Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 30, 2011
This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. I’m a very big proponent of the “lean startup movement&# as espoused by Steve Blank & Eric Ries. The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 3, 2011
I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term.
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Steve Blank
MARCH 31, 2011
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw. Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. I’m beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 6, 2011
Starting a business is a lot like starting a marriage. At first, all parties are in dreamland, with a vision of changing the world, having lots of fun, and raking in the profits. But all too soon, reality sets in. Product development is stuck at that 90% mark, a key person leaves, and customers are talking but not buying. In his book Reality Check , Guy Kawasaki summarizes some of the key issues.
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
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 23, 2011
The right typeface is often the key to a great logo, graphic or web design. But there’s much confusion and misinformation about typefaces, fonts and the law. Many people do not understand the law governing the use of typefaces and fonts. Others incorrectly assume that they can freely use any typeface or font for any project. When you purchase a commercial font, you are purchasing a license to use the font software.
ReadWriteStart
MARCH 17, 2011
For this week's One Million by One Million roundtable, we turned the spotlight on Latin and Central America. One of the things I have enjoyed tremendously about 1M/1M is its distinctly international nature. Over the years, we've had entrepreneurs from all over the world attend and pitch, and I'm delighted to see that we're propagating the methodology and the platform far and wide. 1M/1M and ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEYS represent my attempt to capture the tribal knowledge accumulated in the private live
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 3, 2011
I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Generally I can provide quite a bit of help in that brief time. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term.
Steve Blank
MARCH 8, 2011
For the past three months, we’ve run an experiment in teaching entrepreneurship. In January, we introduced a new graduate course at Stanford called the " target="_blank">Lean LaunchPad. It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 23, 2011
Many entrepreneurs I know feel guilty about not quitting their day job when initiating their startup, worrying about not giving their all to an employer, juggling the multiple roles, or even a legal conflict of interest. I’ll try to offer some guidelines to address these issues, but I generally recommend you keep the day job until your new company is producing real revenue.
Feld Thoughts
MARCH 8, 2011
A post in the New York Times this morning asserted that Software Progress Beats Moore’s Law. It’s a short post, but the money quote is from Ed Lazowska at the University of Washington: “The rate of change in hardware captured by Moore’s Law, experts agree, is an extraordinary achievement. “But the ingenuity that computer scientists have put into algorithms have yielded performance improvements that make even the exponential gains of Moore’s Law look trivial,” said Edward Lazows
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 2, 2011
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!
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 1, 2011
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. I know what you’re thinking – link bait title, right? Wrong. I will stand 100% behind my assertions in this post. Justin Bieber is unbelievably entrepreneurial and most of you will never know it because he serves a target demo that doesn’t include you. I promise you can learn from him and this movie.
Growthink Blog
MARCH 28, 2011
Businesses that sell do 5 things very, very well: #5. They Are Cause, and Not Money, Driven. Highly valued companies are culturally cohesive and have causes beyond money that motivates them. Take a look at the famous mission statements below and how these company’s iconic brands align with them: Google: “ To make the world's information universally accessible and useful " Facebook: “ To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected " Zappos: “ To provide the best cust
Steve Blank
MARCH 2, 2011
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.&#. Attributed to Ernest Shackleton. In 1912 Ernest Shackleton placed this ad to recruit a crew for the ship Endurance and his expedition to the South Pole. This would be one of the most heroic journeys of exploration ever undertaken.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 16, 2011
Money to build the business is the number one challenge for most startups. Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. In reality, only 3 out of 100 companies who apply are successful with Angels, and the success rate with VCs is even lower. A large percentage of startups never apply to either.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
MARCH 25, 2011
The following article details my personal top 10 methods to make money from the Internet. What makes this list unique is it’s based entirely on the methods I have personally used, so I can reveal to you what I did and what my results were. Bear in mind these methods represent ten years of working online, so I do not do all of them presently. At one point in my career however they were an income stream, and are still viable options for you.
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 30, 2011
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!
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 11, 2011
Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross , one of the Internet’s true pioneers. To say he has had an impact on the web would be an understatement. His impact has even helped a small country gain admission to the United Nations. All of that are in this week’s episode of This Week in VC. Summary notes, as always, provide below.
mashable.com
MARCH 7, 2011
Mashable | The Social Media Guide Viral Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video About Mashable Company About Us Advertise Submit News Contact Us Announcements Resources Guidebooks Lists How To Trending Twitter List Directory Mashable Awards Subscriptions Partners W3 EDGE Rackspace Concentric Sky Dynect DNS Intridea Welcome to Mashable! Have an account?
Feld Thoughts
MARCH 9, 2011
My long time friend Matt Blumberg , the CEO of Return Path , wrote a blog post today titled A New Kind of Partnership for Return Path. In it he talks about his recognition, as Return Path has grown (they are now around 250 people), of the gender imbalance in the software engineering team (women are around 15% of total engineering team. He knew about NCWIT from my role as chairman and Matt and his team decided to join the NCWIT Workforce Alliance to engage in helping address this issue.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 22, 2011
Many entrepreneurs actually refuse to do financial projections beyond the first year, insisting that no one can predict the future. They need to realize that investors ask for projections, not merely as predictions, but more as commitments from the founder and his team. If you are not willing to commit, don’t expect anyone to back you. In reality, you need to set these projections as goals for your own use, to convince employees as well as investors that you have a business which is challenging,
Growthink Blog
MARCH 7, 2011
Last week I flagged the shocking and even depressing statistics that most entrepreneurs - holding constant for socioeconomic factors - make less money, work more hours and suffer more work-related stress - than their employed counterparts. And when we combine these statistics with those that show a very incredibly low percentage of startups and small businesses ever attaining meaningful profitability, it is remarkable that people ever dream to be entrepreneurs and start businesses at all.
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 16, 2011
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!
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 1, 2011
This is an interview you’re not going to want to miss, I promise. Mike is a no BS guy, has all the attributes I look for in a founder and says things like, openly shares knowledge and opines without a filter including this one, “whoever invented uncapped convertible debt should be spanked!&# Love it. Mike Yavonditte is the founder of the “super hot&# Hashable , a startup out of NYC that has been described as a “ Mint.com for Social Capital ” Mike sold his previous company, Quigo , t
ReadWriteStart
MARCH 1, 2011
Over the weekend there has been some controversy surrounding AngelList , the network that connects startup entrepreneurs and investors. Before AngelList, investment dealflow was private and networks revolved around a few connected angels and VC?s. Since the angel network was created, transparent angel investing has exploded and entrepreneurs from any background can get funded.
mashable.com
MARCH 24, 2011
Mashable | The Social Media Guide Viral Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video About Mashable Company About Us Advertise Submit News Contact Us Announcements Resources Guidebooks Lists How To Trending Mashable Awards Subscriptions Partners W3 EDGE Rackspace Concentric Sky Dynect DNS Intridea Welcome to Mashable! Have an account? Sign in All Social Media Tech & Gadgets Business & Marketing Video Mobile Dev & Design Media Social Good Startups Explore Classifieds Trending S
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 13, 2011
Every entrepreneur is flooded with information from all directions, but despite their best efforts to absorb it, they likely miss the information really needed to start a business. These days, we all have to rely on a few trusted sources to digest and filter information, net out the relevant messages, and steer us with links to accurate details. These trusted sources are a new breed of professionals who may soon carry the new title of “information curator,” evolved from the “museum curator” role
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
MARCH 24, 2011
There are few words in an online entrepreneur’s vocabulary that are more seductive than Passive Income. The term is widely used by multilevel marketers and savvy entrepreneurs across the web to close sales on eBooks and training programs for one simple reason: the vision (of sitting under a palm tree while your bank account effortlessly collects money) sells.
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 16, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 22, 2011
The most common questions I’ve gotten over the past week have been a variant of: Was SXSW worth it? Was it just one big party? Should I go next year? Why do your eyes still look so bloodshot? (And I’ve learned a new term, I arrived home with SxSARS). As you may know I outlined my rules for maximum impact at events / conferences before SXSW began.
ReadWriteStart
MARCH 17, 2011
A new incubator program, Imagine K12 , launched today in Palo Alto aimed specifically at building entrepreneurship in the education space. Founded by three Silicon Valley veterans - Tim Brady, Alan Louie, and Geoff Ralston - Imagine K12 will support early stage ed-tech startups through a funding and mentorship program. Describing itself as "unabashedly inspired by Y Combinator," Imagine K12 will bring that YC model of business and technology development to education technology.
Ben's Blog
MARCH 24, 2011
I’m going back to Cali, Cali, Cali. I’m going back to Cali…hmm, I don’t think so. —LL Cool J, Going Back to Cali. Lately, everybody seems to be talking about a new technology bubble. Many very smart CEOs, VCs, reporters, and analysts can’t seem to stop worrying about the second coming of the dot com bust. Are the prognosticators correct?
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 14, 2011
Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get it remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. You pull people in by providing new content with real value on your website at least every few days.
VC Cafe
MARCH 28, 2011
The Gifts Project is a social ecommerce platform enabling group gifting. Its CEO, Ron Gura, was a mentor at Seedcamp Tel Aviv 2011 , an early-stage micro seed investment and mentoring programme. Startup Intelligence recently interviewed him for VC Cafe. Anyone who has tried to get a group of people to buy a gift, say, for a friend’s birthday, knows what a mess the whole process can be.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
MARCH 7, 2011
I’d like to introduce you to Nacie Carson , who a few years ago took the leap, leaving the perceived safety of full time employment to become an entrepreneur. She has since built up a client base and worked hard to establish an online brand that has paid dividends. Like many of us, Nacie has strived to establish online income streams as close to passive when possible, derived from her abilities as a writer.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 13, 2011
This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. For the next four days if you’re in the tech industry you’re going to hear a non-stop stream of information about SXSW. It’s the time of year when many new startups are struggling to rise above all the noise and be heard. And when everybody is shouting it becomes overwhelming. I’m actually in Austin at the moment.
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