which may not be effective, but are at least reassuring.

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Use Google Voice without changing your number

Eric Friedman

Edit: Please see comments for latest updates and settings for different phones. Image by marcopako ? via Flickr. I recently figured out a cool hack that lets you use Google Voice and all the features it offers that are superior to most systems, without the hassle of giving out a new phone number owned by Google. I discovered this via a post about using SkyDeck to also sync. contacts and have other functionality – all things I did not need, so I took them out of the equation.

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

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

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Managing the Household

Andrew Payne

Like many modern households, we’re managing a lot of moving pieces. Three kids w/ activities, brother & family living nearby, grandparent visits, travel — it adds up to some “complexity” We depend on a number of technologies to make it all work. I’m pretty technical and have been labeled a geek. Kellie’s very comfortable with technology, but would never get that accusation!

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A Micropreneur's Perspective: Selling Physical Products vs.

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Front End Developer Resume, An 11-pound Notebook, A 2-pound Netbook, and Internet 1996 One of the Most Time Consuming Startup Roadblocks → A Micropreneur’s Perspective: Selling Physical Products vs.

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What is TheFunded Founder Institute?

Startup Company Lawyer

Adeo Ressi , the founding member of TheFunded , recently announced the establishment of TheFunded Founder Institute. The Founder Institute helps founders launch innovative companies by providing training, services, and company-building assignments, such as incorporating the business, filing provision patents, and setting up books and records. The Institute offers a four month program, called a Semester, hosted initially in the Bay Area and then expanding to locations around the world.

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Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. Im going to be speaking on June 3rd at an event sponsored by the Technology Entrepreneurs Exchange (TeXchange), "the premier networking organization in Texas for business executives and entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas and share experiences.

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McCann NY on using Social Media

Eric Friedman

I recently connected with the folks behind the Twitter profile of McCann_NY which is the New York office of McCann Worldgroup. I connected with Bruce Stockler who is VP Corporate Communications at McCann Erickson , NY and he answered a few questions about how McCann is using and participating online and with social media. I have enjoyed these interviews and would love to do more with companies and brands, specifically the people behind them – so get in touch !

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"What's Next in Tech" Event in Boston

Altgate

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← Vivid Dreams: Larry Page Describes Google’s Origin Directory of Blogs by Entrepreneurs → “What’s Next in Tech&# Event in Boston Posted on May 14, 2009 by fnazeeri Boston Globe tech columnist Scott Kirsner is organizing an event here in Boston next month where the theme will be technology innovation in New England.

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Twitter Revenue from Tools

SoCal CTO

Just read this article - Twitter sees tools, not ads, for revenue That could be really bad news. Part of the appeal of twitter is that it's a fairly open platform and that there are a lot of people building tools that live on top of the platform. If Twitter begins to charge for tools, they will likely need to lock away aspects of their platform to prevent other people from creating competitors to the tools they create.

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The Curse of a New Building « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

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

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Medialets

VC Adventure

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The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. First of all, Im excited to announce that the workshop is now an OReilly Master Class , and we have added a second date on June 18.

Lean 60
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How much should you pay an executive in a startup company?

Startup Company Lawyer

CompStudy publishes an annual report of equity and cash compensation that provides compensation data on top management positions and Boards of Directors at private companies in technology and life sciences. CompStudy covers more than 25,000 executives at 5,000 companies and is the largest study of its kind. Data is analyzed by: founder/non-founder status, company revenue and headcount, geography, business segment, and number of financing rounds raised.

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@altgate » Blog Archive » Vivid Dreams: Larry Page Describes.

Altgate

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← More on the “VC Math Problem&# “What’s Next in Tech&# Event in Boston → Vivid Dreams: Larry Page Describes Google’s Origin Posted on May 3, 2009 by fnazeeri Yesterday Larry Page gave the commencement address at the University of Michigan.

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Experimenting with virtual assistants

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

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 4hww , virtual assistants Experimenting with virtual assistants by Aymeric on May 3rd, 2009 What is a virtual assistant?

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Vertical Markets 2: Customer/Market Risk versus Invention Risk.

Steve Blank

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

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Inspirational video for entrepreneurs

BeyondVC

Jonathan Kay from Grasshopper sent me a great video on entrepreneurship.  First I love the inspirational message.  Secondly, I like the use of a viral video to cleverly promote his virtual PBX numbers for entrepreneurs.  Take a look and hopefully it will brighten up your day. What I love about the message is that entrepreneurship is not about making money but about pursuing a passion and doing your part to make great products to make the world a better place.  OK-it may s

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Videos galore

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, May 3, 2009 Videos galore Two new videos are online from recent speeches. The first is my talk on engagement loops and the levers of engagement from the Kontagent/Facebook Developer Garage. Slides from this talk are available here. For more on the subject of engagement loops, you can read my original essay here. 5.

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The Case Against FREE

K9 Ventures

I’ll start by admitting up front that the purpose of this post is to hopefully incite a discussion, to start a fire, and to get you, and your startup to think really hard about what your business model should be. The title for this post ‘The Case Against FREE’ is a throwback to Chris Anderson ‘s cover story in Wired Magazine titled Free: Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business , but, this post isn’t really intended to be a blow-by-blow rebuttal of Chris Anderson’s

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Brave New Consumerism

Eric Friedman

Guest post from my friend Scott Sigel see more posts from Scott. I wasn’t exactly a model student. There were a few occasions in high school and amidst my university days in DC when I might have evoked my inner Bueller and taken a day off. Although it’s certainly healthy to take the convertible for a spin now and again (“it is so choice”), for every class I missed I also forfeited the invaluable feedback of my professors and teachers.

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Will Apple Make an Actual Television? Makes Sense to Me

abovethecrowd.com

There is a lot of buzz in Silicon Valley circles that Apple may be working on a actual physical television (as opposed to the set-top box product known as AppleTV). There have also been assertions by business analysts that such a product is coming. I have no confirmation of this from inside of Apple, but [.

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Vertical Markets 1: Bad Advice – All Startups are the Same « Steve.

Steve Blank

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

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Browser-Powered Television

Andrew Payne

[ A longer than usual blog post, summarizing some strategy ideas I've been working on. ]. In the early 90s at DEC, I had a colleague that worked with the cable industry. I tried (unsuccessfully) to convince him that TCP/IP would be the winning network infrastructure for the fancy interactive TV services everyone was talking about. In the end, “ adequate general purpose” solutions always win.

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The Lean Startup at SIPA follow-up

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, May 22, 2009 The Lean Startup at SIPA follow-up I had wonderful time presenting at SIPA last night , and was completely exhausted by the incredible post-speech response. To all those who couldnt get your questions answered in person, please feel free to post them as comments and I will do my best to answer. As usual, here are the slides from the event followed by some post-game commentary. 2009 05 21 The Lean Startup At SIPA View more OpenOffice presentations

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Obama proposes no capital gains tax on qualified small business stock

Startup Company Lawyer

This week, the Obama Administration released the first comprehensive summary of its budget proposal. The budget proposal is wide ranging, and includes, for example, proposed changes with respect to the taxation of “carried interests&# in partnerships, as well as sweeping reform of the international tax area. One proposal would dramatically improve the treatment of “ qualified small business stock &# issued after February 17, 2009.

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Alumni Networking

Eric Friedman

I recently updated my alumni profile (or created one actually) at GW and have been thinking about the idea of alumni networking. I have been contacted a few times by entrepreneurs via my USV profile that shows this info which always leads to a semi-warm connection vs. a cold call – and I think this helps. I think I have done the same thing knowing someone went to the same college, and I have always gotten alumni help.

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Thoughts on Innovation and Competitiveness– From Aeschylus to (Norman) Augustine

Pascal's View

In 2007 the National Academies published an important essay by Norman Augustine , former CEO of Lockheed Martin and a deep thinker on America's slipping global competitiveness, titled "Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth?"   This brief monograph is required reading for anyone seeking facts about how America's global competitiveness is declining– as well as clear recommendations for the way forward.  Mr.

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Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

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

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Second Life: Second Most Played PC Title, #1 in Minutes/User

abovethecrowd.com

On May 5th, Nielsen released its March numbers for the top 10 PC game titles. The number 1 spot is no surprise, with World of Warcraft from Blizzard holding a huge lead over all others. But the number two position may be a surprise to some of you, particularly with the wrath of negativism SecondLife has received in the press over the past 18 months. [.

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More video "what to do if customers don't like your (initial.

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, May 5, 2009 More video "what to do if customers dont like your (initial) product" plus full webcast First up is an interview with Mixergy, about lean startups and what to do if customers dont like your (initial) product. You can watch the whole hour-long discussion here. Heres a little taste from a story Ive mentioned on this blog a few times, but havent discussed in detail, about the decision at IMVU to abandon our IM add-on concept; you can also watch an e

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Hulu Desktop & Boxee: Temporary Solutions

Andrew Payne

Hulu Desktop just came out: it’s a client-app (Mac and Windows) that provides a “lean back” UI for Hulu video content. It integrates remote control inputs, so it works well for folks plugging computers into the living room TV. I’ve written before about the evolution of Internet TV: Hulu Desktop and Boxee, as client apps, are just temporary, intermediate points.

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Don’t forget to ask questions

Eric Friedman

Question Mark Squircle by Xurble. Chances are if you have questions someone else in the room does too. Do not be afraid to ask questions as they are a great way to get clarity, show interest, and prove your own understanding of whatever is being discussed.

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Chickenfoot: Live at the Fillmore

Pascal's View

Are you ready for Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Chad Smith in a new band? Then you are ready for Chickenfoot.  I just caught the third show of their debut world tour tonight.  It was an early homecoming for Bay Area locals Satriani and Hagar, and Chickenfoot rocks!  The sound combines elements of Van Halen with vintage Satriani guitar solos in a hard driving, grass roots American rock sound that leaves your foot thumping and your fists in the air.  The s

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Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 2

Steve Blank

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