Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

Having time to think about “leadership” at most startups feels like a luxury. It feels like something you could turn your attention to once you have tens of millions of dollars and a large staff to run operations and you could step back from it all and think about how to lead. The reality of most startups is about survival. And because running a company requires money to fuel staff and offices and acquire customers and the like, much of the time spent in early days at a start feels l

Leadership 237

Leadership Southern California San Diego Hiring 237

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 22, 2016

By Trevor Sumner, Chief Technology Officer of LocalVox. Because of the explosion of social media and mobile as the primary, go-to consumer device for local information, Google is increasingly losing search share to local directories, social media sites and maps apps. In the local space, about 50% 1 of searches are done on directories and map apps – further fragmenting an already dizzying number of ways customers find out and select small businesses.

Search 156

Search Fractional CTO Small Business Syndication 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2016

Let’s face reality -- no one can satisfy all the people all the time. In business, this means an entrepreneur who never says no to any customer is doomed to a hard life and some expensive mistakes. Many people will argue that total customer satisfaction is paramount, but I’m a pragmatist who believes that treating everyone the same really means treating all of them poorly.

Customer 149

Customer Matching Startup Technical Review 149

Agile VC

JANUARY 13, 2016

We’re off to a fresh start here at the beginning of 2016. Looking back at 2015, the standout theme in the VC/startup ecosystem was unicorn hunting. We started the year enraptured by the “Age of Unicorns” with this cover of Fortune in January 2015 : Illustration: Jeremy Enecio. But by the time we ended 2015, the headlines like “ The Dangers Ahead if Tech Unicorns Get Gored (WSJ) ” and “ Regulators Look Into Mutual Funds Procedures for Valuing Startups (WSJ) 

Technical Review 157

Technical Review .Net Revenue Software Review 157

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

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

Basketball or football? I realize sports analogies for startups can feel trite, but as you think about the different phases of team-building in a startup, this one is actually pretty spot on. Your recruiting strategy should be adapted to a few distinct phases just as the approaches to building different kinds of sports teams varies. Below, I take a look at each.

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Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 163

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). And going for crowdfunding before you do customer discovery with customers can lock you into the wrong idea too early.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 140

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 21, 2016

by Andrew Ostashen, co-founder of Vulsec. When an organization is within the startup phase, the first thing on their mind is “How do we get our product to market as fast as possible?” followed up by “How do we scale our product(s) the fastest and most efficient way possible?”. Typically, the idea of cyber security comes later down the road after a company compromise or when the organization is filing for compliance & regulations.

Security 122

Security Intellectual Property CTO Hire Offshore 122

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2016

Most entrepreneurs, and members of any small team, naively assume that the key to their success is hard work, dedication, and long hours in the business. In reality, their effectiveness is usually more related to how well they develop their work relationships with peers and business leaders. First they need to decipher correctly every relationship as a workship, friendship, or foe.

Business Model 156

Business Model Entrepreneur Developer Startup 156

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 31, 2016

Being in love is great. Being in love with your business, when you’re an entrepreneur, is even better. Waking up each morning knowing you are getting to do exactly what you love is more than most people could ever say about any “job” they have had. Although there are days when tossing in your hat seems like a viable option, remembering how much you love your “job” can quickly snap an entrepreneur out of that mentality.

Entrepreneur 70

Entrepreneur India Cofounder Technical Review 70

ConversionXL

JANUARY 12, 2016

Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed.” But what if your measurement data is incorrect? What if you’re not measuring correctly or completely? What if there’s a whole pile of things you think you’re measuring when really… you’re not? The fact is that a lot of the people relying on Google Analytics are relying on bad data.

Analytics 76

Analytics Software Review eCommerce PPC 76

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 28, 2016

I once witnessed a first-time entrepreneur pitch his very early stage startup, vision, and product with so much passion, precision, and authority to a well-recognized Global consumer goods brand that the CIO agreed to a POC (proof of concept) even before the entrepreneur finished his 30-minute pitch! For a large multinational to take this leap of faith was no small feat – especially considering the relatively early stage of the startup.

Customer 73

Customer Startup Kentucky Early Stage 73

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 12, 2016

Over the past decade, startups and enterprises have devoted hefty resources to collecting and analyzing huge volumes of big data. For some, data is used to fine-tune a product; in other cases, data forms the foundation of the product itself. When it comes to building a startup around data, the more unique that data, the better. As I wrote last week in reference to machine learning startups , algorithms have mainly become a commodity these days.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Technical Review Artificial Inteligence API 89

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 12, 2016

By Kishore Kumar, CEO of AllThingsMine. Social media recommendations induced an average of 26 percent of purchases in 2014, according to a study by Mckinsey and Company. That’s up from 10 percent in 2013. Consumers are beginning to trust social media more and more for their buying decisions. If a blogger or friend recommends a product on one of their social channels, you can click a link, view the product and make a purchase within minutes.

Social Network 116

Social Network Networking Social Media Technical Review 116

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2016

Photo Credit: Christopher Michel. Hunter Walk: I know you started Dogster, one of the seminal early online communities, but I don’t know Dogster’s founding story. How did the site come about? Ted Rheingold: In 2003 I owned and ran a web service business called OneMatchFire , and made a number of image sharing products for customers (or as side projects).

Technical Review 67

Technical Review Startup Cofounder SMS 67

Up and Running

JANUARY 7, 2016

The new year is already upon us. Can you believe it? Do you feel ready to put 2015 in the past, or are you looking back on a year well spent? Each year, we’re all familiar with the tradition of setting resolutions, things that we vow to achieve or become in the next year. Entrepreneurs, being goal setters by nature, often like to participate with resolutions related to their small business or startup.

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Entrepreneur Technical Cofounder Cofounder Chicago 80

ConversionXL

JANUARY 21, 2016

Day in and day out, you’re surrounded by copy. You’re watching TV commercials, you’re seeing PPC ads in your search results, you’re visiting SaaS pricing pages, you’re shopping online for a new office printer… the list is endless. It’s easy to look around and think, “Yeah, I could have written that.” Whether you’re just getting started with copywriting or you’ve already written a few dozen landing pages, it’s important to kn

Audience 76

Audience Conversion Email Hiring 76

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 22, 2016

When it comes to business, just as in our personal lives, we tend to quickly stereotype people when we meet them. Often, these stereotypes often get in the way of business and personal relationships. Here’s a humorous and unfortunately, not entirely untrue look at what one might see if they put on “racist’ eyeglasses. The lesson here?

Small Business 62

Small Business Design Social Media Marketing 62

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 23, 2016

The idea of exactly what your business is going to be usually comes first. Secondly, most often, is giving a title to your idea. What exactly is going to be the name of your business? Some people turn to their childhood for inspiration or a beloved family pet. It could be a made up word you dream of one night and feel it has the right ring to it. Even still there are some people who study foreign words for the perfect meaning behind their chosen business.

Naming 76

Naming Ohio Entrepreneur LLC 76

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 21, 2016

The idea for this post came this morning when I saw these two tweets from Benedict Evans. One shows the newspaper industry growing steadily for fifty years and then declining for ten and the other shows the Japanese fixed lens digital camera market growing from nothing to 120m unit sales in ten years and then dropping by 80% in the seven years after that.

Marketing 70

Marketing Venture Capital Software Review IPO 70

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2016

What is Structured Data & Schema for Websites & SEO? written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. For business owners and even for many marketing consultants, search engine optimization can seem like a headache – especially when it comes to any level of technical SEO. The good news is that a professional marketing strategy that is powered by a search engine friendly website and consistent content marketing, many small business websites can achieve at least some level of sear

SEO 44

SEO Kansas City Software Review HTML 44

Up and Running

JANUARY 12, 2016

Ideally, this is how things would go. If your employees are not “salespeople,” it can be a lot harder to track their work performance. To find out how others do it, we asked 10 entrepreneurs from the YEC to share what they feel are the most important points to consider when evaluating a team member. 1. Level of execution. “At the end of the day, nothing is more important than execution.” Click To Tweet.

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Employee Revenue Early Stage 69

ConversionXL

JANUARY 8, 2016

When you hear “data segmentation”, your instinct might be to bury your head in the sand or fall asleep. Why? Well, segmentation can seem daunting (or boring) to those unfamiliar with it. It’s an unfortunate truth because segmentation is perhaps one of the most effective tools at our disposal. The ability to slice and dice your Google Analytics data is the difference between mediocre, surface-level insights and meaningful, useful analysis.

Analytics 76

Analytics eCommerce Software Review Technical Review 76

deal architect

JANUARY 28, 2016

For a decade now, my two blogs have been yin and yang. New Florence keeps me excited about new technologies, Deal Architect keeps me level headed about the economics of technology and the slow adoption rates in most enterprises. That.

Technology 222

Technology 222

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

This is the first of several blog posts discussing pre-seed rounds. To ensure you receive the rest, subscribe here. In this post, I want to answer the question, “What are pre-seed rounds?” I’ll also address why they’ve become fairly common. In the next post, I’ll talk about how we think about pre-seeds at NextView. It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are kn

Seed Stage 218

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 218

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros. Examples of VC platform services include: recruiting, marketing, design support, inside sales reps, consulting, accounting services and so forth.

Portfolio 182

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 182

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 19, 2016

Is Remarketing the New Free? written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Let’s face it, we’ve become increasingly numb to the lead capture bait for email address exchange. In fact, I think it’s become so bad that while people still sign up for the free thing, they often don’t even bother to download, rarely if ever actually read it or watch it, and unfortunately, don’t represent the opportunity for marketers that they once did.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Lead Generation Audience Social Media 44

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Hacking for Defense is a new course at Stanford’s Engineering School in the Spring of 2016. It is being taught by Tom Byers, Steve Blank, Joe Felter and Pete Newell and is advised by former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Lean Agile 181

ConversionXL

JANUARY 4, 2016

When most people hear “web analytics,” they tend to think about counting visitors, transactions, and conversion rate on a transactional site, such as an eCommerce store. Yes, there’s a lot of insight to be gained from web analytics for eCommerce sites , you can also learn a lot about B2B lead generation if you’re using analytics correctly.

Lead Generation 65

Lead Generation B2B Analytics eCommerce 65

deal architect

JANUARY 21, 2016

As part of its 2015 reporting, Rimini Street shared with me they now have as customers more than 125 Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 100 companies. That is pretty impressive reach when you also factor their smaller customers and many.

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Engineer Global Customer Software 219

View from Seed

JANUARY 14, 2016

Editor’s note: Today, NextView is excited to release this ebook from partner David Beisel. Below, find an excerpt and free download of How to Find the Perfect Startup Job. Spend a few hours browsing content about startups, and one thing becomes painfully obvious: There’s a TON of it. And while plenty of it does a great job addressing the most common question I receive as a seed VC ( how to secure funding ), the second-most common question I get seems almost entirely missing from the

Startup 191

Startup IPO Portfolio Matching 191

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2016

Spoiler alert: MCNs don’t exist. They are a figure of your imagination. 20 months ago we sold Maker Studios to Disney for $500 million in cash plus a large earn out. From the day after we sold the company until today I felt it was important that I not comment too much publicly about online video even though I continued to work actively in the sector and made five more investments.

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Aggregator Silicon Valley Distribution Video 178

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 18, 2016

Four Ways Your Business Can Give Back in 2016 written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. photo credit: Dollar Photo Club. Being January, it’s the time of year when many of us set goals for the year and make some New Year’s resolutions pertaining to our businesses. Perhaps we have a certain amount of revenue we’d like to earn in 2016, a product or service we’d like to begin offering, or some content we’d like to get published.

Technical Review 42

Technical Review Jordan Due Diligence Affiliate 42

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2016

Everyone recognizes a great leader when they work with one, but most leaders don’t know what to look for in themselves that will drive that perception by others. In my experience, there is no magic gene involved, just simple good habits executed consistently and convincingly until everyone around you wants to follow your example. This leading by example is easy to say, but not so easy to put into action.

Leadership 167

Leadership Search Entrepreneur Technology 167

ConversionXL

JANUARY 26, 2016

A good user experience equals more money. But how do we measure user experience? How do we know if it’s getting better or worse? What is User Experience? There are many definitions for “user experience.” To keep things concise, NN/g defines it like this : “’User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”.

Metrics 62

Metrics .Net Software Review Technical Review 62

deal architect

JANUARY 22, 2016

Two decades ago, Selling Power magazine had Gartner executives on the cover with the byline “When the Gartner Group says “buy”, the market listens”. Given the magazine’s audience, the focus of the article was Gartner’s well run field organization which.

Audience 212

Audience Marketing 212

View from Seed

JANUARY 7, 2016

I’ve been meaning to follow up on Rob’s post last month highlighting the competitor slide as the least informative in an investor pitch deck. I’d like to nominate another: the market size slide, which is usually dominated by graphics like these: As investors, we’re considering the total addressable market for a given product or service immediately upon hearing a vision for it: How many users and/or customers are there for this?

Marketing 186

Marketing Seed Stage Startup Founder 186