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 Syndicate 156

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

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

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.

Founder 163

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 27, 2016

by Wes McDowell, The Deep End. If you’re a startup, you probably already know the importance of having a killer website. In addition to being your lifeline to the rest of the world, it can (and should) be a major tool to allow you to grow your prospects, and gain traction in the marketplace. The way I see it, your website should cover two major bases: It should be current.

Startup 100

Startup Software Review Web Video 100

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 12, 2016

Systems administrators get all sorts of data from all sorts of places and don't have a holistic view as to what's happening. More parts throw off more data, which makes optimizing and troubleshooting that much harder over time. That was the Datadog pitch in late 2010, my first full year of leading deals, that I got from two software engineers. Makes sense, no?

Software Review 78

Software Review Due Diligence Seed Stage Marketing 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2016

If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days. Outsourcing is defined as contracting the work to another company, usually located in a developing country, like India, China, or Eastern Europe.

Intellectual Property 129

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Technical Review 129

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 28, 2016

By Omer Tadjer, CEO and co-founder of Comeet. Hiring mistakes and turnover can be costly for any organization; according to the Society for Human Resource Management , it can cost as much as half of an employee’s annual salary to replace them. Hiring the right employees in the first place can help prevent your losses by ensuring that the people you add to your team truly belong there and will stick around for the long term.

Cofounder 109

Cofounder Hiring Matching Salary 109

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2016

For a software startup, a patent can be the intellectual property providing the key competitive advantage, or it can be an expensive non-defensible bureaucratic nightmare -- or both. I still generally advise software startups to file a patent as a barrier to entry from competitors and to increase their valuation by investors, but every entrepreneur needs to understand the tradeoffs.

Software Review 129

Software Review Intellectual Property Software Technical Review 129

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

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 21, 2016

I woke up this morning in Fort Worth, Texas. For the first minute I wasn’t really sure where was I but it eventually snapped into focus. This happens to me periodically when I travel. I’ve got a stretch where I’m on the road a lot. Fortunately, I’ve got amazing partners. I was reflecting on this over a cup of stale coffee this morning.

Partner 74

Partner Fort Worth Technical Review Portfolio 74

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

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 17, 2016

by Edward D. Hess, author of “ Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization “. As a new year begins, most of us are focused on the resolutions we’ve chosen to pursue. While 2016 is still relatively fresh, you might want to consider adding one (probably unexpected) goal to perennial favorites like losing weight or getting your finances in order: becoming more humble.

Developer 109

Developer Technical Review Leadership Finance 109

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

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

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

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 12, 2016

Google is one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world. Although Google has derived most of its success in the internet and software service sectors, its forays into hardware promise to boost its future revenue potential. Google already has 6 products that enjoy more than 1 billion worldwide users and this gives it a significant edge as they enter the hardware world.

Stock 100

Stock Audio Software Review Technical Review 100

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.

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Portfolio PR Partner Cofounder 182

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2016

Most entrepreneurs work long and hard to get a handshake agreement from an investor, and then tend to relax and wait for the check to clear. What they don’t realize is that about half the investment deals fail to close at this stage, including mergers and acquisitions , during the due-diligence process. The same is true of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank investments you see on TV.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review Due Diligence Cap Table Intellectual Property 132

ConversionXL

JANUARY 29, 2016

You already know retargeting works. But what if you’re doing it all wrong? What if grouping all audiences into the same retargeting campaign is actually doing more harm than good? The truth is that a lot of people never give the attention or resources that’s needed to improve their retargeting campaigns. It’s an afterthought. So today, we’re going to look at seven retargeting case studies that use some seriously creative tactics that I’ve never thought of… or even heard of.

Campaign 76

Campaign PPC Audience eCommerce 76

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

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

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2016

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. According to many observers , we can thank or blame technology for these higher expectations, providing information at the speed of light, leading everyone to expect more. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates.

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Customer Technical Review Differentiation Metrics 131

ConversionXL

JANUARY 15, 2016

What drives your decision-making? Trick question. Two drivers are behind the wheel: system one and system two. Which system is driving right now? Which system was driving when you bought that new house? How about when you solved difficult math problems in Grade 11? As it turns out, logic is literally a scarce resource. So, if you’re making a truly rational argument, you’ll want to ensure you’re optimizing for system two.

Marketing 76

Marketing eCommerce Campaign Matching 76

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